Joanna

“Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.”
― David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

“The precision of existence can never be known by the human mind. That's why the goal of every woman and man is to become human, but the purpose of being human is to leave everything human behind.
To discover this precision, one has to stop being a human and start being the mystery of life itself.”
― Peter Kingsley, A Book of Life

“Zen is the very awareness of the dynamism of life living itself in us—and aware of itself, in us, as being the one life that lives in all.”
― Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters

“If your parents’ faces never lit up when they looked at you, it’s hard to know what it feels like to be loved and cherished. If you come from an incomprehensible world filled with secrecy and fear, it’s almost impossible to find the words to express what you have endured. If you grew up unwanted and ignored, it is a major challenge to develop a visceral sense of agency and self-worth.”
― Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma