Sandra Martin

“We all have made the mistake of thinking someone else can be our healer, our thriller, our filling. It takes a long time to find it is not so, mostly because we project the wound outside ourselves instead of ministering to it within.
There is probably nothing a woman wants more from a man than for him to dissolve his projections and face his own wound. When a man faces his wound, the tear comes naturally, and his loyalties within and without are made clearer and stronger. He becomes his own healer; he is no longer lonely for the deeper Self. He no longer applies to the woman to be his analgesic.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

“The beauty of self-compassion is that instead of replacing negative feelings with positive ones, new positive emotions are generated by embracing the negative ones. The positive emotions of care and connectedness are felt alongside our painful feelings. When we have compassion for ourselves, sunshine and shadow are both experienced simultaneously. This is important—ensuring that the fuel of resistance isn’t added to the fire of negativity. It also allows us to celebrate the entire range of human experience, so that we can become whole. As Marcel Proust said, “We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.”
― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

“Clearly you don’t have complete control over your actions, or else you’d only act in ways that you approved of. So why are you judging yourself so harshly for the way you are?”
― Kristin Neff, Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

“There’s also the multicultural side of me, the biracial ancestry that allows me to connect with a wide spectrum of people. And then there’s my spirit, that blend of glass-half-full optimism, introverted reflection, and outward-facing social activism.”
― Alicia Keys, More Myself: A Journey