Elizabeth Lesser Quotes
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Many women hear the word "feminine" and feel like it's a noose around their neck. "Don't hold me to a mode of behavior because I'm a woman and you think this is how a woman should act," kind of thing.
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Your path is your own, but you must walk side by side with others, with compassion and generosity as your beacons. If anything is required it is this: fearlessness in your examination of life and death; Willingness to continually grow; and openness to the possibility that the ordinary is extraordinary, and that your joys and your sorrows have meaning and mystery.
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To me the purpose of life is to enjoy it! It's to enjoy the gift, and to make sure that other people have an opportunity to enjoy the gift.
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We need each other's ideas. Now, I'm not talking about racist ideas or misogynistic ideas or cruel or criminal ideas. I'm talking about most of us who have very varied experiences, needs and ideas. It's really about believing that it's an important part of healing America.
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Power is just using energy in a wise way to get things done. Power has been misinterpreted to mean getting my way on the backs of other people. Getting whatever I want, forgetting that there are other beings and species and energies involved.
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I would say to women, always question what you're empowering yourself for and what are you claiming power for.
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We are able to choose what we want - you don't have to accept one thing from one tradition. It's a melting pot.
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A broken heart is not the same as sadness. Sadness occurs when the heart is stone cold and lifeless. On the contrary, there is an unbelievable amount of vitality in a broken heart.
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If it's not as easy as we thought it was, for women to speak our truth, to even know our truth, then the missing ingredient is some sort of inner courage. To first of all, believe in the validity of who we are. And then to speak from it. It takes inner courage. As a leader in a large organization, I've often been the only woman working with powerful men, especially when I was younger.
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Beautiful quality that women have, which is we like to get together and gab. It's time to elevate that aspect of being a woman.
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Look for a way to lift someone up. If that's all you do, it's enough.
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I think as women and men become more conscious, the terms "woman/man" begin to lose meaning.
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Forgiveness doesn't mean being a wimp. It doesn't mean being weak. It doesn't mean having no principles and no values. Sometimes we have to stand firm for what we believe and make really hard decisions.
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I do think in general, women have a value system. And it's that value system that I think is feminism. Not "men are bad, women are good, let's get women empowered" - it's let's get this value system, which is about the capacity to feel and empathize with life, and therefore to protect it.
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I believe that educating people to awaken into full consciousness is the most important thing we can do.
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I really knew how to speak - from my female voice, that "different voice" that Carol Gilligan so presciently described many years ago in her groundbreaking book. Because if we try to speak in a voice that isn't ours, we lose our power.
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If we can stay awake when our lives are changing, secrets will be revealed to us-secrets about ourselves, about the nature of life, and about the eternal source of happiness and peace that is always available, always renewable, already within us.
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One practice I rely on all the time is basic meditation which allows me to strip away the noise. It's like the old-fashioned dial on the radio, where you were getting static and then you found that clear, sweet spot on the dial, where the music would come through. That's what meditation is for me. Dialling out the static, the noise, the anxiety, the fear, and coming into a place that's deep and quiet. It's like dropping into a well of inspiration and wisdom.
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It's not always about survival, this life we are given; it's usually so much easier than that. It's about trusting the eternal life force that is flowing within us-letting that force lead the way through all of the inevitable changes we will face across the span of our time here on Earth.
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I have built up so much stuff , I am afraid I would cry forever, or have to go to sleep for weeks, or I would want to make some changes, and it is all just so overwhelming that we just keep going and going and going. It's a problem. It creates all kinds of illnesses of the physical and mental kind.
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Every day we're given a choice: We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us . . . if we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place.
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Meditation practice is like piano scales, basketball drills, ballroom dance class. Practice requires discipline; it can be tedious; it is necessary. After you have practiced enough, you become more skilled at the art form itself. You do not practice to become a great scale player or drill champion. You practice to become a musician or athlete. Likewise, one does not practice meditation to become a great meditator. We meditate to wake up and live, to become skilled at the art of living.
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Even if your difficult time comes at you out of the blue - like cancer - even those times, opens your heart to the magic and power of life, and gives you this inner commitment to live every moment.
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If spirituality is not religion or cynicism or sentimentality or narcissism, then what is it?... we can confidently say... that spirituality is fearlessness. It is a way of looking boldly at this life we have been given, here, now, on earth, as this human being.