Mira Kirshenbaum Quotes

The secret of confidence is focusing on what you can control, not on what you can't.

Think about your story in a new way,' the wise person says. 'You've been thinking of it as a loss. Now think of it as a liberation. What happened to you--it actually freed you up. And it didn't just free you up any old way. It freed you from some dead weight of the past so you could find a new home that would bring life to some part of you, maybe the best part of you.

I can see every day that a squirrel's perfectly at home in a world of trees. But imagine taking that squirrel and plunking him down in the middle of the desert. This wonderful animal will suddenly feel depressed, anxious, confused, completely at a loss. There are plenty of animals who make a home in the desert, but not the squirrel.

There's nothing really wrong with that downcast squirrel in the desert. He's perfect. But he's only perfect when he's at home, in a place with lots of trees. In the desert a squirrel is an unhappy misfit.

Now imagine doing something stupid: taking that squirrel to a therapist so he'll feel better... You could do squirrel therapy forever but as long as the squirrel's in the desert, he's going to be miserable. But if you just pick him up and bring him to a place with trees, now he's at home and he's happy.

There are so many people who are miserable because they are squirrels in the desert. They think there's something wrong with them. They endlessly try to fix themselves but the fixing doesn't work. Yet they keep trying because it's hard to face the ways they're not at home in the world. And yet how simple it would be if they could see there's nothing wrong with who they are, there's just something wrong with where they are.

But they can feel more at home than they ever imagined. They just have to look for ways that events in their lives are showing them the way home.

If not, you'll just keep falling into holes until you can grasp the gift cosmos keeps on trying to give you.

Your emotional energy only cares about how successful you are at being yourself.

If only you look, you'll find that right in that hole is something you've desperately needed to complete your journey successfully. And you wouldn't have found it if you hadn't fallen in that hole.

Perfectionism is a time waster - 20 percent of the effort you put into any project accomplishes 80 percent of the outcome - so this is a time to ask yourself when good enough is enough and then stop.

Love is richest, most genuine, and most long lasting when you focus on being yourself and doing everything you can to make it possible for the other person to be him- or herself.

But when you personalize your life, when you make your life a place where you can be yourself, when you do things the way you want to do them, your life feels like your home. And that is a tremendous source of emotional energy.