Stephanie Dowrick Quotes

[ ... ] the responsibility for their wellbeing and for the fundamental meaning they give to their own life must, in adulthood, be theirs. To accept the burden that someone 'can't live without you' is unrealistic. It infantilises that person and overburdens you. p.226

How we feel about our own self, how well or little we know our own self, whether we feel alive inside, largely determine the quality of the time we spend alone, as well as the quality of the relationships we have with other people.

[ ... ] as I have seen with other people whose sense of their work is vocational rather than pragmatic, my desire to write, to understand things at a depth I can reach in no other way, pushes me to write and go on writing, even when my wants - for an easier or more sociable life, or one less exposed and fraught - are certainly well known to my rational mind. p.293

Your attitude to life is far more important in determining your happiness than your money, appearance, social status or talent.

It should not be difficult to accept the idea that someone else is, in 'your experience of them', in part your self-creation. But it is difficult and sometimes impossible. Impossible because accepting the idea that you are in part creating your 'other' forces you to take on board a high degree of self responsibility. Few of us easily do that. p.234

Love teaches you to care for others. It also gives you your best chance to grow up.

Imagine the world we would live in if we dared to see all of life as sacred - unconditionally.

I have been using the word 'other' as though it were self-explanatory, yet who the 'other' is must always be something of a mystery. It is a mystery at an immediate level in the sense that no person is entirely knowable.

It is precisely in relationships of intimacy that your craziness (and mine) will be hardest to conceal.

You are a self and an other.
Your 'others' are in part your own creation.
This in turn affects and shapes your experiences of self.
Your levels of self-awareness and self-acceptance largely shape how you perceive others. p.231

Happiness
like love
is itself an attitude.

LISTEN to the small, quiet voice within that only ever guides you with love and compassion. Let yourself receive the inspiration of beauty and kindness. Let yourself rediscover peace in your heart. And, from that secure place, meet whatever comes.

Happiness can come in a single moment. And in a single moment it can go again. But a single moment does not create it. Happiness is created through countless choices made and then made again throughout a lifetime. You are its host as well as its guest. You give it form, shape, individuality, texture, tone. And what it allows you to give can change your world. Happiness can be stillness. But it isn't still. It wraps, enchants, heals, consoles, soothes, delights, calms, inspires and connects. It is on your face and in your body. It is in your life and being.