Joy

"At the core of the universe, the face of God wears a smile"

"Many of the habits of dysfunctional families use are not from the lack of love but are the result of fear. Knowing the love-limiting habits and behaviors of dysfunctional families is a wonderful beginning to lower the fear, allowing us to be real, allowing us all to learn how to love better."

"They said that you would never make it, but you did. They said that you would quit, but you persevered and fought through every obstacle that came your way. They said that you didn’t have what it takes, but you proved them ALL wrong. Not only do you have success, but you have peace and joy within. You never compromised your character and you tackled everything with dignity. You didn’t allow any challenges to discourage you, because you knew all along that there was a winner in you. You doubted yourself at times, but you didn’t allow anything or anybody to keep you down. You made it! Be proud of your accomplishments! Enjoy all of the benefits from your hard work and dedication!"

"Don’t be lazy. Hard work brings happiness. There is no other time to avoid being a lazy. Take that decision now. Kick laziness out."

"But does it make any sense at all to know that it ends badly for all of us, even the happiest of us, and that we all lose everything that matters in the end-and yet to know as well, despite all this, as cruelly as the game is stacked, that it's possible to play it with a kind of joy?To try to make some meaning out of all this seems unbelievably quaint. Maybe I only see a pattern because I've been staring too long. But then again, to paraphrase Boris, maybe I see a pattern because it's there."

"Even when we're standing at the scariest precipice ever, our soul still cries out for joy."

"When you stop doing what insults your Soul, your Journey accelerates and your Life beings to fill with joy."

"Joy – in the fall, winter, and always in the mountains where people are few, wildlife is abundant and there is peace in the quiet."

"No one escapes some degree of chaos for it is so ever prevalent; it is the human experience. This realization does not mean we can’t improve. It does mean we can accept our state of chaos, lighten up on ourselves, have fun, and work on improving…we are a work in progress. Enjoy the journey."

"Be thankful and joyful. Be content with life. Make the most of every situation."

"A pessimist is someone who has forgotten the joy of beginning."

"You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving."

"The key problem I encounter working with wounded, depressed, and unhappy people is a lack of connection…starting from a disconnection from themselves and then with others. This is why love often becomes so distorted and destructive. When people experience a disconnection from themselves, they feel it but do not realize the problem."

"I feel like spring after winter, and sun on the leaves; and like trumpets and harps and all the songs I have ever heard!"

"The sun dances in her and she has an immense joy of life"

"True sense of humour and true, deep happiness never depend on the after effects of destructive vices"

"I see what the joy is; it is the joy of always loving, it is the joy of losing my own life in love to others."

"In Joy, to lose one’s life is to gain it, and Joy never loses an opportunity to be lost in the other."

"Joy is that paradox where a man so trusts, is so enraptured, as to be caught up and lost in the other, while at the same time, being utterly known by the other, thus utterly himself."

"For a few minutes the anxiety that tormented him had vanished, leaving his mind as serene as the beauty he looked at. Very lovely, he thought, are the sudden moments of relief that come in the midst of strain, those moments of forgetfulness when we are "teased out of thought" by a bird or a flower or the sight of old roofs in the sun; lovely though so transient, the reversal of those brief moments of misery that visit us even in the midst of joy."