Quotes & Sayings About Holding Yourself Back

Doubting yourself can be the biggest factor in holding yourself back. If you don't believe in yourself and send messages to yourself that you can't do this, or you will never be able to do this, you won't be successful. If you carry this attitude with you, then no, you won't be successful. Change your thinking! Change is not always easy, but once you change your thinking from negative to positive, your doubts begin to go away and you begin to manifest the positive. Don't doubt yourself! — Monica Breckenridge

When we're outside, I hear Brittany take a deep breath. I swear it sounds as if she's holding herself together by a thin thread. Not the way it's supposed to go down: bring girl home, kiss girl, mom insults girl, girl leaves crying.
"Don't sweat it. She's just not used to me bringin' girls in the house."
Brittany's expressive blue eyes appear remote and cold. "That shouldn't have happened," she says, throwing back her shoulders in a stance as stiff as a statue's.
"What? The kiss or you likin' it so much?"
"I have a boyfriend," she says as she fidgets with the strap on her designer book bag.
"You tryin' to convince me, or yourself?" I ask her. — Simone Elkeles

As long as you perceive that anyone is holding you back, you have not taken full responsibility for your own liberation. Liberation means that you stand free of making demands on others and life to make you happy. When you discover yourself to be nothing but Freedom, you stop setting up conditions and requirements that need to be satisfied in order for you to be happy. It is in the absolute surrender of all conditions and requirements that Liberation is discovered to be who and what you are. Then the love and wisdom that flows out of you has a liberating effect on others. — Adyashanti

You owe it to yourself to get rid of anything that is destroying & holding you back ferom progress. If it's not helping you grow...then let it go! — Timothy Pina

This is the weird aftermath, when it is not exactly over, and yet you have given it up. You go back and forth in your head, often, about giving it up. It's hard to understand, when you are sitting there in your chair, having breakfast or whatever, that giving it up is stronger than holding on, that "letting yourself go" could mean you have succeeded rather than failed. You eat your goddamn Cheerios and bicker with the bitch in your head that keeps telling you you're fat and weak: Shut up, you say, I'm busy, leave me alone. When she leaves you alone, there's a silence and a solitude that will take some getting used to. You will miss her sometimes ... There is, in the end, the letting go. — Marya Hornbacher

She turned back to the reporter, holding out the microphone. I'm not an expert, I'm a survivor. I hope you can learn how to be one yourself. — Rose Wynters

Because I love you more than any goddamn thing on this fucking planet, I'm gonna let you have one more day. You just lost your daddy, and I'll never forgive my- self for not being here with you. I'll live my life regretting it. But I'll be back. You're mine, Eva Brooks. Always. You told me that yourself and, sweetheart, I'm holding you to it. — Abbi Glines

When you're confronted by a really difficult thing in your life, you're faced with a choice: you can runaway from it, or you can face it, confront it, and work through it. But to work through it, sometimes feels like holding your own head below water when you're already drowning. Your natural instinct when drowning is to get back up to the surface and give yourself some relief from that terrible situation ... you just want to breathe again. — Buck 65

Are you holding her?" Wrath asked.
There was a pause. "As soon as I get this bow tied in the back - hold on, girlie. Okay, up you go. She's in a pink dress that Cormia made her by hand. I hate pink. I like it on her, though - but keep that to yourself."
Wrath flexed his hands. "What's it like?"
"Not totally hating pink? Pretty fuck - ehrm, frickin' emasculating."
"Yeah."
"Do not tell me Lassiter's been metrosexualizing even you. I heard he talked Manello into going for a pedicure with him - but I'm praying that's just gossip."

-Wrath & Zsadist — J.R. Ward

Stop hiding! Stop holding yourself back and playing yourself down! Stop worrying about how you look and what people are saying. Stop listening to what people are saying and trying to find out if they are whispering about you. Stop waiting for someone to tell you that you are okay or to make you feel special. Life is special! It is a special gift. This is your life! Now take your gift and live it out in the open! Decide today that you are going to live out loud! — Iyanla Vanzant

Remarks on My Character
Waving a flag I retreat a long way beyond
any denial, all the way over the scorched earth,
and come into an arching grove of evasions,
onto those easy paths, one leading to another
and covered ever deeper with shade: I'll never
dare the sun again, that I can promise.
It is time to practice the shrug: "Don't count on
me." Or practice the question that drags its broken
wing over the ground and leads into the swamp
where vines trip anyone in a hurry, and a final
dark pool waits for you to stare at yourself
while shadows move closer over your shoulder.
That's my natural place; I can live where the blurred
faces peer back at me. I like the way
they blend, and no one is ever sure itself
or likely to settle in unless you scare off
the others. Afraid but so deep no one can follow,
I steal away there, holding my arms like a tree. — William Stafford

The more you expose yourself as a celebrity, the less interesting you are to watch in your work, because if you're putting yourself out there all the time, you're not holding anything back. — John Cusack

Take bigger leaps. Yes, quit your job if it's holding you back. Put yourself in a position where failure can't be an option. In order to do that, you have to have something that truly moves and motivates you. — Benjamin P. Hardy

The world is full of uncertainty and the road you are traveling may be a bit scary at times, but don't ever lose faith. Let go of the scary things that are holding you back and start noticing the great realities unfolding around you. Most of all, believe in yourself and never give up on what's important to you! Life is always going to present you with unexpected changes. But if you keep an open mind, look for the goodness in every situation and are able to adapt in any of life's misfortunes, you will always prevail. — Anonymous

When you hear fear knocking on the door, most of the time when you answer it there's nothing there. It's just you holding yourself back. — Brad Goreski

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master ... — Elizabeth Gilbert

Daemon glanced down at my hand. "You sure you're okay with that?"
I forced a smile. "This is all I have until I get out of this stupid building."
He nodded. "Just don't shoot yourself ... or me."
"Or me," added Archer.
I rolled my eyes. "What faith you guys have in me."
Daemon lowered his head toward mine. "Oh, I have faith in you. There's other
"
"Don't even think about saying something dirty or trying to kiss me while you're still in Nancy's body." I put a hand on his chest, holding him back.
Daemon chuckled. "You're no fun. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I'm so determined to keep you where you are - with me - because for the past four years I've gone nothing but crazy with wanting you." He grabbed my chin and forced my gaze up. "I came back for you. I did. I was in a bad place walking into that club, but then I saw you - the drunk doncellita dancing on top of the bar. I can't put into words what holding you this morning did to me." A slow, easy smile grew on his lips. "Though, I'm sure you know exactly what it did to me. — Nadege Richards

The underbelly of envy and jealousy is an unconscious holding back of yourself. — Deborah Sandella

Holding something doesn't make it yours. You realize at some point you're just keeping it back for yourself, because it's pulling away with equal force. You've got to cut the string from your finger and leave that wispy thread, like a baby spider on the breeze. — Craig Silvey

Butterhorn?" Ben asked, holding out a bag full of pastries.
"Well, you did condemn yourself to bad luck just to get them for me," I said, "So absolutely!"
"Yeah," Ben agreed, "they'd better be worth it."
"Mmmm, completely worth it," I said with my mouth full. "The rest of you have to have some of these."
"Hmmm," Sage mused, examining his, "no garlic. I'm not entirely sure my taste buds will know how to handle this."
"Um, you guys," Rayna asked, "where am I driving?"
"Excellent question-let's find out!" I pulled the cribbage board out of duffel bag and handed it to Sage, pointing out the longitude and latitude notations on the back. "Where is that?"
Sage took out his phone, then entered the coordinates. "Interesting."
"What?" I asked. "It's not Antarctica, is it? I didn't pack a parka. — Hilary Duff

If you ever get twenty-five years for nothing, if you find yourself wearing four number patches on your clothes, holding your hands permanently behind your back, submitting to searches morning and evening, working until you are utterly exhausted, dragged into the cooler whenever someone denounces you, trodden deeper and deeper into the ground-from the hole you're in, the fine words of the great humanists will sound like the chatter of the well-fed and free. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid. — Franz Kafka

He carded his fingers through Bach's gleaming hair. "You're like the sun," he whispered.

"What does that make you?" Bach asked, nuzzling his face into the cradle of Einion's hip and untying his stockings with work-nimble fingers.

"Common as earth."

"More like the moon." Bach sat back on his heels and looked up. His eyes were gravity, night-dark and huge. Einion felt himself about to fall in. "Moving tides with the force of your will, forever holding half of yourself away from the rest of creation, silent and still and seductively changeable. Maddening. Caught in a dance with the sun for all of time." (Einion and Bach from The Prophecy of Ydrys Vega — Bran Mydwynter

No relationship can truly grow if you go on holding back. If you remain clever and go on safeguarding and protecting yourself, only personalities meet, and the essential centers remain alone. Then only your mask is related, not you. Whenever such a thing happens, there are four persons in the relationship, not two. Two false persons go on meeting, and the two real persons remain worlds apart. — Osho

Your body is like a machine, and if you don't keep it in shape, it holds you back. You don't want anything holding you back, especially yourself. — Brenda Song

When you are old you can look back and see yourself when you are young. It is almost like looking down from heaven. And you see yourself as a young woman, just a big girl really, half awake to the world. You see yourself happy, holding in your arms a good, decent, gentle, beloved young man with the blood keen in his veins, who before long is going to disappear, just disappear, into a storm of hate and flying metal and fire. And you just don't know it. — Wendell Berry

It felt like she was floating on her back in the middle of a vast indigo lake, her ears submerged in the water so that all she could hear was the sound of her own heartbeat. It was terrifying, floating in the middle of a lake by yourself; but there was still the sun, the clounds, the treetops. There was always something to grab on to. — Kathryn Littlewood

Every second you spend holding someone else back is time not running the race yourself. — Rebecca Murphy

Often you will catch yourself wanting to receive your loving God by putting on a semblance of beauty, by holding back everything dirty and spoiled, by clearing just a little path that looks proper. But that is a fearful response - forced and artificial. Such a response exhausts you and turns your prayer into torment. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

You work so hard to fix yourself, but maybe what you need isn't another tactic, another book, another expert, another five-step plan. Maybe, you don't need to be fixed. Maybe, what's really holding you back is the idea that you need to be fixed. Maybe you just need to let yourself play instead of always making yourself do homework. — Vironika Tugaleva

Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be - you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean. Count yourself lucky - God holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from Him. — Eugene H. Peterson

Free yourself from the limitations you placed upon yourself. There is no-thing holding you back. — Steve Maraboli

If you say you can't, you won't!
The only thing holding you back from success is yourself. — Jody Provost

Losing beauty was easy.
Overlooking it, forgetting it, hardening yourself so much you could no longer be surprised or overwhelmed by it.
I pulled back, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the sharp edge of cheekbone and the skin now warm from the rising sun.
The trick was in holding on to it. Protecting it. — Emma Raveling

Satan mounts his mutiny against God through a deceitful stronghold: God is untrustworthy. In subtle and not-so-subtle ways, he places God's heart on trial by whispering insidious lies: God is holding back on you. He wants you to jump through hoops in order to earn His love. He's stingy. He doesn't have your best interest in mind. You're better off trusting in yourself. Your resources and functional saviors work better then waiting and trusting in Him. — James MacDonald

Holding this book in your hand, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of wild exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true. — Honore De Balzac

Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. — Elizabeth Gilbert

As long as we live, our self-absorption and our insecurity will walk together, holding hands and swinging them back and forth like two little girls on their way to a pretend playground they can never find. Human nature dictates that most often we will be as insecure as we are self-absorbed. The best possible way to keep from getting sucked into the superficial narcissistic mentality that money, possessions, and sensuality can satisfy and secure us is to deliberately give ourselves to something much greater ... [Christ] showed us that giving, rather than getting, is the means to receiving ... to find yourself, your true self, you must lose yourself in something larger. — Beth Moore

When you look at yourself and feel dissatisfaction about any part of you, you will continue to attract feelings of dissatisfaction, because the law mirrors back to you exactly what you are holding inside. Be in awe and wonder at the magnificence of you! — Rhonda Byrne

Sex is a commitment ... Once you're there you can't go back to holding hands ... and when you give yourself both mentally and physically ... well, you're completely vulnerable. — Judy Blume

I think she did really try her hardest to get over him. You would, wouldn't you, if someone had hurt you like that? You'd make all kinds of promises to yourself not to let them do something like that again. But wouldn't a small part of you always be wondering "what if" Wouldn't some part of you - a part that you might not want to exist - still be holding out for that happy ending? It's how we're built isn't it? No matter how many times you get slapped in the face you have to believe that the next time would be different. And then in comes the guy who hurt you all those years ago, and he wants to make things better and to prove he's not all talk- this time it will be different. How could she not fall for that? How could she not think that if she chose him it would finally lift the shadow that he'd cast over her life? All that hurt, all that suffering wouldn't have been for nothing then, would it? If he'd come back to you like that, would you have taken him back? — Mike Gayle