Raising Yourself Quotes & Sayings

Everyone has a self-destructive nature in them. It's whether you feed it or not. You don't have to be a pop star to feel connected to destruction or self-destruction. But self-destruction is self-obsession, and self-obsession is not really possible if you're engaged in raising children. And if you have a spiritual life, you're constantly being asked to see yourself as one small fragment in the bigger picture. — Madonna Ciccone

Don't let yourself become so concerned with raising a good kid that you forget you already have one. — Glennon Melton

I have never met a truly strong person who didn't have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone's shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. - The Iron — Henry Rollins

Do you really want to be converted? Are you willing to be transformed? Or do you keep clutching your old ways of life with one hand while with the other you beg people to for help you change?
Conversion is certainly not something you can bring about yourself. It is not a question of willpower. You have to trust the inner voice that shows the way. You know that inner voice. You turn to it often. But after you have heard with clarity what you are asked to do, you start raising questions, fabricating objections,, and seeking everyone else's opinion. Thus you become entangles in countless often contradictory thoughts, feelings, and ideas and lose touch with the God in you. And you end up dependent on all the people you have gathered around you.
Excerpt from:The Inner Voice of Love From Anguish to Freedom by Henry Nouwen — Henri J.M. Nouwen

You can give so much in this life, and that offers you many opportunities to release the self. For example, you can give time, helpfulness, donations, restraint, patience, noncontention, and forgiveness. Any path of service - including raising a family, caring for others, and many kinds of work - incorporates generosity. Envy - and its close cousin, jealousy - is a major impediment to generosity. So notice the suffering in envy, how it is an affliction upon you. Envy actually activates some of the same neural networks involved with physical pain (Takahashi et al. 2009). In a compassionate and kind way, remind yourself that you will be all right even if other people have fame, money, or a great partner - and you don't. To free yourself from the clutches of envy, send compassion and loving-kindness to people you envy. — Rick Hanson

The reality of the writer's world is that you set yourself up for future disappointment with every success that you deliver because you end up raising your audience's expectations. — Ashwin Sanghi

We want to raise the children the parents aren't raising. I think we want to press individuality on people, though that doesn't necessarily mean being like us. But, it doesn't mean that if you come dressed like us that you aren't being yourself. — Twiggy

Literature is one of the few kinds of writing in the world that does not tell you what to buy, want, see, be, or believe. It's more like conversation, raising new questions and moving you to answer them for yourself. — Barbara Kingsolver

I do love you." He said it suddenly, raising his head so his black eyes could meet her startled green ones. "I mean it, Shea. I do not just need you, I love you. I know everything about you, I have been in your head, shared your memories, shared your dreams and your ideas. I know you think I need you and that is why I am with you, but it is much more than that. I love you." He grinned unexpectedly, traced her lower lip with the tip of a finger. "What is more, I know you love me. You hide it from yourself, but I found it in a little corner, tucked away in your mind." Shea — Christine Feehan

It was far better, he thought, just to get on with life yourself, to have your own adventures and make your own mistakes, without raising a banner over them that proclaimed: I'm this, or I'm that; of this party or of the other one. — Anthony McDonald

Alzheimer's is a family disease ... It requires countless hours of care, which are typically provided by family caregivers ... Wi thout professional help, it can be impossible to juggle providing that care with jobs, raising kids or just time for yourself. — Seth Rogen

When winter fails to provide an adequate snow base, my boys bring their sleds in the house and ride them down the stairs. Just the other day, my wife found them with a rope out their second-story bedroom window, preparing to rappel down the side of the house. The recipe for fun is pretty simple raising boys: Add to any activity an element of danger, stir in a little exploration, add a dash of destruction, and you've got yourself a winner. — John Eldredge

The so-called new Russian man is characterized mainly by his complete exhaustion. You may find yourself wondering if he has the strength to enjoy his new-found freedom. He is like a long-distance runner who, on reaching the finishing line, is incapable even of raising his hands in a gesture of victory. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

If you're unwilling to leave someplace you've outgrown, you will never reach your full potential. To be the best, you have to constantly be challenging yourself, raising the bar, pushing the limits of what you can do. Don't stand still, leap forward. — Ronda Rousey

When you're in the thick of raising your kids by yourself, you tend to keep a running list of everything you think you're doing wrong. I recommend taking a lot of family pictures as evidence to the contrary. — Connie Schultz

Depending on which study you consult, one third to one half of Americans are introverts - in other words, one out of every two or three people you know. (Given that the United States is among the most extroverted of nations, the number must be at least as high in other parts of the world.) If you're not an introvert yourself, you are surely raising, managing, married to, or coupled with one. — Susan Cain

They'll tell you who they think you should be
they'll even try to manipulate you into believing it but let me tell you something son, if I listened to who I was supposed to be - this, everything we are and do wouldn't be in existence. Be a leader, find yourself and make a life with it. Those who judge you and try to force the patterns of their beliefs onto you are envious they haven't the strength in themselves to do the same. — Nikki Rowe

saying - "

Lady Brice's next words were lost because, without any warning, Grandma flung the door open.

"You really need to ask permission first," a guard warned her in a hushed tone.

She kept walking toward me. "Well, my girl, it's time for me to head out."

"So soon?" I asked, embracing her.

"I can never stay too long. Your mother is recovering from a heart attack, and she still has the audacity to order me around. I know she's the queen," she conceded, raising her hands in the air in surrender, "but I'm her mother, and that trumps queen any day."

I laughed. "I'll remember that for down the road."

"You do that," she said, rubbing my cheek. "And if you don't mind, get yourself a husband as soon as you can. I'm not getting any younger, and I'd like to see at least one great-grandchild before I'm dead." She stared at my stomach and shook her finger. "Don't let me down."

"Ooooookay, Grandma. — Kiera Cass

You might be looking forward to working, falling in love, marrying, raising a family. You are told that you should expect to find a job paying so much, where your hours are so much, where your responsibilities are so much.
That is what is expected of you. And if you live up to it, it will be an awful waste.
If you expect that, you will be limiting yourself. — Adrian Tan

One hundred years ago you'd have a child surrounded by other women: your mother, her mother, sisters, cousins, sisters-in-law, mother-in-law. And you'd be a teenager, too young to have had any kind of life yourself. You'd share childcare with a raft of women. They'd help you, keep you company, show you how. Then you'd do the same. Not just people to share in the work of raising children, but people to share in the loving of children. — Elisa Albert

Not just any talk is conversation; not any talk raises consciousness. Good conversation has an edge: it opens your eyes to something, quickens your ears. And good conversation reverberates: it keeps on talking in your mind later in the day; the next day, you find yourself still conversing with what was said. That reverberation afterward is the very raising of consciousness; your mind's been moved. You are at another level with your reflections. — James Hillman

It's sad but true that if you focus your attention on housework and meal preparation and diapers, raising children does start to look like drudgery pretty quickly. On the other hand, if you see yourself as nothing less than your child's nurturer, role model, teacher, spiritual guide, and mentor, your days take on a very different cast. — Joyce Maynard

Think about what it feels like when you interact with someone who makes you notice what's good about yourself (raising your status), who is clear with his expectations of you (increasing certainty), who lets you make decisions (increasing autonomy), who connects with you on a human level (increasing relatedness), and who treats you fairly. — David Rock

What you discovered about yourself in raising children wasn't always agreeable or attractive. — Jonathan Franzen

When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation. — Donna Quesada

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My
name's Travis. Travis Maddox."
I rolled my eyes. "I know who you are."
"You do, huh?" Travis said, raising his wounded
eyebrow.
"Don't flatter yourself. It's hard not to notice when fifty
drunks are chanting your name. "
Travis sat up a bit taller. "I get that a lot." I rolled my
eyes again, and Travis chuckled. "Do you have a
twitch?"
"A what?"
"A twitch. Your eyes keep wiggling around." He laughed
again when I glared at him. "Those are some amazing eyes
though," he said, leaning just inches from my face. — Jamie McGuire

Attosecond?" Gaston asked.
"I'm guessing it's a very, very small fraction of a second," I said.
"One quintillionth of a second," George said, without raising his head from his reader.
Jack pondered him. "Have you started memorizing random crap again to amuse yourself?"
"No, I'm connected to the wireless," George said. "I googled it. — Ilona Andrews

After breakfast, determined to pass as little of the day as possible in company with Lady Lowborough, I quietly stole away from the company and retired to the library. Mr. Hargrave followed me thither, under pretence of coming for a book; and first, turning to the shelves, he selected a volume, and then quietly, but by no means timidly, approaching me, he stood beside me, resting his hand on the back of my chair, and said softly, 'And so you consider yourself free at last?'

'Yes,' said I, without moving, or raising my eyes from my book, 'free to do anything but offend God and my conscience. — Anne Bronte

Nobody can teach you love. Love you have to find yourself, within your being, by raising your consciousness to higher levels. — Rajneesh

The usual example given to illustrate an Outside Context Problem was imagining you were a tribe on a largish, fertile island; you'd tamed the land, invented the wheel or writing or whatever, the neighbours were cooperative or enslaved but at any rate peaceful and you were busy raising temples to yourself with all the excess productive capacity you had, you were in a position of near-absolute power and control which your hallowed ancestors could hardly have dreamed of and the whole situation was just running along nicely like a canoe on wet grass ... when suddenly this bristling lump of iron appears sailless and trailing steam in the bay and these guys carrying long funny-looking sticks come ashore and announce you've just been discovered, you're all subjects of the Emperor now, he's keen on presents called tax and these bright-eyed holy men would like a word with your priests. — Iain Banks

Authentic happiness derives from raising the bar for yourself, not rating yourself against others. — Martin E.P. Seligman

Raising a child is like taking care of someone who's on way too many shrooms, while you yourself are on a moderate amount of shrooms. I am not confident in my decisions, but I know you should not be eating a mousepad. — Ron Funches