Susan Zola Words Of Wisdom

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Email: Suezola@me.com

Words Of Wisdom

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. - Aristotle

A wise person knows that there is something to be learned from everyone.  

Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and celebrating it for everything that it is. - Mandy Hale

Fullfillment is what we really want. Pleasure is what we think we want.

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. - John F. Kennedy

Opinion is really the lowest form of human Knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding. - Bill Bullard

It's easy to judge. It's more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Though understanding, we grow. - Doe Zantamuta

Everybody has gone through something that has changed them in a way that they could never go back to the person they once were.

As you are shifting, you will begin to realize that you are not the same person you used to be. The things you used to tolerate have now become intolerable. Where you once remained quiet, you are now speaking your truth. Where you once battled and argued, you are now choosing to remain silent. You are beginning to understand the value of your voice and there are some situations that no longer deserve your time, energy, and focus.

You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone. - Maya Angelou

Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love. - Erich Fromm

People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason why this world is in chaos is because things are being loved and people are being used. - Dalai Lama

Love is based on your capacity to trust in a reality beyond fear...to trust a timeless truth bigger than all our difficulties.

The truest form of love is how you behave toward someone, not how you feel about them. - Steve Hall

Your words mean nothing when your actions are the opposite. - The Buddha

A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. - Paulo Coelho

We repeat what we don't repair. - Christine Langley Obaugh

Pain serves a purpose. Without it, you are in danger. What you cannot feel you cannot take care of. - Rebecca Solnit

Stop expecting loyalty from people who can't even give you honesty.

Until a man heals himself, he'll be toxic to every woman who tries to love him.

I wonder how much of what weighs me down, is not mine to carry.

I'm starting to remember who I was before you convinced me I was worthless.

Don't allow your wounds to transform you into someone you are not. - Paulo Coelho

May I accept myself as I am. May I be loving. May I be peaceful. May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be free from suffering. May I meet the suffering and ignorance of others with compassion.

You have permission to rest. You are not responsible for fixing everything that is broken. You do not have to try and make everyone happy. For now, take time for you. It's time to replenish.

Brain at 3 am: I can see you are trying to sleep, so I would like to offer you a selection of every memory, unresolved issue, or things you should have said or done today, or in the past 40 years!

You may not be able to control every situation or outcome, but you can control your attitude and how you deal with it.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. - Jack Koenfield

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. - Brene Brown

We all have inner demons to fight. We call these demons "fear" and "hatred", and "anger". If you don't conquer them, then a life of a hundred years...is a tragedy. If you do, a life of a single day can be a triumph. - Yip Man

Hatred and fear blind us. We no longer see each other. We only see the faces of monsters, and that gives us the courage to destroy each other. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Love is our true nature, but it's covered over by a protective layer of fear. - Jack Kornfield

F.E.A.R. has two meanings- Forget everything and run or Face everything and rise. The choice is yours.

Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.

I had my own notion of grief. I thought it was the sad time that followed the death of someone you love. And you had to push though it to get to the other side. But I'm learning there is no other side. There is no pushing through. But rather, there is absorption. Adjustment. Acceptance. And grief is not something you complete, but rather you endure. Grief is not a task to finish and move on, but an element of yourself-An alteration of your being. A new way of seeing. A new definition of self. - Gwen Flowers

To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own. - Jack Kornfield

For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of, and if you find you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over again.

Apologizing doesn't always mean you are wrong and the other person is right. It just means you value your relationship more than your ego.

People will always notice the change in your attitude towards them, but they will never notice it's their behavior that made you change.

Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is. - Marianne Williamson

You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The biggest communication problem is we don't listen to understand, we listen to reply.

What you must do to move yourself into the mental framework for "miracle making" is to just let go. - Dr. Wayne Dyer

You've got to learn to leave the table when love's no longer being served. - Nina Simone

Most people don't see you, they see their image of you.

There is solitude of suffering when you go through the darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering. - John O'Donohue

Spiritual practice is not just sitting and meditating. Practice is looking, thinking, touching, drinking, eating, and talking. Every act, every breath, and every step can be practice and can help us to become more ourselves. - Thich Nhat Hanh

You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong, you lack empathy, not religion.

Being aware of a single shortcoming within yourself is far more useful than being aware of a thousand in someone else. - The 14th Dalai Lama

We need to teach our kids that mental illnesses are just like physical illnesses and deserve the same kind of care and compassion. -Michelle Obama

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge. - Wilson Kanadi

Those who are awake live in a constant state of amazement. - Jack Kornfield

Be thankful for today, because in one moment, your entire life could change.

Hurt people hurt people. That's how pain patterns get passed on, generation after generation after generation. Break the chain today. Meet anger with sympathy, contempt with compassion, cruelty with kindness. Greet grimaces with smiles. Forgive and forget about finding fault. Love is the weapon of the future. - Yehuda Berg

It took me a long time to understand what it means to forgive someone. I always wondered how I could forgive someone who chose to hurt me? But after a lot of soul searching, I realized that forgiveness isn't about accepting or excusing their behavior...it's about letting it go and preventing their behavior from destroying my heart.

Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart, then choose. - Jack Kornfield

Forgiving someone doesn't mean that their behavior was ok. What it does mean is that we're ready to move on. To release the heavy weight. To shape our own life, on our terms, without any unneccessary burdens. - Dr. Suzanne Gelb

Inside you are a thousand generations of your ancestors, who learned how to survive difficulties. Do not be afraid. You too will find your way. - Jack Kornfield

It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it. - Leon Brown

If you want to change your life, you must first change your mind.

If you are willing to look at another person's behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, the you will, over a period of time cease to react at all. - Yogi Bhajan

Understanding the connection between boundaries, accountability, acceptance, and compassion has made me a kinder person. - Brene Brown

Attachment to view is the greatest impediment to the spiritual path. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The truth you believe and cling to makes you unavailable to hear anything new. - Pema Chodron

Sometimes the reason good things are not happening to you is because you are the good thing that needs to happen to other people.

Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love. - Mahatma Gandhi

Everyone has a chapter they don't read outloud.

As long as you feel pain you're still alive. As long as you make mistakes you're still human. As long as you keep trying there's still hope.

The most straightforward advice on awakening enlightened mind is this: practice not causing harm to anyone-yourself or others-and every day, do what you can to be helpful. - Pema Chodron

What is the difference between "I like you" and "i love you" When you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily. One who understands this, understands life. - Buddha

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. - Dalai Lama

We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not. - Thich Nhat Hanh

Every situation in life is temporary. So, when life is good, make sure you enjoy and receive it fully. And when life is not so good, remember that it will not last forever and better days are on the way. - Jenni Young

Like a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it, tend it, enjoy it. And when the time comes let it go. - Jack Kornfield

I will practice coming back to the present moment, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past or letting anxieties, fears, or cravings pull me out. - Thich Nhat Hanh

There is always, always, always something to be thankful for.

The supreme form of wealth is contentment. - Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because her trust is not on the branch but on her own wings. Believe in yourself.

To study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. - Dogen

In life, you will realize there is a role for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you, some will love you, and some will teach you. But the ones who are truly important are the ones who bring out the best in you. They are the rare and amazing people who remind you why it's worth it.

Positive people also have negative thoughts, they just don't let those thoughts grow and destroy them.

When you connect with people who are good for you, you feel it. This is a big deal. Don't forget to acknowledge how great it is to be around someone who lights you up. Tell them, even if you feel a little weird. Your people love your weirdness.

When you go into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn't get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don't get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying "You are too this, or I'm too this". That judgement mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are. - Ram Dass

Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic-this is the spiritual path. - Pema Chodron

Silence is something that comes from your heart, not from outside. Silence doesn't mean not talking and not doing things; it means that you are not disturbed inside. If you're truly silent, then no matter what situation you find yourself in you can enjoy the silence. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The less you respond to drama, the more peaceful your life becomes.

Anxiety, the illness of our time, comes primarily from our inability to live in the present moment. - Thich Nhat Hanh

We sow the seeds of our future hells or happiness by the way we open or close our minds right now. - Pema Chodron

When your mind is narrow, small things agitate you very easily. Make your mind like an ocean. - Lama Thubten Yeshe

Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconsile all beings in the world. - Lao Tzu

Compassion is not helpless pity, but an awareness and determination that demands action. - Dalai Lama

When you find no solution to a problem, it's probably not a problem to be solved, but, rather a truth to be accepted.

Love is nothing without action. Trust is nothing without proof. Sorry is nothing without change.

Loving kindness is giving others happiness. Compassion is removing others' bitterness. Joy is freeing others from suffering.-Buddha

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison. - Nelson Mandela

Healing doesn't mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. - Rumi

Remember the 3 Cs - I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it

Create a life you don't need to escape from

Never let your fear decide your future

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?- Mary Manin Morrissey

When you let go, you create space for better things to enter your life.

Learn to be okay with people not knowing your side of the story. You have nothing to prove to anyone.

When you keep criticizing your kids, they don't stop loving you. They stop loving themselves. Let that sink in.

Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself. -Anais Nin

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.- Buddha

Forgiveness is for you, not them. Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future-Paul Boese

Mistakes have the power to turn you into something better than you were before

I'm at the stage of my life where I keep myself out of arguments. Even if you tell me 1+1=11 you're absolutely correct, Enjoy!

Don't carry your mistakes around with you. Place them on the floor, and use them as stepping stones to where you want to go.- Karon Waddell

Never regret being a good person to the wrong people. Your behavior says everything about you, and their behavior says everything about them.- Buddha

If you ever get the chance to treat them the way they treated you, I hope you choose to walk away and do better.

Every experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind. The goal is to find it. -Buddha

When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. - Buddha


“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James

“Never, never, never give up.” – Winston Churchill

“You carry all the ingredients to turn your life into a nightmare -Don't mix them!” – Hafiz

“My experience is what I agree to attend to.” – William James

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.” – William James

“You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.” – C.G. Jung

“A good half of the art of living is resilience.” – Alain de Botton

“You have to be quite heavily invested in someone to do them the honour of telling them you're annoyed with them” – Alain de Botton

“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”– Diane Ackerman

“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It's not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it's when you've had everything to do, and you've done it.” – Lord Acton

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”– C.G. Jung

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.” – C.G. Jung

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." – C.G. Jung

Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.”– Andrew Carnegie

“The mind does most of its best thinking when we aren't there. The answers are there in the morning.”– Alain de Botton

“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.” – Freud

“One kind of good book should leave you asking: how did the author know that about me?”– Alain de Botton

“The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well.”– Alain de Botton

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” – Rilke

“Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test.” – Alain de Botton

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”– C.G. Jung

 “What we speak becomes the house we live in.”– Hafiz


“Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door.” – Benjamin Jowett

“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”– Alain de Botton

“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.” – Alain de Botton

“The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.”– Alain de Botton

“When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.”– William James

“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.”– William James

Distress at losing an object can be as much a frustration at the intellectual mystery of the disappearance as about the loss itself.” – Alain de Botton

“Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.” – Alain de Botton

“The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts.”– Alain de Botton

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see.”– Confucius

Travel agents would be wiser to ask us what we hope to change about our lives rather than simply where we wish to go.”– Alain de Botton

“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.”– Voltaire

“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”– William James

“Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice”– Alain de Botton

“Think... of the world you carry within you." – Rilke

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.”– William James

“The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.”– Alain de Botton

“The more people you have to ask for permission, the more dangerous a project gets.”– Alain de Botton

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”– C.G. Jung

“The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness” – Alain de Botton

“There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Aristotle

“If you believe that feeling bad or worrying long enough will change a past or future event, then you are residing on another planet with a different reality system.”– William James

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook”– William James

“Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”– William Faulkner

“You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.”– C.G. Jung

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”– Freud

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James

“The true measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do him absolutely no good.” – Samuel Johnson

“Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.” – Mark Twain

“The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.” – William James

“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.” – Mr. Rogers

“Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.” – Alain de Botton

"What we speak becomes the house we live in.”– Hafiz

“Don't despair: despair suggests you are in total control and know what is coming. You don't - surrender to events with hope.” – Alain de Bottom

“Cynics are - beneath it all - only idealists with awkwardly high standards.” – Alain de Botton

 “The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human can alter his life by altering his attitude.” – William James


“Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door.” – Benjamin Jowett

“If any organism fails to fulfill its potentialities, it becomes sick.” – William James

“Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.” – C.G. Jung

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” – C.G. Jung

“The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness” – Alain de Botton

“The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook” – William James

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly” – Sam Keen

 “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” – William James


“The true measure of a person is how they treat someone who can do him absolutely no good.” – Samuel Johnson

“Our view of the world is truly shaped by what we decide to hear.” – William James

“Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is.” – William James

“Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your best.” – Andrew Carnegie

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

“Time spent with cats is never wasted.” – Freud

“Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.” – Alain de Botton

“Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.” – Freud

 “You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do.” – C.G. Jung


“You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

“Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.” – Alain de Botton

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. " – C.G. Jung

“The thought of a tiger is not a tiger.” – Anon.

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James

“Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.” – C.G. Jung

What you resist, persists” – C.G. Jung

“When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.” – Freud

“This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.” – Rilke

There may be significant things to learn about people by looking at what annoys them most” – Alain de Botton

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” – Freud

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see.” – Confucius

“Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice” – Alain de Botton

“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” – William James

“The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.” – Alain de Botton

“Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.” – Alain de Botton

“An urgent wish is no guarantor of a sound solution.” – Alain de Botton

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” – Rumi

“Talent develops in tranquillity, character in the full current of human life.” – Goethe

“Intuition is unconscious accumulated experience informing judgement in real time.” – Alain de Botton

“The more people you have to ask for permission, the more dangerous a project gets.” – Alain de Botton

“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when you have found that attitude, follow it.” – William James

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

“Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.” – C.G. Jung

“Expect more than others think possible.” – Howard Schultz

“There are only two ways to live life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.” – Albert Einstein

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I'm wise, so I'm changing myself.” – Rumi

“Discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” – Marcel Proust












Susan Zola Self Assessment

Susan Zola, LCSW, CCPS, CSAT
631-332-2213
suezola@me.com
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