Sarah Ban Breathnach quotes:

New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.

Whatever we are waiting for - peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance - it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.

Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing. Believe in yourself. And believe that there is a loving Source - a Sower of Dreams - just waiting to be asked to help you make your dreams come true.

Let's choose today to quench our thirst for the 'good life' we thinks others lead by acknowledging the good that already exists in our lives. We can then offer the universe the gift of our grateful hearts.

Whatever you are waiting for-peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of Simple Abundance-it will surely come, but only when you are ready to receive it with an open and grateful heart.

Each day offers us the gift of being a special occasion if we can simply learn that as well as giving, it is blessed to receive with grace and a grateful heart.

An authentic life is the most personal form of worship. Everyday life has become my prayer.

Grace is available for each of us every day - our spiritual daily bread - but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow.

There's no doubt in my mind that sleep deprivation is the hidden number one cause of arguments and cybersex. I'm convinced that countless good relationships end and bad ones begin because of chronic fatigue. Never make a major decision until after you've taken a nap.

Harmony is the inner cadence of contentment we feel when the melody of life is in tune.

...start thinking of yourself as an artist and your life as a work-in-progress. Works-in-progress are never perfect. But changes can be made...Art evolves. So does life. Art is never stagnant. Neither is life. The beautiful, authentic life you are creating for yourself is your art. It's the highest art.

Be grateful for the home you have, knowing that at this moment, all you have is all you need.

As we become curators of our own contentment on the Simple Abundance path... we learn to savor the small with a grateful heart.

Once you accept and rejoice in your authenticity, you begin to see things as YOU are. You begin to see the authentic self is the Soul made visible. Godspeed on your journey to wholeness.

Only when the clamor of the outside world is silenced will you be able to hear the deeper vibration. Listen carefully.

Take another look at your life. Give thanks. Accept your circumstances. Give thanks. Count your blessings. Give thanks. Show up for each day's meditation. Be willing to give the basic tools a fair chance. They can help you find your way.

Real life isn't always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgement of what is working in our lives can help us not only to survive but surmount our difficulties.

Usually, when the distractions of daily life deplete our energy, the first thing we eliminate is the thing we eliminate is the thing we need the most: quiet, reflective time. Time to dream, time to contemplate what's working and what's not, so that we can make changes for the better.

Faith is the very first thing you should pack in a hope chest.

Usually, when the distractions of daily life deplete our energy, the first thing we eliminate is the thing we eliminate is the thing we need the most: quiet, reflective time. Time to dream, time to contemplate what's working and what's not, so that we can make changes for the better. (January 17)

And what we can see if we look deep within is that the authentic self is the Soul made visible. Do not try to remake yourself into something you're not. Just try making the best of what God made. The sacred art and craft of nurturing our souls and the souls of those we love is Simple Abundance soulcraft. Begin today by turning on the Light.

How much time, creative energy, and emotion do we expend resisting change because we assume growth must always be painful? Much personal growth is uncomfortable, but it's worse to thwart the ascent of your authenticity.

When you learn what you can live without, you are able to ask life for the very best because you possess the gift of discernment. You are able to create an authentic life because you are able to make conscious choices.

Today is not the day you quit. Nor is it the day you cry. Today you know that you have all the passion and wisdom to find that quiet center of solace, serenity and strength necessary to create and sustain an authentic life.

The authentic self is the soul made visable.

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.

Since the choice of what we curl up with is often crucial for our solace and sanity, we need to learn how to nurture the talent of selection. Book browsing is a meditative art...Books are as essential as breathing.

This I can report from the front lines: life never calms down long enough for us to wait until tomorrow to start living the lives we deserve.

It's easy to be pessimistic about tomorrow when today seems so bleak."

Always remember that striving and struggle precede success even in the dictionary.

Second thoughts have aborted more dreams than all the difficult circumstances, overwhelming obstacles, and dangerous detours fate ever could throw at you.

Sometimes when we awaken from the bad dream of disowning ourselves, we think that the sojourn to self-discovery is a new one. But it is an ancient quest.

Expect to have hope rekindled. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again.

We should write an elegy for every day that has slipped through our lives unnoticed and unappreciated. Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving for all the days that remain-now that we know how to cherish them.

Gail Sheehy tells us that "the delights of self-discovery are always available." All Fools' Day is the perfect day to engrave this wisdom in our hearts.

Never forget that the most essential fashion accessories, the ones no woman can afford to do without, come from within. A generous heart, a spontaneous smile, and eyes that sparkle with delight can be part of any woman's signature look once she awakens to her authentic beauty.

As long as you're actively pursuing your dream with a practical plan, you're still achieving, even if it feels as though you're going nowhere fast. Its been my experience that at the very moment I feel like giving up, I'm only one step from a breakthrough. Hang on long enough and circumstances will change, too. Trust in yourself, your dream and spirit.

I am grateful for what I call well-spent moments: Making a tuna fish sandwich with the works. Taking at least a half hour to eat it outside. Ironing my vintage tea towels while watching old black-and-white film noir movies and sipping one martini with extra olives - a quirky combination, but it works.

The greatest secret to living a happy, fulfilled life is the realization that everything is created in our minds before it manifests itself in the outer world. We must believe it before we can see it.

Today, look at the blue sky, hear the grass growing beneath your feet, inhale the scent of spring, let the fruits of the earth linger on your tongue, reach out and embrace those you love. Ask Spirit to awaken your awareness to the sacredness of your sensory perceptions.

You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.

It's a perfect moment to quietly meditate on the cosmic Great Mother who can inspire us all; the divine, feminine Spirit of nurturance known as The Goddess, so revered in ancient times and being rediscovered by women today.

Every time we remember to say "thank you", we experience nothing less than heaven on earth.

When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present ... we experience heaven on earth.

Those who live passionately teach us how to love. Those who love passionately teach us how to live.

Today, and everyday, take as your personal mantra: I am what I am and what I am is wonderful.

The way you reach that awareness is through an inner journey that brings about an emotional, psychological, and spiritual transformation. A deep inner shift in your reality occurs, aligning you with the creative energy of the Universe. Such change is possible when you invite Spirit to open up the eyes of your awareness to the abundance that is already yours.

What if you began to expect the best from any situation? Isn't it possible that you could write new chapters in your life with happy endings? Suspend your disbelief? Take a leap of faith? After all, what have you got to lose but misery and lack?

I truly believe that regret is the only wound the soul does not recover from, and so I'm trying to live without regrets. ... Each day is another chance to be swept away.

It doesn't really matter whether we reflect the light through our authentic gifts or whether our authentic calling is to spread it. What matters is that tonight is that the world is dark, cold, and bleak. Your flame burns so brightly. Share your Love and warmth with others. Watch the Light return.

Authentic success is being so grateful for the many blessings bestowed on you and yours that you can share your portion with others.

I have a theory about soul mates -- that God wants to be our sweetheart. And once we fall in love with life and have an intimate relationship with Spirit, that's when we meet our soul mate. It's as if God says, 'You're not meant to be alone on this earth. I just wanted you to love me first.

It doesn't matter whom you love or where you move from or to, you always take yourself with you. If you don't know who you are, or if you've forgotten or misplaced her, then you'll always feel as if you don't belong. Anywhere.

Life is not made up of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years, but of moments. You must experience each one before you can appreciate it.

Take a leap of faith and begin this wondrous new year by believing.

Stressed souls need the reassuring rhythm of self-nurturing rituals.

Deliberately seeking solitude-quality time spent away from family and friends-may seem selfish. It is not. Solitude is as necessary for our creative spirits to develop and flourish as are sleep and food for our bodies to survive.

Little changes and little choices add up to be revolutionary changes in your life.

Any self-prompt that reminds you to focus on flow not ebb, contributes to your greater sense of abundance. (53)

Every day offers us simple gifts when we are willing to search our hearts for the place that's right for each of us. (January 15)

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.

Today expect something good to happen to you no matter what occurred yesterday. Realize the past no longer holds you captive. It can only continue to hurt you if you hold on to it. Let the past go. A simply abundant world awaits. (January 11)

We think that it's the big moments that define our lives-the wedding, the baby, the new house, the dream job. But really, these big moments of happiness are just the punctuation marks of our personal sagas. The narrative is written every day in the small, the simple, and the common. In your tiny choices, in these tiny changes. In the unconsidered. The overlooked. The discarded. The reclaimed.

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend....

This is how women self-sabotage and self-destruct. Unless we have constant witnesses to our hard work, we are convinced we pull off every day of our lives through smoke and mirrors. (27)

One way of celebrating the Solstice is to consider it a sacred time of reflection, release, restoration, and renewal.

Often writers cast their words out prophetically, as a sorceress might cast a spell, and many times when the words return to you, enclosed between covers, your phantom is so fully fleshed out in its own persona, you don't recognize your own creation.

When I think about my father, the first image that comes to mind is holding his hand as he drove me to the train station six weeks before he died; I had never noticed how beautiful his hands were until I saw them, for the first and last time, entwined in mine.

Become aware that you already possess all the inner wisdom, strength, and creativity needed to make your dreams come true.

Let us each grasp a new idea this year. Let us grasp the awareness of what it is that makes us truly happy. Let us consider our personal preferences and learn how to recognize, then embrace, moments of happiness that are uniquely our own.

The authentic self is the soul made visible.

Always remember that striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary.

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.

... we can no longer afford to throw away even one 'unimportant' day by not noticing the wonder of it all. We have to be willing to discover and then appreciate the authentic moments of happiness available to all of us every day.

A nap is not to be confused with sleeping. We sleep to recharge our bodies. We nap to care for our souls. When we nap, we are resting our eyes while our imaginations soar. Getting ready for the next round. Sorting, sifting, separating the profound from the profane, the possible from the improbable. Rehearsing our acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, our surprise on receiving the MacArthur genius award. This requires a prone position. If we're lucky, we might drift off, but we won't drift far. Just far enough to ransom our creativity from chaos.

A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved.

A powerful connection between two people is a potent psychic factor that exists regardless of either person's opinion about the relationship.

After self-nurturance, listening to the whispers of our hearts is probably the hardest task we've ever attempted.

All of us know about learning life's lessons through pain, struggle, and loss. But few of us realize that it is often the gentlest lessons that teach us most. Serendipity can instruct us as much as sorrow.

All we need is the awareness of how blessed we really are.

Always remember that dreams-your creative visualizations-must come before their physical manifestations.

Always remember, it's simply not an adventure worth telling if there aren't any dragons.

As the season of believing seems to wind down let me gently remind you that many dreams still wait in the wings. Many authentic sparks must be fanned before passion performs her perfect work in you. Throw another log on the fire.

Authentic success is living by your own lights.

Authenticity pushes us past our comfort zone - it's meant to.

Because the truth is - and we know it - we were born to die without regrets. Regret is the only wound from which the soul never recovers.

Become abundant with your compliments to others. We're all so fragile, especially when we put on a brave face. A sincere compliment can penetrate beneath even the most sophisticated masks to soothe troubled souls.

Before we can change anything in our life, we have to recognize that this is the way it is meant to be right now. For me, acceptance has become what I call the long sigh of the soul. It's the closed eyes in prayer, perhaps even the quiet tears. It's "all right," as in "All right, You lead, I'll follow." And it's "all right" as in "Everything is going to turn out all right." This is simply part of the journey...

Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy.

Being Grateful. That is the first step on the path to Joy.

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present - love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure - the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.

Celebrate the Sacred in the ordinary.

Change is the essence of life; change is the great challenge, the great constant. Change is the ultimate teller of tales.

Choice is destiny's soul mate.

Conscious choice is creative. Unconscious choice is destructive. That is how we end up living other people's lives.

Consider the track record of your naysayers. How many dreams have they successfully brought into this world?

Dare yourself to believe in your creativity, wherever it may lead you. Trust that where it leads, is exactly where you're supposed to be. Your authentic self knows where you're headed. Don't wrestle with Spirit, collaborate with it.

Despite all the doom and gloom that constantly assaults our senses, there is a way for us to ransom our lives and reclaim our futures: it consists in turning away from the world to recognize what in life makes us truly happy. For each of us, what that is will be different. But once we obtain this inner knowledge, we will possess the ability to transform our outer world. "You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself," the pilot and writer Beryl Markham reminds us. We cannot let this continue to occur.

Discerning our personal gifts is essential if we are to experience harmony in our lives.

dogs love us unconditionally and cats are big on redemption. Our sins and shortcomings don't bother them as long as we delight in their presence.

Don't wish today away. Don't waste it. Redeem one hour to be grateful. Let your thanksgiving rise above the din of disappointment - opportunities lost, mistakes made, the clamor of all that has not yet come.

dreams are our spiritual illustrated discovery journals.

Every day we're given chances to embrace the new.

Every morning when we wake up we've been given a wonderful gift-another day of life-so let's make the most of it. No one can do it for us. . . . Genuine happiness can only be realized once we commit to making it a personal priority in our lives. This may be a new behavior for some of us and a bit intimidating. Be gentle with yourself. It will all unfold. Like any new behavior, happiness can be learned.

Everyday epiphanies encourage us to cherish everything. Today a new sun has risen. Everything lives. Everything can speak to your soul passionately if you will be still enough to listen. "You have to count on living every single day in a way YOU believe will make YOU feel good about YOUR life," actress Jane Seymour suggests, "so that if it were over tomorrow, you'd be content.

Forgiveness is a form of gratitude. When we forgive others, we show them the mercy that we have often received and been thankful for.

Fortunately for us, life's highway has as many on ramps as it does off ramps.

Gradually as you become curator of your own contentment, you will learn to embrace the gentle yearnings of your heart.

Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos.

Gratitude is the most passionate transformative force in the cosmos. When we offer thanks to God or to another human being, gratitude gifts us with renewal, reflection, reconnection.

Greet everyone you meet with a warm smile. No matter how busy you are, don't rush encounters with coworkers, family, and friends. Speak softly. Listen attentively. Act as if every conversation you have is the most important thing on your mind today. Look your children and your partner in the eyes when they talk to you. Stroke the cat, caress the dog. Lavish love on every living being you meet. See how different you feel at the end of the day....

Half-truths are the devil's IOUs.

How could I expect more from the universe when I didn't appreciate what I already had?

How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we're really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance?

Human beings, as far as I can tell, seem to be divided into two subspecies -- the resigned, who live in quiet desperation, and the exhausted, who exist in restless agitation.

I approach my work with a passionate intensity, acting as if its success depends entirely on me. "But once I've done my best, I try to let go as much as possible and have no expectations about how my work will be received by the world."

I truly believe that we each have a House of Belonging waiting for us. Waiting to be found, waiting to be built, waiting to be renovated, waiting to be cleaned up. Waiting to rescue us. Waiting for the real thing: a grown-up, romantic, reciprocal relationship.

I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I'd known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd be born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.

If we are to flourish as creative beings, if we are to grow into wholeness, we must bloom wherever we are planted.