Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.

We need to deprogram ourselves. I know for sure that you can't give what you don't have. If you allow yourself to be depleted to the point where your emotional and spiritual tank is empty and you're running on fumes of habit, everybody loses. Especially you.

When exhausted and feeling sorry for yourself, at least change your socks.

I can't get caught up in the negative because that destroys you.

You can't be a resource for others unless you nourish yourself.

It's okay to take time for yourself. We give so much of ourselves to others and we need to be fueled both physically and mentally. If we are in balance, it helps us in all our interactions.

Self-care is the number one solution to helping somebody else. If you are being good to yourself and your body and your psyche, that that serves other people better because you will grow strong enough to life someone else up.

It's cool to express myself, but I've had to learn that doing interviews isn't completely therapy - spilling everything about yourself isn't healthy all the time. But I've been through things that have made me a stronger person, and if I can help some people, I will.

As caretakers, we feel drained when caring for another, and in order to take care of someone else, we need to take care of ourselves at the same time.

You can't take care of charity unless you take care of yourself first.

I don't feel bad for myself.

In the event of an oxygen shortage on airplanes, mothers of young children are always reminded to put on their own oxygen mask first, to better assist the children with theirs. The same tactic is necessary on terra firma. There's no way of sustaining our children if we don't first rescue ourselves. I don't call that selfish behavior. I call it love.

Not everything made you stronger. It was possible to survive, yet still be crippled for your trouble. Sometimes it was okay to run away, to skip the test, to chicken out. Or at least to get some help.

You have to put your own oxygen mask before you put on others... It's a good metaphor for parenting

Depression seems to be related to fear, anger and frustration. When you're in a bad mood, even if you meet with your friends, you don't take pleasure in their company. But when you're in a good mood, even if things go wrong, you can cope with them without difficulty. This is why putting yourself in a good mood, making a point of developing a sense of loving kindness gives you greater inner strength.

Women are not taught to get a massage or do anything for ourselves because it makes us feel extraordinarily guilty. But the more we can fill ourselves up with things that make us happy, the happier we'll be, the happier our children will be, the more we have to give, and the more loving we'll be.

I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away.

Putting yourself first is not selfish. Quite the opposite. You must put your happiness and health first before you can be of help to anyone else.

Action and care will in time wear down the strongest frame, but guilt and melancholy are poisons of quick dispatch.

I think as time goes on, I'm trying to get less fatalistic, because that's just one of those unhealthy, kind of dangerous head spaces to get in, of not being able to tolerate sustained positive energy.

We wouldn't be alive without love we wouldn't have survived without running maybe we shouldn't be surprised that getting better at one could make you better at the other.

Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.

It's not selfish to give TO yourself as much as you give OF yourself

It’s self-full to be first, to be as good as possible to you. To take care of you, keep you whole and healthy. That doesn’t mean you disregard everything and everyone. But you want to come with your cup full. You know: ‘My cup runneth over.’ What comes out of the cup is for y’all. What’s in the cup is mine. But I’ve got to keep my cup full.

It's only intelligent to wish to look after yourself properly.