Quotes of John Welwood

This is a compilation of my tweets from John Welwood’s book Toward a Psychology of Awakening. Hence all these quotes are the length of tweets.

… how we relate to another inevitably follows from how we relate to ourselves …

… our outer relationships are but an extension of our inner life …

… we can only be as open and present with another as we are with ourselves.

Courage involves facing the world squarely and letting your heart be touched, forever opening to life, come what may.

The core wound … is the disconnection from our own being.

… our lives unfold within … structures … surrounded by vast reaches of open space.

When we laugh, we have just stepped out of a structure.

In any process of growth … we always reach this … point where we must decide whether we really want to move forward …

… who I think I am now is always determined by who I thought I was a moment ago.

At some point in our development, it’s time to let go of the fabricated control structures that once served us so well.

… our larger awareness is the ultimate holding environment that can allow us to embrace all our … feelings & experiences …

Most people in our culture did not receive … unconditional acceptance in … childhood.

The health of living organisms is maintained through the free-flowing circulation of energy.

… the ungraspable, open-ended nature of reality … is what allows life to keep creating and recreating itself anew in each moment

If relationships are to flourish, they need to reflect and promote who we really are …

The less we need to hide, the more we can come forward as we really are.

On one hand, we long to break out of our separateness …Yet at the same time, we also experience trepidation.

If we hold on too tight or let go too much, we lose our balance.

Unconditional love has its reasons, which reason cannot know.

Because we are of this earth, we exist within certain forms and structures (body … beliefs and values) …

The leader in pathological groups is usually a magnetic, charismatic person who exudes … boundless self-confidence.

Corrupt leaders prey deliberately on their followers’ sense of personal inadequacy.

… the more the followers give the leader power … , the more he can … force them to do anything … in order to maintain his approval.

The more that self-trust is broken down, the more the followers try to model themselves on … the leadership.

The more one depends on another for validation, the more one is likely to act in ways that compromise one’s integrity.

… the more one’s integrity becomes compromised, the less one trusts oneself, which increases one’s dependency on the leader.

Failing to recognize important distinctions … only contributes to the confusion …

… identity structures are made of beliefs.

Through learning to speak truthfully and listen respectfully … we start to practice genuine meeting and dialogue …

Community is born in the relationship between I and Thou.

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