The problem is acceptance, which is something we're taught not to do. We're taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you have been given- that you are not in a pro...
I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I...
She may resent because she resents feeling ugly in sex--or, if "beautiful," her body defined and diminished by pornography. It inhibits in her something she needs to live, and gives her the ultimate anaphrodisiac: the self-critical sexual gaze. Alice...
At least a third of a woman's life is marked with aging; about a third of her body is made of fat. Both symbols are being transformed into operable condition-- women will only feel healthy if we are two thirds of the women we could be. How can an "id...
Were all first loves like that? Somehow she doubted it; even now it struck her as being more real than anything she'd ever known. Sometimes it saddened her to think that she'd never experience that kind of feeling again, but then life had a way of st...
Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance...
I remained silent, adrift in a torrent of mixed feelings. The Binding urged me to curl up in his embrace, to lose myself in his scent and surrender to his lips again; however, my own thoughts begged me to turn away. I didn’t know what to do. I coul...
They’d welcomed him aboard their ship. Nico had never allowed himself the luxury of friends, but the crew of the Argo II was as close as he’d ever come. The idea of any of them dying made him feel empty – like he was back in the giants’ bronz...
Those who feel guilty contemplating "betraying" the tradition they love by acknowledging their disapproval of elements within it should reflect on the fact that the very tradition to which they are so loyal—the "eternal" tradition introduced to the...
Gloria screamed, but nothing came out. She could feel the scream in her throat, but it was clinging there, too scared to climb out of her mouth. Raymond might have screamed, too--he wasn't sure. His face was an exploding red ball--that was what it fe...
For anyone who feels lost in their own way, going back to who you are and what you love or moving forward to whoever you are meant to be or meant to love, is the purpose of being lost. We lose ourselves, so we can find out who we truly are. And when ...
He grinned. "Well, girlfriend seems to be too shallow a word for what I feel for you. These past two weeks it's been as if you control my breathing. When I watched you with Marcus, my chest would tighten, and it became hard to breathe. But then I wou...
We all have an inner voice, our personal whisper from the universe. All we have to do is listen -- feel and sense it with an open heart. Sometimes it whispers of intuition or precognition. Other times, it whispers an awareness, a remembrance from ano...
I want to mother the world, I thought. I have so much love. Then—I have no business being a mother. I am a selfish woman. Then—I can do this. Millions of women have been mothers. Then—I feel very alone. I do not know what I'm capable of.
Last year, when Zora was a freshman, sophomores had seemed altogether a different kind of human: so very definite in their tastes and opinions, in ther loves and ideas. Zora woke up this morning hopeful that a transformation of this kind might have v...
I want to have the heart and mind of a queen,” she whispered. “I want it more than anything. But I’m only pretending. I can’t find the feeling of it inside me.” Fire considered her quietly. “I just want to know,” Bitterblue said. “If ...
The next day he woke up feeling like he'd been unshackled from his fat, like he'd been washed clean from his misery, and for a long time he couldn't remember why he felt this way, and then he said her name.
Many of the most deeply spiritual moments of my life haven't happened just in my mind or in my soul. They happened while holding my son in the middle of the night, or watching the water break along the shore, or around my table, watching the people I...
How we think and feel about ourselves has an enormous impact on our ability to perform. A healthy self-image can tip the scales in our favor and equip us with the certitude and grace we need to push forward in victory, even through the most difficult...
So long as we think of it objectively, time is Fate or Chance, the factor in our lives for which we are not responsible, and about which we can do nothing; but when we begin to think of it subjectively, we feel responsible for our time, and the notio...
Sam and I had lived together for many months at this point, and I thought I’d gotten to know her pretty well. I realized I was wrong after watching her dance. I can’t really describe it any better than that I felt like I was taking a peek at some...
