1.
A chief cause of unhappiness is what I call mental movies. Mental movies are a misuse of the imagination. You know how it goes. You have a painful experience with someone, then run it over and over in your mind. You visualize what you said, what he did, how you both felt. As awful as it is, you feel compelled to repeat the film day and night. It is as if you were locked inside a theatre playing a horrible movie.
Vernon Howard
2.
Whenever someone sorrows, I do not say, “forget it,” or “it will pass,” or “it could be worse” - all of which deny the integrity of the painful experience. But I say, to the contrary, “It is worse than you may allow yourself to think. Delve into the depth. Stay with the feeling. Think of it as a precious source of knowledge and guidance. Then and only then will you be ready to face it and be transformed in the process.
Peter Koestenbaum
3.
The universe is a soul making machine, and part of that process is learning, maturing, and growing through difficult and challenging and painful experiences. The point of our lives in this world isn't comfort, but training and preparation for eternity.
Lee Strobel
4.
As I look back at the entire tapestry of my life, I can see from the perspective of the present moment that every aspect of my life was necessary and perfect. Each step eventually led to a higher place, even though these steps often felt like obstacles or painful experiences.
Wayne Dyer
5.
Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self.
Basil Pennington
6.
We don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences.
Andrew Solomon
7.
I've had some painful experiences in my life, but I feel like I'm trivializing them by using them for a scene in a movie. I don't want to do that. It just makes me feel kind of dirty for having done that.
Christian Bale
8.
You cannot make steel until you have made the iron white-hot in fire. It is not meant for harm. Trouble and disease have a lesson for us. Our painful experiences are not meant to destroy us, but to burn out our dross, to hurry us back Home. No one is more anxious for our release than God.
Paramahansa Yogananda
9.
Have you ever sought God with your whole heart, or have you simply given Him a feeble cry after some emotionally painful experience?
Oswald Chambers
11.
I think being jilted is one of life's most painful experiences. It takes a long time to heal a broken heart. It's happened to all of us and never gets any easier. I understand, however, that playing one of my albums can help.
Frank Sinatra
12.
If we lose our hope, that's our real disaster!
Dalai Lama
13.
By what sort of experience are we led to the conviction that spirit exists? On the whole, by searching, painful experience. The rose Religion grows on a thorn-bush, and we must not be afraid to have our fingers lacerated by the thorns if we would pluck the rose.
Felix Adler
14.
To get to forgiveness, we first have to work through the painful experiences that require it.
Christiane Northrup
15.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well timed,' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word 'Wait!' It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'
Martin Luther King, Jr.
16.
Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength.
Dalai Lama
17.
Most people who have grown up introverted in this very extroverted culture of ours have had painful experiences of feeling like they are out of step with what's expected of them. Parenting can pose unique challenges for introverted parents, who fear that their own painful experiences will be repeated in their children's lives.
Jonathan Cain
18.
God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others.
Rick Warren
19.
If I hadn't gone through some of the painful experiences in my life, I would not be me.
Beyonce Knowles
20.
Painful experiences are not meant to linger. They are meant to teach us what they need to teach us, and then dissolve.
Marianne Williamson
21.
Most people who have grown up introverted in this very extroverted culture of ours have had painful experiences of feeling like they are out of step with what's expected of them.
Susan Cain
22.
I'M OFFENDED, because of the insulting comments I've seen that are not only insensitive but dismissive to the painful experiences of others.
Benjamin Watson
23.
You as the press secretary have to protect the president's interests and the White House's interests more broadly. And a lot of people inside the White House, as you learned, sometimes with painful experience, have competing agendas, have differing points of view, have priorities they're trying to protect.
Dee Dee Myers
24.
Over time, as the thinking mind begins to settle [through the practice of meditation], we’ll start to see our patterns and habits far more clearly. Sometimes this can be a painful experience. I can’t overestimate the importance of accepting ourselves exactly as we are right now, not as we wish we were or think we ought to be. By cultivating nonjudgmental openness to ourselves and to whatever arises, to our surprise and delight we will find ourselves genuinely welcoming the never-pin-downable quality of life, experiencing it as a friend, a teacher, and a support, and no longer as an enemy.
Pema Chodron
25.
Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences.
Maurice Sendak
26.
Any painful experience makes you see things differently. It also reminds you of the simple truths that we purposely forget every day or else we would never get out of bed.
Amy Poehler
27.
1992 was the worst year of my life, to watch my dad lose. It was a painful experience. Yet when I became president, it was so much easier to be president.
George W. Bush
28.
I love bad movies, whereas going to the theater for me is a painful experience. I think it's really hard to sit and watch actors do something live and have it not go well.
Zoe Kazan
29.
There are enough painful experiences that go along with this trip that it keeps me in reality. It ain't all gems and roses.
Dick Latvala