The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.

The flower replied: You fool! Do you imagine I blossom in order to be seen? I blossom for my own sake because it pleases me, and not for the sake of others. My joy consists in my being and my blossoming.

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety.

Beware of stripping a patient who can't bear the chill of reality. And don't exhaust yourself by jousting with religious magic: you're no match for it. The thirst for religion is too strong, its roots too deep, its cultural reinforcement too powerful.

A curious thought experiment. . . #Nietzsche's message to us was to live life in such a way that we would be willing to repeat the same life eternally

One thing I feel clear about is that it's important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven't really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won't look back upon my forties with regret.

You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.

Living safely is dangerous.

“Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.”

"To fully relate to another, one must first relate to oneself. If we cannot embrace our own aloneness, we will simply use the other as a shield against isolation." Dr. Irvin Yalom

Here is a short excerpt from the new book, Hour of the Heart, written with my son, Ben (Ben Yalom Creative Therapy). The publisher choose a section that captures the core dilemma at the heart of my experience quite well! The publication date in the US is December 10.