Poems & Quotes
Often times, I’ll share poems with my clients at the end of session if I feel they may benefit from it or it is applicable to what they are experiencing.
Poems can be powerful as they can help us connect to our own experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
It can also help us heal by encouraging us to express ourselves in a way that’s congruent to us. Perhaps through our own writing or journaling.
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life, healing & growth
Life, Healing & Growth
Click on each box below to expand and read the poem.
Click on the link to directly view the poem by the author.
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credits to adrienne maree brown
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“Things that are perfect
are dead things.
Empty things.
A silence beyond change or challenge.
An endpoint.
A blank page.
You are a wonderful messy thing.
An impossible thing made of salt
and rainwater.
Meat and electricity.
A dream with teeth.
You’re too good for perfection.”
credits to Jarod Anderson, The Field Guide to the Haunted Forest
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credits to David Whyte
Read here
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credits to Jelaluddin Rumi
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There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado.
Dam a stream and it will create a new channel.
Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet.
Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground.
The only safety lies in letting it all in – the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures and success.
When loss rips off the doors of the heart, or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth.
In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.
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credits to Vera Agnes
Read here
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credits to Maria Sabina
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credits to Mary Oliver
Read here
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credits to Mary Oliver
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credits to Wendy Cope
Read here
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credits to Carl Sandburg
Read here
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credits to Rainer Maria Rilke
Read here
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When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For the time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
- Wendell Berry
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If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
- Mary Oliver
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credits to David Whyte
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What's gone has made you what you are
So don't fear what's ahead
Put trust in what will be, will be
And choose to live instead
Don't live in the now worrying
What may or may not be
Take this moment in your time
And live it totally
There's no time like the present
Breathe deep and feel alive
Living in the here and now
Will help you rise and thrive
Now is all there ever is It's the only time that's real
Let the future take it's course
And leave the past to heal
credits to Vanessa Hughes
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credits to Portia Nelson
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credits to Hafez
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credits to David Whyte
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Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.
- Hafiz
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It only takes a reminder to breathe,
a moment to be still, and just like that,
something in me settles, softens, makes
space for imperfection. The harsh voice
of judgment drops to a whisper and I
remember again that life isn’t a relay
race; that we will all cross the finish
line; that waking up to life is what we
were born for. As many times as I forget,
catch myself charging forward
without even knowing where I’m going,
that many times I can make the choice
to stop, to breathe, and be, and walk
slowly into the mystery
- Danna Faulds
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credits to Ijeoma Umebinyuo
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credits to Charles C. Finn
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credits to Wendy Thompson Taiwo
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credits to Shane Koyczan
Read here
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It isn’t as easy as being “something that happened to you”
A package you opened once
You will wake up in a new zip code
Have to wander your way home
Carry a few of the things you love to this new place you live in now
So you buy throw pillows
You put up twinkle lights and have a big celebration
Point at the open windows and tell everyone who has ever seen you crying,
“Look! Look how I have not caged myself!
Look what I have built out of two paint buckets and the blessing of my still here body!”
But trauma leans into the bar cart
Spills a drink on the new rug
Breaks off the door handle on his way out
Trauma sends you letters without warning for the rest of your life just so you remember
Trauma knows exactly where you live
Who did you think built the house?
credits to Brenna Twohy
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The pain that made you
the odd one out
is the story
that connects you
to a healing world.
credits to Tanya Markul
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You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.credits to Mary Oliver
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“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
credits to Emily Dickinson -
Come new to this day.
Remove the rigid overcoat of experience,
the notion of knowing,
the beliefs that cloud your vision.Leave behind the stories of your life.
Spit out the sour taste of unmet expectation.
Let the stale scent of what-ifs waft back into the swamp
of your useless fears.Arrive curious, without the armor of certainty,
the plans and planned results of the life you’ve imagined.
Live the life that chooses you,
new every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.credits to Rebecca del Rio
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I am not the sum
of all my mistakes,
nor the product
of other people's hatred.
I am a story
in the making,
a symphony
still in composition.
I am not defined
by my suffering,
nor limited
by my wounds.
I am a healer,
a reconciler,
a bringer of peace
to my own heart.
I am not perfect,
but I am worthy
of love and compassion,
both from myself
and from others
credits to The Compassionate Self by Pádraig Ó Tuama
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are you okay
they ask
I respond
as quickly
as I can
so they will not
notice the earthquakes
in my voice
or the tsunamis
in my eyes
or the drought
in my heart
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If you are one who has practice
meeting the pain of the world,
we need you. Right now we need you
to teach us it is possible to swallow
what is weighty and still be able to rise.
We need you to remind us we can
be furious and scared and near feral
over injustice and still thrill at the taste
of a strawberry, ripe and sweet,
can still meet a stranger and shake
their hand, believing in their humanness.
We need you to show us how
we, too, can fall into the darkest,
unplumbed pit and learn there
a courage and beauty
we could never learn from the light.
If you have drowned in sorrow
and still have somehow found
a way to breathe, please, lead us.
You are the one with the crumbs
we need, the ones we will use to find
our way back to the home of our hearts. -
Some nights, the ache in your chest
for all that’s wrong in your life,
for all the cruelty of this world,
will wake you with its crackling
bonfire of fears. But other nights,
you will fall asleep to the scent
of peonies left breathing in a vase
on the dresser, that bouquet of burst-
open hearts the last thing you see
before closing your eyes. You live,
as we all do, between the extremes,
learning to lean in the direction
of whatever small pleasures you can
gather from your own backyard.
death, grief & Loss
Death, Grief & Loss
Click on each box below to expand and read the poem.
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When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.
Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.
There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.
Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.
It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.
Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.credits to John O’Donohue
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Look at someone you love today,
for one minute,as if you saw them for
the first time.As if they were the first ray
of sunlight, caught bythe tender passion of your eye,
lighting up your whole world.credits to Ron Starbuck
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Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.credits to W H Auden
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there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?credits to Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems
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When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purseto buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-poxwhen death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.When it's over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
credits to Mary Oliver
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Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.credits to Mary Elizabeth Frye
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It must be very difficult
To be a man in grief.
Since “men don’t cry” and “men are strong”
No tears can bring relief.
It must be very difficult
To stand up to the test.
And field calls and visitors
So that she can get some rest.
They always ask if she’s alright
And what she’s going through.
But seldom take his hand and ask,
“My friend, how are you?”
He hears her cry in the night
And thinks his heart will break.
And dries her tears and comforts her
But “stays strong” for her sake.
It must be very difficult
To start each day anew.
And try to be so very brave –
He lost his baby too.
- Eileen Knight Hagemeister