David Richo Quotes

#1. Most people in relationships seldom know what they really want, ask for what they really want, or show what they really feel. Most people avoid or fear intimacy, consistent

David Richo

#2. We do not create our destiny; we participate in its unfolding. Synchronicity works as a catalyst toward the working out of that destiny.

David Richo

#3. Just a little progress is freedom from fear. - Bhagavad Gita

David Richo

#4. To be adult in relationship is not to be conflict-free, it's to resolve conflicts mindfully.

David Richo

#5. Spirituality is the intersection of three paths: letting go of ego, an unconditional yes to the conditions of human existence, and an immeasurable compassion.

David Richo

#6. We all recall the cruel stepmother in fairy tales. That archetype is often a necessary element in a fairy tale so that the heroine/hero can become a person of character and power. Stories of heroes and heroines often begin with a wound or loss or injustice and end with heroic acts of restoration.

David Richo

#7. The Five A's (attention, appreciation, acceptance, affection, allowing) are simultaneously the fulfillment of our earliest needs, the requirements of adult intimacy and of universal compassion, and the essential qualities of mindfulness practice.

David Richo

#8. Mindfulness is both a state of being and a daily spiritual practice, a form of meditation.

David Richo

#9. I see that mankind still survives after all its attempts to destroy itself and so I surmise that it is the law of love that rules mankind.

David Richo

#10. Once we make our relationship choices in an adult way, a prospective partner who is unavailable, nonreciprocal, or not open to processing feelings and issues, becomes, by those very facts, unappealing. Once we love ourselves, people no longer look good to us unless they are good for us.

David Richo

#11. The human heart holds much more love than it can ever disburse in one lifetime.

David Richo

#12. Relationships are not about how two people can survive each other but about how the whole world becomes more capable of love, with all its dim anguish and glowing rapture.

David Richo

#13. Most people think of love as a feeling, but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present.

David Richo

#14. What we are not changing, we are choosing.

David Richo

#15. The opposite of interpersonal trust is not mistrust. It is despair. This is because we have given up on believing that trustworthiness and fulfillment are possible from others. We have lost our hope in our fellow humans.

David Richo

#16. Early fear was felt cellularly and was indeed real. Defensive postures were necessary, but defenses generalize cellularly in adulthood and do not expire. It takes conscious work to undo them. Ironically, as long as we keep using defenses, we actually maintain the original force of the fear.

David Richo

#17. We were born with four words engraved on our bodies and in our hearts: Love me, hold me.

David Richo

#18. Evoke one good memory for each bad one from now on.

David Richo

#19. Bread takes the effort of kneading but also requires sitting quietly while the dough rises with a power all its own.

David Richo

#20. Humility means accepting reality with no attempt to outsmart it.

David Richo

#21. It is not that practice makes perfect but that practice is perfect, combining effort with an openness to grace.

David Richo

#22. True optimism is not the prospect of control over pain or elimination of it but survival through it.

David Richo

#23. There is a natural and inviolable tendency in things to bloom into whatever they truly are in the core of their being. All we have to do is align ourselves with what wants to happen naturally and put in the effort that is our part in helping it happen.

David Richo

#24. Love is the possibility of possibilities. Its farthest reach is beyond us, no matter how long we love or how much. It will always remain the mute mystery to whose ecstasy and ache we can only surrender with a yes.

David Richo

#25. Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.

David Richo

#26. Once we understand that what happens beyond our control may be just what we need, we see that acceptance of reality can be our way of participating in our own evolution.

David Richo

#27. Our tears are precious, necessary, and part of what make us such endearing creatures.

David Richo

#28. The foundation of adult trust is not "You will never hurt me." It is "I trust myself with whatever you do.

David Richo

#29. We can actually reconstruct our past by examining what we think, say, feel, expect, believe, and do in an intimate relationship now.

David Richo

#30. Thus, we strive for intimacy with the whole universe, not just with one person.

David Richo

#31. When we feel unsafe with someone and still stay with him, we damage our ability to discern trustworthiness in those we will meet in the future.

David Richo

#32. We do not live on the Earth, we are a part of how the Earth lives.

David Richo

#33. Synchronicity is a term used by Carl Jung to describe coincidences that are related by meaningfulness rather than by cause and effect.

David Richo

#34. Mindful grief means mourning and letting go of the past without expectation, fear, censure, blame, shame, control and so forth. Without such mindful grief, neither past nor person can be laid to rest.

David Richo

#35. In mindful grief, we become the landing strip that allows any feelings to arrive. Some crash, some land softly. Some harm us, but none harm us in a lasting way. We remain as they taxi away or as their wreckage is cleared away. We can trust that we will survive.

David Richo

#36. Each given of life comes to us trailing many graces.

David Richo

#37. When we notice a connection between our present fears and their origins in early life, we are finding out how much of our identity is designed by fear. Is fear the architect of me?

David Richo

#38. A wound does not destroy us. It activates our self-healing powers. The point is not to "put it behind you" but to keep benefiting from the strength it has awakened.

David Richo