Katrina Kenison Quotes

• Alone-in moments of prayer or meditation, or simply in stillness-we breathe more deeply, see more fully, hear more keenly. We notice more, and in the process, we return to what is sacred.

  Katrina Kenison

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Prayer

  52 Copy quote

• Solitude is the soul's holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.

  Katrina Kenison

  Being Alone, Holiday, Opportunity

  23 Copy quote

• Meaning and purpose come not from accomplishing great things in the world, but simply from loving those who are right in front of you, doing all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.

  Katrina Kenison

  Purpose, World, Where You Are

  14 Copy quote

• Growth and transformation occur not by changing who we are, but as we summon the courage to be who we are.

  Katrina Kenison

  Growth, Who We Are, Transformation

  Katrina Kenison (2013). “Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment”, p.67, Hachette UK

  16 Copy quote

• It has taken awhile, but I certainly do know it now ­­– the most wonderful gift I had, the gift I finally learned to cherish above all else, was the gift of all those perfectly ordinary days.

  Katrina Kenison

  Taken, Ordinary Days, Wonderful

  16 Copy quote

• One of the greatest challenges I've faced as a mother-especially in these anxious, winner-takes-all times-is the need to resist the urge to accept someone else's definition of success and to try to figure out, instead, what really is best for my own children, what unique combination of structure and freedom, nurturing and challenge, education and exploration, each of them needs in order to grow and bloom.

  Katrina Kenison

  Mother, Children, Unique

  10 Copy quote

• We are the windows through which our children first see the world. Let us be conscious of the view.

  Katrina Kenison

  Children, Views, World

  10 Copy quote

• Perhaps the real point of life is simply to wear us down until we have no choice but to start abandoning our defenses. We learn that the way things are is simply the way they are meant to be right now, and then, suddenly, at long last, we catch a glimpse of the abundance in the moment--abundance even in the face of things falling apart.

  Katrina Kenison

  Real, Fall, Long

  10 Copy quote

• I know I can't make time slow down, can't hold our life as it is in a freeze frame or slow my children's inexorable journeys into adulthood and lives of their own. But I can celebrate those journeys by bearing witness to them, by paying attention, and, perhaps most of all, by carrying on with my own growth and becoming. Now it dawns on me that the only way I can figure out what I'm meant to be doing is to try to understand who I'm meant to be...I will not waste this life, not one hour, not one minute. I will not take for granted the blessing of our being here...I will give thanks.

  Katrina Kenison

  Children, Blessing, Journey

  7 Copy quote

• ...there is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day, if we are only awake enough to experience them when they come and wise enough to appreciate them.

  Katrina Kenison

  Wise, Hands, Appreciate

  7 Copy quote

• As I loosen my grip on the past, as I keep taking one small step after another in the direction I want to go, I discover I'm being supported and guided after all, and that as soon as I'm willing to embrace change, something or someone comes along and shows me how. Magic wasn't something I had to go in search of; it was here within me, all the time. When hearts are open, when love is flowing, magic happens.

  Katrina Kenison

  Heart, Past, Love Is

  8 Copy quote

• Now I see that the journey was never meant to lead to some new and improved version of me; that it has always been about coming home to who I already am.

  Katrina Kenison

  Home, Journey, Coming Home

  Katrina Kenison (2013). “Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment”, p.152, Hachette UK

  10 Copy quote

• Stay focused on what is beautiful and abundant even as illness carves more and more of what you love away

  Katrina Kenison

  Beautiful, Stay Focused, Illness

  6 Copy quote

• I take the seashell from my jeans pocket and rub my fingers across its silken, indented surface, shallow as my own open hand. This chalice, subtly shaped by some divine intelligence to allow water to flow in and out with ease, is what I aspire to become: a vessel through which feelings can pour in and spill right out again, without all the grasping and holding that obstructs the flow. Can I be as serene and simple as this bleached shell, rubbed smooth by wind and water, receiving and releasing, filling and emptying and filling again, eternally receptive to the currents of life?

  Katrina Kenison

  Simple, Hands, Wind

  7 Copy quote

• we can learn to trust our maternal selves and to have faith in the innate goodness and purity of our children - even when we feel overwhelmed and the kids are pushing all our buttons. we can support one another....we can be understanding of each other and easier on ourselves.

  Katrina Kenison

  Children, Kids, Self

  4 Copy quote

• In stillness, we find our peace. Knowing peace at home, we bring peace into the world.

  Katrina Kenison

  Home, Knowing, World

  7 Copy quote

• When we focus on what is good and beautiful in someone, whether or not we think that they "deserve" it, the good and beautiful are strengthened merely by the light of our attention.

  Katrina Kenison

  Beautiful, Thinking, Light

  5 Copy quote

• Life finds its balance. Children grow up. Second chances come along. In the meantime, I could choose to savor this moment. What good would it do to allow annoyance to interfere with gratitude?

  Katrina Kenison

  Gratitude, Children, Growing Up

  4 Copy quote

• One thing we've learned this summer is that a house is not an end in itself, any more than "home" is just one geographic location where things feel safe and familiar. Home can be anyplace in which we create our own sense of rest and peace as we tend to the spaces in which we eat and sleep and play. It is a place that we create and re-create in every moment, at every stage of our lives, a place where the plain and common becomes cherished and the ordinary becomes sacred.

  Katrina Kenison

  Summer, Home, Sleep

  4 Copy quote

• I can only bring peace to my children when I possess it myself.

  Katrina Kenison

  Children, My Children, I Can

  11 Copy quote

• Magic wasn't something I had to go in search of; it was here, within me, all the time. When hearts are open, when love is flowing, magic happens.

  Katrina Kenison

  Heart, Love Is, Magic

  Katrina Kenison (2013). “Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment”, p.153, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• At times, my nostalgia for our family life as it used to be--for our own imperfect, cherished, irretrievable past--is nearly overwhelming.

  Katrina Kenison

  Past, Nostalgia, Imperfect

  Katrina Kenison (2013). “Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment”, p.10, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• In simplicity, there is freedom - freedom to do less and enjoy more.

  Katrina Kenison

  Simplicity, Enjoy

  4 Copy quote

• Reading, reading actively, strengthens the soul.

  Katrina Kenison

  Reading, Soul

  4 Copy quote

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