I choose to let positive attitudes lighten my being today.

— Maureen Brady

I choose what sort of relationship I want to have with my family of origin today.

— Maureen Brady

I create a home that is a safe and nurturing place for me, where I am free to gather myself.

— Maureen Brady

I look upon the gift of my life as a wondrous journey.

— Maureen Brady

In order to survive our youth, many of us became sensitized to which conditions we had to play to, to receive attention. No wonder we mistook this attention for love. We thought love came in finite quantities—it had to be competed for among siblings, or it had to be paid for with exacting dues.

— Maureen Brady

In the grief that comes with recognizing what happened to us, we often feel there is nowhere to turn for solace… We do things to keep it away, such as becoming overly busy or using drugs or alcohol to numb our feelings. When we are caught up in resistance, we do not feel hope, but when we surrender to our sadness fully, hope trickles in.

— Maureen Brady

It is a childish notion that once established, our boundaries will never be transgressed again... We shall have to stand for ourselves repeatedly for the rest of our lives. As we practice doing this, we come to greater ease... Eventually it may float over entirely into the positive realm—becoming only another chance to demonstrated our worthiness.

— Maureen Brady

It is not my wish to stay home so much that I become isolated, but to use the comforting influence of my home to restore and gather myself after each step I take in my expanding ability to participate in the world.

— Maureen Brady

I value and honor the way that my suffering brings me to further search and surrender.

— Maureen Brady

Many of us learned that keeping busy…kept us at a distance from our feelings... Some of us took the ways we busied ourselves—becoming overachievers & workaholics—as self-esteem… But whenever our inner feeling did not match our outer surface, we were doing ourselves a disservice… If stopping to rest meant being barraged with this discrepancy, no wonder we were reluctant to cease our obsessive activity.

— Maureen Brady