After listening to hundreds and hundreds of [people's] stories over the last twenty years, I think I would have to say that most people do not recogn… - Rachel Naomi Remen

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After listening to hundreds and hundreds of [people's] stories over the last twenty years, I think I would have to say that most people do not recognize the strength of the life force in them or the many ways that it shows itself to them...So when people first come, this is the place we usually start - talking about life itself, our attitude toward it, our experience of it, our trust or distrust of it. Developing an eye to see it, in others and in ourselves. In the beginning is the life force. After more than fifty years of living, I have learned it can be trusted.

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About Rachel Naomi Remen

Rachel Naomi Remen (born February 8, 1938, New York, New York) is a pediatrician who gained fame as an author and teacher of alternative medicine in the form of integrative medicine. Together with Michael Lerner, she is a founder of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program, a cornerstone program at Commonweal. She is the founder of the Institute for the Study of Health & Illness. She has been featured on the PBS television series, Thinking Allowed. Remen's most well-known books include Kitchen Table Wisdom and My Grandfather's Blessing, both of which made The New York Times Best Seller list. Kitchen Table Wisdom has been translated into 21 languages, and has sold over 700,000 copies worldwide. She is also the founder of a medical student curriculum called "The Healer's Art" used in medical schools throughout the United States.

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Additional quotes by Rachel Naomi Remen

Those who don't love themselves as they are rarely love life as it is either. Most people have come to prefer certain of life's experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain or even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all cost, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness. Or even that the love we have been given can be trusted. It is natural, even instinctive to prefer comfort to pain, the familiar to the unknown. But sometimes our instincts are not wise. Life usually offers us far more than our biases and preferences will allow us to have. Beyond comfort lie grace, mystery, and adventure. We may need to let go of our beliefs and ideas about life in order to have life.

"Wholeness lies beyond perfection. Perfection is only an idea. For most experts and many of the rest of us it has become a life goal...A perfectionist sees life as if it were one of those little pictures that used to appear in the newspapers over the caption "What's wrong with this picture?" If you looked at the picture carefully you would see that the table only had three legs or the house had no door. I remember the "Aha!" that these pictures evoked in me as a child. I wonder now why anyone would want to take such satisfaction in seeing what is missing, what is wrong, what is "broken." The pursuit of perfection has become a major addiction of our time. Fortunately, perfectionism is learned...which is why it's possible to recover."

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