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.

Click on the underlined links to learn more about their work, buy their book, and support the artist.

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.

  • credits to adrienne maree brown

  • credits to Jarod Anderson, The Field Guide to the Haunted Forest

  • credits to David Whyte

  • credits to Jelaluddin Rumi

  • 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.

    - Danna Faulds

  • credits to Vera Agnes

  • credits to Maria Sabina

  • credits to Mary Oliver

  • credits to Mary Oliver

  • credits to Wendy Cope

  • credits to Carl Sandburg

  • credits to Rainer Maria Rilke

  • 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

  • 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

  • credits to David Whyte

  • credits to Vanessa Hughes

  • credits to Portia Nelson

  • credits to Hafez

  • credits to David Whyte

  • 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

  • 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

  • credits to Ijeoma Umebinyuo

  • credits to Charles C. Finn

  • credits to Wendy Thompson Taiwo

  • credits to Shane Koyczan

  • credits to Brenna Twohy

  • credits to Tanya Markul

  • credits to Mary Oliver

  • credits to Emily Dickinson

  • credits to Rebecca del Rio

  • credits to The Compassionate Self  by Pádraig Ó Tuama

death, grief & Loss

Death, Grief & Loss

Click on each box below to expand and read the poem.

  • credits to John O’Donohue

  • credits to Ron Starbuck

  • credits to W H Auden

  • credits to Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

  • credits to Mary Oliver

  • credits to Mary Elizabeth Frye

  • 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