Seven Great Wellness Quotes from IIN Teachers

Inspiration plays a key role in our lives – propelling us forward in our dreams, awakening us to our unlimited potential, and evoking greater creativity and innovation within us. While inspiration flows in and out of our day-to-day lives, it’s beneficial to seek out communities and people we know will inspire us to become even more. IIN is blessed to have a curriculum chock-full of such inspirational teachers.

Here is a selection of wellness quotes from some of our favorite teachers. Allow these motivational quotes to wash over your psyche and lift you to your highest potential! 

1. A health and fitness quote from Melissa Bourgeois:
Melissa Bourgeois reminds us of the powerful connection between our body and mind. We have the ability to shift our perception of reality by changing the way we carry ourselves.

“Your posture affects not only how other people perceive you, but how you perceive yourself. So what does that mean? If you make yourself small, you’ll feel small. If you make yourself powerful and big, you’ll feel more powerful and big.” 

2. A motivational health quote from Joan Borysenko, PhD:
Joan Borysenko, PhD, inspires us to cultivate presence, kindness, and care in our lives so that we can support our clients. 

“As a healthcare coach, you have a tremendous effect through your own kind presence, your ability to see people, even if it’s on the phone, with your voice, with the way that you listen, with how you interact with people. Because it turns out, in terms of modern-day psychology research, we understand that kindness care and the therapeutic presence is probably just as important as anything that you actually have to teach…and the only way to develop that presence is to have it inside yourself, to view yourself with the kindness, with the care, and with the compassion that you want to give to other people.”

3. A health quote from Venus Williams:
Venus shares that while self-education and being the authority of our healing journey are important, it’s equally important to ask for help when needed.

“You really have to educate yourself and…you have to speak up and let someone else help you because they might have a suggestion that gives you a breakthrough.” 

4. A healing quote from Arianna Huffington:
Arianna Huffington reminds us that self-care is critical, not only for our personal health but also for the collective planetary well-being. 

“In the end, if we don’t take care of ourselves, if we don’t stop being burned out ourselves, we will keep burning out the planet. Personal sustainability is connected to planetary sustainability.”

5. An uplifting wellness quote from Geneen Roth:
Geneen Roth reminds us that our joy is in the journey, not the destination.

“We have no choice about the tigers above us and the tigers below us. Pain is part of life. You manage to get one part under control and another part falls apart. You may be lucky enough to experience an oasis of time in which everything is smooth, everyone is well, and you are also thin and healthy. Whether it lasts an hour, a week, a month, a year, eventually there will be more tigers, but guess what? Yes, there’s also more strawberries; the sun keeps coming up; your child will say something that will crack your heart open; a new friend will appear, and you will once again be struck by the unbearable wonder and tenderness of life. Most of us ignore the strawberries because we believe there’s something even better up ahead. We spend our youth waiting for our lives to begin. We get old waiting for our lives to begin, and we die waiting for our lives to begin as if there were such a thing as getting it all right. As if perfection really exists. A certain kind of perfection does exist, even though the tigers will never go away. Perfection is choosing to enjoy the lushness life offers in whatever form it presents itself, even when you are not as thin as you want to be, you owe money to the IRS, and someone you love is dying…when there are tigers above you and tigers below you, there will always, always be a strawberry right in front of you.”

6. A mental health quote from Harville Hendrix, PhD:
Harville Hendrix, PhD, describes our ability to be free from anxiety and fear by establishing safety and restoring connection.

“Joy is us. Joy is our true primary emotion. It’s not an achievement; it’s not something you get to; it’s what you get when we remove the impediments to joy, which is anxiety and fear, and restore connection. You have to have safety. Not very sexy, is it? But without safety, nothing happens positively. Without safety, you will be anxious. And when you’re anxious, you will be defensive. And when you’re defensive, you will interrupt connecting…relationship is being, connecting is being, connecting is what is. And to experience that, you have to be and feel safe.”

7. A healing quote from Taryn Toomey: 
Taryn Toomey invites us to change our story from one of victimhood and doubt to one of empowerment and self-confidence. 

“So, you know when you first hit the road and you start running, and a story comes up of, ‘Oh, my legs are so heavy.’ Or ‘Oh, I’m only gonna do five minutes.’ I want you to think about that feeling as what’s moving out of the body. Think about the heaviness as what’s moving out, and then you talk to it. ‘Oh, here’s that thing. Here’s that heavy feeling. Here’s the thing that just wants to tell me to stop. Here’s the stagnation. Here’s the story.’ Then I want you to use a little effort and a little fire to get that to move out. Once you’ve started to clear that, in there you start to create a different story about how you’re able to. ‘Yes, I can. I’m okay. It’s just uncomfortable because it’s changing…’ Change the story. Change what you say to yourself in that space.”

Whether you find inspiration from one or all of these quotes, challenge yourself to seek out even more inspiration in your daily life. It is an act of self-love to immerse yourself in communities that foster creativity, inspire growth, and evoke joy. You deserve it!