4 Quotes That Serve As the Portal to Possibility

Insights from Anais Nin on life, love, and loss

Anais Nin was a bold and bright 20th-century diarist and novelist who continually pushed the margins of what it meant to be a woman in a time when rights were few.

Nin was born in France in 1903. Her Cuban-born parents lived as artists, mainly in Paris and Spain. In an event that affected her deeply, Nin’s composer father, Joaquin Nin, left his wife and children, forcing them to set sail for a new life in America. While onboard the ship, young Nin wrote a letter to lure her father back to the family. This letter was never sent, but it was the beginning of her famous diary. She began her life-long work of creation in 1914 at the age of eleven and kept writing until her death 63 years later in 1977.

From this work and perhaps the most captivating of all is the enduring insights on life, love, and loss that Nin — purged onto the pages of her diaries, enlightening a portal of possibility and promise that would later converge into the most expansive and profoundly personal work.

Her diary, comprised of sixteen volumes, concentrated on her personal life and became the narrative of her search for freedom and fulfillment, in a confining and constrictive culture, especially for women at the time. At the forefront of Nin’s work was the belief that self-knowledge could be expanded through journaling, and that was the ultimate source of personal freedom.

Here are five quotes of timeless wisdom from the illustrious Anais Nin:

On writing:

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”―Anais Nin

Writing, creating, and conceptualizing ideas gives new life to those memories, the stories inside us that must be shared. We also write so that our humanness, our uniqueness, can live on in a sort of perpetual awareness.

The importance of pairing dreaming with doing:

“Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together. ”―Anais Nin

This quote speaks to the importance of concrete action. Dreaming is a beautiful thing, lending expansiveness to the heart and the mind, but those ideas must be paired with action to bring themselves into the world. Both dreaming and action need each other to come to fruition upon the fulcrum of possibility and promise.

Exploring the interconnectedness of all things:

“Life is a full circle, widening until it joins the circle motions of the infinite.”―Anais Nin

Life is not just a journey that comes to an end, but rather a life journey that continues through the generations of time. Love expands, widening our circle, while hate and fear retract. Each of us carries a piece of the other, and at some point, we will rejoin the infinite.

Stressing the crucial nature of perspective:

“We see things not as they are, but as we are. Because it is the ‘I’ behind the ‘eye’ that does the seeing.”―Anais Nin

Our internal narrative and experiences combine eloquently to give us our unique perspective. This is neither good nor bad; rather, it serves as an essential teaching tool that to broaden our minds, we need to step out of the “I” perspective.

Standing for courage:

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” — Anais Nin

Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the antidote to it, and it is required for a full-hearted authentic life. Feeling that fear, anxiety, and uncertainty but still taking a genuine risk paired with consideration and thought is the portal to possibility and expansive life.

Whatever your vocation is use it as an instrument for change, show up with courage, and watch your life amplify and augment.

Final Thoughts:

Throughout her 63 years of intensely personal and yet eventually public writing, Anais Nin created a writing expressionism style that advances the 21st century. Part of Nin’s beliefs encapsulated the idea that consciousness is a river of words and images that continually cascade from us as a message to the future about our shared cultural history. Nin’s life left a legacy that molded the awareness, insight, and mindfulness for current and future generations.

With love and gratitude,

Aurora

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