9 Self Care Quotes That Help You Slow Down and Breathe
The slowing down and the breathing are not the retreating from the life or the giving up of the productivity that the busy culture most commonly interprets them as. They are the specific, practiced returning to the life from the inside: the deliberate, brief, genuinely necessary pausing that returns the depleted person to the grounded, present, genuinely available version of the self that the slowing down most directly makes accessible and that the not-slowing-down most consistently prevents from being available for the life the person most essentially wants to be living.
These 9 self care quotes are chosen for the specific quality of the slow-down-and-breathe permission and illumination they carry. Each one addresses a particular dimension of what the slowing down most requires, what it protects, and what becomes available from the life that has genuinely paused long enough to breathe. Read them slowly. The slowing down begins from the reading.
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Get the Free Self-Care Starter Kit1. Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. — Anne Lamott
“The slowing down and the breathing are not the retreating from the life. They are the specific, practiced returning to the life from the inside: the deliberate, brief, genuinely necessary pausing that returns the depleted person to the grounded, present, genuinely available version of the self that the not-slowing-down most consistently prevents from being available.”
This self care quote from Anne Lamott carries the most practically grounded and most immediately recognizable truth about the slowing down: the unplugging works. The machine metaphor is the honest one for the specific quality of the depletion that the not-pausing produces in the person who has been running without the rest that the resetting requires: the processor that is attempting the too-many-simultaneous-tasks from the overheated, under-rested position is the processor most in need of the few minutes of the unplugging that restores the performance the overheating was degrading. Almost everything will work again. Including you. The few minutes of the unplugging are the most immediately available return on the self-care investment. Unplug. Work again.
2. Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time. — John Lubbock
This self care quote from John Lubbock carries the specific, honest defense of the rest against the culture that most consistently misidentifies the rest as the idleness: the lying on the grass, the listening to the water, the watching of the clouds are not the wasting of the time. They are the specific, essential, restorative engagement with the natural present that the working time most directly requires the restoring from. The slowing down to the grass-and-water-and-clouds level is not the productivity failure. It is the restoration of the capacity for the genuine productivity that the rest makes available and the not-resting most consistently depletes. Rest. The Lubbock quote is the specific, two-century-old permission that the busy culture has been needing to hear since before the culture was this busy.
3. You don’t always need a plan. Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens. — Mandy Hale
“Rest is not idleness. Lying on the grass, listening to the water, watching the clouds is not the wasting of the time. It is the specific, essential, restorative engagement with the natural present that the working time most directly requires the restoring from. Rest. The rest is not the productivity failure. It is the restoration of the capacity for the genuine productivity.”
This self care quote from Mandy Hale carries the specific permission to release the planning and the controlling orientation that most commonly prevents the genuine slowing down by maintaining the cognitive activation of the management and the planning even in the moments designated for the rest: the vacation spent planning the return, the weekend spent preparing for the week, the evening spent managing the tomorrow. The breathe, trust, let go, see what happens is the specific, sequential instruction for the genuine slowing down that the planning orientation has been preventing by maintaining the cognitive demand in the moments most available for the releasing of it. Breathe. Trust. Let go. See what happens. The slowing down is in the releasing.
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Keep the reminders to slow down and breathe visible in your daily space. Premier Print Works offers prints, mugs, and art for people who are doing the daily self-care work of building genuine rest and presence into the daily life and want their environment to reflect and reinforce the calm and permission they are actively cultivating. Visit the shop today.
Visit Premier Print Works4. Taking care of yourself doesn’t mean me first. It means me too. — L.R. Knost
This self care quote from L.R. Knost carries the specific reframing of the self-care that the person who has been withholding the self-care on the grounds of the selfishness most needs to hear: the me-too rather than the me-first. The self-care that the slowing down and the breathing most essentially provides is not the claiming of the priority over the others who require the care and the attention. It is the specific, honest, necessary inclusion of the self in the circle of the beings whose care and whose need are deserving of the attention and the tending. The me-too is the humble permission rather than the selfish demand. Take care of yourself too. The me-too is the self-care orientation that the me-first characterization was most unfairly preventing.
5. Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. — John De Paola
This self care quote from John De Paola carries the specific, counterintuitive truth about the relationship between the slowing down and the catching-up that the speeding-up orientation most consistently gets backwards: the things being chased are most available to be caught from the slowed, present, genuinely receptive position rather than the running, depleted, reactive position that the chase itself most consistently produces. The slowing down is not the falling behind. It is the specific, available practice of the becoming-catchable-by-the-very-things-the-running-was-chasing. The slow down. The chased things come around. The coming-around is most available to the person who has slowed enough to receive what the running was too fast to notice arriving.
6. Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort. — Deborah Day
“Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. The things being chased are most available to be caught from the slowed, present, genuinely receptive position rather than the running, depleted, reactive one. Slow down. The chased things come around. The coming-around is most available to the person who has slowed enough to receive what the running was too fast to notice.”
This self care quote from Deborah Day carries two specific, essential truths in the same sentence: the attainability of the nourishing self-care that supports the blossoming, and the worth of the self that the effort is being invested in. The nourishing in the direction you want to go is the specific, intentional self-care that is aligned with the genuine direction of the becoming rather than the generic self-care that does not serve the specific growth being undertaken. And the you are worth the effort is the specific, direct addressing of the specific objection that the person most withholding the self-care from the self most commonly maintains: the not-being-worth-it. You are worth it. The effort is attainable. The blossoming is the available result. The self care quote names all three.
7. There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither. — Alan Cohen
This self care quote from Alan Cohen carries the specific, balanced truth that the culture most consistently presents as the imbalanced pair: the work as the virtue and the rest as the indulgence. The Cohen quote refuses the imbalance by placing both in the category of the virtue and both in the category of the necessary: the work without the rest is the work that depletes the capacity for the genuine work it is consuming. The rest without the work is the rest that serves no restoration because there is no depletion to restore from. The both together are the sustainable, productive, genuinely virtuous life that neither alone most effectively produces. Use both. Overlook neither. The slowing down is the virtue. The work it restores is the virtue. Both.
8. Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel. — Eleanor Brownn
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither. The work without the rest is the work that depletes the capacity for the genuine work it is consuming. The rest without the work is the rest that serves no restoration. Both together are the sustainable, genuinely virtuous life that neither alone most effectively produces.”
This self care quote from Eleanor Brownn carries the most direct available refutation of the most common available objection to the slowing down and the self-care: the selfishness accusation. Self-care is not selfish. It is the specific, necessary maintenance of the vessel from which the service to the others is given. The empty vessel cannot serve. The depleted person cannot give from the depletion what the replenished person gives from the fullness. The slowing down and the breathing are not the withholding of the service from the people who need it. They are the replenishing of the capacity to serve that the not-slowing-down most consistently exhausts without the replenishment that the service requires to be genuinely available. Fill the vessel. The service follows the filling.
9. Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. — Oprah Winfrey
This self care quote from Oprah Winfrey closes the list with the one that most completely and most directly names what the slowing down and the breathing most essentially is the practice of: the returning to the present moment, the only one available for the certain knowing, from wherever the anxiety about the future or the regret about the past has taken the attention. Breathe. Let go. This moment. The present moment is the only one the person in it can know with certainty is here. The slowing down is the returning to the here. The breathing is the practice of the here. The here is the only moment in which the genuine living, the genuine self-care, and the genuine presence are available. Breathe. The here is available right now. The slowing down is the choosing of it.
How Amara and Kezia Each Found the Self Care Quote That Most Directly Gave Them the Permission to Slow Down They Had Been Withholding From Themselves
Amara had been in the specific pattern of the person whose self-care most consistently fell to the last position in the priority order: the everyone-else-first orientation that the L.R. Knost quote most precisely names and most directly addresses. The self-care had been withheld not from the indifference to the own wellbeing but from the specific, ingrained belief that the caring for the others was the obligation that the caring for the self was the indulgence in competition with. The Knost quote arrived as the specific reframing that the either-or orientation had been preventing: not me-first and not not-me but me-too. The me-too was the permission that the me-first characterization had been withholding by framing the self-care as the claiming of the priority over the others rather than the inclusion of the self in the circle of the beings deserving the care. She took the permission. The self-care is now in the me-too position rather than the never-first position it had been occupying. The others are still cared for. The self is now also cared for. The me-too was the entire intervention the Knost quote most directly provided. The permission was always available. The quote named the permission. The naming made the taking of it possible.
Kezia’s self care quote was the Anne Lamott one: almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. She had been in the specific resistance to the unplugging that the productivity identity most commonly produces: the specific belief that the stopping was the falling behind, the pausing was the failing to maintain the pace, and the few minutes of the not-working was the few minutes of the not-keeping-up with the demands that were always outpacing the capacity to meet them. The Lamott quote arrived as the most practically framed available permission for the specific, brief, restorative unplugging that the productivity identity had been preventing: not the philosophical case for the rest but the pragmatic, engineering-language case for the restart that restores the performance the overheating was degrading. The few minutes of the unplugging produced the specific restoration of the cognitive performance and the emotional availability that the continuous-running had been progressively degrading without the clear causal attribution that the overheating produces in the machine more visibly than in the person. She unplugs now. Briefly, deliberately, regularly. The working-again that follows the unplugging is the specific, available, consistently demonstrated validation of the Lamott quote that the productivity identity most needed the pragmatic case for rather than the self-care case that the productivity identity had been dismissing as the indulgence the pragmatic case for performance most effectively replaced.
The Slowing Down and the Breathing These 9 Self Care Quotes Are Illuminating Is the Specific, Deliberate, Genuinely Necessary Practice of the Returning to the Present Self From the Depleted, Reactive, Chronically-Not-Resting Position That the Not-Slowing-Down Most Consistently Produces.
Slowing down and breathing is the self-care that the nine quotes on this list most collectively illuminate as the specific, available, genuinely necessary practice: the unplugging that restores the working, the rest that is the virtue alongside the work, the me-too permission that includes the self in the care, the breathe-trust-let-go releasing of the controlling orientation, the nourishing in the direction of the genuine blossoming, the slowing that makes the chased things catchable, the filled vessel from which the genuine service most sustainably flows, and the returning to the present moment that the breath most directly produces. These nine self care quotes are the specific, honest companions for the deliberate choosing of the slowing down and the breathing that the depleted, reactive, not-resting life most needs.
Find the one or two quotes on this list that most specifically name what the current daily pace most needs to hear. Sit with them for the few minutes the reading most naturally invites. Let the reading be the beginning of the slowing down. The breath is available right now. The slowing down begins from wherever the reading finds you.
Free Download: The Self-Care Starter Kit
Let these self care quotes be the reminder that slowing down and breathing starts with the daily self-care practices that build and maintain the grounded inner presence the genuine rest requires. The free Self-Care Starter Kit gives you those practices. Download it free today.
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Keep the reminders to slow down and breathe visible in your daily space. Visit Premier Print Works for prints, mugs, and art for people who are doing the daily self-care work of building genuine rest and presence into the daily life and want their environment to reflect and reinforce the calm and the permission they are actively cultivating every day.
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The content on A Self Help Hub is for informational and inspirational purposes only. The self care quotes, reflections, and personal stories in this article offer general support for everyday wellness, personal development, and intentional living. They are not professional mental health advice, psychotherapy, medical advice, or any form of clinical treatment.
If you are dealing with significant burnout, anxiety, depression, or other conditions affecting your daily wellbeing and your ability to rest and recover, please speak with a qualified mental health professional. General self-help content is not a substitute for professional care.
The stories and composite characters in this article, including Amara and Kezia, are illustrative. They are based on common experiences and created to make the content relatable. They are not real people. Any resemblance to a specific person is coincidental.
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