Quotes by Therapists - Page 3

Red onions are especially divine. I hold a slice up to the sunlight pouring in through the kitchen window, and it glows like a fine piece of antique glass. Cool watery-white with layers delicately edged with imperial purple...strong, humble, peaceful...with that fiery nub of spring green in the center...
Mary Hayes-Grieco
Realizing the emptiness of a "spirituality" -- and of a "spiritual" nurture -- that remains in the clouds need not bring us or our children to a dead end. It is a turning point. Now we can begin to deepen our awareness of the genuine spirituality of life's humblest moments.
Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick
You can't "let go". You can't "detach with love". You can't let them "hit bottom". You can't seem to implement the strategies you have learned when you are faced with your adult child's chaos and anxiety. When you try to do this, it makes you physically and emotionally ill, and the anxiety and fear becomes unbearable.
Mary Crocker Cook
It could not have been easy for Mother, an only child, to grow up without a father and with a mother who was remote. Photos of her as a child show her extremely dressed up --Cornie's beautiful little doll. But a daughter, unlike a doll, grows up, and might fall in love with and marry someone her mother does not like; she becomes an individual with her own ideas.
Cornelia Maude Spelman
Times like this, I don't wish for ignorance. I look around and I see the bloated ignorance of the lumpen proletariat: roly-poly, sausage-fingered, ginger-topped fathers of at least two illegitimate children trying to massage the asses of waiflike, peroxide-scarred students who are themselves trying to navigate adulthood with their new-found freedom from outdated parenting.
Ayize Jama-Everett
Tantric scholars and Kundalini gurus often draw a distinction between the chakras as witnessed through Kundalini experiences and the Westernized model of the chakras as a "personal growth system." Some claim that this distinction is so great that there is no meaningful relationship between the two...yet I do not see these experiences as unrelated, but existing on a continuum. I firmly believe that clearing the chakras through understanding their nature, practicing related exercises and using visualization and meditation, prepares the way for a spiritual opening that is apt to be less tumultuous than is so often the case for Kundalini awakenings. I believe this Westernization is an important step for speaking to the Western mind in a way that is harmonious with the circumstances in which we live, rather than antithetical to it. It gives us a context in which these experiences can occur.Likewise, there are many who say that the chakras, as vortices in the subtle body, have nothing whatsoever to do with the physical body or the central nerve ganglia emanating from teh spinal column, and that a spiritual awakening is not a somatic experience. Because an experience is not *entirely* somatic does not mean that its somatic aspect is negated.... I believe this view is just more evidence of the divorce between spirit and body that I find to be the primary illusion from which we must awaken.
Anodea Judith
Nowhere is moral shortcoming more prevalent than in the intersection between our espoused morality and the way we engage romantic and sexual partners. In truth, how we function sexually is a microcosm of the way that we are in the world. We might ask ourselves, "Are we being selfish, considerate, or dismissive? Are we minimizing, compliant or controlling?" Sex is the ultimate laboratory where we can actually try out new ways of relating to ourselves and our lover, being conscious and mindful of how we impact another person. It takes great humility to open a genuine exploration of our lived--not just stated--morality. But to live by the dictates of our own internal compass brings equally great joy, serenity, and self-respect.
Alexandra Katehakis
Your feelings have a natural shelf life.
Deborah Sandella
We might feel that we must demonstrate explicitly when we’re upset, or not upset. This perceived need may stem from our family of origin, from how we learned to be heard when a simple “no” wasn’t enough. We may have learned to mask certain feelings, or portray feelings that weren’t ours. But as adults we each need to learn to state our personal truth without having to prove it or shout it.
Alexandra Katehakis
I'll turn into a god of pain and disease and build an altar to you from the bones of your murderer. Their suffering will be my first odes, and they will not end until I feel satisfied that even dead, resting wherever you are resting, you can hear the pain of the idiot that thought your death would go unavenged.
Ayize Jama-Everett
The ManAlive program teaches how the “angry man” is more often a response to experiencing a threat to their “image,” which triggers a fight or flight response. When the sympathetic nervous system gets triggered – breathing is more rapid, heart rate increases, blood pressure goes up – men call this stimulated response “anger.” In fact, anger is more often a response to injustice. What these men are experiencing is not anger but an arousal state. This is key information for men to have because, as they learn to interrupt this hyperarousal, they have more oppor-tunity to connect with what they may actually be feeling.
Mary Crocker Cook
Feelings will come and go, but you are always responsible for your actions.
Linda Mintle
If the parent represses the girl's anger not just once but over and over again, a deeper injury occurs: the girl will eventually dismantle her anger response. Ultimately, it's safer for her to cut off a part of her being than to battle the person on whom her life depends.
Patricia Love
The anger response, like the fear response, is a frequent target for repression. Imagine a 6-year-old girl who is angry at her 10-year-old brother for teasing her. In response, she might make an angry face, yell at her brother, and strike out at him with her fists. It’s an instinctual, energizing reaction designed to protect her from danger. Someone is violating her sense of well-being, and she’s afraid that if she doesn’t stop the intruder, she’ll get hurt.“A wise parent would validate the girl’s anger — it’s infuriating to be teased — and help her find a verbal rather than a physical way to express it. ‘You are very mad at your brother for teasing you,’ says this model parent, ‘I would be, too. Tell him in words how angry you feel. He needs to know.’ This way, the girl can protect herself from her brother and purge herself of her anger without having to resort to physical violence. Her self-protective anger remains intact. It has simply been given a ore ‘civilized’ form of expression.
Patricia Love
When I feel angry, I want to say something mean, or yell, or hit. But feeling like I want to is not the same as doing it. Feeling can't hurt anyone or get me into trouble, but doing can." (Bunny from picture book)
Cornelia Maude Spelman
Balance is the key to a long and happy life.
Janet Gallagher Nestor
The first and immediate thing to do when you find yourself stuck in terror is to breathe!
Deborah Sandella
Since we have been primed to think of the subconscious as a closet of monsters to be avoided, we tend to fear it. Thus, we avoid the unconscious storage room where the creative solution is hidden.
Deborah Sandella
Are you repeating someone else's narrative, taking it for granted? Talk therapy sessions and 12-step recovery shares help develop the ability to present a coherent life narrative through the safe structure of clear rules of communication that support healthy self-expression and self-awareness.
Alexandra Katehakis
I looked at sky this morning and realized summer is almost gone which really made me sad because it doesn't seem as though its been here at all.
Beatrice Sparks
When we fail, we cut the string. Then God ties it up again, making a knot and thereby bringing us a little closer to Him. Again and again our failures cut the string, and with each additional knot God keeps drawing us closer and closer.
Sharon A. Hersh
Life isn't a merry-go-round, it's a roller coaster. Life won't always be smooth, it may not always be pretty, but it will be an adventure — one not to be missed.
Robert Glover
Many survivors insist they’re not courageous: ‘If I were courageous I would have stopped the abuse.’ ‘If I were courageous, I wouldn't be scared’... Most of us have it mixed up. You don’t start with courage and then face fear. You become courageous because you face your fear.
Laura Davis
Although healing brings a better life, it also threatens to permanently alter life as you’ve known it. Your relationships, your position in the world, even your sense of identity may change. Coping patterns that have served you for a lifetime will be called into question. When you make the commitment to heal, you risk losing much of what is familiar. As a result one part of you may want to heal while another resists change.
Laura Davis
Healing is achieved through turning on the light of your soul and allowing it to shine.
Janet Gallagher Nestor
Survivors often develop an exaggerated need for control in their adult relationships. It’s the only way they feel safe. They also struggle with commitment—saying yes in a relationship means being trapped in yet another family situation where abuse might take place. So the survivor panics as her relationship gets closer, certain that something terrible is going to happen. She pulls away, rejects, or tests her partner all the time.
Laura Davis
When your energy is not in present time, you don't have the energy to fuel your body-mind. To be able to heal your body, you need to have a large percentage of your energy in present time. This explains partially why some people are able to heal themselves quickly and others are not.
Candess M. Campbell
Often feelings of shame, powerlessness, and self-hate are bottled up with the memories, and as the memories come through, these feelings do, too.Yet healing isn't just about pain. It's about learning to love yourself.
Laura Davis
Self-love is meant to be your foundation. It is your birthright. Once you get it – once you really feel what it is like to love yourself… to fall in love with yourself – you might never want to leave this stage.
Annette Vaillancourt
By giving to yourself you are fulfilled, abundant and generous. You have spare love to share.
Annette Vaillancourt
Self-love diminishes no one. It blesses others.
Annette Vaillancourt
The result of mindful awareness is the development of our virtues, which are the basic positive building blocks of our life.
Janet Gallagher Nestor
Dedicate each day to living relaxed and worry-free. Consciously open your heart to the flow of Creation and Creation's energy. By doing so you have the power to create each day, one day at a time.
Janet Gallagher Nestor
People have worried about things for centuries, but it has never once had a positive effect on the outcome of a situation.
Lisa M. Schab
Each person change themselves first, and then let your change act as a leader for others to make the changes they need.
Janet G Nestor
Love sparkles out from those giving and receiving it. It can be seen and felt. Love causes flowers to bloom, providing beauty. it causes hearts to bloom, providing the beauty which is instilled within me and you. Love always causes more love to grow.
Janet G Nestor
All things are a living message from creation to mankind; all things, even the smallest blade of grass or the smallest insect. Each carries its own message about life and has an understanding of its role and what it is to accomplish during its lifetime.
Janet G Nestor
Love sparkles and shines out from those giving and receiving it. It can be seen and felt. Love causes flowers to bloom providing beauty. It causes hearts to bloom, providing the beauty that is instilled within me and you.
Janet G Nestor
Our hearts are magnets. We attract to our heart the emotions that live within it
Janet G Nestor
Each needs an opportunity to love and experience Love.Yeshua: One Hundred Meaningful Messages for Messengers
Janet G Nestor
Stand up for the underdog, the 'loser.' Sometimes having the strength to show loving support for unacknowledged others turns the tides of our own lives.
Alexandra Katehakis
How can you get through to yourself?
Alexandra Katehakis
Endow yourself with healthy self-esteem. What is the feeling tone in your life that radiates in you and makes you shine, that makes you feel whole, that makes you feel your heart? That feeling tone, which we long to hear from others, is the tone we want to practice with ourselves. That’s where we want to live with ourselves. It doesn’t happen from the outside in. That’s why it’s called self-esteem.
Alexandra Katehakis
There is a big difference between listening to an interesting story and recognizing an important one.
Lyssa Danehy deHart
What others are doing or accomplishing is irrelevant to your growth.
Janet Gallagher Nestor
As the expert in knowing yourself, you get to decide what you want to explore in your internal landscape.
Lyssa Danehy deHart
Inspired action comes from the guidance of Spirit, not ego. When in doubt, don’t. Inspired action is responsive, not reactive.
Annette Vaillancourt
When loneliness is a constant state of being, it harkens back to a childhood wherein neglect and abandonment were the landscape of life.
Alexandra Katehakis
When emotions turn and stay sour, when thoughts become cynical and judgmental, good and compassionate treatment is on the line. Helpers who become sour and cynical tend to begrudge their high need clients for their neediness. There is a risk that helpers become too well-practiced at taking a bleak view of those they have avowed to assist. There is a temptation to begin to blame clients for their failure to improve. If treatment ends pre-maturely, with either a client never returning to treatment or a helper 'firing' them out of frustration, there is a tendency for the client to take the fall. Of course what we are talking about here are signs of burnout.
Scott E. Spradlin
The logic behind magic is that we create what we are imagining.
Mary Faulkner
In general, I have noticed that many Codependent men have adopted a “self” based on either an exaggerated male gender role or a reaction to a gender role conflict. The challenge when working with male codependents is to address their gender role exaggeration or conflict directly to see how this gender role “self” has been created as a result of early attachment disruption.
Mary Crocker Cook
Few men realize how much of their lives are lived in pursuit of the values our culture has traditionally associated with masculinity. These values – a primary focus on work, logical thinking and always being in emotional control – have many benefits to men and their families. When taken to extremes, the pursuit of traditional masculine values becomes a cage for feelings, a stranglehold on life itself.
Mary Crocker Cook
When I consider the men (like my father) I have treated in psychotherapy, I recognize the challenge I face as a counselor. These men are in counseling due to an insistent wife, troubled child or their own addiction. They suffer a lack of connection with the people they say they love most. Chronically accused of being over controlling or emotionally absent, they feel at sea when their wives and children claim to be lonely in their presence. How can these people feel “un-loved” when (from his perspective) he has dedicated his life to their welfare?Some of these men will express their lack of vitality and emotional engagement though endless service. They are hyperaware of the moods, needs and prefer-ences of loved ones, yet their self-neglect can be profound. This text examines how a lack of secure early attachment with caregivers can result in the tendency to self-abandon while managing connections with significant others. Their anxiety and distrust of the connection of others will manifest in anxious monitoring, over-giving, passive aggressive approaches to anger and chronic worry. For them, failure to anticipate and meet the needs of others equals abandonment.
Mary Crocker Cook
Dissociation from the body and emotions – numbness – is a basic requirement of the male ideal. Hardy and Hough point out that the patriarchal culture’s influence is so strong on this point that it interferes with men ever recognizing that pain is a normal indicator of a problem. And as the pain or discomfort increases, men are forced to choose between two problematic alternatives:If I admit I’m sick then I must do something about it. That may entail seeing a doctor which implies I’m weak, not in control of myself, not tough enough.However, if I don’t get help, I’ll get sicker and more vulnerable, really helpless
Mary Crocker Cook
This dissociation from the body extends to emotional disengagement. Without access to his feelings a man can’t help but lose track of who he is, what his priorities are and what is normal for him.
Mary Crocker Cook
It is very likely that men who are more gender role identified would never be seen as codependent because so many of their gender role traits are “normal” for an avoidantly attached codependent. Men with gender role conflict may pre-sent as more anxious, in general, and are more likely to be identified as codependent.
Mary Crocker Cook
He was too busy checking out and checking in, making and breaking plans, buying and losing cell phones, playing computer games and pool, looking at stock quotes, and living the chaotic life that effectively took up all his energy and time.
Dalma Heyn
Visionary Fiction speaks the language of the soul. It offers a vision of humanity as we dream it could be.
Jodine Turner
When you use your imagination, it is a bit like putting on night-vision goggles to see forms in the shadows of your head, heart, and spirit.
Deborah Sandella
We do not have control over many thingsin life and deathbut we do have controlover the meaning we give it.
Nathalie Himmelrich