Feedback Loop

Growth, Healing 0

The human brain must do three operations when confronted with a bad situation. The first is in the Toddler brain. When something bad happens — or seems like it might happen — the alarm sounds in the Toddler brain: fear, anger, shame, anguish. The alarm is usually triggered by external change (cues in the environment) or internal change — something felt, thought, recalled, or imagined. (Remember, the Toddler brain has only primitive reality-testing; toddlers confuse reality with what they feel, think, remember, and imagine.) The second operation is in the adult brain, where the alarm/signal is interpreted and the perceived bad thing assessed for threat and damage. The third and most important operation, improve (without making things worse), is in the more profound part of the Adult brain. Alas, those who have developed habits of retreating to the Toddler brain under stress tend to get stuck in a feedback loop of the first two operations. Instead of testing the alarm against reality, the interpretations and assessments by habit enhance it by justifying it. They never get to the Adult brain’s ability to improve.

— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 123-124

Call to Courage

Growth 0

If there is one thing failure has taught me, it is the value of regret. Regret is one of the most powerful emotional reminders that change and growth are necessary. In fact, I’ve come to believe that regret is a kind of package deal: A function of empathy, it’s a call to courage and a path toward wisdom. Like all emotions, regret can be used constructively or destructively, but the wholesale dismissal of regret is wrongheaded and dangerous. “No regrets” doesn’t mean living with courage, it means living without reflection. To live without regret is to believe you have nothing to learn, no amends to make, and no opportunity to be braver with your life.

— Brené Brown, Rising Strong, p. 210-211.

Growing Up

Compassion, Growth 0

We turn Toddler brain feelings into Adult brain values by activating instinctual motivations to improve, appreciate, protect, and connect. We make the final transition from feelings to values by expanding on “I’m disappointed, but I’m okay.” It looks like this: “I’m disappointed, so I will improve, appreciate, connect, protect.”

— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 117

Growth and Development

Acceptance, Growth 0

We get very angry with ourselves. We think we ought to be supermen and superwomen from the start. The Dalai Lama’s serenity didn’t come fully formed. It was through the practice of prayer and meditation that the gentleness, the compassion grew, his being patient and accepting — within reasonable limits. Accepting circumstances as they are, because if there are circumstances that you cannot change, then it’s no use beating your head against a brick wall; that just gives you a headache. This is a vale of growth and development.

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, quoted by Douglas Abrams in The Book of Joy, p. 92

Do It For You.

Acceptance, Gratitude, Growth 0

The ultimate issue isn’t whether people deserve your negative thoughts; certainly many people do. The more important point is that they are your thoughts in your head, and you want them to be as beneficial to you as possible. We cannot appreciate and feel devalued at the same time. As long as you appreciate, you will not feel devalued, and you’ll eventually soar above.

— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 113

An Ever-Enlarging Enough

God, Growth 0

There are good things God must delay giving, until his child has a pocket to hold them — until God gets his child to make that pocket. God must first make him fit to receive and to have. There is no part of our nature that shall not be satisfied — and that not by lessening it, but by enlarging it to embrace an ever-enlarging enough.

— George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, Third Series, “The Light,” quoted in Discovering the Character of God, edited by Michael Phillips, p. 156

Learning Takes Time.

Growth, Life 0

“Sometimes we get too angry with ourselves thinking that we ought to be perfect from the word go. But this being on earth is a time for us to learn to be good, to learn to be more loving, to learn to be more compassionate. And you learn, not theoretically.” The Archbishop was pointing his index fingers at his head. “You learn when something happens that tests you.” And then he was pretending to be speaking as God might. “‘Hello, you said you wanted to be more compassionate.’ ‘Hello, you wanted to be a little more laid-back.'”

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, quoted by Douglas Abrams in The Book of Joy, p. 91-92

Love Is an Inside Job.

Core Value, Growth, Life, Love, Relationships 0

Through her own challenging experiences of both love and solitude, she had come to know that love is first and foremost an inside job — not in the sense of trying to love herself with positive affirmations but rather in becoming intimate with her own experience, with allowing herself to be transparent to herself and others rather than protecting her heart for fear of being known too well and then rejected.

She was also engaged in a creative and fulfilling life that she loved. As an individual ripens, becomes something in herself, as Rilke puts it, there is less need to find someone else to fill the missing gap. Athena wasn’t averse to an intimate relationship; on the contrary, she knew that she wanted one, but she didn’t need it.

— Roger Housden, Dropping the Struggle: Seven Ways to Love the Life You Have, p. 74-75