THINGS WORTH SAVING

"A cognitive recounting of the past may only be a memory of a memory unless it is connected strongly to a bodily feeling, because every cell in our body recalls every event that impinged upon us in childhood. The body, more than the mind, is the real human unconscious, storing both the memory of pain and our attempts to avoid it. The work, then, is to find the accurate sense of what we felt and not necessarily a story line of exactly what happened."

"In codependency, the less we receive, the more we give, hoping that the giving will lead the other to give us more love. Since we do not feel loved enough, we believe we must not be giving enough. We keep giving more, but since we do not feel loved enough, we believe we must not be giving enough."

"A healthy person acknowledges the difference between occasional/circumstantial and ongoing/certain. We are not respecting ourselves when we put up with a general pattern of negativity or hardly any need fulfillment or happiness. But we are respecting our commitment when we tolerate occasional periods of deficiency."

"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."

"People dislike us for what they uncover not about us but about what we hide. Indeed, they like and respect us for our disarming admissions about our limits and inadequacies."

"There will never be only love or only peace in the world but there can be more love than before I got here and more peace because I stayed here."

"Spirituality is not about transcendence of the world but deeper involvement in it."

"When we realize that the givens of life, no matter how ferocious, are not penalties but ingredients of depth, lovability, and character, we can let go of the belief that we are immune (or need to be). "That can't happen to me" or "How dare they do that to me!" change to "Anything human can happen to me, and I will do my best to handle it." The strength to handle challenges, in fact, is directly proportional to how much we let go of entitlement."

"It is understandable that vulnerability is scary. After all, it involves not only showing our wounds, our need for others, our limitations. It also requires entrusting all those into the hands of another."

"Therapy is completed when a child can play alone."

"We fear the perilous givens of relating: betrayal, hurt, love, confrontation of egos, self-disclosure, abandonment, and engulfment. The last two of these are the central fears in relationships. You are not alone if you feel them."

"The worst thing about fear is what it does to you when you try to hide it."

"It's the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet tender joy."

"Anything our partner does that gives rise to a feeling in us deserves a report about that feeling and its impact on us."

"I go on loving you when I am angry. Can you still love me while I am angry at you?"

"If we truly know ourselves, nothing anyone else does is ever entirely strange or unforgivable."