The great art is to express our vitality through the particular channels and at the particular speed Nature foresaw for us.”

Healing both requires and implies regaining the vulnerability that made us shut down emotionally in the first place.

Genuine positive thinking—or, more deeply, positive being—empowers us to know that we have nothing to fear from truth.

“If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since.

Tuning out—by, say, daydreaming—enables the child to endure experiences that otherwise may trigger reactions that would land him in trouble. This kind

Children who become their parents’ caregivers are prepared for a lifetime of repression.

Where parenting fails to communicate unconditional acceptance to the child, it is because of the fact that the child receives the parent’s love not as the parent wishes but as it is refracted through the parent’s personality.

Experiences of proximate separation become part of the person’s psychological programming: people “trained” in this way in childhood are likely to choose adult relationships that re-enact repeated proximate separation dynamics. They may, for example, choose partners who do not understand, accept or appreciate them for who they are. Thus the

Attunement may also be absent if the parent never received it in his or her childhood. Strong attachment and love exist in many parent-child relationships but without attunement.