Sublime

Imagine that you are watching a quietly flowing brook with large leaves on it floating by. Each thought that comes into your mind, place it on a leaf and watch it float downstream. If it reappears, that is fine—just put the second version on a leaf too. The goal is to stay by the stream, watching your thoughts. If you discover you’ve stopped doing

His tragedy was just one among dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. By the time the cascade had run all the way out, maybe millions. When death grew that large, it stopped meaning anything.

These perpetrator parts would do the same thing in their psyches to their own vulnerable, childlike parts. This process—in which protectors in one generation take on the perpetrator burdens of their parents while they were being abused by those parents—is one way that legacy burdens are transferred.

In our fear and anxiety, we often try to control our environment to feel safe.

Our task is to recognize when we have thoughts, emotions or physical responses that are destructive, negative or harmful—and then do something about it.

Anything that you link to your self-worth can give rise to shame.

I was struck by how the deprivations that people experience can lead to eccentric kinds of compensation—like the hoarding syndrome of some of the poor.

One situation in which pathological bereavement could occur, I read repeatedly, was that in which the survivor and the deceased had been unusually dependent on one another. “Was the bereaved actually very dependent upon the deceased person for pleasure, support, or esteem?”

Two brain systems are relevant for the mental processing of trauma: those dealing with emotional intensity and context.