“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor… Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark though, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
Rumi, via The Body Keeps The Score (Page 279)
Emotional Intelligence Quotes
“Desensitization to our own or to other people’s pain tends to lead to an overall blunting of emotional sensitivity.”
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score (Page 224)
“Learning to observe and tolerate your physical reactions is a prerequisite for safely revisiting the past. If you cannot tolerate what you are feeling right now, opening up the past will only compound the misery and retraumatize you further.”
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score (Page 211)
“Emotion is not opposed to reason; our emotions assign value to experiences and thus are the foundation of reason. Our self-experience is the product of the balance between our rational and our emotional brains. When these two systems are in balance, we ‘feel like ourselves.’ However, when our survival is at stake, these systems can function relatively independently.”
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score (Page 64)
“Consider the difference between saying ‘I am sad’ and ‘I feel sad.’ Similar as those two statements may seem, there is actually a profound difference between them. ‘I am sad’ is a kind of self-definition, and a very limiting one. ‘I feel sad’ suggests the ability to recognize and acknowledge a feeling, without being consumed by it. The focusing skills that are part of mindsight make it possible to see what is inside, to accept it, and in the accepting to let it go, and, finally, to transform it.”
Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight
