If you are experiencing strange symptoms that no one seems to be able to explain, they could be arising from a traumatic reaction to a past event that you may not even remember. You are not alone. You are not crazy. There is a rational explanation for what is happening to you. You have not been irreversibly damaged, and it is possible to diminish or even eliminate your symptoms.

All Quotes

If you are experiencing strange symptoms that no one seems to be able to explain, they could be arising from a traumatic reaction to a past event that you may not even remember. You are not alone. You are not crazy. There is a rational explanation for what is happening to you. You have not been irreversibly damaged, and it is possible to diminish or even eliminate your symptoms.

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Quotes

All Quotes

— Peter Levine

More Quotes

"…when you find the courage to turn inward, to become curious about the labyrinths and caves that make up your inner world, everything changes."

— Sheryl Paul

"…anxiety represents not only an attempted return of the repressed but also a striving on the part of the total personality toward a re-establishment of unity, harmony, oneness, “health.”"

— Rollo May

"…the social nature of the human being as the source of our uniquely creative intellectual capacities as well as our capacity for anxiety."

— Rollo May

"Fears may mask anxiety."

— Rollo May

"Just as too much physical force can break a child’s bones, too much control can break a child’s spirit and fracture his psyche. It can cause a splintering of self, causing a child to disown some parts of himself and to inflate others."

— Beverly Engel

"Sanity—mental health—is a state of flow and well-being; being grounded, resilient, and balanced; possessing self-esteem; and being able to adjust to the events of life."

— David Richo

"Anxiety was born in the very same moment of mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it — just as we have we have learned to live with storms."

— Paulo Coelho

"One must have a chaos inside oneself to give birth to a dancing star."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It creates the failures. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic."

— Anais Nin

"There is nothing wrong with anxiety. Although we cannot control God’s time, it is part of the human condition to want to receive the thing we are waiting for as quickly as possible."

— Paulo Coelho

"… although anxiety is a part of life, never let it control you."

— Paulo Coelho

"Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering."

— Peter A. Levine PhD

"… what doesn’t destroy me makes me stronger."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"The person … in the grip of an old distress says things that are not pertinent, does things that don’t work, fails to cope with the situation, and endures terrible feelings that have nothing to do with the present."

— Harvey Jackins

"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."

— Ernest Hemingway

"Just as too much physical force can break a child’s bones, too much control can break a child’s spirit and fracture his psyche. It can cause a splintering of self, causing a child to disown some parts of himself and to inflate others."

— Beverly Engel

— Father Thomas Keating

"When we feel held by a caring presence, by something larger than our small frightened self, we begin to find room in our own heart for the fragments of our life, and for the lives of others. The suffering that might have seemed “too much” can awaken us to the sweetness of compassion."

— Tara Brach

"… trauma, undigested and locked in our body, randomly breaks through into consciousness. For years after the actual danger is past, a person who has been traumatized may relive an event as if it were continually occurring in the present."

— Tara Brach

"Perhaps the biggest tragedy in our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns. Entangled in the trance of unworthiness, we grow accustomed to caging ourselves in with self-judgment and anxiety, with restlessness and dissatisfaction."

— Tara Brach

"No matter what problems we struggle with—anxiety, depression, negative rumination, self-doubt, chronic pain—they do not have to keep us from acting in a way that brings our lives meaning and purpose."

— Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.

"Anxiety is simply insight that we haven’t yet found a productive use for, that hasn’t yet made its way into art or philosophy."

— Alain De Botton

"Anxiety is not a sign of sickness, a weakness of the mind or an error for which we should always seek a medical solution. It is mostly a hugely reasonable and sensitive response to the genuine strangeness, terror, uncertainty and riskiness of existence."

— Alain De Botton

"We can notice whether we are anxious about accidents or misfortunes, and how much anger, irritation, fear, anxiety, or worry are still in us. As we become aware of the feelings in us, our self-understanding will deepen."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

"When we’re anxious, worried, or angry, we can’t make good decisions. When we’re free, we make better decisions. This freedom is something we can attain whenever we like with the practice of breathing in mindfulness, walking in mindfulness."

— Thich Nhat Hanh

"Traumas can be defined as experiences that cause people to develop erroneous beliefs about themselves or the world which keep them from living to their full potential and causing them suffering."

— Laurel Parnell

— John Welwood

"The brain is malleable and can be reshaped, and thus so can the neural circuits that contribute to depression and anxiety."

— Alex Korb

"Those of us who have suffered from extreme physical, sexual, and emotional abuse have a big challenge trying to create a loving Inner Adult."

— Margaret Paul

"When our Inner Child feels consistently unloved by our Inner Adult, the Child’s false beliefs, adopted in childhood when parents were unloving, are reinforced—beliefs that we are bad, wrong, unlovable, unimportant, inadequate, defective in some way."

— Margaret Paul

"In overcoming the destructive force of trauma, our innate potential… lifts us to new heights of mastery and knowledge."

— Peter Levine

"The challenge of trauma treatment is not only dealing with the past but, even more, enhancing the quality of day-to-day experience… When you can’t be fully here, you go to the places where you did feel alive—even if those places are filled with horror and misery."

— Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.

— Peter Levine

— Peter Levine

"Ultimately, the main goal of trauma therapy is to relegate the trauma to its rightful place in the client’s past."

— Babette Rothschild

— Babette Rothschild

"While dissociation appears to be an instinctive response to save the self from suffering—and it does this very well—it exacts a high price in return."

— Babette Rothschild

"Depression hurts. It’s the “black dog” of the night that robs you of joy, the unquiet mind that keeps you awake. It’s a noonday demon that only you can see, the darkness visible only to you."

— Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel V. Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn

— Alex Korb

"… by making small changes in your thoughts, actions, interactions, and environment, it’s possible to change the activity and chemistry of the key brain circuits underlying depression and anxiety."

— Alex Korb

"People first awaken to a spiritual dimension in their lives in an incredible variety of ways. Some people seem to open up to it through traumatic experiences… Other people awaken through meditation or through religious experiences. Others arrive at it through sex or through drugs."

— Ram Dass