eleven-fiftynine

[eleven-fiftynine]

What a terrible feeling to love someone and not be able to help them.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

[eleven-fiftynine]

Your hope lies in accepting your life as it now lies before you, forever changed. If you can do that, the peace you seek will follow. Forever changed.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

[eleven-fiftynine]

May your eye go to the Sun, To the wind your soul….You are all the colors in one, at full brightness.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

[eleven-fiftynine]

Now all I see is someone who’s too afraid to get back out there. Everyone around you is going to give you a gentle push now and then, but never hard enough because they don’t want to upset Poor Violet. You need shoving, not pushing. You need to jump back on that camel. Otherwise you’re going to stay up on the ledge you’ve made for yourself.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

[eleven-fiftynine]

I’m still here, and I’m grateful, because otherwise I would be missing this. Sometimes it’s good to be awake.

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

[eleven-fiftynine]

We all know people who are smart. But that doesn’t mean they are wise. Understanding and wisdom come from surviving the pitfalls of life, thriving in life, having wide and deep contact with other people. Out of your own moments of suffering, struggle, friendship, intimacy, and joy comes a compassionate awareness of how other people feel—their frailty, their confusion, and their courage. The wise are those who have lived full, varied lives, and reflected deeply on what they’ve been through.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

Therapists are essentially story editors. People come to therapy because their stories are not working, often because they get causation wrong. They blame themselves for things that are not their fault, or they blame others for things that are. By going over life stories again and again, therapists can help people climb out of the deceptive rumination spirals they have been using to narrate themselves. They can help patients begin the imaginative reconstruction of their lives. Frequently the goal of therapy is to help the patient tell a more accurate story, a story in which the patient is seen to have power over their own life. They craft a new story in which they can see themselves exercising control.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

In theory, it should be possible to repair yourself alone. In theory, it should be possible to understand yourself, especially the deep broken parts of yourself, through introspection. But the research clearly shows that introspection is overrated.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

Avoidance is usually about fear. Emotions and relationships have hurt me, so I will minimize emotions and relationships. People who are avoidant feel most comfortable when the conversation stays superficial. They often overintellectualize life. They retreat to work. They try to be self-sufficient and pretend they don’t have needs. Often, they have not had close relationships as kids and have lowered their expectations about future relationships. A person who fears intimacy in this way may be always on the move, preferring not to be rooted or pinned down; they are sometimes relentlessly positive so as not to display vulnerability; they engineer things so they are the strong one others turn to but never the one who turns to others.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

We all want children to feel safe, to know that love is constant and unconditional, that they are worthy. The problem is that we as parents still carry, often unconsciously, the wounds and terrors of our own early years, which were, in turn, caused by the wounds and terrors of our parents’ early years, and so on and so on. The wounds and traumas get passed down from generation to generation.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

When, in adulthood, you get to know someone really well, you often develop a sense for how they were raised. You see in some people’s current insecurities how as children they must have been diminished and criticized. You see, in their terror over being abandoned, how they must have felt left behind when young. On the other hand, when you meet people who assume that the world is safe and trustworthy, that others will naturally smile upon them, you sense how as children they must have felt illuminated by love.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

If I’m ever in a similar situation again, I’ll understand that you don’t have to try to coax somebody out of depression. It’s enough to show that you have some understanding of what they are enduring. It’s enough to create an atmosphere in which they can share their experience. It’s enough to offer them the comfort of being seen.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

I don’t know what he was thinking on his final day, but I have read that depression makes it hard to imagine a time when things will ever be better. I have no evidence for this, but knowing Pete as I do, I strongly believe that he erroneously convinced himself that he was committing suicide to help his family and ease the hardship his illness had caused them. Living now in the wreckage, I can tell you if you ever find yourself having that thought, it is completely wrong.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

Depression, he said, was a “malfunction of the instrument we use to determine reality.”

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

The universe is a drab, silent, colorless place. I mean this quite literally. There is no such thing as color and sound in the universe; it’s just a bunch of waves and particles. But because we have creative minds, we perceive sound and music, tastes and smells, color and beauty, awe and wonder. All that stuff is in here in your mind, not out there in the universe.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

Diminishers make people feel small and unseen. They see other people as things to be used, not as persons to be befriended. They stereotype and ignore. They are so involved with themselves that other people are just not on their radar screen. Illuminators, on the other hand, have a persistent curiosity about other people. They have been trained or have trained themselves in the craft of understanding others. They know what to look for and how to ask the right questions at the right time. They shine the brightness of their care on people and make them feel bigger, deeper, respected, lit up.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks

[eleven-fiftynine]

On social media you can have the illusion of social contact without having to perform the gestures that actually build trust, care, and affection. On social media, stimulation replaces intimacy. There is judgment everywhere and understanding nowhere.

How to Know a Person by David Brooks