Person Centered Quotes

We may find ourselves in a role similar to that of a gardener as we cultivate a space in which healing can naturally unfold.

In terms of neurobiology, this stance encourages us to lean into the reassuring awareness that our systems already contain seeds awaiting our attention.

For some examples, we humans are always seeking the warmest possible attachments we can imagine (Cozolino, Siegel), our brains are continuously yearning for the arrival of a co-organizing other (Badenoch, Cozolino, Schore), emotional regulation flows naturally from being in the presence of someone we trust (Beckes & Coan) and even our nervous systems have a preference for the social engagement circuitry that sustains connection (Porges).

With this kind of support from the biology inherent in both practitioner and patient, our bodies may begin to open into a welcoming state as others come towards us, with a sense of partnership being established rather than someone doing something to us.

However this also means letting go of the potential certainty that comes from feeling we are in charge. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

Remembering that the impulse to control is an indication that we are having a neuroception of danger, perhaps we can be compassionate rather than critical of ourselves when we do step in to overtly manage the process.

Perhaps we can begin to ask inside about the nature of the threat that brings on the need to assert control and fix.

As always, dropping the questions into our right hemisphere and not expecting a particular answer in this moment opens the way for a deeper understanding to emerge bit by bit. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

Each time I experience the unseen wisdom of a person's system, it deepens my trust in the inner process unfolding and my awe at the way we are organized to be protected until the possibility of healing arrives. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

I am not sure how we came to believe that we know more about what our people need than they do. A core, culturally supported assumption about their brokenness may have something to do with it, and so might our left-dominant culture and training that makes it more challenging to be present to anyone's implicit experience. Many it is equally about our inability to trust our own inner wisdom to guide us because no-one helped us listen when we were young. Without this trust, we may get frightened for our people and the process, and such feelings bring on the need to assert control ...

experiment with the pause, remembering that our rupture and repair are optimal, trust will grow as we and our 'patients' stumble together into the tentative, fluid process of attunement with one another that supports the awakening of the inherent wisdom and health. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

we are adaptive rather than disordered ~ Bonnie Badenoch

If we trust that our inner world knows what is needed next, one outcome isn't preferable to another.

It is so easy for us to want healing to pursue a more linear path: Something arises and it would be best if we could stay with that.

There can be a sense of disappointment in therapist, patient, or both if the sensation doesn't return. This might be perceived as a lack in our patient's ability to maintain contact, a reflection of our inadequacy of a therapist, or simply discomfort that the therapy feels stuck. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

The room was very quiet with that familiar deepening that arrives when something is happening underneath, beyond the words. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

It makes sense for us to want a symptom, an 'it' to go away. If we begin to sense that we are made up of many selves ... then we might instead say, 'the anxious part of me is really suffering. I wonder how we might help her'.

There is often a palpable softening as we gaze on a person inside who has value apart from the distressing symptom.

We also may sense more clearly that this experience isn't all of us, but belongs to a part who has had encounters that give this anxiety context and meaning.

The change of pronoun, granting personhood, may move us into a more right-centric way of perceiving, which also opens us to a more both/and perspective of broad acceptance, arouses our warm curiosity, expands receptivity to the present moment. It can really be a very profound change. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

In these pages, we keep returning to one foundational principle: providing the possibility of emotional/relational safety for our people, be they patients, children, partners, friends or strangers.

We are able to make this offer when they are experiencing their own neuroception of safety, not continuously, but as the baseline to which we return after our system has adaptively moved into sympathetic arousal or dorsal withdrawal in response to inner and outer conditions.

When we neuroceive safety, we humans automatically begin to open into vulnerability, and the movement of our "inherent treatment plan" (Sills, 2010) has a greater probability of coming forward.

When we have a neuroception of threat, we adaptively tighten down at many levels, from physical tension to activation of the protective skills we have learned over a lifetime (Levine, 2010). In that state, our innate healing path will often wisely stay hidden until more favorable conditions arrive. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

There are so many valuable techniques for regulation, for exploring and integrating traumatic experience, and so on. Once we get to know these protocols, they may pull on us in ways that invite us to seize control of the therapy.

The other pathway suggests that her system holds the answers and that if I can offer enough safe support, it will likely begin to speak with us.

At least cognitively, I can recognize that this person's inner world contains much more information about the root causes of her upset than I do.

From this perspective, I am less interested in dealing with symptoms than moving towards making room for the implicit origin to emerge so that the protective systems can take care of themselves. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

if our attention is what we're going to do next to accomplish a specific goal (often decrease a symptom) rather than openness to what the other person is bringing to the moment, we have stepped into our left hemispheres and out of relationship- and our patient will feel that as a kind of subtle abandonment. This interchange will likely happen below the level of conscious awareness and yet lead our person to step back a bit internally, awaiting the arrival of true presence, without agenda or judgement, so that safety can arise in the space in between. At that moment, the healing power inherent in this co-organizing/co-regulating relationship arrives. We have been returning to this crucial distinction in these pages, as much as possible with ongoing compassion for the challenge we experience as we open to the right remaining consistently in the lead. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

... we might be drawn into a more left-centric way of hearing ... and experience the promotion of safety as a somewhat mechanical process in which A inevitably leads to B-- [ie: the belief that 'my being in a ventral state will automatically draw you into one, and if it doesn't then there is something wrong with one of us'.]

Viewing it that way encourages us to turn social engagement into a technique, even a manipulation of the other person's nervous system toward what we view as a more desirable state. Ironically, when the left hemisphere is dominant rather than supportive of right-centric attending, we have already moved out of social engagement and thus are in no position to offer safe space to another. When we make an effort to return to it, we have forgotten that neuroception is continually arising automatically and not under the control of our will.

The very pressure to activate ventral makes the space between us unsafe. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

Joshua is one of the people who taught me about respecting pace, particularly when it is very slow.

I do believe we all heal as quickly as we can given the co-integrating nature of our embodied brains, so when the process unfolds very slowly, it often speaks to us of the magnitude of what is coming [emerging to be healed]. ~ Bonnie Badenoch

The next time you hear a person say,
'I don't have time' or 'I have no time,'
Take a moment to be with them.
Without time, that somebody becomes a nobody. ~ J.R. Rim

The quite person's mind is a raging ocean! ~ Sanjai Velayudhan

I'm not the kind of person who sits off by myself and ignores everyone. I like to be happy! ~ Jenna Boyd

If you see the Holy Spirit as a power, you will say 'I want more of the Holy Spirit' (especially in time of need). But if you see Him more as a Person, you will say 'I want the Holy Spirit to have more of me.' ~ Skip Heitzig

Too often, the person who wrecks our work is us. ~ Seth Godin

The person who dumps garbage into your mind will do you considerably more harm than the person who dumps garbage on your floor, because each load of mind garbage negatively impacts your possibilities and lowers your expectations. ~ Zig Ziglar

God sure esteems the growth and completing of one virtuous person, more that the restraint of ten vicious. ~ John Milton

Every person has contributed to me as a human, but a lot of the characters I do are ones I created. ~ Tracy Morgan

It was so strange to be in a state of intense conflict with a person she barely knew. ~ Liane Moriarty

Maybe that was what marriage meant, except that in theirs it had been a one-way street. He couldn't think of a single behavior of Becka's that he had altered in the slightest. But perhaps that was because there was so little he'd wanted to change, whereas she'd evidently viewed him as a fixer-upper from the start, structurally sound, the sort of property you wouldn't mind owning after you'd completed all the necessary renovations. First, though, you'd have to gut it, which was pretty much how Raymer felt by the end. As if the overhaul of his person was coming in over budget, and the person footing the bills was having serious second thoughts. ~ Richard Russo

In any organization, someone must be the boss. If it's even just one person, you've got to be the boss of yourself. ~ Malcolm X

She was the sort of person from whom one would expect to receive warm cookies, not plots. ~ Anne Elisabeth Stengl

A mistake from a good person always gets treated as crime. ~ Pratik Akkawar

(On talking about her three autistic sons).. I'm a better person because of them. They have showed me what it's like to struggle in life. They have showed me what is important in life. They are the strongest people I know. They have endured so much in their short lifespans already that most people haven't done in their entire lives. ~ Anonymous

In some cases . . . the knife can turn savagely upon the person wielding it. . . . You use the knife carefully because you know it doesn't care who it cuts. ~ Guy Kawasaki

In this country, in one way or another, everyone had bean, was, or would be part of the regime. "The worst thing that can happen to a Dominican is to be intelligent or competent," he had once heard Agustín Cabral say ...and the words had been etched in his mind: "Because sooner or later Trujillo will call upon him to serve the regime, or his person, and when he calls, one is not permitted to say no." [Agustín Cabral] was proof of this truth....As Estrella Sadhalá always said, the Goat had taken from people the sacred attribute given to them by God: their free will. ~ Mario Vargas Llosa

I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it. ~ Confucius

I am, first of all, a Christian and, secondly, a person with very very serious personal opinion, so I'm motivated by many many things and, certainly, not by the need or desire to satisfy other people's ideas of who I am. ~ Ken Hensley

It is a self-evident truth that a person who truly prays and seeks God's wisdom in life recognizes the sovereignty of God and is committed to seeking God's wisdom in life's important choices. ~ Ravi Zacharias

You should not do an autobiography if you want to tell the truth. There are a lot of things I know about people. If I can't say something good about a person, I don't want to say anything. And since I don't want to say anything bad, I won't write a book. ~ Abraham A. Ribicoff

Many space psychology experiments these days focus on ways to detect stress or depression in a person who doesn't intend to tell you about it. ~ Mary Roach

Some of the best things about being a vegetarian include, of course, contributing towards the welfare of animals. Being a vegetarian can also make you a healthier person, and it helps the environment. All of these things make vegetarianism worthwhile. It's really a win-win situation. ~ Laura Mennell

Let me say that whoever invented wanting, whoever came up with desire, whoever had the first one and let us all catch it like a hot-pink plague, I would like to tell that person that it wasn't fair of him or her to unleash such a thing upon the world without leaving us a warranty or at the very least an instruction manual about how to manage, how to live with, how to understand this thing that can happen in a person against her will, by which I mean desire and the need it gnaws in us and the shadow it leaves when it's gone. ~ Catherine Lacey

What is absolutely true is that any good [Television] series has a specific voice. And I think that voice is almost exclusively the domain of the executive producer ... As a staff writer you're not being called upon to be the great creative person. You're sort of called upon to understand the characters and their voices and put them through certain paces. ~ Howard Gordon

Astonishment: these women's military professions - medical assistant, sniper, machine gunner, commander of an antiaircraft gun, sapper - and now they are accountants, lab technicians, museum guides, teachers…Discrepancy of the roles - here and there. Their memories are as if not about themselves, but some other girls. Now they are surprised at themselves. Before my eyes history "humanizes" itself, becomes like ordinary life. Acquires a different lighting. I've happened upon extraordinary storytellers. There are pages in their lives that can rival the best pages of the classics. The person sees herself so clearly from above - from heaven, and from below - from the ground. Before her is the whole path - up and down - from angel to beast. Remembering is not a passionate or dispassionate retelling of a reality that is no more, but a new birth of the past, when time goes in reverse. Above all it is creativity. As they narrate, people create, they "write" their life. Sometimes they also "write up" or "rewrite." Here you have to be vigilant. On your guard. At the same time pain melts and destroys any falsehood. The temperature is too high! Simple people - nurses, cooks, laundresses - behave more sincerely, I became convinced of that…They, how shall I put it exactly, draw the words out of themselves and not from newspapers and books they have read - not from others. But only from their own sufferings and experiences. The feelings and language of educated people, strange as it may be, ~ Svetlana Alexievich

Maybe a person can be born to the wrong people," he said. "Maybe a person should have been put somewhere else. ~ Peter Hoeg

The person you love has all kinds of seeds in her: joy, suffering, and anger. If you water her anger, then in just five minutes you can bring the anger out in her. If you know how to water the seeds of her compassion, joy, and understanding, then these seeds will blossom. If you recognize the good seeds in her, you are watering her self-confidence and she will become the source of her own happiness as well as yours. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

If you're a kid who is always on the outside hoping to be on the inside, you're watching a lot. You're trying to figure out how to become a normal person in a society that considers you weird. ~ Katherine Paterson

Since the day I first met you, you've given me so many precious things. If I hadn't met you, I would never have become the person I am today. ~ Hisaya Nakajo

You can't do anything for a person who is stuck between being happy and being miserable. All you can do is get trapped in the middle, and anyone in the middle just gets squished.' -Grandma ~ Jack Gantos

I could be dramatic and go "He saved my life!", but sometimes you just need to see it again. Sometimes you need to see that person want it so badly for all the right reasons, and it makes you realize that no matter what you do you already won. ~ Kevin Drew

To my babies,

Merry Christmas. I'm sorry if these letters have caught you both by surprise. There is just so much more I have to say. I know you thought I was done giving advice, but I couldn't leave without reiterating a few things in writing. You may not relate to these things now, but someday you will. I wasn't able to be around forever, but I hope that my words can be.

-Don't stop making basagna. Basagna is good. Wait until a day when there is no bad news, and bake a damn basagna.

-Find a balance between head and heart. Hopefully you've found that Lake, and you can help Kel sort it out when he gets to that point.

-Push your boundaries, that's what they're there for.

-I'm stealing this snippet from your favorite band, Lake. "Always remember there is nothing worth sharing, like the love that let us share our name."

-Don't take life too seriously. Punch it in the face when it needs a good hit. Laugh at it.

-And Laugh a lot. Never go a day without laughing at least once.

-Never judge others. You both know good and well how unexpected events can change who a person is. Always keep that in mind. You never know what someone else is experiencing within their own life.

-Question everything. Your love, your religion, your passions. If you don't have questions, you'll never find answers.

-Be accepting. Of everything. People's differences, their similarities, their ~ Colleen Hoover

You can't stay in the dark for too long. Something inside you starts to fade, and you become like a starving person, crazy-hungry for light. ~ Amy Tan