Bessel van der Kolk Quotes
We are a hopeful species. Working with trauma is as much about remembering how we survived as it is about what is broken.
Bessel van der Kolk
Quotes to Explore
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There are two indices of genuine art: it is inimitable and it is ineffable.
Auguste Renoir
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The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn't know enough to take a vacation.
Clarence Day
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The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.
Sophocles
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Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.
Epictetus
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I and me are always too deeply in conversation.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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He who finds a thought that lets us a little deeper into the eternal mystery of nature has been granted great peace.
Albert Einstein
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Healthy, well-informed, balanced criticism is the ozone of public life.
Mahatma Gandhi
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Caricature is the tribute that mediocrity pays to genius.
Oscar Wilde
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Don’t sit and wait. Get out there, feel life. Touch the sun, and immerse in the sea.
Rumi
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After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their lives. These attempts to maintain control over unbearable physiological reactions can result in a whole range of physical symptoms, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and other autoimmune diseases. This explains why it is critical for trauma treatment to engage the entire organism, body, mind, and brain.
Bessel van der Kolk
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We can speak of trauma when that system fails: when you beg for your life, but the assailant ignores your pleas; when you are a terrified child lying in bed, hearing your mother scream as her boyfriend beats her up; when you see your buddy trapped under a piece of metal that you’re not strong enough to lift; when you want to push away the priest who is abusing you, but you’re afraid you’ll be punished. Immobilization is at the root of most traumas. When that occurs the DVC is likely to take over: Your heart slows down, your breathing becomes shallow, and, zombielike, you lose touch with yourself and your surroundings. You dissociate, faint and collapse.
Bessel van der Kolk
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As the snail's world grew more familiar, my own human world became less so; my species was so large, so rushed, and so confusing.
Elisabeth Tova Bailey
