Imagine if our negative feelings, or at least lots of them, turned out to be illusions, and we could dispel them by just contemplating them from a particular vantage point.

“Dr. Lieberman debunked the long-held myth that young children and babies don’t need treatment for trauma because they somehow don’t understand or remember the chaotic experiences they faced. Her work is built on research that shows that early adversity often has an outsize effect on infants and young children…”

With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists call neuroadaptation.

Learning how to push yourself to take action when you are afraid or full of self-doubt or overwhelmed with excuses is a life skill you can learn. Once you master it, you’ll understand that you can achieve anything through small, consistent moves forward.

Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

At the Museum of Literature, Zoe encounters an eccentric staff in the Books of Dubious Origins department and must discover the truth about her powers and heritage.

Reality, I think, is mostly imagination, poorly disguised.

Why are feelings so brutal? Everyone makes friendship seem like garden parties and sleepovers when really it’s Jurassic Park for emotions.

That was the way of grief, I was realizing. It was a barrage of pain that was so unbearable that it made you numb. And then out of nowhere, something made you feel again and the cycle started over from the beginning.

Contrary to village gossip, I am still very much alive.

One of the great revelations of feminism may turn out to be that men need women more than women need men. Wives were economically dependent on their husbands, but men were emotionally dependent on their wives.

I realized that it didn’t matter how perfect I was. I was never going to be good enough because they didn’t want me to be perfect or extraordinary. They wanted me to be invisible.

My magic, which I had been waiting to feel surge through me as a tide, remained dormant. It lurked like a skeleton, hiding beneath my skin, marrow brimming with untapped power.

An absurd thing for the murderous state to plead for, but, as always, the massive violence of the state was “justice,” was “law and order,” and resistance to perpetual violence was an act of terror. It would have been funny if there weren’t so much blood everywhere.

People aren’t so bad. They’re just wounded little kids trying to heal.

In general, colonial infrastructure was not built to strengthen communities; it was built to deplete them.

But never underestimate the American bourgeoisie’s capacity to embrace fascism under the name of populism. Or the power of television. Without TV, Kennedy would never have beaten Nixon.

North America’s total population nearly halved from 1492 to 1776: from approximately 7 or 8 million to 4 million.

Heck, I’ve lost my temper a few times. Also, I can be a bit too blunt, and excuse it by saying I’m just an honest person, but if I’m truly being honest, sometimes blunt is just mean. Honesty can be an excuse for bullying.

Imagine if our negative feelings, or at least lots of them, turned out to be illusions, and we could dispel them by just contemplating them from a particular vantage point.