Immune To Hurt Quotes

Evil doesn't die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we've been touched by it once, it doesn't mean we're immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice.

Well, laddie, if you've let an old buzzard like me hurt you confidence, you couldn't have had much in the first place.

How can you stand touching her?” my sister blurted, staring at our clasped hands. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I seized on the change of topic. “These gloves are specialized rubber. They block the current.” Gretchen’s gaze traveled over Vlad, disbelief still stamped on her features. “Yeah, but how do you two do anything else, unless he has a special, currentrepelling glove for his—” “Gretchen!” my father cut her off. My cheeks felt hot. Don’t say a word, I thought to Vlad, seeing his chest tremble with suppressed laughter. “He has a natural immunity,” I gritted out.

They couldn't hurt Gansey. Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn't buy everything hadn't seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life's troubles. Only death couldn't be swiped away by a credit card.

A child. New life. Immune to evil or illness, protected from kidnap, beatings, rape, racism, insult, hurt, self-loathing, abandonment. Error-free. All goodness. Minus wrath. So they believe.

If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts… That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

The problem is that when we don’t care at all what people think and we’re immune to hurt, we’re also ineffective at connecting. Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.

People who don't experience love are no less valid. You fear them simply because they are immune to powers that to the common person, are irresistible, and you fear the lack of power you have over them, for if love cannot stop them, what will? You do not hurt them because they are cold hearted and immoral, you hurt them because they have the potential to be and you are afraid of what they could do once they are.

Sometimes, you can half believe you’ve been hurt so much you’ve basically been vaccinated. Rendered immune. And then someone says something like that to you.

I wonder briefly if I have become immune to physical pain: if the human body is not designed to handle both physical and emotional hurt.

We all have regrets, Urian. Nothing that lives is immune from that nasty emotion. (Acheron) So what? You want me to go kiss and make up? (Urian) Hardly. But I want you to set aside your own hurt and anger to see clearly for a minute. This isn’t about you and your father anymore than it’s about me and Nick hating each other over something we can’t change. This is about saving the lives of a million innocent people. People like Phoebe who don’t deserve to be hunted and killed. If I can stand at the side of my enemies for the greater good, so can you. (Acheron)

Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’ ‘Passive.’ ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressure of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.

Every work of art stems from a wound in the soul of the artist. When a person is hurt, his immune system comes into operation, and a self-healing process takes place, mental and physical." He called art "a psychological component of the auto-immune system that gives expression to the healing process.

Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice the ring that’s landed on your finger, a massive insect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurt in your voice under a blanket and said there’s two kinds of women—those you write poems about and those you don’t. It’s true. I never brought you a bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed. My idea of courtship was tapping Jane’s Addiction lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M., whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I worked within the confines of my character, cast as the bad boy in your life, the Magellan of your dark side. We don’t have a past so much as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power never put to good use. What we had together makes it sound like a virus, as if we caught one another like colds, and desire was merely a symptom that could be treated with soup and lots of sex. Gliding beside you now, I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy, as if I invented it, but I’m still not immune to your waterfall scent, still haven’t developed antibodies for your smile. I don’t know how long regret existed before humans stuck a word on it. I don’t know how many paper towels it would take to wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light of a candle being blown out travels faster than the luminescence of one that’s just been lit, but I do know that all our huffing and puffing into each other’s ears—as if the brain was a trick birthday candle—didn’t make the silence any easier to navigate. I’m sorry all the kisses I scrawled on your neck were written in disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of you so hard one of your legs would pop out of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you’d press your face against the porthole of my submarine. I’m sorry this poem has taken thirteen years to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skidding off the shoulder blade’s precipice and joyriding over flesh, we’d put our hands away like chocolate to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphy of each other’s eyelashes, translated a paragraph from the volumes of what couldn’t be said.

The primary challenge that smart people must deal with is making sense of meaning. Natural psychology suggests that the best answer to this problem is donning the mantle of meaning-maker and engaging in value-based meaning-making. No smart person is immune to this problem. In fact, it is the most significant emotional issue for our smartest 15 percent.

Affirm: I am now immune to all hurts and frustrations. The Power within is perfect peace and perfect poise.

we all have more than our share of pains and sorrow. Embarrassments and things that haunt us. From that, no one is ever immune, no matter how good or perfect a life you think they live. Shame and hurt spare no one.

There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr. Ibis in his perfect copperplate handwriting. That is the tale; the rest is detail. There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to. Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat. There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look—here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers—many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

It was a brutal dose of reality," Brystal said "I've always known the world hated people like us, but I never thought someone would actually want to hurt me. It all feels so personal now." "Everyone thinks they're immune to discrimination until it happens to them," Madame Weatherberry said. "It only takes one tragic event to change your perspective forever." Brystal nodded. "Last night, those men spoke to us like we were objects without feelings or souls. We pleaded for our lives and told them they were making a mistake, but they didn't even flinch. And although we did nothing wrong, they acted like we . . . like we . . . well, I don't know how to say it." "Like you deserved to be punished simply for existing," Madame Weatherberry said. "Exactly," Brystal said.

I wake with tears in my eyes. I wake to Jeanine’s scream of frustration. “What is it?” She grabs Peter’s gun out of his hand and stalks across the room, pressing the barrel to my forehead. My body stiffens, goes cold. She won’t shoot me. I am a problem she can’t solve. She won’t shoot me. “What is it that clues you in? Tell me. Tell me or I will kill you.” I slowly push myself up from the chair, coming to my feet, pushing my skin harder into the cold barrel. “You think I’m going to tell you?” I say. “You think I believe that you would kill me without figuring out the answer to this question?” “You stupid girl,” she says. “You think this is about you, and your abnormal brain? This is not about you. It is not about me. It is about keeping this city safe from the people who intend to plunge it into hell!” I summon the last of my strength and launch myself at her, clawing at whatever skin my fingernails find, digging in as hard as I can. She screams at the top of her lungs, a sound that turns my blood into fire. I punch her hard in the face. A pair of arms wrap around me, pulling me off her, and a fist meets my side. I groan, and lunge toward her, held at bay by Peter. “Pain can’t make me tell you. Truth serum can’t make me tell you. Simulations can’t make me tell you. I’m immune to all three.” Her nose is bleeding, and I see lines of fingernail scrapes in her cheeks, on the side of her throat, turning red with blossoming blood. She glares at me, pinching her nose closed, her hair disheveled, her free hand trembling. “You have failed. You can’t control me!” I scream, so loud it hurts my throat. I stop struggling and sag against Peter’s chest. “You will never be able to control me.” I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her. I broke her.

When you start being immune to it, that’s when it’s time to get out. It’s the hurt, the caring that makes us good at our jobs.

When you love someone, you become immune to the hurt they cause you. You don’t love hoping to get something in return, you love because you have to. In its extreme form, it is a need to give, not a need to get.

Comparative suffering is a function of fear and scarcity. Falling down, screwing up, and facing hurt often lead to bouts of second-guessing our judgment, our self-trust, and even our worthiness. I am enough can slowly turn into Am I really enough? If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past decade, it’s that fear and scarcity immediately trigger comparison, and even pain and hurt are not immune to being assessed and ranked. My husband died and that grief is worse than your grief over an empty nest. I’m not allowed to feel disappointed about being passed over for promotion when my friend just found out that his wife has cancer. You’re feeling shame for forgetting your son’s school play? Please—that’s a first-world problem; there are people dying of starvation every minute. The opposite of scarcity is not abundance; the opposite of scarcity is simply enough. Empathy is not finite, and compassion is not a pizza with eight slices. When you practice empathy and compassion with someone, there is not less of these qualities to go around. There’s more. Love is the last thing we need to ration in this world. The refugee in Syria doesn’t benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from your neighbor who’s going through a divorce. Yes, perspective is critical. But I’m a firm believer that complaining is okay as long as we piss and moan with a little perspective. Hurt is hurt, and every time we honor our own struggle and the struggles of others by responding with empathy and compassion, the healing that results affects all of us.

How is your injury?" Dominic asks. "My what?" It says a lot about me that I don't even notice the ache of a stab wound anymore, that a part of me is so utterly immune to pain. "It's fine. I mean, it hurts. But I'm used to that.

Nothing could hurt him; people who said money couldn’t buy everything hadn’t seen anyone as rich as the Aglionby boys. They were untouchable, immune to life’s troubles. Only death couldn’t be swiped away by a credit card. One day, Adam thought miserably, one day that will be me. But this ruse wasn’t right. He would have never asked for Gansey’s help. Adam wasn’t sure how he would have covered the tuition raise, but it was not this, not Gansey’s money. He pictured it: a folded over check, hastily pocketed, gazes not met. Gansey relieved that Adam had finally come to his senses. Adam unable to say thank you.

Plus, she’s your kid. If you do have flames in your blood, if Maddie’s wrong and they’re bad, then Trixie will be immune.” My head snapped up to my brother. I made myself fucking look into his black eyes. “What do you mean?” “You made her. She’s half you. Your flames won’t hurt her.” I gasped. I fucking gasped as Ash said that. Was he right? Was he fucking right?

There is something quite healthy to the feeling of anger. When you listen to music that makes you hate more the ones you're supposed to hate, for example, we can say music has a healing power. It would be unhealthy to love people that constantly hurt you, either they are family, spouses or even children. It is sick to think that anyone can be immune to hate, as it is delusional to believe some people, for having a pretty face or an innocent smile, are immune to karma, to the price they must pay for what they do, in this or previous reincarnations. You see, you may not hate them, and they will still pay the price for what they do. So hate is nothing more than the need to scratch the skin when a large bird is above your head plucking your brain. It's normal. To hate it is also normal. And to hit that bird really hard is healthy. To kill the bird may not be necessary, but wouldn't be unnatural either.

There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to. Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat. There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them, will cut us too deeply. Look—here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers—many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

There are stories that are true, in which each individual’s tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it too deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others’ pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to. Tonight, as you eat, reflect if you can: there are children starving in the world, starving in numbers larger than the mind can easily hold, up in the big numbers where an error of a million here, a million there, can be forgiven. It may be uncomfortable for you to reflect upon this or it may not, but still, you will eat. There are accounts which, if we open our hearts to them will cut us too deeply. Look – here is a good man, good by his own lights and the lights of his friends: he is faithful and true to his wife, he adores and lavishes attention on his little children, he cares about his country, he does his job punctiliously, as best he can. So, efficiently and good-naturedly, he exterminates Jews: he appreciates the music that plays in the background to pacify them; he advises the Jews not to forget their identification numbers as they go into the showers – many people, he tells them, forget their numbers, and take the wrong clothes, when they come out of the showers. This calms the Jews: there will be life, they assure themselves, after the showers. And they are wrong. Our man supervises the detail taking the bodies to the ovens; and if there is anything he feels bad about, it is that he still allows the gassing of vermin to affect him. Were he a truly good man, he knows, he would feel nothing but joy, as the earth is cleansed of its pests. Leave him; he cuts too deep. He is too close to us and it hurts.

Anticipating sorrow to neutralize sorrow—that’s paltry, cowardly stuff, I told myself, knowing I was an ace practitioner of the craft. And what if it came fiercely? What if it came and didn’t let go, a sorrow that had come to stay, and did to me what longing for him had done on those nights when it seemed there was something so essential missing from my life that it might as well have been missing from my body, so that losing him now would be like losing a hand you could spot in every picture of yourself around the house, but without which you couldn’t possibly be you again. You lose it, as you always knew you would, and were even prepared to; but you can’t bring yourself to live with the loss. And hoping not to think of it, like praying not to dream of it, hurts just the same. Then a strange idea got hold of me: What if my body—just my body, my heart—cried out for his? What to do then? What if at night I wouldn’t be able to live with myself unless I had him by me, inside me? What then? Think of the pain before the pain. I knew what I was doing. Even in my sleep, I knew what I was doing. Trying to immunize yourself, that’s what you’re doing—you’ll end up killing the whole thing this way—sneaky, cunning boy, that’s what you are, sneaky, heartless, cunning boy. I smiled at the voice. The sun was right on me now, and I loved the sun with a near-pagan love for the things of earth. Pagan, that’s what you are. I had never known how much I loved the earth, the sun, the sea—people, things, even art seemed to come second. Or was I fooling myself?

While some of our deepest wounds come from feeling abandoned by others, it is surprising to see how often we abandon ourselves through the way we view life. It’s natural to perceive through a lens of blame at the moment of emotional impact, but each stage of surrender offers us time and space to regroup and open our viewpoints for our highest evolutionary benefit. It’s okay to feel wronged by people or traumatized by circumstances. This reveals anger as a faithful guardian reminding us how overwhelmed we are by the outcomes at hand. While we will inevitably use each trauma as a catalyst for our deepest growth, such anger informs us when the highest importance is being attentive to our own experiences like a faithful companion. As waves of emotion begin to settle, we may ask ourselves, “Although I feel wronged, what am I going to do about it?” Will we allow experiences of disappointment or even cruelty to inspire our most courageous decisions and willingness to evolve? When viewing others as characters who have wronged us, a moment of personal abandonment occurs. Instead of remaining present to the sheer devastation we feel, a need to align with ego can occur through the blaming of others. While it seems nearly instinctive to see life as the comings and goings of how people treat us, when focused on cultivating our most Divine qualities, pain often confirms how quickly we are shifting from ego to soul. From the soul’s perspective, pain represents the initial steps out of the identity and reference points of an old reality as we make our way into a brand new paradigm of being. The more this process is attempted to be rushed, the more insufferable it becomes. To end the agony of personal abandonment, we enter the first stage of surrender by asking the following question: Am I seeing this moment in a way that helps or hurts me? From the standpoint of ego, life is a play of me versus you or us versus them. But from the soul’s perspective, characters are like instruments that help develop and uncover the melody of our highest vibration. Even when the friction of conflict seems to divide people, as souls we are working together to play out the exact roles to clear, activate, and awaken our true radiance. The more aligned in Source energy we become, the easier each moment of transformation tends to feel. This doesn’t mean we are immune to disappointment, heartbreak, or devastation. Instead, we are keenly aware of how often life is giving us the chance to grow and expand. A willingness to be stretched and re-created into a more refined form is a testament to the fiercely liberated nature of our soul. To the ego, the soul’s willingness to grow under the threat of any circumstance seems foolish, shortsighted, and insane. This is because the ego can only interpret that reality as worry, anticipation, and regret.

Vulnerability: January 8 Some of us may have made a decision that no one was ever going to hurt us again. We may automatically go on “feelings freeze mode” when faced with emotional pain. Or, we may terminate a relationship the first time we feel hurt. Hurt feelings are a part of life, relationships, and recovery. It is understandable that we don’t want to feel any more pain. Many of us have had more than our share. In fact, at some time in our life, we may have been overwhelmed, crushed, or stopped in our tracks by the amount of pain we felt. We may not have had the resources to cope with our pain or take care of ourselves. That was yesterday. Today, we don’t have to be so frightened of pain. It does not have to overwhelm us. We are becoming strong enough to deal with hurt feelings. And we don’t have to become martyrs, claiming that hurt feelings and suffering are all there is to life. We need only allow ourselves to feel vulnerable enough to feel hurt, when that’s appropriate, and take responsibility for our feelings, behaviors, and what we need to do to take care of ourselves. We don’t have to analyze or justify our feelings. We need to feel them, and try not to let them control our behavior. Maybe our pain is showing us we need to set a boundary; maybe it’s showing us we’re going in a wrong direction; maybe it’s triggering a deep healing process. It’s okay to feel hurt; it’s okay to cry; it’s okay to heal; it’s okay to move on to the next feeling, when it’s time. Our willingness and capacity to feel hurt will eventually be matched by our willingness and capacity to feel joy. Being in recovery does not mean immunity from pain; it means learning to take loving care of ourselves when we are in pain. Today, I will not strike out at those who cause me pain. I will feel my emotions and take responsibility for them. I will accept hurt feelings as part of being in relationships. I am willing to surrender to the pain as well as the joy in life.

That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee, it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is simply more pleasant to be happy than to be pissed off. That the people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That the cliché ‘I don’t know who I am’ unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliché. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That ‘acceptance’ is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That pretty much everybody masturbates. That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.

If, by the virtue of charity or the circumstance of desperation, you ever chance to spend a little time around a Substance-recovery halfway facility like Enfield MA’s state-funded Ennet House, you will acquire many exotic new facts…That certain persons simply will not like you no matter what you do. That sleeping can be a form of emotional escape and can with sustained effort be abused. That purposeful sleep-deprivation can also be an abusable escape. That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude. That logical validity is not a guarantee of truth. That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That boring activities become, perversely, much less boring if you concentrate intently on them. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work. That 99% of compulsive thinkers’ thinking is about themselves; that 99% of this self-directed thinking consists of imagining and then getting ready for things that are going to happen to them; and then, weirdly, that if they stop to think about it, that 100% of the things they spend 99% of their time and energy imagining and trying to prepare for all the contingencies and consequences of are never good. In short that 99% of the head’s thinking activity consists of trying to scare the everliving shit out of itself. That it is possible to make rather tasty poached eggs in a microwave oven. That some people’s moms never taught them to cover up or turn away when they sneeze. That the people to be the most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid. That having a lot of money does not immunize people from suffering or fear. That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know it was you or anybody else know what it was you did or in any way or form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz. That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused. That it is permissible to want. That everybody is identical in their unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse. That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

In my long life, Ryadd, I have seen many variations – configurations – of behaviour and attitude, and I have seen a person change from one to the other – when experience has proved damaging enough, or when the inherent weaknesses of one are recognized, leading to a wholesale rejection of it. Though, in turn, weaknesses of different sorts exist in the other, and often these prove fatal pitfalls. We are complex creatures, to be sure. The key, I think, is to hold true to your own aesthetics, that which you value, and yield to no one the power to become the arbiter of your tastes. You must also learn to devise strategies for fending off both attackers and defenders. Exploit aggression, but only in self-defence, the kind of self-defence that announces to all the implacability of your armour, your self-assurance, and affirms the sanctity of your self-esteem. Attack when you must, but not in arrogance. Defend when your values are challenged, but never with the wild fire of anger. Against attackers, your surest defence is cold iron. Against defenders, often the best tactic is to sheathe your weapon and refuse the game. Reserve contempt for those who have truly earned it, but see the contempt you permit yourself to feel not as a weapon, but as armour against their assaults. Finally, be ready to disarm with a smile, even as you cut deep with words.’ ‘Passive.’ ‘Of a sort, yes. It is more a matter of warning off potential adversaries. In effect, you are saying: Be careful how close you tread. You cannot hurt me, but if I am pushed hard enough, I will wound you. In some things you must never yield, but these things are not eternally changeless or explicitly inflexible; rather, they are yours to decide upon, yours to reshape if you deem it prudent. They are immune to the pressure of others, but not indifferent to their arguments. Weigh and gauge at all times, and decide for yourself value and worth. But when you sense that a line has been crossed by the other person, when you sense that what is under attack is, in fact, your self-esteem, then gird yourself and stand firm.

If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you. If that person doesn’t walk away, you will surely endure many years of suffering with him or her. Walking away may hurt for a while, but your heart will eventually heal. Then you can choose what you really want. You will find that you don’t need to trust others as much as you need to trust yourself to make the right choices. When you make it a strong habit not to take anything personally, you avoid many upsets in your life. Your anger, jealousy, and envy will disappear, and even your sadness will simply disappear if you don’t take things personally. If you can make this second agreement a habit, you will find that nothing can put you back into hell. There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally. You become immune to black magicians, and no spell can affect you regardless of how strong it may be. The whole world can gossip about you, and if you don’t take it personally you are immune. Someone can intentionally send emotional poison, and if you don’t take it personally, you will not eat it. When you don’t take the emotional poison, it becomes even worse in the sender, but not in you. You can see how important this agreement is. Taking nothing personally helps you to break many habits and routines that trap you in the dream of hell and cause needless suffering. Just by practicing this second agreement you begin to break dozens of teeny, tiny agreements that cause you to suffer. And if you practice the first two agreements, you will break seventy-five percent of the teeny, tiny agreements that keep you trapped in hell. Write this agreement on paper, and put it on your refrigerator to remind you all the time: Don’t take anything personally. As you make a habit of not taking anything personally, you won’t need to place your trust in what others do or say. You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices. You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you. When you truly understand this, and refuse to take things personally, you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments or actions of others. If you keep this agreement, you can travel around the world with your heart completely open and no one can hurt you.

I don't know if its right to miss you, After all you was so abusive, I think i became immune to the hurt, I cant see why the simple things angered you so easily when i tried so hard to please you, I tried and tried but it was never enough, As much as i gave you still made me feel it was me who was the cost.

when we don’t care at all what people think and we’re immune to hurt, we’re also ineffective at connecting. Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.

Walking through the halls of my son's high school during lunch hour recently, I was struck by how similar it felt to being in the halls and lunchrooms of the juvenile prisons in which I used to work. The posturing, the gestures, the tone, the words, and the interaction among peers I witnessed in this teenage throng all bespoke an eerie invulnerability. These kids seemed incapable of being hurt. Their demeanor bespoke a confidence, even bravado that seemed unassailable but shallow at the same time. The ultimate ethic in the peer culture is “cool” — the complete absence of emotional openness. The most esteemed among the peer group affect a disconcertingly unruffled appearance, exhibit little or no fear, seem to be immune to shame, and are given to muttering things like “doesn't matter,” “don't care,” and “whatever.” The reality is quite different. Humans are the most vulnerable — from the Latin vulnerare, to wound — of all creatures. We are not only vulnerable physically, but psychologically as well. What, then, accounts for the discrepancy? How can young humans who are in fact so vulnerable appear so opposite? Is their toughness, their “cool” demeanor, an act or is it for real? Is it a mask that can be doffed when they get to safety or is it the true face of peer orientation? When I first encountered this subculture of adolescent invulnerability, I assumed it was an act. The human psyche can develop powerful defenses against a conscious sense of vulnerability, defenses that become ingrained in the emotional circuitry of the brain. I preferred to think that these children, if given the chance, would remove their armor and reveal their softer, more genuinely human side. Occasionally this expectation proved correct, but more often than not I discovered the invulnerability of adolescents was no act, no pretense. Many of these children did not have hurt feelings, they felt no pain. That is not to say that they were incapable of being wounded, but as far as their consciously experienced feelings were concerned, there was no mask to take off. Children able to experience emotions of sadness, fear, loss, and rejection will often hide such feelings from their peers to avoid exposing themselves to ridicule and attack. Invulnerability is a camouflage they adopt to blend in with the crowd but will quickly remove in the company of those with whom they have the safety to be their true selves. These are not the kids I am most concerned about, although I certainly do have a concern about the impact an atmosphere of invulnerability will have on their learning and development. In such an environment genuine curiosity cannot thrive, questions cannot be freely asked, naive enthusiasm for learning cannot be expressed. Risks are not taken in such an environment, nor can passion for life and creativity find their outlets. The kids most deeply affected and at greatest risk for psychological harm are the ones who aspire to be tough and invulnerable, not just in school but in general. These children cannot don and doff the armor as needed. Defense is not something they do, it is who they are. This emotional hardening is most obvious in delinquents and gang members and street kids, but is also a significant dynamic in the common everyday variety of peer orientation that exists in the typical American home.

After a moment’s thought, he opened the diplomatic case and threw in an extra set of identification papers, under a Belgian passport. It had served him well in the past and it never hurt to plan ahead. The case also contained his Colt .45, two loaded magazines, and a box of Federal Hydra-Shok hollowpoints. Being able to carry the gun through security was one of the benefits of his diplomatic immunity. If he was forced to use it…well, that was another story

Morris’s research found that flu vaccines often induced fever in children and in pregnant women, and serious harm to the fetus. He worried that there were hidden risks for everyone because the vaccine was “literally loaded with extraneous bacteria.”18 According to Dr. Morris, “There is a great deal of evidence to prove that immunization of children does more harm than good.”19 In what serves as a concise epithet for his crosses, Dr. Morris stated, “There is a close tie between government scientists and manufacturing scientists. My results were hurting the market for flu vaccines.”20

My tutor used to tell me that true bravery rips the soul wide open. That there's nothing that hurts more than being truly courageous. And that, if one lives through their bravery, they're rewarded with a heart immune to being ripped open by anyone else.

I hurt way to much. I feel like life is like hell. Someday Life stabs me in the back. But i half to go. I half to reach the light. But is there a light? Pain is something I became immune to it. But I can still feel the sting of hurt. But I have books and they can comfort me in the hard times.

Fact is that you’re a snake girl, immune to venom. Why do you let a few poisonous words hurt you?

Challenge vs. problem One of the biggest problems people have in their day-to-day lives is their perception of struggle. Most people think their problems are just that, problems. If they are confronted with physical pain, emotional pain, or any kind of family issue, they believe the pain is there to hurt them with no greater benefit. This type of thinking causes so much pain, discomfort, and agony in our everyday lives. We need to realize the true reason of struggle. We need to start to accept the true reason behind any form of discomfort. It is not to weaken us. It’s not to ultimately destroy us. It is actually present to strengthen us so that we can face future struggle more efficiently. Imagine if you have never caught a cold or flu. How would your immune system develop? Imagine if you have never played anyone better than you in sports. How could you get better? Imagine if you never ripped your muscle fibers apart when you work out. How could your muscles grow? It would be impossible. Struggle is presented in our lives to help us grow and to better equip us to face future struggle more efficiently. But most people curse struggle. Most people hate any form of discontent. When you look at struggle as you are meant to, not only does the situation become so much easier to handle, but also you eventually switch your perception to actually welcome struggle, because you know it’s growing and developing your character.

No matter how badly she hurt, it all boiled down to putting one foot in front of another and repeating that process over and over.

I wake with tears in my eyes. I wake to Jeanine’s scream of frustration. “What is it?” She grabs Peter’s gun out of his hand and stalks across the room, pressing the barrel to my forehead. My body stiffens, goes cold. She won’t shoot me. I am a problem she can’t solve. She won’t shoot me. “What is it that clues you in? Tell me. Tell me or I will kill you.” I slowly push myself up from the chair, coming to my feet, pushing my skin harder into the cold barrel. “You think I’m going to tell you?” I say. “You think I believe that you would kill me without figuring out the answer to this question?” “You stupid girl,” she says. “You think this is about you, and your abnormal brain? This is not about you. It is not about me. It is about keeping this city safe from the people who intend to plunge it into hell!” I summon the last of my strength and launch myself at her, clawing at whatever skin my fingernails find, digging in as hard as I can. She screams at the top of her lungs, a sound that turns my blood into fire. I punch her hard in the face. A pair of arms wrap around me, pulling me off her, and a fist meets my side. I groan, and lunge toward her, held at bay by Peter. “Pain can’t make me tell you. Truth serum can’t make me tell you. Simulations can’t make me tell you. I’m immune to all three.” Her nose is bleeding, and I see lines of fingernail scrapes in her cheeks, on the side of her throat, turning red with blossoming blood. She glares at me, pinching her nose closed, her hair disheveled, her free hand trembling. “You have failed. You can’t control me!” I scream, so loud it hurts my throat. I stop struggling and sag against Peter’s chest. “You will never be able to control me.” I laugh, mirthless, a mad laugh. I savor the scowl on her face, the hate in her eyes. She was like a machine; she was cold and emotionless, bound by logic alone. And I broke her. I broke her.

abortion will continue. Many opponents claim to be taking the moral high ground. However, by depriving them of their civil rights, opposition to abortion hurts women and is thus unethical. It condemns women to mandatory motherhood. This attitude is not new. The systematic maltreatment of women has been institutionalized by governments and religions for several millennia.56 57 58 The clarity and cogency of the argument against abortion should be sufficient to sway public opinion. However, over the past four decades, this has not been the case. Opponents of abortion have resorted to eight murders,59,60 arson, firebombing,61 intimidation of women and clinicians,62 governmental intrusion into the physician-patient relationship,63 imposition of obstacles that deter and delay abortion, and increased costs.64,65 A broad campaign of deception and chicanery, including crisis pregnancy centers and disinformation sites on the Internet,66 has influenced decisions about abortion and its safety. Without the smokescreen about abortion safety, the ongoing attack on women and health care providers might be recognized for what it is: misogyny directed against our wives, sisters, and daughters. Ironically, the same political conservatives who oppose “big government” and its interference in our daily lives are sponsoring anti-abortion legislation mandating more intrusion of government into the private lives—and bodies—of American women. While the ethical dimensions of abortion will continue to be debated, the medical science is incontrovertible: legal abortion has been a resounding public-health success.18,19 The development of antibiotics, immunization, modern contraception, and legalized abortion all stand out as landmark public-health achievements of the Twentieth Century.

Pain gives you will power to survive, to survive you have to fight, the struggle makes you strong. strength makes you mature, maturity makes you immune to the things that causes you pain. Things hurt today will not matter tomorrow, all you have to do, hold on and deal with it. Let this pain make you immune.

Shut up, shut up, will you! Nobody minds that you are in pain. Pain is a human condition. You do not care that I am hungry, do you? And therefore I do not need to care whether you are in agony. Nobody is hurting you! Be quiet, be quiet! Rannig, fill his mouth with dirt, and I’m sure I do not care what diseases he contracts. He has already been in the water. He has probably swallowed millions of pestilential microbes, and they are none of them acting too quickly. Do you hear me? I say shut up, sir! By my hat—the man makes a noise to shatter teeth! Here, what are you complaining about?” Bartleby looked over and saw where Shandandzo was gripping himself. “Oh, they are only knees! You have two of them and an immune system—the body heals, if you leave it alone! You need not shout about it!” He took the headwrap from Rannig’s hand and shoved it into Shandandzo’s mouth. “There. That will quiet you for a while. Don’t you know there are men reading and having their tea? Shameful of you to carry on in this way. The captain only put your knife behind your kneecaps and made a few fractures. Hardly anything to cry about at all. A man has no business crying about kneecaps. A tendon, I grant you, might deserve a paltry yelp or two, but you are alive and you have your health otherwise— you can want nothing else. You hardly need your knees when you are always on the gad, stealing priceless artifacts from visiting dignitaries—and you are a noble besides. Nobles have money: they hardly need feelings or knees. They have men for that.” He snuffed and watched Shandandzo’s eyes roll back in his head. “Now, if you will be a very good convulsing noble, or whatever it is you are, you will be quiet and make no more fuss about your knees.” He turned back toward the teahouse, humphed to himself, and moved to go, but turning back, he said, “And if you make anymore obnoxious noises whilst I am writing my notes, I will have the boy throw you down a well.

Once we are able to relate with our own self from a place of self-empowerment and strength, we become imperturbable and immune to their crafty ways. This is when they drop us. And please believe me, being dropped by them is the best scenario possible. I know it hurts. I know it’s messy. But it is far better than the alternative of living as only part human with a crushed spirit, or worse, no life at all.

When we react to problems, as opposed to create with them, we get hooked into stress. When we are under constant low-grade stress—and it’s estimated that over 80 percent of us are all the time—this begins to hurt us.1 When we are stressed, our nervous system tightens up and we lose our creativity. Stress stops us learning, and if we aren’t learning, we aren’t growing.2 Stress, AKA fear, corrodes the curiosity and courage we need to experiment with the new. It is almost impossible to play big in life, if we are scared of looking like idiots, going bankrupt, or being rejected. Stress kills creativity and kills us too. Whereas small amounts of stress help us focus, engage, and learn, chronic or elevated stress burns us out, literally as well as metaphorically. People who live near airports and deal with the stress of giant airplanes roaring above them have higher rates of cardiac arrest than those who don’t.3 People who deal with a controlling or uncommunicative boss have a 60 percent higher chance of developing coronary heart disease than those who don’t.4 Stress leads to tangible changes inside all the cells of the body. Specific genes start to express proteins, which leads to inflammation; and chronic inflammation is associated with killers such as heart disease and cancer. Over time, stress reduces our ability to prevent aging, heal wounds, fight infections, and even be successfully immunized.5 Unmanaged stress, simply from having a sense of disempowerment at work, can be more dangerous than smoking or high cholesterol.

This wasn't anything new. In fact, being overlooked for someone else was typical. By now, she should be immune to the hurt that came with it. What was that phrase? Old hat. Yes, that was it. By now, this should be old hat, and it wasn't even the first time a guy she liked was interested in her friend. But it still hurt. A lot.

This wasn't anything new. In fact, being overlooked for someone else was typical. By now, she should be immune to the hurt that came with it. What was that phrase? Old hat. Yes, that was it. By now, this should be old hat, and it wasn't even the first time a guy she liked was interested in her friend. But it still hurt. A lot.

When you start being immune to it, that’s when it’s time to get out. It’s the hurt, the caring that makes us good at our jobs

Haidt and his colleagues call this idea “moral foundations theory.” [4] Drawing on evolutionary biology, cultural psychology, and several other fields, they show that beliefs about morality stand on five pillars: Care/harm: Children are more vulnerable than the offspring of other animals, so humans devote considerable time and effort to protecting them. As a result, evolution has instilled in us the ethic of care. Those who nurture and defend the vulnerable are kind; those who hurt them are cruel. Fairness/cheating: Our success as a species has always hinged on cooperation, including exchanges that evolutionary scientists call “reciprocal altruism.” That means we value those whom we can trust and disdain those who breach our trust. Loyalty/disloyalty: Our survival depends not only on our individual actions, but also on the cohesiveness of our group. That’s why being true to your team, sect, or nation is respected—and forsaking your tribe is usually reviled. Authority/subversion: Among primates, hierarchies nourish members and protect them from aggressors. Those who undermine the hierarchy can place everyone in the group at risk. When this evolutionary impulse extends to human morality, traits like deference and obedience toward those at the top become virtues.[5] Purity/desecration: Our ancestors had to contend with all manner of pathogens—from Mycobacterium tuberculosis to Mycobacterium leprae—so their descendants developed the capacity to avoid them along with what’s known as a “behavioral immune system” to guard against a broader set of impurities such as violations of chastity. In the moral realm, write one set of scholars, “purity concerns uniquely predict (beyond other foundations and demographics such as political ideology) culture-war attitudes about gay marriage, euthanasia, abortion, and pornography.” [6] Moral foundations theory doesn’t say that care is more important than purity or that authority is more important than fairness or that you should follow one set of foundations instead of another. It simply catalogs how humans assess the morality of behavior. The theory is descriptive, not prescriptive. But its descriptive power is considerable. Not only did it reshape my understanding of both human reasoning and modern politics; it also offered an elegant way to interpret our moral regrets.

Xandra shook her head. “When you start being immune to it, that’s when it’s time to get out. It’s the hurt, the caring that makes us good at our jobs.

Most of what I’m describing here is abstract fear—fear of embarrassment or fear of rejection, worries that things will go wrong or someone will get hurt. What I’ve come to realize, too, is that jeopardy is woven into the experience of being human, regardless of who you are, what you look like, or where you live. We may encounter it in different ways and with different stakes, but not one of us is immune. Consider that the Oxford English Dictionary defines “jeopardy” as danger of loss, harm, or failure. Who among us isn’t walking around fully attuned to those dangers?

It is impossible for one who is lodged in mundane consciousness to evaluate definitively the competence of any guide to transformation and transcendence, without having already attained to an equal degree of transcendence. No number of “objective” criteria for assessment can remove this “Catch-22” dilemma. Therefore the choice of a guide, path, or group will remain in some sense a subjective matter. Subjectivity, however, has many modes, from self-deluding emotionality to penetrating, illuminative intuition. Perhaps the first job of the seeker would best be to refine that primary guide, one’s own subjectivity.10 Ram Dass (Richard Alpert), who has functioned on both sides of the fence (as a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba and as a teacher in his own right), has made the following complementary observation: Some people fear becoming involved with a teacher. They fear the possible impurities in the teacher, fear being exploited, used, or entrapped. In truth we are only ever entrapped by our own desires and clingings. If you want only liberation, then all teachers will be useful vehicles for you. They cannot hurt you at all.11 This is true only ideally. In practice, the problem is that in many cases students do not know themselves sufficiently to be conscious of their deeper motivations. Therefore they may feel attracted precisely to the kind of teacher who shares their own “impurities”—such as hunger for power—and hence have every reason to fear him or her. It seems that only the truly innocent are protected. Although they too are by no means immune to painful experiences with teachers, at least they will emerge hale and whole, having been sustained by their own purity of intention. Accepting the fact that our appraisal of a teacher is always subjective so long as we have not ourselves attained his or her level of spiritual accomplishment, there is at least one important criterion that we can look for in a guru: Does he or she genuinely promote disciples’ personal and spiritual growth, or does he or she obviously or ever so subtly undermine their maturation? Would-be disciples should take a careful, levelheaded look at the community of students around their prospective guru. They should especially scrutinize those who are closer to the guru than most. Are they merely sorry imitations or clones of their teacher, or do they come across as mature men and women? The Bulgarian spiritual teacher Omraam Mikhaёl Aїvanhov, who died in 1986, made this to-the-point observation: Everybody has his own path, his mission, and even if you take your Master as a model, you must always develop in the way that suits your own nature. You have to sing the part which has been given to you, aware of the notes, the beat and the rhythm; you have to sing it with your voice which is certainly not that of your Master, but that is not important. The one really important thing is to sing your part perfectly.

HOW TO USE THE MAGIC OF THINKING BIG IN LIFE’S MOST CRUCIAL SITUATIONS There is magic in thinking big. But it is so easy to forget. When you hit some rough spots, there is danger that your thinking will shrink in size. And when it does, you lose. Below are some brief guides for staying big when you’re tempted to use the small approach. Perhaps you’ll want to put these guides on small cards for even handier reference. A. When Little People Try to Drive You Down, THINK BIG To be sure, there are some people who want you to lose, to experience misfortune, to be reprimanded. But these people can’t hurt you if you’ll remember three things: 1. You win when you refuse to fight petty people. Fighting little people reduces you to their size. Stay big. 2. Expect to be sniped at. It’s proof you’re growing. 3. Remind yourself that snipers are psychologically sick. Be Big. Feel sorry for them. Think Big Enough to be immune to the attacks of petty people. B. When That “I-Haven’t-Got-What-It-Takes” Feeling Creeps Up on You, THINK BIG Remember: if you think you are weak, you are. If you think you’re inadequate, you are. If you think you’re second-class, you are. Whip that natural tendency to sell yourself short with these tools: 1. Look important. It helps you think important. How you look on the outside has a lot to do with how you feel on the inside. 2. Concentrate on your assets. Build a sell-yourself-to-yourself commercial and use it. Learn to supercharge yourself. Know your positive self. 3. Put other people in proper perspective. The other person is just another human being, so why be afraid of him? Think Big Enough to see how good you really are! C. When an Argument or Quarrel Seems Inevitable, THINK BIG. Successfully resist the temptation to argue and quarrel by: 1. Asking yourself, “Honestly now, is this thing really important enough to argue about?” 2. Reminding yourself, you never gain anything from an argument but you always lose something. Think Big Enough to see that quarrels, arguments, feuds, and fusses will never help you get where you want to go.

WAFs, along with other emotional pain and hurt, are not your enemies. They are your teachers. Think about that for a moment. Without experiencing disappointment, you’d never learn patience. Without the hurt and frustration you receive from others, you’d never learn kindness and compassion. Without exposure to new information, you’d never learn anything new. Without fear, you’d never learn courage and how to be kind to yourself. Even getting sick once in a while has an important purpose—strengthening your immune system and helping you to appreciate good health.

Do you think I’m a bad person?” “It doesn’t sound like you have enough time in your life to be a bad person.” “Then why is God doing this to me?” “God isn’t doing this to you. There’s a lot of evil out there. When it touches people, they get hurt. No one’s immune, not even good people like you.

I wonder who "they" are for him. Most of us have a "they" in the audience, even though nobody is really watching, at least not how we think they are. The people who are watching us - the people who really see us- don’t care about the false self, about the show we are putting on. I wonder who those people are for John?" "I thought about how many people avoid trying for things they really want in life because its more painful to get close to the goal but not achieve it than not to have taken the chance in the first place." "Every hour counts for all of us and I want to be fully present in the fully hour we spend with each one." "You will inevitably hurt your partner, your parents, your children, your closest friends - and they will hurt you- because if you sign up for intimacy, getting hurt is part of the deal." "The more you welcome your vulnerability the less afraid you'll feel" "We all use defense mechanisms to deal with anxiety, frustration, or unacceptable impulses, but what’s fascinating about them is that we aren't aware of them in the moment. A familiar examples is denial- some, rationalization." "Generally when the therapy is coming to an end, the work moves toward its final stage, which is saying goodbye. in those sessions, the patient and I consolidate the changes made by talking about the "progress and process". What was helpful in getting to where the person is today? What wasn't? What has she learned about herself -her strengths, her challenges, her internal scripts and narratives- and what coping strategies and healthier ways of being can she can take with her when she leaves? Underlying all this, of course, is how do we say goodbye?" "Just like your physiological immune system helps your body recover from physical attack, your brain helps you recover from psychological attack." "But many people come to therapy seeking closure. Help me not to feel. What they eventually discover is that you can't mute one emotion without muting others. You want to mute the pain? You will also mute joy.

As followers of Jesus, we aren’t immune from loss and grief. Circumstances may move us far from our family and friends. Even more painful, those we are close to may go to heaven. We miss them, and it hurts. But Jesus reminds us that these partings are temporary. In the face of eternity together, these times of separation are brief. We may grieve, but not as those who have no hope. We’ll be able to join Jesus and our loved ones soon. What a reunion that will be! —

The problem is that when we don’t care at all what people think and we’re immune to hurt we’re also ineffective at connecting. Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection.

The problem is that when we don’t care at all what people think and we’re immune to hurt, we’re also ineffective at connecting. Courage is telling our story, not being immune to criticism. Staying vulnerable is a risk we have to take if we want to experience connection. I believe there’s even more risk in hiding yourself and your gifts from the world.

Evil doesn’t die. It never dies. It just takes on a new face, a new name. Just because we’ve been touched by it once, it doesn’t mean we’re immune to ever being hurt again. Lightning can strike twice.

Look, I’ve known Logan our whole lives so I’m immune to his particular charms, but I’m not blind, Jeanie. I know what he looks like. He’s objectively hot, but he also has a good heart, and I just don’t want him to get hurt again.