Neglect Negativity Quotes

Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively.

It still took years for me to let go of learned pattern's of behavior that negated my capacity to give and receive love. One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in loving, even though they desired to be loved. I wanted to know love but was afraid to be intimate. By choosing men who were not interested in being loving, I was able to practice giving love but always within an unfufilling context. Naturally, my need to receive love was not met. I got what I was accustomed to getting. Care and affection, usually mingled with a degree of unkindness, neglect, and on some occasions, out right cruelty.

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.

It is a matter of living in that state of the absurd I know on what it is founded, this mind and this world straining against each other without being able to embrace each other. I ask for the rule— of life of that state, and what I am offered neglects its basis, negates one of the terms of the painful opposition, demands of me a resignation. I ask what is involved in the condition I recognize as mine; I know it implies obscurity and ignorance; and I am assured that this ignorance explains everything and that this darkness is my light.

There is nothing that dulls a personality so much as a negative outlook.

that the largest “negative eugenics” project in human history was not the systemic extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany or Austria in the 1930s. That ghastly distinction falls on India and China, where more than 10 million female children are missing from adulthood because of infanticide, abortion, and neglect of female children. Depraved

The hardcore drug addicts that I treat, are, without exception, people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives. The commonality is childhood abuse. These people all enter life under extremely adverse circumstances. Not only did they not get what they need for healthy development; they actually got negative circumstances of neglect. I don’t have a single female patient in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver who wasn’t sexually abused, for example, as were many of the men, or abused, neglected and abandoned serially, over and over again. That’s what sets up the brain biology of addiction. In other words, the addiction is related both psychologically, in terms of emotional pain relief, and neurobiological development to early adversity.

One of the most important social myths we must debunk if we are to become a more loving culture is the one that teaches parents that abuse and neglect can coexist with love. Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love.

As an indifference cherished, or left to atrophy, becomes an emptiness, to this extent he had learned to become empty of Nicole, serving her against his will with negations and emotional neglect. One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick, but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.

You can cease to be influenced by people who tease you... Just neglect their helps and elevate your steps... You can do it!

Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person’s choices regarding relationships and intimate partners.

My Venus is damaged, or in exile, that’s what you say of a Planet that can’t be found in the sign where it should be. What’s more, Pluto is in a negative aspect to Venus, and in my case Pluto rules the Ascendant. The result of this situation is that I have, as I see it, Lazy Venus syndrome. That’s what I call this Conformity. In this case we’re dealing with a Person whom fortune has gifted generously, but who has entirely failed to use their potential. Such People are bright and intelligent, but don’t apply themselves to their studies, and use their intelligence to play card games or patience instead. They have beautiful bodies, but they destroy them through neglect, poison themselves with harmful substances, and ignore doctors and dentists. This Venus induces a strange kind of laziness—lifetime opportunities are missed, because you overslept, because you didn’t feel like going, because you were late, because you were neglectful. It’s a tendency to be sybaritic, to live in a state of mild semiconsciousness, to fritter your life away on petty pleasures, to dislike effort and be devoid of any penchant for competition. Long mornings, unopened letters, things put off for later, abandoned projects. A dislike of any authority and a refusal to submit to it, going your own way in a taciturn, idle manner. You could say such people are of no use at all.

Her life was organized around making sure that she did not reveal, see, know or feel anything negative from within herself. It took a tremendous amount of energy. She was so bent on hiding the shameful, negative part of herself (Robyn’s version of the Fatal Flaw) from the world that she couldn’t let anyone get to know her too well.

Physical abuse versus emotional neglect? Some might say the neglect is worse. Because it negates your very existence.

We grow up accustomed to certain roles and certain ways of being perceived. If we grow up in a family in which we are abused, neglected, yelled at, constantly criticized, or dominated, then that is the environment that feels most comfortable to us. Unhealthy as it may be, most people seek and create environments that feel familiar and similar to the ones where they grew up.

the largest “negative eugenics” project in human history was not the systemic extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany or Austria in the 1930s. That ghastly distinction falls on India and China, where more than 10 million female children are missing from adulthood because of infanticide, abortion, and neglect of female children. Depraved

One of the most important social myths we must debunk if we are to become a more loving culture is the one that teaches parents that abuse and neglect can coexist with love. Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively. Yet parents do this al the time in our culture. Children are told that they are loved even though they are being abused.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18) I came from a family of wonderful people who nevertheless struggled with how to be happy. There were many things we didn't know about living in peace. We mixed our love with fear. What I experienced in my childhood family seemed to color my life with confusion. I joined the Church at nineteen. Though my conversion was real, many of my emotions continued to be out of harmony with gospel teachings, and I didn't know what to do about them. I was not at rest. As a young mother I felt that I was only barely keeping my distress from leaking out. But it did leak out. I struggled to be cheerful at home. I was too often tense with my children, especially as their behavior reflected negatively on me. I was perfectionistic. I was irritable and controlling. But I was also loving, patient, appreciative, happy; I frequently felt the Spirit of the Lord, and I did many parenting things well, but so inconsistently. Sooner or later the crisis comes for good people who live in ignorance and neglect of spiritual law. The old ways don't work anymore, and it may feel as though the foundations of life are giving way. If we don't learn consistent, mature love in our childhood homes we often struggle to learn it when we become marriage partners and parents.

I had always been more violent in my negative than in my positive demands. Thus, in personal relations, I could forgive much neglect more easily than the least degree of what I regarded as interference.

I have always been more violent in my negative than in my positive demands. Thus, in personal relations, I could forgive much neglect more easily than the least degree of what I regarded as interference. At table I could forgive much insipidity in my food more easily than the least suspicion of what seemed to me excessive or inappropriate seasoning. In the course of life I could put up with any amount of monotony far more patiently than even the smallest disturbance, bother, bustle, or what the Scotch call "kerfuffle". Never at any age did I clamor to be amused always and at all ages (where I dared I hotly demanded not to be interrupted.

Self-compassion emerged in part from Neff’s recognition that when we stumble or fail, we treat ourselves more harshly than we would ever treat friends, family, or even strangers in the same predicament. That’s counterproductive, she has shown. Rather than belittling or berating ourselves during moments of frustration and failure, we’re better off extending ourselves the same warmth and understanding we’d offer another person. Self-compassion begins by replacing searing judgment with basic kindness. It doesn’t ignore our screwups or neglect our weaknesses. It simply recognizes that “being imperfect, making mistakes, and encountering life difficulties is part of the shared human experience.”[15] By normalizing negative experiences, we neutralize them.

a loss unconsidered at the time. But to decide for anything is to decide against a multitude of other things. Taking is still more largely leaving. The full extent of this negative decision often escapes our notice, and through the very fact of choosing a good we blindly neglect a best.

The repression of the so-called negative polarities of emotion causes much unnecessary pain, as well as the loss of many essential aspects of the feeling nature. In fact, much of the plethora of loneliness, alienation, and addictive distraction that plagues modern industrial societies is a result of people being taught and forced to reject, pathologize or punish so many of their own and others’ normal feeling states. Nowhere, not in the deepest recesses of the self, or in the presence of his closest friends, is the average person allowed to have and explore any number of normal emotional states. Anger, depression, envy, sadness, fear, distrust, etc., are all as normal a part of life as bread and flowers and streets. Yet, they have become ubiquitously avoided and shameful human experiences. How tragic this is, for all of these emotions have enormously important and healthy functions in a wholly integrated psyche. One dimension where this is most true is in the arena of healthy self-protection. For without access to our uncomfortable or painful feelings, we are deprived of the most fundamental part of our ability to notice when something is unfair, abusive, or neglectful in our environments.

This feeling of stress triggers a cascade of physiological consequences. The hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain release hormones that cause the release of cortisol from the adrenal glands located on the kidneys. Cortisol increases heart rate, among other things, readying the body for “fight” or “flight.” Acutely, the release of cortisol is beneficial and helps you cope with whatever is urgently being demanded of you. But if the stress becomes chronic, maladaptive things begin to happen. Normally, the release of cortisol turns the hypothalamus and pituitary off, stopping the release of hormone, which in turn stops the further release of cortisol from the adrenal glands. It’s a nice, clean, negative feedback loop. But in the chronically stressed, the loop breaks. The brain stops reacting to cortisol. Our natural, automatic shutoff valve stops working. The brain keeps releasing hormone, and the adrenal glands keep dumping cortisol into the bloodstream, even when the stressful thing that initially triggered the stress response is no longer around. Chronic, elevated levels of cortisol have been associated with a weakened immune system, deficits in short-term memory, chronic fatigue syndrome, anxiety disorders, and depression.

For Christians, this renewing orientation is particularly important, since severe social oppression and injustice can easily seduce them into identifying the whole social order ("the Establishment," the "status quo," or "the system") with the "world" in its religiously negative sense. When this fatal identification is made, Christians tend to withdraw from all participation in societal renewal. Under the guise of keeping itself from the "world," the body of Christ then in effect allows the powers of secularization and distortion to dominate the greater part of its life. This is not so much an avoidance of evil as a neglect of duty.

Book Excerpt: "What about your family, Abu Huwa? Are you an orphan?” the little girl very innocently asked the Sphinx. “My father and your father are one and the same. However, I do have a brother who has stood as my mirror throughout time on the opposite horizon. It is I who faces east, but it is he who faces west. I am the recorder of yesterday and he holds the records of tomorrow. I am the positive, and he is my negative. I carry the right eye of the sun and he carries the left eye of the moon. He keeps his eye on the underworld and I keep an eye on the world over. Together we have joined the sky and earth, and split fire and water.” Seham stood on all toes to peek over the Sphinx's shoulder for a sign of his brother. “Where is he?” she asked, her eyes still searching the open horizon. “He has yet to be uncovered, but as I stand above the sands of time, he still sleeps below. Before the descent of Adam, we have both stood as loyal Protectors of the Two Halls of Truth.” The girl asked in astonishment, “I've never heard of these halls, Abu Huwa. Where are they?” “At the end of each of our tails is a passage that will reveal to you the secrets of Time. One hall reflects a thousand truths, and the other hall reflects all that is untrue. One will speak to your heart, and the other will speak to your mind. This is why you need to use both your heart and mind to understand which one is real, and which is a distorted illusion created to misguide those that have neglected their conscience. Both passageways connect you to the Great Hall of Records.” “What is the Hall of Records?” “The Great Pyramid, my child. It is as multidimensional in its shape as it is in its purpose. Every layer and every brick marks the coming of a prophet, the ascension of evil, or another cycle of man. It contains the entire history and future of mankind. And, as is above, so is below. Above ground, it serves as the most powerful energy source to harmonize and power the world! The shape of the pyramid above ground is also the same image mirrored beneath it. Underground, it serves as a powerful well and drain. This is really why Egypt is called the Land of Two Lands. There exists a huge world of its own underneath the plateau, a world within worlds. Large amounts of gold, copper and mercury were once housed here, including the secrets of Time, the 100th name of He Who Is All, and a gift from Truth that still awaits to be discovered. It sleeps with Time in the Great Pyramid, hidden away in a lower shaft that leads to the stars.” Dialogue from 'The Little Girl and the Sphinx' by Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (Dar-El Shams, 2010)

I shake my head in unfortunate assent...in any life age and stage to this necessary truth one must be able to maintain and without forced effort. Jealousy, dislike, envy, hatred are low-living, human traits, of a rejectable, and dejected nature. Elevate your mindfulness & emotional state when in the presence of those trapped in their negative miserable ones. I recommend when that's finished, recalibrate who you've allowed to access your inner/outer circle perimeter - the gift of your personal/professional contact & presence...then...adjust control measures accordingly. You can believe with full certainty you'll be on a healthy and gold-bricked wealthy boulevard to practicing soul abuse & neglect prevention - by the lightning-quick process of connection elimination. Selah...

Yet another technique of the neglected positivist is to impose a new meaning on a word that exists but, through the convolutions of grammar, doesn’t technically mean what you are deciding it means. The neglected positive of incriminate is criminate, which actually, technically means the same thing as incriminate—because the in- isn’t really making a negative in this case—but it is much more amusing if you use it to mean the opposite.

So Allah has to deny perfect justice in order to be merciful. There’s no penalty for wrongdoing if you have done enough good things to offset it. But true justice doesn’t work that way, not even on earth. If someone is convicted of fraud, the judge doesn’t say, ‘Well, he was a kind Little League coach. That offsets it.’ In Islam, Allah is not perfectly just, because if he were, people would have to pay the penalty for every sin, and no one would get into paradise. That’s what perfect justice is.” I pushed the vegetables around on my neglected plate. “But I thought God is forgiving. You’re implying that because of justice, God can’t forgive.” “God is forgiving. God wants to forgive people more than anything in the world, to restore them to himself. What I’m saying is that God’s desire to forgive doesn’t negate his perfect justice. Someone has to pay the penalty for sins. God’s justice demands it.

the largest “negative eugenics” project in human history was not the systemic extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany or Austria in the 1930s. That ghastly distinction falls on India and China, where more than 10 million female children are missing from adulthood because of infanticide, abortion, and neglect of female children. Depraved dictators and predatory states are not an absolute requirement for eugenics. In the case of India, perfectly “free” citizens, left to their own devices, are capable of enacting grotesque eugenic programs—against females, in this case—without any state mandate.

When children are neglected, they learn not to expect too much, and that they have to do things for themselves because no one is going to be there for them. Often, because they are still children and their brains are not fully developed, they make poor choices that lead to negative outcomes. As adults, they may teach themselves to deny or minimize traumatic childhoods by telling themselves that it wasn’t so bad after all, while living in a constant state of anxiety—waiting for (and expecting) things to go awry. When life does bring happy and joyful events, they engage in catastrophic thinking because this is how they learned to think.

Most people, who choose or are coerced into only identifying with “positive” feelings, usually wind up in an emotionally lifeless middle ground – bland, deadened, and dissociated in an unemotional “no-man’s-land.” Moreover, when a person tries to hold onto a preferred feeling for longer than its actual tenure, she often appears as unnatural and phony as ersatz grass or plastic flowers. If instead, she learns to surrender willingly to the normal human experience that good feelings always ebb and flow, she will eventually be graced with a growing ability to renew herself in the vital waters of emotional flexibility. The repression of the so-called negative polarities of emotion causes much unnecessary pain, as well as the loss of many essential aspects of the feeling nature. In fact, much of the plethora of loneliness, alienation, and addictive distraction that plagues modern industrial societies is a result of people being taught and forced to reject, pathologize or punish so many of their own and others’ normal feeling states. Nowhere, not in the deepest recesses of the self, or in the presence of his closest friends, is the average person allowed to have and explore any number of normal emotional states. Anger, depression, envy, sadness, fear, distrust, etc., are all as normal a part of life as bread and flowers and streets. Yet, they have become ubiquitously avoided and shameful human experiences. How tragic this is, for all of these emotions have enormously important and healthy functions in a wholly integrated psyche. One dimension where this is most true is in the arena of healthy self-protection. For without access to our uncomfortable or painful feelings, we are deprived of the most fundamental part of our ability to notice when something is unfair, abusive, or neglectful in our environments. Those who cannot feel their sadness often do not know when they are being unfairly excluded, and those who cannot feel their normal angry or fearful responses to abuse, are often in danger of putting up with it without protest. Perhaps never before has humankind been so alienated from so many of its normal feeling states, as it is in the twenty-first century. Never before have so many human beings been so emotionally deadened and impoverished. The disease of emotional emaciation is epidemic. Its effects on health are often euphemistically labeled as stress, and like the emotions, stress is often treated like some unwanted waste that must be removed.

Before art school, I approached art as though it illustrated social relations and history, upholding or denouncing the political status quo. During my years in art school I increasingly concentrated on visual meaning, on how artwork looked—its composition, its color, its artist’s style, as separate from what it said about society. Critics call a preoccupation with appearance that ignores social meaning formalism, which carries a negative taint these days when formalism divorces art from the power relations surrounding its creation and circulation. Coming from the Left, I began as an anti-formalist. But as a maker of art, I moved toward formalism as I sought to discover processes of how art was made, a move prompted by the neglect of the formal qualities of the work of black artists, assumed to be important only according to the degree to which it critiqued American racism. Where Romare Bearden had figured in my mind as celebrating blackness and black Harlem, I now investigated how he made his work, step by step, how he decided what to depict and how to depict it. I was now seeing my father’s prized Sharecropper, by Elizabeth Catlett, which he bought from her in her studio in Mexico, less as a salute to black workers and more as a masterly lino print. From the opposite starting point, my relationship to Warhol encapsulated my trajectory.

Personally, I’ve never met a person who was evil in the classic Hollywood mode, who throws down happily on the side of evil while cackling, the sworn enemy of all that is good because of some early disillusionment. Most of the evil I’ve seen in the world—most of the nastiness I’ve been on the receiving end of (and, for that matter, the nastiness I, myself, have inflicted on others)—was done by people who intended good, who thought they were doing good, by reasonable people, staying polite, making accommodations, laboring under slight misperceptions, who haven’t had the inclination or taken the time to think things through, who’ve been sheltered from or were blind to the negative consequences of the belief system of which they were part, bowing to expedience and/or “commonsense” notions that have come to them via their culture and that they have failed to interrogate. In other words, they’re like the people in Gogol. (I’m leaving aside here the big offenders, the monstrous egos, the grandiose-idea-possessors, those cut off from reality by too much wealth, fame, or success, the hyperarrogant, the power-hungry-from-birth, the socio- and/or psychopathic.) But on the mundane side of things, if we want to understand evil (nastiness, oppression, neglect) we should recognize that the people who commit these sins don’t always cackle while committing them; often they smile, because they’re feeling so useful and virtuous.

Healing childhood trauma is more difficult and complex because the child’s brain is not yet developed. And most children don’t have an adult nearby who is wise and supportive enough to help. On their own, a child will try to think his way out of the trauma, and that’s a task no child is up to. His mind can end up resembling a piece of twine that’s become hopelessly knotted and tangled. The child, and later the adult, will make twisted assumptions about himself, about the world, about life. He will blame himself for the events that caused the trauma. Ultimately, he will disconnect from himself and suffer from depression, dissociation, anxiety, insomnia, negative self-talk, and low self-esteem. Trauma specialists now believe that the experience doesn’t need to be a dramatic, life-endangering accident to cause post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. Growing up in a dysfunctional family can cause relational or attachment trauma and lead to complex PTSD symptoms. In a dysfunctional family marked by emotional abuse or neglect, as I have come to view my family, a child is often scapegoated. The family, overtly and covertly, blames a child for their problems as a means of deflecting attention from the real problems. Instead of a single traumatic event, a child in this role might experience a continual barrage of subtle attacks on his worthiness, sense of belonging, and even his very identity. These attacks might come in the form of gaslighting, verbal abuse, and other obvious forms of manipulation. But they also can come in the form of thousands upon thousands of subtle negative facial expressions and sarcastic put-downs over years or decades.

Interactions with the world program our physiological and psychological development. Emotional contact is as important as physical contact. The two are quite analogous, as we recognize when we speak of the emotional experience of feeling touched. Our sensory organs and brains provide the interface through which relationships shape our evolution from infancy to adulthood. Social-emotional interactions decisively influence the development of the human brain. From the moment of birth, they regulate the tone, activity and development of the psychoneuroimmunoendocrine (PNI) super-system. Our characteristic modes of handling psychic and physical stress are set in our earliest years. Neuroscientists at Harvard University studied the cortisol levels of orphans who were raised in the dreadfully neglected child-care institutions established in Romania during the Ceausescu regime. In these facilities the caregiver/child ratio was one to twenty. Except for the rudiments of care, the children were seldom physically picked up or touched. They displayed the self-hugging motions and depressed demeanour typical of abandoned young, human or primate. On saliva tests, their cortisol levels were abnormal, indicating that their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axes were already impaired. As we have seen, disruptions of the HPA axis have been noted in autoimmune disease, cancer and other conditions. It is intuitively easy to understand why abuse, trauma or extreme neglect in childhood would have negative consequences. But why do many people develop stress-related illness without having been abused or traumatized? These persons suffer not because something negative was inflicted on them but because something positive was withheld.

Man belongs to two spheres. And Scripture not only teaches that these two spheres are distinct, it also teaches what estimate of relative importance ought to be placed upon them. Heaven is the primordial, earth the secondary creation. In heaven are the supreme realities; what surrounds us here below is a copy and shadow of the celestial things. Because the relation between the two spheres is positive, and not negative, not mutually repulsive, heavenly-mindedness can never give rise to neglect of the duties pertaining to the present life. It is the ordinance and will of God, that not apart from, but on the basis of, and in contact with, the earthly sphere man shall work out his heavenly destiny. Still the lower may never supplant the higher in our affections. In the heart of man time calls for eternity, earth for heaven. He must, if normal, seek the things above, as the flower's face is attracted by the sun, and the water-courses are drawn to the ocean. Heavenly-mindedness, so far from blunting or killing the natural desires, produces in the believer a finer organization, with more delicate sensibilities, larger capacities, a stronger pulse of life. It does not spell impoverishment, but enrichment of nature. The spirit of the entire Epistle shows this. The use of the words "city" and "country" is evidence of it. These are terms that stand for the accumulation, the efflorescence, the intensive enjoyment of values. Nor should we overlook the social note in the representation. A perfect communion in a perfect society is promised. In the city of the living God believers are joined to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, and mingle with the spirits of just men made perfect. And all this faith recognizes. It does not first need the storms and stress that invade to quicken its desire for such things. Being the sum and substance of all the positive gifts of God to us in their highest form, heaven is of itself able to evoke in our hearts positive love, such absorbing love as can render us at times forgetful of the earthly strife. In such moments the transcendent beauty of the other shore and the irresistible current of our deepest life lift us above every regard of wind or wave. We know that through weather fair or foul our ship is bound straight for its eternal port.

The negative perception of a changed city aligned with dispensational eschatology. A drastic change from above would be required to stop the flood of secularism and societal decay. With their embrace of dispensationalism, evangelicals shifted their focus radically from social amelioration to individual regeneration. Having diverted their attention from the construction of the millennial realm, evangelicals concentrated on the salvation of souls and, in so doing, neglected reform efforts.8 An individualistic soul-saving soteriology emerged from a dispensational theology. Theologically conservative Christians had shifted their priority from concern for both the individual and larger society to more exclusively a concern for the individual, and the first half of the twentieth century witnessed the formation of this shift. In The Great Reversal, David Moberg asserts that “there was a time when evangelicals had a balanced position that gave proper attention to both evangelism and social concern, but a great reversal in the [twentieth] century led to a lopsided emphasis upon evangelism and omission of most aspects of social involvement.”9 Marsden notes that “the ‘Great Reversal’ took place from about 1900 to about 1930, when all progressive social concern, whether political or private, became suspect among revivalist evangelicals and was relegated to a very minor role.”10 Fundamentalists developed a suspicion about social engagement and withdrew from social concerns spurred by their rejection of larger society. This rejection of secular culture arose from anxiety about the changes that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century when fundamentalists felt they were under siege from secular society. Marsden recognizes that “fundamentalism was the response of traditionalist evangelicals who declared war on these modernizing trends. In fundamentalist eyes the war had to be all-out and fought on several fronts. At stake was nothing less than the gospel of Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”11 The twentieth century witnessed fearful white Protestants yielding to the temptation to withdraw from the city and engaging in the exact opposite behavior demanded by Jeremiah 29:7 to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.” There was an intentional abandonment of the city in favor of safety and comfort. Jerusalem was to be rebuilt in the suburbs.

I fully realize that it may have been hard for you to read about the many difficult and painful feelings that you have had as a parent. Of course, it’s important to acknowledge that all these negative feelings co-exist with many joyful, loving and connected feelings in your role as a parent, as well. Having worked with hundreds of CEN parents, I assure you that, no matter how much self-doubt, shame, or disconnection you feel with your child, there is nothing actually wrong with the intensity, quality or value of your love. It’s all there, inside you. You are not lacking anything, and you are not selfish. You do love your children enough. And you do care enough. The problem is only with accessing and sharing what you feel. Having made it through the entire section above about your feelings, I encourage you at this point to acknowledge and accept that this is your experience. It’s what you were handed, most likely unwittingly, by your parents. You didn’t ask for any of those feelings, nor did you choose them. Your experience is valid, and your feelings are real. They are a product of your Childhood Emotional Neglect. And what do we know about Childhood Emotional Neglect? It can be healed.

Nocebo effect” refers to the unintended negative effect of a medical diagnosis or treatment. It is particularly relevant to maternity care, because the mother’s emotional well-being is so often neglected, as we have discussed. Michel Odent comments, “The nocebo effect is inherent in conventional prenatal care, which is constantly focusing on potential problems. Every visit is an opportunity to be reminded of all the risks associated with pregnancy and delivery.”12

Here’s some of the best advice I could give anyone who’s ready to be healthy and happy. Look at your body as if it is one of your children. Be kind to it. Don’t hate it. That’s not fair. Your thoughts about your body are a reflection of the way you treat it, so stop saying negative things about it. Stop calling yourself disgusting and ugly. See your body for what it is—an incredible, capable, powerful vessel that has put up with years and years of neglect and abuse from you. Love on it. Nurture it.

Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person’s choices regarding relationships and intimate partners. This book describes how emotionally immature parents negatively affect their children, especially children who are emotionally sensitive, and shows you how to heal yourself from the pain and confusion that come from having a parent who refuses emotional intimacy.

Being pessimistic and expecting the worst is a posttraumatic symptom. It’s our misguided way of shielding ourselves from future disappointments, by not even hoping or trying in the first place. Pessimism gives you permission to not even attempt something fulfilling or healthful. You decide ahead of time that it’s pointless to make an effort to lose weight, write that book, finish school, or follow your dreams. In fact, the favorite phrase of pessimism is “Dream on!”—as if it’s crazy to dream about a better tomorrow. After all, if your yesterday was horribly painful, why should you expect today or tomorrow to be any better? It’s a negativity cycle, because if you don’t attempt to improve your conditions, then nothing will improve . . . and, most likely, things will worsen due to your neglecting yourself.

Mother nature has no involvement with the existence of a dystopia in our society. . A dystoopia comes into existence when human beings neglects the importance of maintaining a clean environment or cause destruction against a massive group of other people for an illogical/negative purpose.

Loss of Self – when people’s lives are dominated by emotion, which is the result of living in a tumultuous home with addiction, they become ‘fused’ or dominated by automatic emotional responses. This differs from a healthy mindset where the person has balance between emotion and intellect. Decision making and coping with stress is much easier for this type of person. They are also more independent. This is not the case with a codependent person. Violence and neglect – Both are common in families with addiction. One study done in three major metropolitan areas revealed that 78% of all cases of children put into foster care involved substance abuse by the parents. Homicide is only a step away. Emotional damage – Children raised in households with addiction have negative feelings deeply imbedded, including anger, hate, guilt, blame, and shame.

Day 1: Pain is one that lingers in the threshold between life and death and there is no escape from it. Day 2: Each and every night and day I welcome creativity and everything positive in my life. Day 3: As I become the new me I merge from this state feeling deeply and feel inspired knowing the kind of person that I can be. Day 4: With every breath I take each and every day, I allow the positivity to flow through me and to transform my life. Day 5: Each and every day I realize my full potential in a whole new way. Day 6: Using the laws of attraction I can gladly accept positive people into my life right at this moment. Day 7: Every moment of my life is filled with transformation and self-discovery of the kind of person that I can be. Day 8: Every day and every night I feel much stronger and much healthier in every way possible. Day 9: I am more mindful, centered and balanced with every breath I take every single day. Day 10: Every moment I can feel filled with the complete healing energies of the entire universe. Day 11: Every day I can feel myself becoming more aware and mindful of my talents through every movement and action that I make. Day 12: I am transforming and shifting my life in a positive way every single day. Day 13: Every moment I am breathing in positive and radiant energy while breathing out all of the negativity. Day 14:  Today I will treat people the same way that I would love to be treated even if I am having a bad day. Day 15: Today I will practice active listening skills without passing judgment or letting my feelings getting in the way. Day 16: My life is finally peaceful and I feel completely harmonious with the world. Day 17: I know that I am very much loved and well cared for. Day 18: I am a naturally kind person and I would love to help others using my kindness. Day 19: I am very happy and very healthy. Day 20: The very universe loves and supports me.

The focus on the market has made most economists neglect vast areas of our economic life, with significant negative consequences for our well-being. The neglect of production at the expense of exchange has made policy-makers in some countries overly complacent about the decline of their manufacturing industries. The view of individuals as consumers, rather than producers, has led to the neglect of issues such as the quality of work (e.g., how interesting it is, how safe it is, how stressful it is and even how oppressive it is) and work-life balance. The disregard of these aspects of economic life partly explains why most people in the rich countries don’t feel more fulfilled despite consuming the greatest ever quantities of material goods and services. The economy is much bigger than the market. We will not be able to build a good economy — or a good society — unless we look at the vast expanse beyond the market.

The closer someone lived to someone who was lonely, the lonelier the second individual felt. The same was true for depression, but the blockbuster was about happiness. Happiness was even more contagious than loneliness or depression, and it worked across time. If person A’s happiness went up at time 1, person B’s—living next door—went up at time 2. And so did person C’s, two doors away, by somewhat less. Even person D, three doors away, enjoyed more happiness. This has significant implications for morale among groups of soldiers and for leadership. On the negative side, it suggests that a few sad or lonely or angry apples can spoil the morale of the entire unit. Commanders have known this forever. But the news is that positive morale is even more powerful and can boost the well-being and the performance of the entire unit. This makes the cultivation of happiness—a badly neglected side of leadership—important, perhaps crucial.

The parliamentary public accounts committee, however, would later be less complimentary. The committee chastised the Treasury for waiting until mid-March before deciding on economic support schemes – despite the warnings from medical chiefs from January onwards. The MPs on the committee found that the government’s economic reaction to Covid-19 had been rushed and, in the process, neglected many sectors that needed help. This would have a long-term negative impact on the economy, it concluded. The sheer scale of the government failings were ‘astonishing’, the committee said.

A Thank You to My Body I just want to say "Thank You." Thank you for keeping your promise Thank you for... having kept our heart beating, and healing it when it was broken Thank you for... recognizing the negativity and toxicity in others before I did, and for warning me by making me feel that shit in our gut Thank you for... nursing us back to health, when our immune system either rebelled or failed Thank you for... loving me during the times, that I neglected you, or just outright failed to love you Thank you for... being the ballast when our mind, felt unstable, in the midst of chaos Thank you for... always having recovered when I, nearly destroyed us, or pushed us past our limit Thank you for... always having believed in us, and not quitting on us when I, stopped believing and wanted to quit Thank you for today, and for waking us up ---"ready!" Excerpt from: Jacob's Ascent, New Collected Poems by Mekael © Mekael Shane 2024

As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them within a smaller Circle of Influence. By determining which of these two circles is the focus of most of our time and energy, we can discover much about the degree of our proactivity. Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.

Without doubt, the most common weakness of all human beings is the habit of leaving their minds open to the negative influence of other people. This weakness is all the more damaging, because most people do not recognize that they are cursed by it, and many who acknowledge it, neglect or refuse to correct the evil until it becomes an uncontrollable part of their daily habits.

And these fancies affect not only dogmas, but also simple notions. 46. The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all other things to support and agree with it. And though there is a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet it either neglects and despises these, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate. And therefore it was a good answer that was made by one who, when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods; “Yes,” he asked again, “but where are the pictures of those who were drowned after their vows?” And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like, in which men, having a delight in such vanities, notice the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happens much more often, neglect and pass them by. But this mischief insinuates itself with much more subtlety into philosophy and the sciences, in which the first conclusion colors and brings into conformity with itself all that come after, though far sounder and better. Besides, independently of that delight and vanity which I have described, it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives, whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike. Indeed, in the establishment of any true axiom, the negative instance is the more forcible of the two.

Nice is a little word with a big meaning. How many times did your mother say, "Just be nice?" It's basic manners, yet in our negative world today people often neglect to extend random acts of kindness and simple acts of courtesy.

Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.

whenever i end a conversation i always say take care of yourself to any and everyone. i say it because i mean it, so often we neglect ourselves due to the unfair stipulations that society has put on us as individuals. if we do something for ourselves, weather it be a change or a choice, it could be considered selfish if it affects someone else negatively. but changes and choices rest in us as individuals. to make any such change or choice it has to come from within. and sometimes a change or choice that benefits us and guides us through our growth. can alter how someone perceives us and or who they believe you to be. i guess all im trying to say is take care of yourself, make sure that whatever you do don't live to please people live to please GOD and yourself, and people, places, and things will all complement your life

Screen foster families carefully, monitor them closely and train them well. Too many vulnerable foster children suffer physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect and even death at the hands of those charged with protecting us. Maltreatment by caregivers damages our emotional stability, creating trust issues and other psychological problems that fester deep inside, negatively affecting our behaviors and outlook on life, often . . . too often . . . translating into adjustment problems that handicap our potential to adapt and succeed in childhood and beyond. Monitor our progress carefully, being sensitive to sudden or dramatic changes that may symbolize our unsophisticated “cry for help.” Advocate on our behalf and safeguard us as you would your own children and we will flourish. Fail to do so, and as surely as day becomes night, we will suffer the consequences both during and after we leave the system.

It helps, however, to remember that the goal of Emotion Coaching is to explore and understand emotions, not to suppress them. It may be easier in the short run to dismiss your child’s negativity, ignore it, and hope that it will take care of itself. You can form the deluded philosophy that the mere passage of time will make things better. What you get for this attitude is less trouble in the short run, but more trouble in the long run. Problems are much harder to cope with after they have been neglected and your child has become emotionally distant. In contrast, the rewards of parenting come from being attentive to our children’s feelings. It is impossible to accept and validate a child’s emotion at the same time you wish it would just go away. Acceptance and validation come instead from empathy—that is, feeling what your child is feeling in the moment.

We must have a positive state of mind when dealing with problems. Think: Is there anything positive about this situation I am in? Being positive does not mean we neglect the negative. We must constructively deal with negative situations whilst simultaneously focusing on the positive. Just like our tongue can be obsessed with something stuck in our teeth, our mind has a default setting to be obsessed about the negative. Gratitude is a state of being that allows us to see the positive. It comes from realizing that there is good in the world, that some of that good is with us and that those good things are coming from an external reality. That state of consciousness imbibes us with positivity.

Thus this matter of choosing the “best” stocks is at bottom a highly controversial one. Our advice to the defensive investor is that he let it alone. Let him emphasize diversification more than individual selection. Incidentally, the universally accepted idea of diversification is, in part at least, the negation of the ambitious pretensions of selectivity. If one could select the best stocks unerringly, one would only lose by diversifying. Yet within the limits of the four most general rules of common-stock selection suggested for the defensive investor (on pp. 114–115) there is room for a rather considerable freedom of preference. At the worst the indulgence of such preferences should do no harm; beyond that, it may add something worthwhile to the results. With the increasing impact of technological developments on long-term corporate results, the investor cannot leave them out of his calculations. Here, as elsewhere, he must seek a mean between neglect and overemphasis.

In the case of the Dismissive-Avoidant, it is because of the significant emotional neglect they experienced as a child and their belief that self-reliance is the only way to self-preserve. Identify What Triggers Were Fired How do you identify which of your triggers were activated? You must identify which negative core belief you perceive was validated. Ask yourself: • What do I believe this conflict means? • What am I afraid will happen?

Emotional parents are run by their feelings, swinging between overinvolvement and abrupt withdrawal. They are prone to frightening instability and unpredictability. Overwhelmed by anxiety, they rely on others to stabilize them. They treat small upsets like the end of the world and see other people as either rescuers or abandoners. Driven parents are compulsively goal-oriented and super busy. They can’t stop trying to perfect everything, including other people. Although they rarely pause long enough to have true empathy for their children, they are controlling and interfering when it comes to running their children’s lives. Passive parents have a laissez-faire mind-set and avoid dealing with anything upsetting. They’re less obviously harmful than the other types but have their own negative effects. They readily take a backseat to a dominant mate, even allowing abuse and neglect to occur by looking the other way. They cope by minimizing problems and acquiescing. Rejecting parents engage in a range of behaviors that make you wonder why they have a family in the first place. Whether their behavior is mild or severe, they don’t enjoy emotional intimacy and clearly don’t want to be bothered by children. Their tolerance for other people’s needs is practically nil, and their interactions consist of issuing commands, blowing up, or isolating themselves from family life. Some of the milder types may engage in stereotyped family activities, but they still show little closeness or real engagement. They mostly want to be left alone to do their thing.

An excessively positive outlook can also complicate dying. Psychologist James Coyne has focused his career on end-of-life attitudes in patients with terminal cancer. He points out that dying in a culture obsessed with positive thinking can have devastating psychological consequences for the person facing death. Dying is difficult. Everyone copes and grieves in different ways. But one thing is for certain: If you think you can will your way out of a terminal illness, you will be faced with profound disappointment. Individuals swept up in the positive-thinking movement may delay meaningful, evidence-based treatment (or neglect it altogether), instead clinging to so-called “manifestation” practices in the hope of curing disease. Unfortunately, this approach will most often lead to tragedy. In perhaps one of the largest investigations on the topic to date, Dr. Coyne found that there is simply no relationship between emotional well-being and mortality in the terminally ill (see James Coyne, Howard Tennen, and Adelita Ranchor, 2010). Not only will positive thinking do nothing to delay the inevitable; it may make what little time is left more difficult. People die in different ways, and quality of life can be heavily affected by external societal pressures. If an individual feels angry or sad but continues to bear the burden of friends’, loved ones’, and even medical professionals’ expectations to “keep a brave face” or “stay positive,” such tension can significantly diminish quality of life in one’s final days. And it’s not just the sick and dying who are negatively impacted by positive-thinking pseudoscience. By its very design, it preys on the weak, the poor, the needy, the down-and-out. Preaching a gospel of abundance through mental power sets society as a whole up for failure. Instead of doing the required work or taking stock of the harsh realities we often face, individuals find themselves hoping, wishing, and praying for that love, money, or fame that will likely never come. This in turn has the potential to set off a feedback loop of despair and failure.

As feminist scholar Dr. bell hooks says, “Abuse and neglect negate love. Care and affirmation, the opposite of abuse and humiliation, are the foundation of love. No one can rightfully claim to be loving when behaving abusively

Step 8: Forgiving your parents Forgiving your parents is not required. Particularly if there was severe abuse or neglect, you may never be able to forgive them. This is totally your choice. But we have found that, in most cases, forgiving one's parents is something that happens naturally, as the healing process progresses. Patients gradually come to see their parents less and less as giant, negative figures in their mind, and more and more as just people with problems and concerns of their own. They see that their parents were caught within their own lifetraps, and were in fact more like children than giants. They become able to forgive them. Again, this does not always happen. It may or may not happen to you. Depending upon what happened in your childhood, you may decide never to forgive them. In fact, you may even decide the opposite – to cut off all contact. At the end of your path there may or may not lie forgiveness, but you have to do what is right for you. We will support you either way.

Step #3. Identify where the negativity is coming from. Start by checking if it’s coming from you. If you’re tired, hungry, overextended, rushed, or in any way unhappy or uncomfortable, don’t be surprised if you’re the one who’s putting out bad vibes toward others (see Practice #2). Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy, and simple physical neglect is all it takes to feel that the world is against us. You may also be feeling negative vibes because you’re being overly critical of yourself. If so, ease up!

In addition to having the right people on board, you need to keep the bus in good running condition. That may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many companies with wonderful intentions trip themselves up by having poor internal communications, or bad coordination between departments, or inadequate follow-through on decisions, or any of a thousand other fundamental management issues that can negate all the positive initiatives those companies undertake. I have never encountered angrier and more cynical employees than those I’ve met in socially responsible companies that have been so focused on saving the world they neglected to do what was necessary to save themselves. Some of them were famous for their mojo early on, but they lost it, in part because they didn’t take care of the basics.

History from Below’ directed attention to the important roles the masses had played politically, in bringing about major revolutions. It argued that history was not an affair of the upper classes only, using the French Revolution as an example of how even its ‘bourgeois’ phase was driven by the actions of peasants and artisans, and how the proletariat was destined to be the main agent of history in ushering Communism.[9] This approach, advanced by Marxist historians, would be extended by feminists and cultural Marxists generally into a call for a new history that would include the ‘indispensable’ roles and achievements of a whole host of ‘minorities’ neglected by traditional academics (i.e. gays, transsexuals, lesbians, blacks etc.), all of which contained a corresponding assault, and inevitable devaluation of the one agent that stood out as unoppressed, as ultimate oppressor: white hetero males, the very beings responsible for almost all the greatest works in Art and Science. The argument by World Systems Theory is that the ‘core’ countries of the West had achieved their status as advanced cultures by exploitation and holding down the ‘periphery’ and that a true historical narrative entailed an appreciation of the morally superior ways of Third World peoples struggling to liberate themselves from a world system controlled by white owned multinationals. This too has had an immensely negative impact on students, leading them to believe that the West only managed to modernise by extracting resources from the Third World and enslaving Africans and Natives.[10] This highly influential school has missed the far more important role of modern science and liberal institutions in the industrialisation of Western European nations.

Gratitude is the key to happiness, and you already know that. And so you focus your attention not on the negative but on all the wonderful people you have around you, the fact that you have a house and food, that you experience everything on a daily basis and that you experience life itself. That is not a saint-bean tone, that is dealing consciously and kindly with your existence. And with that of others.

I went with something simple- whitefish slow cooked in butter on low heat! That way the fish keeps all its delicate texture with added moisture and buttery flavor! Well? Whaddya think?!" "The natural flavors of the ingredients are adequately retained, yes." "YEAH! AIN'T THEY?" "However... while cooking in butter on low heat does give the fish extra juiciness, the flavor becomes too thick and heavy. Did it not even occur to you to add something tangy like wine vinegar to properly rebalance the flavors? That is an egregious failing. Not only that, you used Vin Juane and Macvin du Jura wines in the sauce, correct? That you neglected to come up with some means of accenting the nutty bouquet unique to those yellow wines is another failing. As for your garnish, the hints of buckwheat flour in the Crozet pasta do not at all go with the Comté cheese. More negative points.

The intention to harm or exclude may guide some technical design decisions. Yet even when they do, these motivations often stand in tension with aims framed more benevolently. Even police robots who can use lethal force while protecting officers from harm are clothed in the rhetoric of public safety.35 This is why we must separate “intentionality” from its strictly negative connotation in the context of racist practices, and examine how aiming to “do good” can very well coexist with forms of malice and neglect.36 In fact a do-gooding ethos often serves as a moral cover for harmful decisions. Still, the view that ill intent is always a feature of racism is common: “No one at Google giggled while intentionally programming its software to mislabel black people.”37 Here McWhorter is referring to photo-tagging software that classified dark-skinned users as “gorillas.” Having discovered no bogeyman behind the screen, he dismisses the idea of “racist technology” because that implies “designers and the people who hire them are therefore ‘racists.’” But this expectation of individual intent to harm as evidence of racism is one that scholars of race have long rejected.38

A factor that plays an important role in both self-mutilation and eating disorders is a distorted body image. Although many women suffer from poor body image brought about by oppressive public attitudes and media images, societal pressure alone does not cause the kind of deep-seated mental and physiological disturbance that leads to serious and chronic self-mutilation or eating disorders. Cutting and burning, starving and stuffing, bingeing and purging all reflect both an extreme preoccupation with the body and an equally strong sense of alienation from it. The body is viewed as the enemy—an adversary that must be punished and controlled at all costs. At the same time, the body seems dead, unreal, separate from the soul. It's reality must constantly be proven. The root causes of this are much more closer to home. Like the skin ego, body image begins to form with the earliest skin contact between parent and infant. Whether a positive or negative body image ultimately develops as the child grows into adulthood depends on, among other things, the sense of power, control, and autonomy the child feels over her physical self. Inviolate body boundaries are essential to a healthy body image. Intrusive and neglectful caregiving results in poor body image and the compulsive need to artificially create and enforce body boundaries though behaviors like cutting and eating disorders.

Social Justice approaches that focus solely on group identity and neglect individuality and universality are doomed to fail for the simple reasons that people are individuals and share a common human nature. Identity politics is not a path to empowerment. There is no “unique voice of color” or of women or of trans, gay, disabled, or fat people. Even a relatively small random sample drawn from any of those groups will reveal widely varying individual views. This does not negate the likelihood that prejudice still exists and that the people who experience it are the most likely to be aware of it. We still need to “listen and consider,” but we need to listen to and consider a variety of experiences and views from members of oppressed groups, not just a single one that has been arbitrarily labeled “authentic” because it represents the view essentialized by Theory.

Much of the negation poisoning the democratic process has stemmed from a confusion of the personal and the statistical. I may hold down an excellent job, but the failure of the stimulus to meet its targets infuriates me. I may live in peaceful Vienna, Virginia, safe from harm—but a report that several Americans have died violently in Kabul appears like a fatal failure of authority. By dwelling on the plane of gross statistics, I become vulnerable to grandiose personal illusions: that if I compel the government to move in this direction or that, I can save the Constitution, say, or the earth, or stop the war, or end poverty now. Though my personal sphere overflows with potentiality, I join the mutinous public and demand the abolition of the established order. This type of moral and political displacement is nothing new. The best character in the best novel by Dickens, to my taste, is Mrs. Jellyby of Bleak House, who spent long days working to improve “the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger,” while, in her London home, her small children ran wild and neglected. Dickens termed this “telescopic philanthropy”—the trampling of the personal sphere for the sake of a heroic illusion. Mrs. Jellyby, sitting in quite a nest of waste paper, drank coffee all the evening and dictated at intervals to her eldest daughter. She also held a discussion with Mr. Quale, the subject of which seemed to be—if I understood it—the brotherhood of humanity, and gave utterance to some beautiful sentiments. I was not so attentive an auditor as I might have wished to be, however, for Peepy and the other children came flocking about Ada and me in a corner of the drawing-room to ask for another story; so we sat down among them and told them in whispers “Puss in Boots” and I don’t know what else until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally remembering them, sent them to bed.3 The revolt of the public has had a telescopic and Jellybyan aspect to it. Though they never descended to details, insurgents assumed that, by symbolic gestures and sheer force of desire, they could refashion the complex systems of democracy and capitalism into a personalized utopia. Instead, unknowingly, they crossed into N. N. Taleb’s wild “Extremistan,” where “we are subjected to the tyranny of the singular, the accidental, the unseen, and the unpredicted.” In that unstable country, “you should always be suspicious of the knowledge you derive from data.”4 I can’t command a complex social system like the United States, but I can control my political expectations of it: I can choose to align them with reality. To seize this alternative, I must redirect the demands I make on the world from the telescopic to the personal, because actionable reality resides in the personal sphere. I can do something about losing my job, for example, but I have no clue what could or should be done about the unemployment rate. I know directly whether a law affects my business for better or worse, but I have no idea of its effect on the gross domestic product. I can assist a friend in need, but I have little influence over the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger. Control, however tenuous, and satisfaction, however fleeting, can only be found in the personal sphere, not in telescopic numbers reported by government. A

In the 2019 Harvard Health Publishing article on how past trauma can haunt your future health, researchers state that a person's risk for mental and physical health problems rise as the number of traumatic events experienced increases. In other words, someone with five traumatic experiences will have a higher chance of developing health issues than someone who had only one negative adverse childhood experience.

Ambivalence exists in all human relationships, including parent-child. Anna Freud maintained that a mother could never satisfy her infant's needs because those are infinite, but that eventually child and mother outgrow that dependence...In Torn in Tow, the British psycho analyst Rozsika Parker complains that in our open, modern society, the extent of maternal ambivalence is a dark secret. Most mothers treat their occasional wish to be rid of their children as if it were the equivalent of murder itself. Parker proposes that mothering requires two impulses - the impulse to hold on, and the impulse to push away. To be a successful mother you must nurture and love your child, but cannot smother and cling to your child. Mothering involves sailing between what Parker calls 'the Scylla of intrusiveness and the Charybdis of neglect.' She proposes that the sentimental idea of perfect synchrony between mother and child 'can cast a sort of sadness over motherhood - a constant state of mild regret that a delightful oneness seems always out of reach.' Perfection is a horizon virtue, and our very approach to it reveals its immutable distance. The dark portion of maternal ambivalence toward typical children is posited as crucial to the child's individuation. But severely disabled children who will never become independent will not benefit from their parents' negative feelings, and so their situation demands an impossible state of emotional purity. Asking the parents of severely disabled children to feel less negative emotion than parents of healthy children is ludicrous. My experience of these parents was that they all felt both love and despair. You cannot decide whether to be ambivalent/ All you can decide is what to do with your ambivalence. Most of these parents have chosen to act on one side of the ambivalence they feel, and Julia Hollander chose to act on another side, but I am not persuaded that the ambivalence itself was so different from one of these families to the next. I am enough of a creature of my times to admire most the parents who kept their children and made brave sacrifices for them. I nonetheless esteem Julia Hollander for being honest with herself, and for making what all those other families did look like a choice.

some children are neglected in both domains, emotionally and materially. No matter where they turn, they encounter deprivation. These children usually just give up and learn to expect nothing (the Surrender coping style).

Having a record of well-child visits also protects parents, especially those who choose to follow an alternative lifestyle, from being accused of medical neglect. An ongoing record showing regular well-child visits goes a long way to negate such accusations, supposing they are ever made.

Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneli-ness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person’s choices regarding relationships and intimate partners.

HELPING KIDS MANAGE EMOTIONAL FLASHBACKS This list is for social workers, teachers, relatives, neighbors and friends to help children from traumatizing families. It is adapted from the steps at the beginning of this chapter. Depending on the age of the child, some steps will be more appropriate than others. Even if you are not in a position to help other kids, please read this list at least once for the benefit of your own inner child. Help the child develop an awareness of flashbacks [inside “owies”]: “When have you felt like this before? Is this how it feels when someone is being mean to you?” Demonstrate that “Feeling in danger does not always mean you are in danger.” Teach that some places are safer than others. Use a soft, easy tone of voice: “Maybe you can relax a little with me.” “You’re safe here with me.” “No one can hurt you here.” Model that there are adults interested in his care and protection. Aim to become the child’s first safe relationship. Connect the child with other safe nurturing adults, groups, or clubs. Speak soothingly and reassuringly to the child. Balance “Love & Limits:” 5 positives for each negative. Set limits kindly. Guide the child’s mind back into her body to reduce hyper-vigilance and hyperarousal. a. Teach systemic relaxation of all major muscle groups b. Teach deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing c. Encourage slowing down to reduce fear-increasing rushing d. Teach calming centering practices like drawing, Aikido, Tai Chi, yoga, stretching e. Identify and encourage retreat to safe places Teach “use-your-words.” In some families it’s dangerous to talk. Verbal ventilation releases pain and fear, and restores coping skills. Facilitate grieving the death of feeling safe. Abuse and neglect beget sadness and anger. Crying releases fear. Venting anger in a way that doesn’t hurt the person or others creates a sense of safety. Shrink the Inner Critic. Make the brain more user-friendly. Heighten awareness of negative self-talk and fear-based fantasizing. Teach thought-stopping and thought substitution: Help the child build a memorized list of his qualities, assets, successes, resources. Help the child identify her 4F type & its positive side. Use metaphors, songs, cartoons or movie characters. Fight: Power Rangers; Flight: Roadrunner, Bob the Builder; Freeze: Avatar; Fawn: Grover. Educate about the right/need to have boundaries, to say no, to protest unfairness, to seek the protection of responsible adults. Identify and avoid dangerous people, places and activities. [Superman avoids Kryptonite. Shaq and Derek Jeter don’t do drugs.] Deconstruct eternity thinking. Create vivid pictures of attainable futures that are safer, friendlier, and more prosperous. Cite examples of comparable success stories.