Faith G. Harper > Quotes

“We should honor the past, we should remember it, and we should respect what it has taught us. But we don’t have to keep living there. That house is crumbling and toxic and far too small to contain you. It doesn’t support your present experience and it sure as fuck doesn’t fit into your future goals.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“We don’t just tell stories because we want to…we HAVE to. It’s a biological human drive. In fact, we are so wired to tell stories that we even do it in our sleep. This is why we dream.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“We either win or we learn. So take the fuck-ups as new ways of getting good information about yourself.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers

“It takes far more strength to accept help than to reject it.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers

“Most of us have to get up every day, deal with real life, and try to figure out the getting better part during that process.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“No matter how well you know someone, you don’t know their inner processes. They may not even know their inner processes. If you know someone well, you may know a lot. But you aren’t the one operating that life. Telling someone what they should be doing, feeling, or thinking, won’t help. Even if you are right. Even if they do what you say…you have just taken away their power to do the work they need to do to take charge of their life. There are limits to how much better they can really be if they are continually rescued by you.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Staying alive with a brain bent on self-annihilation, in a world that doesn't necessarily value your worth, is the ultimate radical act.”
― Faith G. Harper, How Not to Kill Yourself: A Survival Guide for Imaginative Pessimists

“Trauma puts us in survival mode for that first thirty days. And traumas may be coming so fast and furious that we don’t have a moment to stop and breathe. So our brains shut down the trauma-processing experience so we can continue to survive.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Episodic memories get stored in the hippocampus as our stories—our interpretation of events with our emotional responses attached to them. These are memories that are tied to serious emotional reactions. If something happened in your life that was really significant to you, the emotions tied to that memory become attached like cat hair or static cling. So when we have an emotional response in the future, the amygdala immediately pulls this EAM file in order to decide how to respond. What fires together, wires together.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Anger is a Secondary Emotion And you know what is REALLY fucked up about anger? This emotion that we culturally believe is driving us to success? It isn’t even a primary emotion. I know, you are now asking: And what the FUCK is that supposed to mean, fancy PhD lady? It means that while anger may be the first emotion we recognize at some level in ourselves, and the emotion we act (or react) upon, I guarantee you it actually isn’t the first thing you feel in any given situation. Anger is a secondary emotion. The best model I have seen to explain anger uses the acronym AHEN. AHEN is as simple a conceptualization as you can get. ANGER is triggered by Hurt Expectations not met Needs not met Of course, it is a little more complicated than that in that we aren’t usually limited to just one of these triggers but a big glob-ball of all of the above.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“The prefrontal cortex takes in some outside information. The amygdala says I REMEMBER THAT! LAST TIME THAT SHIT HAPPENED, IT HURT! HURT SUCKS! And the brainstem tells the prefrontal cortex GET THE FUCK UP OUT OF THERE! WE DON’T LIKE TO HURT!”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Love is not a nebulous idea. It's not a vague notion of warm and fuzzy. Its the real daily interactions of sharing our lives with someone, caring for them, and having them care for us in return. Love is what we do, day in day out, not what we profess in our status updates.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Intimacy: Using Science for Better Relationships, Sex, and Dating

“If you squeeze your eyes shut, you will continue to bump into shit. If you keep your eyes open to the terrain, you can start putting together a map. When you catch yourself doing the thing, ask yourself to retrace what led to it. The HALT acronym is a big one in addiction treatment…am I hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired? If you pair awareness triggers with accountability for your actions it becomes increasingly hard to stay on the addiction path.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Human beings are hardwired for relationships. We need the stability of relationships in order to be well. Our brains know this, even when society tells us “You don’t need no one but your own DAMN SELF, playa’!” That’s some bullshit.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers

“We now even know that trauma can actually create genetic changes that can be passed down through generations. If you have a great-grandparent, grandparent, or parent with a serious trauma history, you are wired for a different response than someone who had family members without a lot of life drama.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“We have a tendency to separate mental health from physical health. As if they don’t affect each other in a continuous fucking feedback loop, or something.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“For example, maybe you grew up in a house where no one talked about their feelings, It wasn't encouraged and everyone else became uncomfortable if you tried. You learned pretty quickly that talking about your feelings was clearly against the rules.
You weren't abused, you weren't traumatized. But, at the dinner table, you said "My best friend and I had a fight today and I'm really sad and angry," it would elicit a response of "That happens sometimes, dear, please pass the potatoes.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers

“you are worth the time it takes to focus on yourself and your healing.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Our emotions influence our thoughts and behaviors. They are meant to be a physiological signal to the rest of the brain.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Damn, Self, do you have to be all 50 shades of batshit crazy?”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy” is a Polish proverb that translates literally into “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” This is far superior to just saying, “Not my problem,” isn’t it? Because it reminds us of the ridiculousness of getting sucked into drama that doesn’t belong to us. You do not have to deal with craziness that isn’t yours. If you choose to buy a ticket and a tub of popcorn, that’s totally on you.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Adulting: Give Yourself Permission, Carry Your Own Baggage, Don't Be a Dick, Make Decisions, & Other Life Skills

“Depression is the thief of all the wonderful things that make human-ing worth it.”
― Faith G. Harper, This Is Your Brain on Depression: Creating Your Path to Getting Better

“You deserve every opportunity to heal.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Be an epic goofball. Seriously. Praise be to Pokemon Go for getting people out and doing stuff again. For about five minutes, Pokemon Go was beating out porn in internet usage. That’s crazy awesome. Who knows what the fuck the new hot thing will be by the time you are reading this book, but I am all in for anything that gives us permission to be epic goofballs. I will talk in a crazy accent, wear weird t-shirts (I love buying t-shirts from the boys’ section of the store) to work (the benefit of being self-employed… I set the dress code), dance with my waiter in the middle of the restaurant (thanks, Paul!), and have my husband (a deeply patient man) push me through the grocery store parking lot while I stand on the shopping cart.”
― Faith G. Harper, Coping Skills: Tools & Techniques for Every Stressful Situation

“Do your work. Ask for help and support, totally. But do your own work, rather than relying on others to feel better. Carry your own load. Take responsibility for what’s yours. Otherwise you are not only creating resentment in others, you never have to figure out how to actually deal with what you’ve been handed.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Adulting: Give Yourself Permission, Carry Your Own Baggage, Don't Be a Dick, Make Decisions, & Other Life Skills

“If you are sitting around waiting for permission from the rest of the world to go do the stuff that sets your soul on fire, you may not ever get it. The world is not designed to kiss you on your forehead and send you off on your epic adventures.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Adulting: Give Yourself Permission, Carry Your Own Baggage, Don't Be a Dick, Make Decisions, & Other Life Skills

“Our brains are wired to crave certainty.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Use your stories to create meaning. The healthiest people are the ones who can find meaning in chaos.”
― Faith G. Harper

“Some addictions are clear. The homeless woman with the fresh track marks over years of scars. The man who loses his home and car to gambling debts and now is hiding from dangerous creditors. Some addictions are softer, easier to engage in and still get up and function every day. Those of us who take out a bag of chips or tray of muffins after a tough day. Or go shoe shopping for our 8th pair of black sandals that we are never going to wear. There are addictions that excuse us from society altogether, those that keep us barely afloat within it, and those that become a barrier between us and the rest of the world. It’s only a matter of degree, in the end. How do we define when we cross over into addiction territory? As a relationally-trained therapist, my answer is a simple one. When our addiction becomes our primary relationship. Maybe not in our hearts and heads. But in our behaviors, definitely. When we don’t have control over our addictions, we are spending time, resources, and energy on the addiction instead of the people we love. And instead of, let’s face it…ourselves.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers

“Our ability to discriminate between real danger and perceived danger is an imperfect system. The brain is going to err on the side of caution, even if that means you shut down when you don’t actually need to.”
― Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers