Adele von Rust McCormick > Quotes

“When we encounter a friend who's depressed or afraid, we automatically try to take that distress away and to cheer the person up. While we may be operating with the best of intentions, this Band-Aid approach only reinforces the condition. Unless people experience their pain completely and begin to undrstand it, they will not only fail to overcome it, they'll also lose the opportunity of using it to advance their own growth. Pain can get you somewhere, and that somewhere can be a life-enhancing experience. We all tend to forget that pain can signal change. Alleviating the symptoms of pain in someone, without helping them to get at its underlying source, robs them of an important to for self-exploration. It's also a way of placating that reinforces the person'S need to cave in and succumb to another. This attitude undermines healthy character development and contributes to psychospiritual, moral, and ultimately social decay.”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality

“we have all, at some time or another, been guilty of mercilessness. Our own evil is a fact we often choose to ignore. Evil is not just "out there" but is the shadow Carl Jung described as lurking within every human. Whether we like it or not, it is our legacy, part and parcel of the human package. To step outside of our comfort zones and admit this takes courage, but without this sobering recognition we're more likely to lose our capacity for compassion, humility and forgiveness. If we lose our awareness of this side of our own nature, we risk becoming slaves to our own dark side. What goes unacknowledged in us has a tendency to grow larger.
Tenderness and compassion are qualities we must cultivate and never take for granted. This alone would make the world a better place by far. We”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality

“Being nonreactive to destructive or hostile behaviour does not imply passive acceptance of it. Rather, it means we need to deal with it, take off our blinders and see the unacceptable. To redirect the destructive enery, we must dance with the shadow, not kill it. When we can achieve this stance, we learn to confront maladaptive or nonproductive behaviour matter-of-factly, without becoming embroiled in the heat of our own emotions. This nonreflexive style of being in the world is potent.”
― Adele von Rust McCormick

“Horses have taught us about the transfiguring effect of reducing anger. We have repeatedly observed that they rarely show offense at a handler who reprimands them legitimately for something they have done wrong, if the handler is devoid of rage or vengeance. Howeve, if reprimanded in a fury, horses will counterattack because they feel challenged. Many power struggles can be avoided by learning not to meet anger with anger. This is an invaluable lesson in life. Developing patience and being unemotional is the key.”
― Adele von Rust McCormick

“Individuals who continually play it safe in life, taking the path of least resistance and risk, deny themselves rich opportunities for personal growth.
Some”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality

“The mistrust we have in our intuitive abilities leaves us, like sheep, extremely vulnerable. Our culture's present emphasis on the importance of intellect at the expense of instinctual knowing has rendered us defenseless. We have crippled ourselves in our hesitation to mobilize our instincts, even when to do so would save our lives. We”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality

“Samuel Butler (1835-1902) said, "The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too." 7”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality

“Beholding beauty: The key is to acquire the ability to alter our negativity. To do this we use our capacity to project, but in a healthy way. Instead of expelling negative feelings and thoughts onto the world, we project good ones. Envisioning beauty and love in our mind'S eye accomplishes this end. Then we create a lighter psychological paradigm....We have the power to elevate our thoughts, feelings, and images, and when we teach ourselves how to behold beauty, we become increasingly sensitive to it.”
― Adele von Rust McCormick

“orking with serious mental illness, criminal behavior and substance addiction over the years has forced us to travel into interpersonal realms where few have gone. Over and over, we have had to face our own feelings of vulnerability, helplessness, fear and despair, only to find that, in the end, there is hope. Our experiences, although sometimes terrifying, compelled us to look deep inside ourselves, where we found an unexpected peace. It is through this upheaval and self-scrutiny that we have come to know joy.
As therapists, it was a surprise to find out that so much of what we learned academically had so little to do with the reality of working with severely disturbed people. Not once
during our academic careers were we ever realistically prepared for the roller-coaster nature of the professional path we were setting out on. We were not told of the horror, the helplessness or the elation we would feel in treating maladies of the human heart. So, when we launched our practice, it was trial by fire. When we were finally faced with patients in the depths of despair or the throes of violence-a humbling experience-we learned we had to drop the professional persona and rely on our own intuition. There”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality

“orking with serious mental illness, criminal behavior and substance addiction over the years has forced us to travel into interpersonal realms where few have gone. Over and over, we have had to face our own feelings of vulnerability, helplessness, fear and despair, only to find that, in the end, there is hope. Our experiences, although sometimes terrifying, compelled us to look deep inside ourselves, where we found an unexpected peace. It is through this upheaval and self-scrutiny that we have come to know joy.
As therapists, it was a surprise to find out that so much of what we learned academically had so little to do with the reality of working with severely disturbed people. Not once
during our academic careers were we ever realistically prepared for the roller-coaster nature of the professional path we were setting out on. We were not told of the horror, the helplessness or the elation we would feel in treating maladies of the human heart. So, when we launched our practice, it was trial by fire. When”
― Adele von Rust McCormick, Horse Sense and the Human Heart: What Horses Can Teach Us About Trust, Bonding, Creativity and Spirituality