Healing Language Quotes

“It might be possible that 'triggered' may not be the most helpful word ... For me, there is a felt sense of violence in this word, while 'touched and awakened' more accurately describes what happens to these sequestered neural nets.

This gentler wording helps us cultivate a sense of meeting the experience every time we are so 'touched' with an appreciation for what it might be offering.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“As we speak from a particular perspective, our words not only reveal something about our hemispheric vantage point, but they also go on to reinforce this way of seeing, wrapping us within a distinct perceptual slant. Then, because of our resonance with each other, we are simultaneously issuing an invitation for others to join us in this mode of attending.

As we shift towards left dominance, we move internally out of relationship and into isolation, no matter how many people may be present, and we are inviting others into disconnection from themselves and others as well.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“I wonder if our right hemisphere believes there is such a thing as pathology or if our symptoms might all be seen as truth-telling and adaptive.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

“When he would hear me speak in ways that were judgmental or indicated my wish to get rid of some part of me, he would gently say, 'A more respectful word may want to emerge soon' ...

He encouraged me to just listen for it, not to try to find it by digging around.

Something always came and gradually opened me to a more kind and inclusive way of being with myself and others.

I began to notice that my words and perceptions were inextricably linked, so as the words changed and my perceptions were also shifting (and vice versa, I imagine), and this led to more changes in language to better reflect this continually emerging felt-sense experience while encouraging it to deepen further as well--a beautiful circle of transformation.

Slowly, slowly I found myself moving away from a more judgmental, analytical, disembodied, left-shifted viewpoint toward a more open, curious, accepting way of being that emerges when right-hemisphere processes take the lead.”
― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships