Ryan Crasta
https://www.goodreads.com/ryan-crasta
“Average, of course, is so much better than below average. But when you meet people who are extraordinary, average feels humiliating. I wish it didn’t, but it does.”
― A Very Punchable Face
― A Very Punchable Face
“Most people who are in the process of excavating the reasons they do what they do are met at some point with resistance. “You’re blaming the past.” “Your past is not an excuse.” This is true. Your past is not an excuse. But it is an explanation—offering insight into the questions so many of us ask ourselves: Why do I behave the way I behave? Why do I feel the way I do? For me, there is no doubt that our strengths, vulnerabilities, and unique responses are an expression of what happened to us. Very often, “what happened” takes years to reveal itself. It takes courage to confront our actions, peel back the layers of trauma in our lives, and expose the raw truth of our past. But this is where healing begins.”
― What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
― What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
“Healing is figuring out how to coexist with the pain that will always live inside of you, without pretending it isn’t there or allowing it to hijack your day. It is learning to confront ghosts and to carry what lingers. It is learning to embrace the people I love now instead of protecting against a future in which I am gutted by their loss. Katherine’s experience and her insight sit with me. She went through something she thought she could never survive and yet here she is, surviving. “You have to shift from the gloom and doom and focus instead on what you love,” she told me before bed. “That’s all you can do in the face of these things. Love the people around you. Love the life you have. I can’t think of a more powerful response to life’s sorrows than loving.”
― Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
― Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted
“It has taken years and years, starting early in childhood, for the emotional brain to acquire its repertoire of habit. Schemas like perfectionism and deprivation become ingrained through innumerable repeated episodes. It naturally takes time to undo these emotional habits and to master a healthier response.”
― Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart
― Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart
“As we’ve seen, the task of changing a schema is two-fold: we have to unlearn the self-defeating old habit and replace it with a new, healthier one. That change is very different from mere intellectual understanding—it involves the emotional brain. It takes much persistent practice, cultivation of the ability to bring awareness to what had been unconscious behavior, and sustained effort to try out the new way of thinking and acting despite its initial awkwardness and relapses into old habit.”
― Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart
― Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart
Ryan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ryan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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