Alexandra

“The conflict between the will to deny horrible events and the will to proclaim them aloud is the central dialectic of psychological trauma.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“It might seem that we have to generate the sense of openness, freshness, joy, revelry, or stillness we touch in such moments. From the Buddhist perspective, however, such a state of being is already there within us and has been so since the beginning.
It's tantalizing to think that perhaps expansiveness lies waiting to be uncovered within us while we go searching for it everywhere else. It’s not something we go toward so much as it is what we are left with when all our running around ceases. Our deeper nature is simply what’s left when we put down the endless task of trying to be somebody”
― Ralph De La Rosa, The Monkey Is the Messenger: Meditation and What Your Busy Mind Is Trying to Tell You

“You don't have to believe in yourself. You don't have to think positively. You don't have to wait until you're not longer afraid or in pain to make a move - and you don't have to shut down the pain and the fear in order to make a move, either. These common tropes aren't part of my story, and they don't have to be part of yours. You can absolutely not believe in yourself, be afraid, be in pain, hate it all, and still take the next step anyhow. You can hear all those screams of "No!" and still follow the tender whisper of "Yes.”
― Ralph De La Rosa, Don't Tell Me to Relax: Emotional Resilience in the Age of Rage, Feels, and Freak-Outs

“Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.”
― Zadie Smith, White Teeth