Isaac

“When we get caught in self-criticism and shame, we feel inadequate, defective and inferior. When we feel that way we want to hide, get smaller, disappear. It produces urges to escape and avoid, rather than to dust ourselves off and try again. In fact, it is so painful that it induces strong urges to block that feeling, which is risky for anyone living with addiction.”
― Julie Smith, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

“Thoughts are not facts. They are guesses, stories, memories, ideas and theories.”
― Julie Smith, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

“Natural selection shaped us to care enormously about waht other people think about our resources, abilities, and character. This is what self-esteem is all about. We constantly monitor how much others value us. Low self-esteem is a signal to try harder to please others.”
― Randolph M. Nesse, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

“Feelings are often accompanied by urges. Those urges are suggestions, nudges, persuasions telling us to try this or that to relieve the discomfort that we feel or to seek the reward that we anticipate. While those urges can be powerful, we don’t have to do what they say.”
― Julie Smith, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?