Julie Simons

“It’s interesting-most people think about therapy as something that involves going in and undoing what’s happened. But whatever your past experiences created in your brain, the associations exist and you can’t just delete them. You can’t get rid of the past.
Therapy is more about building new associations, making new, healthier default pathways. It is almost as if therapy is taking your two-lane dirt road and building a four-lane freeway alongside it. The old road stays, but you don’t use it much anymore. Therapy is building a better alternative, a new default. And that takes repetition, and time, honestly, it works best if someone understands how the brain changes. This is why understanding how trauma impacts our health is essential for everyone.”
― Bruce D. Perry, What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

“The more grounded confidence parents have, the more likely they are to prepare their child for the path by teaching courage, praising effort, and modeling grit, versus trying to prepare a perfect path for their child by fixing, praising only results, and intervening.”
― Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.

“Charles Feltman. Feltman describes trust as “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions,” and he describes distrust as deciding that “what is important to me is not safe with this person in this situation (or any situation).”
― Brené Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone

“I will” and “I won’t” power are the two sides of self-control, but they alone don’t constitute willpower. To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want.”
― Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It