Virginie

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
― Maya Angelou, Letter to My Daughter

“Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.

What a terrible burden for children to bear—to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear—to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate, too. Because if we show them that being a martyr is the highest form of love, that is what they will become. They will feel obligated to love as well as their mothers loved, after all. They will believe they have permission to live only as fully as their mothers allowed themselves to live.

If we keep passing down the legacy of martyrdom to our daughters, with whom does it end? Which woman ever gets to live? And when does the death sentence begin? At the wedding altar? In the delivery room? Whose delivery room—our children’s or our own? When we call martyrdom love we teach our children that when love begins, life ends. This is why Jung suggested: There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“For instance, some people become anxious before a public speaking event. For others, the idea of getting up in front of a crowd can be stimulating and exciting. One way of responding is not necessarily better than the other; it’s more accurately a reflection of a person’s way of managing stress at any given moment combined with their history.”
― Wendy Suzuki, Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion

“Our brains work automatically to create strategies for avoiding unpleasant feelings (such as anxiety) and masking their severity. This avoidance is built into our neural pathways and wiring and helps us manage stress and keep going. But as our internal and external lives/environments change, we often outgrow these coping mechanisms or they just stop working.”
― Wendy Suzuki, Good Anxiety: Harnessing the Power of the Most Misunderstood Emotion