-V-

“Remember parts of your body are scattered in water all over the earth. Know land is made from you.”
― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

“I’m not sure it is possible to articulate grief through language. You can say, I was so sad I thought my bones would collapse. I thought I would die. But language always falls short of the body when it comes to the intensity of corporeal experience. The best we can do is bring language in relationship to corporeal experience-bring words close to the body-as close as possible. Close enough to shatter them. Or close enough to knock a body out. To bring language close to the intensity of experiences like love or death or grief or pain is to push on the affect of language. Its sounds and grunts and ecstatic noises. The ritual sense of language. Or the cry.”
― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

“The job of the autonomic nervous system is to ensure we survive in moments of danger and thrive in times of safety. Survival requires threat detection and the activation of a survival response. Thriving demands the opposite—the inhibition of a survival response so that social engagement can happen. Without the capacity for activation, inhibition, and flexibility of response, we suffer.”
― Deb Dana, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy: Engaging the Rhythm of Regulation

“Cleaning the wound is often more painful
than the cut itself.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Shadows of Self