Quotes About Feelings

Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated.

These people have all developed the art of not experiencing feelings, for a child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her. If

No longer to be compelled to betray one's own feelings and senses, no longer to allow oneself to be deflected from the truth of facts by ideologies of any kind, is already to lend a hand in the demolition of the inhuman, destructive wall of silence—the wall that we were forced to respect as children and which has again and again resulted in fascist behavior.

empathic and open, understanding and understandable, honest and available, helpful and loving, feeling, transparent, clear

Relationships based on masklike communication of this kind cannot change. They remain what they have always been: instances of mis-communication. A genuine relationship is possible only if both partners can admit their feelings, experience them and communicate them to each other without fear. It is fine and uplifting when this happens. But it is rare, because both partners' fear of giving up the accustomed façade or mask prevents any genuine exchange.

A higher being dependent on inauthentic feelings dictated by morality is strongly reminiscent of the insecurity displayed by our frustrated and disoriented parents. Such a being can be called God only by people who have never questioned their own parents or thought about their dependency on them.

The strength within ourselves—through access to our own real needs and feelings and the possibility of expressing them—is crucially important for us if we want to live without depression and addiction.

Porque uno está libre de depresiones cuando la autoestima arraiga en la autenticidad de los sentimientos propios y no en la posesión de determinadas cualidades.

In contrast, there are those with great gifts, often precisely the most gifted, who do suffer from severe depression. For one is free from it only when self-esteem is based on the authenticity of ones own feelings and not on the possession of certain qualities.

It is not only the "beautiful," "good," and pleasant feelings that make us really alive, deepen our existence, and give us crucial insight, but often precisely the unacceptable and unadapted ones from which we would prefer to escape: helplessness, shame, envy, jealousy, confusion, rage, and grief. These feelings can be experienced in therapy. When they are understood

If we suppress them, feelings can indeed hide themselves from the conscious mind, but they frequently resurface in the form of bodily symptoms, which conceal their real content and intensity, making it much more difficult to deal with them than it would be if they were admitted to consciousness.

But such a sensation can happen only when I feel free and remain open and receptive to all my feelings, including the negative ones.

Throughout their later life, these people will have to deal with situations in which these rudimentary feelings may awaken, but without the original connection ever becoming clear. The connection can be deciphered only when the intense emotions have been experienced in therapy and successfully linked with their original situation.*

Compulsive substance addiction can have disastrous effects because it blocks off the path to genuine emotions and feelings. The drug can supply feelings of euphoria that reanimate the creativity scotched by a cruel upbringing. But the body will not tolerate this self-alienation for the duration of an entire life.

The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor absence of pain, but vitality—the freedom to experience spontaneous feelings.

As adults, we will hate only if we remain trapped in a situation in which we cannot give free expression to our feelings. It is this dependency that makes us start to hate. As soon as we break that dependency (which as adults we can normally do, unless we are prisoners of some totalitarian regime), as soon as we free ourselves from that slavery, then we will no longer hate.

Once we have learned to live with our feelings and not to fight against them, we see in the manifestations of our bodies not a danger but helpful indications about our own personal history.

These people have all developed the art of not experiencing feelings, for a child can experience her feelings only when there is somebody there who accepts her fully, understands her, and supports her.

An adult can be fully aware of his feelings only if he had caring parents or caregivers. People who were abused and neglected in childhood are missing this capacity and are therefore never overtaken by unexpected emotions. They will admit only those feelings that are accepted and approved by their inner censor, who is their parents' heir. Depression and a sense of inner emptiness are the price they must pay for this control.

If the path to experiencing one's feelings is blocked either the prohibitions of poisonous pedagogy or by the needs of the parents, then these feelings will have to be lived out. This can occur either in a destructive form, as in Hitler's case, or in a self-destructive one, as in Christiane F.'s. Or, as in the case of most criminals who end up in prison, this living out can lead to the destruction both of the self and of others.

Now I no longer believe that people's secrets are defined and communicable, or their feelings full-blown and easy to recognize.

And at the end of his letter one terrible sentence. 'If I loved you I would have written differently.

I was not really surprised by what he was saying. A lot of people felt that way. Especially men. There was a quantity of things that men hated. Or had no use for, as they said. And that was exactly right. They had no use for it, so they hated it. Maybe it was the same way I felt about algebra- I doubted very much that I would ever find any use for it. But I didn't go so far as to want it wiped off the face of the earth for that reason.

Maybe it's an addiction, she says, but she looks around her at meetings and she can't help thinking that meetings are good for people. They make people feel everything isn't such a muddle.