"Emotions as energy... Recall what you've learned about energy, perhaps from a past physics course. Energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be transferred or transformed. This is the law of conservation of energy, and we can apply it to our understanding of the way emotions work... What we resist persists. Unexpressed negative feelings get stores in our minds and bodies only to later manifest in rage, resentment, broken relationships, chronic healthy issues, anxiety-boosting avoidance, passive aggressiveness, and undesired changes in personality. our feelings will move throughout our body until we do something with them."
Growing up... "Deep down I believed the bullying wasn't the fault of the bullies; it was mine."
"Dignity is the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect. Thus, restoring dignity means engaging with someone in a way that communicates that inherent worthiness of honor and respect."
"In my studies of worship in Scripture, I've come to define it as the reflection, contemplation, acknowledgment, engagement, celebration, elevation, and adoration of the truth of God. Worship is a heart-grasp of who God truly is."
"Look at how Mirriam-Webster defines the word enough: 'occurring in such quantity, quality, or scope as to fully meet demands, needs or expectations.'
"I love it every time I read it. When we believe that we are enough, we believe that within ourselves we have as much quantity, quality, and scope of whatever is needed to fully meet the demands and expectations of our lives.
"Whatever is required of relationships--the ones we have and the ones we desire--we have enough of it.
"Whatever is required of our career, we have enough of it.
"Whatever is required of success, we have enough of it.
"Whatever is required of lasting impact and influence, we have enough of it.
"Whatever is required of joy and happiness, we have enough of it.
"Whatever is required for the dreams of our hearts, we have enough of it.
"Whatever is required of the calling God put on our lives, we have enough of it.
"For everything God has created, designed, and planned for our lives, we are enough for it. We don't need anything more than we already have."
Envy: "The object of your envy must be similar or comparable to you....We'll feel it toward the people with a similar start line, in a similar race. People who look like us and act like us. People our same age. People who graduated when we graduated or started their business the year we did. Because when people similar to us have something we don't, our perceived lack of progress feels personal. It's much harder to explain. The gap between where they are and where we are seems to point to a problem within ourselves. And that's the real problem with envy."
"We need to feel like our current engagements and activities are related to and working toward a future outcome. This is a sense of purpose.
"We need to feel like our actions reflect some sort of moral value--for example, value for justice, freedom, liberation, helping, healing, family, respect.
"We need to feel effective. We need to feel that we have enough power and control over our outcomes to truly make a difference in some positive way.
"We need to feel a positive sense of self-worth. Namely, we need to feel valuable to others and also distinctive from everyone else.
"All four needs--purpose, moral value, self-efficacy, and positive self-worth--must play out in our daily lives for us to feel like our lives have meaning."
"Loneliness is what happens when you're not sharing anything that matters to you with anyone else."
Psalm 77
Plasticity of the brain: "I have fun showing [my students] clips of six-month-olds who can tell the difference between identical-looking primates but then lose that ability by the time they're nine months. Since human babies don't need the super skill of distinguishing primates from one another, but rather the ability to distinguish their human caregivers from strangers, the latter skill is what will be strengthened throughout their early years.
"Unused abilities will disappear. It's the repetition of their actual experiences that matters here. That's what the brain wraps itself around. Experience. Experience acts like an architectural blueprint for a developing brain.
"Thought itself is also an experience. This has been the focus of Dr Caroline Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist and a believer who studies, among other things, the mind-brain connection. Her work has revealed the incredible discovery that thought itself changes the brain. Our thinking can literally alter brain structure and matter"
"Sadness signals to us that we need some soothing and comforting."
"Emotional range is a hallmark of wellness... Allowing ourselves to feel sadness is actually what helps us release it."
Quoting someone else about materialism, that people are more likely to be materialistic when they see messages that pursuit of money and possessions is important, and "Second, and somewhat less obvious--people are more materialistic when they feel insecure or threatened whether because of rejection, economic fears or thoughts of their own death."
Quoting her father: "You need the kind of faith that won't fail you. You choose your type of faith."
"When heartbreak occurs, something else happens. These feel-good hormones drop, and cortisol explodes...Too much cortisol is the result of too much heartbreak."
"Beliefs don't change on account of good words. Beliefs need to be altered at the level they were created. New beliefs require new experiences."
