Angie Seminaro > Angie's Quotes

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different, but we cannot move forward if we're still holding onto the pain of that past and wishing it was something else. All of us who have been broken and scarred by trauma have the chance to turn those experiences into what Dr Perry and I have been talking about: Post Traumatic Wisdom.

Forgive yourself. Forgive them. Step out of your history and into the path of your future. My friend, the poet Mark Nepo says that the pain was necessary in order to know the truth. But we don't have to keep the pain alive in order to keep the truth alive. I made peace with my mother when I stopped comparing her to the mother I wished I had, when I stopped clinging to what should or could have been and turned to what was and what could be.

Because what I know for sure, is that everything that has happened to you, was also happening for you, and all that time, in all of those moments, you were building strength. Strength times strength times strength equals power. What happened to you can be your power.”
― Oprah Winfrey, What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

“the most powerful form of reward is relational. Positive interactions with people are rewarding and regulating. Without connection to people who care for you, spend time with you, and support you, it is almost impossible to step away from any form of unhealthy reward and regulation.”
― Bruce D. Perry, What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

“As the Stoics and Buddhists taught long ago, happiness cannot be reached by eliminating all “triggers” from life; rather, happiness comes from learning to deprive external events of the power to trigger negative emotions in you.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Caused an Epidemic of Mental Illness

“Experience, not information, is the key to emotional development.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

“Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Ove had never been asked how he lived before he met her. But if anyone had asked him, he would have answered that he didn’t.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove