7 Cups for the Searching Soul Quotes

“If you are not sleeping, eating, and exercising, then all of this will be for naught. These core self-care skills are fundamental to your life and functioning. We can not expect to grow and move forward as people if we do not get the basics right.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Love only requires one skill. These people learned early on to share and feed one another. While the greedy only think of themselves.” -Rabbi Haim”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Negative emotions are like waves - they rise up to their peak and then fall and fade away. We avoid negative emotions because they feel so bad, but also because they can sometimes feel like they will stay forever. We can become afraid that that sadness and loneliness or fear represents “reality” and that once we give into it that is what our life will be like. The truth is, when you open up to your negative emotions, they will come and they will go.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“process of asking for, receiving, and giving help is what keep us well.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“The prefrontal cortex can be stunted if a person is constantly in physical or emotional danger and doesn’t have a safe and loving other to help them navigate.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“research shows that the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until a person reaches age 30, which tells us that our older teens and 20 somethings still need support to make good judgement calls.)”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Many parents make the mistake of trying to push their kids. They withhold love or care, because they mistakenly believe that pushing their kid forward is going to help them grow or master skills more readily. This is flat wrong. If you want your kid to grow and excel, then love them. Make sure that gas tank is filled up. When it is full, they have fuel to explore.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Studies have shown that people from all ranges of intelligence perform better than a group of all highly intelligent people. Homogeneity is a real liability in the world we now live in.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“We understand ourselves by talking to other people.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“You can work very hard in your life, get promoted, make the company a lot of money and, in the end, not grow as a person or reach the goals you want to personally achieve. Like grades, getting promoted can be a good thing. It should be taken seriously, but not too seriously.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“You want school to be about learning, about understanding and mapping the world, so you can move around it and work with others on it. You do not want it to be a compulsive process where you meet certain requirements to get a letter grade that has little to do with leading a successful life.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Living in a meaningful manner is like eating a healthy diet. It is rich and satisfying. It involves facing problems directly. Distraction systems do not want you to live in this soulful way. If you do, then you become dramatically less interested in what they offer. Like the food companies, they need to keep you hooked on vacuous bites of information”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“When people treat us in ways that are consistent or reinforce these old patterns we feel secure. One of the great challenges that humans face is that we will continue in relationships that are bad for us if they feel familiar and predictable.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“The first part to understanding denial, is to understand that we operate on both conscious and unconscious levels.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“If you do not have a good handle on where you are going or what you are trying to accomplish, then it is very easy for people to slide items into your life that are urgent and important to them, but not at all in line with what you want in life. Emotion is contagious so if they act like it is urgent and important, then you can “catch” that feeling and make time for it. This Quadrant is sometimes called the Quadrant of Deception for this reason.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“We do not judge or look down on people. We recognize that people make sense in the larger context or story of their lives. Sometimes it can seem like people are making choices that do not make sense, but this is likely because we do know the full story. We understand that people are complicated and that life is not simple or easy.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Here are some questions to help you assess if a relationship is good for you or not. 1. Do you feel drained after spending time with this person? 2. Do you feel bad about yourself after spending time with this person? 3. Does this person cause messes and drama around them and in your life? 4. Do you feel like this person does not believe in you? 5. Do you find it hard to say “no” to this person when you know you should? 6. Do you feel like you cannot relax or be yourself around this person?”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Need forces you to face your problems and ask for help in solving them. Once you receive the help, you feel better and want to help others. This is the basic process that creates healing.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Perhaps because it [sleep] is a passive and largely unconscious process, we consider it somewhat optional as adults. Sleep doesn’t feel productive! But, arguably, it is one of the most important factors for your physical and emotional health. You absolutely cannot expect to make your life better if you are not sleeping well. Sleep is fundamentally important. Let me say it again. If you are not sleeping well, then you will not be healthy. It is as simple as that.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“We sleep for one third of our lives. Think about that for a second. Each day, we spend 2/3rds of the day awake and 1/3rd sleeping. Sleeping is a huge part of our lives, but we tend to minimize its importance. To illustrate this, think about your work life for a moment. Like sleep, you will also spend one third of your life working. As individuals and as a society, we talk and think about work about 10x more than we think about sleep. Doesn’t that seem odd?”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“I went hiking with my sister and a friend on the Appalachian Trail for 7 days. No change of clothes, no hot shower, no bed. By the end of it, I was thankful for just a hot cup of coffee and a shave.
As they say, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
This is true of people, possessions, and experiences.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“We do not grow when things are going well. We grow when things are challenging. Problems are the key ingredient in personal growth.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“One of the great challenges that humans face is that we will continue in relationships that are bad for us if they feel familiar and predictable. This is not a good thing. If I am raised by parents that value submissiveness and compliance and I establish this as a pattern of relating, then I’ll feel most comfortable in relationships with friends and romantic partners that are dominant or difficult to please. If someone is interested in helping me grow stronger, stand up for myself, or have better boundaries, then I’ll feel less comfortable with this person. This person may even be genuinely trying to help me and be a force for good in my life. However, because it is different, inconsistent with how I see myself, and, unconsciously, threatening, I’ll be less comfortable in this type of relationship. They inadvertently trigger my anxiety. Amazing, right? We’ll”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Virginia Satir, one of our most famous family therapists, said, “Families are people factories.” She meant that we learn how to relate to others during our early experiences of our families. The patterns of interacting that we use today were set up early on in our lives and were reinforced over and over again until they became automatic and part of our unconscious. Our peers and others influence us as well, but the basics are learned very early on and inform much of how we think about ourselves and others later on in life.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“Virginia Satir, one of our most famous family therapists, said, “Families are people factories.”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“This unwillingness to let others in - whether it be from fear, shame, or pain - is what keeps folks in denial and in this zombie-like mindset. The”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul

“How do these online distraction systems work? They start with an external trigger or notification. You may visit a Website or sign up for a service. They will then send you an email, follow you on the Internet with ads, or send you a push notification with very specific language that has been tested to get you to click on it. You click on the link and your attachment or connection to that distraction system gets a little bit stronger. You, unintentionally, provide that system with more information when you read an article, add a friend, or comment on a photo. Without realizing it, and behind the scenes, the machinery of distraction is starting to turn. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being completely attached, you are a 2 at this point. These companies know that you don’t really care about the company itself, but you do care about your friends, family, and co-workers. They leverage these relationships by showing your profile to these contacts. These people are then asked to add you as a contact, friend, or to comment on your photo. Guess what this does? It brings you back to the site and increases the attachment. Think about this just for a second. If a company wants me to come back to their site, then they have a much higher chance of getting me back if they tell me my nephew added me as a friend, or posted a new pic. I care about my nephew. I don’t care about the company. This happens a few times and the attachment goes from a 2 to a 5. Soon, you have more and more connections on the site. Many of these sites have a magic number. Once you cross that threshold they know they really have you. Let’s say it is 10 connections. Once you have 10 connections they know with a level of statistical certainty that they can get you coming back to the site several times a week. Your attachment then goes from a 5 to a 7. All this time they are still pinging you via email, ads or push notifications to get you back to the site. The prompts or triggers to get you back are all external. You may be experiencing uncomfortable emotions like anxiety, sadness, or boredom, but you are not yet feeling these as triggers to go to the site and escape these feelings. Instead, what happens gradually, is that the trigger moves from being external like an email prompt and moves internal. Soon, they do not have to remind you or leverage your relationships to go back to the site. You are now doing it on your own. You are checking it regularly on your own. Your attachment has moved from a 7 to an 8. They’ve got you now, but they don’t completely have you. The tendrils are not yet deep into your brain and that is really where they want to go. They want to get as wrapped around your brain as possible, because the deeper they are - the more unconscious this behavior of checking the site - the more time you spend on the site and the more money they make. When you start living your life, not for what you are actually experiencing at the moment, but instead for how you imagine it will look to other people on these sites, then they really have you. When the experience itself is less meaningful than the image of you on the site and the number of likes it gets, then they are getting really deep. They have moved the center of your self from your actual life and transferred it to the perception of your life on their site. You now mostly live for reactions from other people on these company’s sites. By this time, you are likely refreshing the page, habitually looking at your phone, and wondering why your pic or video has not received more comments or likes. By this time you are fully hooked, as my good friend Nir Eyal would say, and your attachment has gone from an 8 to a full 10. They’ve got you hook, line, and sinker. Scary”
― 7Cups, 7 Cups for the Searching Soul