Widen the Window Quotes

“Yet for us to reach our full potential, we need to see our shadows clearly and then choose to learn, grow, and change. Who we’ll become in the future always begins with the total awareness and acceptance of who we are right now. In turn, we can stop wasting energy denying what’s already here—freeing us to see clearly what’s happening and then respond effectively. Courage also helps us take responsibility for and not second-guess previous choices. If wisdom was present, courage supports us in trusting that it was the right choice—regardless of how things turned out later. And if wisdom wasn’t present when we made the initial choice, courage helps us learn from the situation so we can make wiser choices going forward.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma

“In fact, the only thing that’s truly under our control is where, when, and how we repeatedly direct our attention—and whether we’re directing it consciously.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“All that’s required is (1) experiencing something stressful that pushes us outside our comfort zone, (2) moving through that stress activation, and then (3) recovering completely afterward.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“Can I be with this experience, just as it is, without needing it to be different?”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“Uncertainty, complexity, volatility, and ambiguity are “symbolic threats,” meaning that they rarely require decisions involving mortal danger to our physical well-being right now.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“For this reason, although our thinking brains tend to consider chronic stress, shock trauma, developmental trauma, and relational trauma to be different things, they all create the same effects in the mind-body system. If they’re so similar in their effects, then why does our culture usually treat them so differently? The short answer is that many powerful and ambitious people have a hard time admitting their mind-body system’s vulnerability. Powerful, high-achieving, and successful people—and the high-status institutions where they work—have no problem acknowledging “stress.” Indeed, we tend to consider “being stressed” to be a badge of honor—the evidence that we’re successful and accomplished. In our collective understanding, “being stressed” means being overworked, overscheduled, extremely busy, and definitely important. It’s just a necessary by-product of being a Master of the Universe. Why else would so many of us boast about how few hours of sleep we got last night? Or how many days have passed since we’ve seen our kids awake by the time we got home from work? Or how many different activities or demands we’re juggling at the same time? Or how many years it’s been since we took a proper vacation—or even a full weekend off? In our culture, we romanticize our stress, even as we whine about it with humble-brags like these.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training Your Brain and Body to Thrive During Stress and Recover from Trauma

“Interestingly, with fear-based resistance the thinking brain’s agenda—the insidious narratives it relies on to keep us quiet and small—usually contains an element of truth, which is what gives it its power.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“you can be a true friend to your own emotions.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“conscious focus on recovery.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“Then the traumatized animal simply accepts the shocks passively.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“the United States today is one of the most violent, stressed, and traumatized countries in the world.”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma

“navigate life’s flow with more joy, creativity, ease, and connection with others”
― Elizabeth A. Stanley, Widen the Window: Training your brain and body to thrive during stress and recover from trauma