Altogether You Quotes

“need to listen to my anger to know that I’ve had a boundary violated. I need to listen to my loneliness to know that I need to invest in deep relationships. I need to listen to my anxiety to know that I have an unresolved trauma that needs to heal. I need to listen to my depression to know that I need care for my heart’s deepest wounds. I need to listen to my fear to know that I may need to create safety. I need to listen to my stress and irritability to know that I’m out of balance and need rest or reprioritization. One common experience, however, keeps us all stuck. Instead of moving toward our pain and listening to the valuable messages it has for us, the vast majority of us move against or away from it. We ignore it, deny it, feel ashamed for feeling it, resent it, or attempt to numb, deflect, or dismiss it. We’ve been well taught to not listen to, or even feel, those yucky, hard feelings. Suck it up, buttercup. Be a man. Big girls don’t cry. Stop your whining or I’ll give you something to whine about! You can see why I believe we suffer from a very serious leprosy of the heart. And it’s killing us.”
― Jenna Riemersma, Altogether You: Experiencing personal and spiritual transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy

“Having a family or normal life of any kind was out of the question. Jesus had great compassion for people with leprosy.29 He understood that their suffering was rooted in a strange condition. They didn’t feel pain. Now, normally we are all in favor of not feeling pain. We take pills. We drink and drug and act out sexually to escape it. We lose ourselves in TV and volunteering and staying busy. We do not like pain. It turns out that leprosy deadens pain. The disease does that by killing nerve endings, and as a result people get hurt. They lose parts of their body and suffer disfigurement and ugly discoloration from burns and other injuries. Because if you can’t feel pain, you don’t know when something is wrong. You don’t want to miss this. For most of the world, leprosy is not a thing anymore, at least for our bodies. But in our hearts, I’d say we suffer from a virtual epidemic. We do not want to feel pain. Or discomfort. Or any type of negative emotion at all. Somewhere along the line, we’ve missed the reality that our negative emotions are among the most important guides to our inner health—if we listen to them.”
― Jenna Riemersma, Altogether You: Experiencing personal and spiritual transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy

“When we have full access to our God Image, we will spontaneously (with no effort) experience what Schwartz calls the Eight Cs: curiosity, compassion, courage, connection, clarity, calm, confidence, and creativity. In Galatians 5, scripture refers to these qualities as the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Whatever we call it, when we are fully connected to the God Image within, we are attuned to the presence and nature of God, and better resourced to move toward healing.”
― Jenna Riemersma, Altogether You: Experiencing personal and spiritual transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy

“Addiction is the one disease that tells you that you don’t have a disease.”
― Jenna Riemersma, Altogether You: Experiencing personal and spiritual transformation with Internal Family Systems therapy