Rick Hanson Quotes

The Reactive mode tears us down, while the Responsive mode builds us up. Adversity is certainly an opportunity to develop resilience, stress-hardiness, and even post-traumatic growth. But for a person to grow through adversity, there must also be Responsive resources present such as determination and sense of purpose. Plus most opportunities in daily life to experience and develop mental resources do not involve adversity: there is simply a moment of relaxation, gratitude, enthusiasm, self-worth, or kindness.

Think about the many ways that others will benefit from you being more good-humored, warm-hearted, and savvy. Nurturing your own development isn’t selfish. It’s actually a great gift to other people.

Breathe in such a way that your inhalation and exhalation are the same duration; for example, count one, two, three, four in your mind while inhaling, and one, two, three, four while exhaling. At the same time, imagine or sense that you’re breathing in and out through the area of your heart. As you breathe evenly through your heart, call to mind a pleasant, heartfelt emotion such as gratitude, kindness, or love — perhaps by thinking about a happy time, being with your children, appreciation for the good things in your life, or a pet. You can also imagine this feeling moving through your heart as part of the breath. Try this for a minute or longer — you’ll probably be quite struck by the results.

• To survive and pass on their genes, our ancestors needed to be especially aware of dangers, losses, and conflicts. Consequently, the brain evolved a negativity bias that looks for bad news, reacts intensely to it, and quickly stores the experience in neural structure. We can still be happy, but this bias creates an ongoing vulnerability to stress, anxiety, disappointment, and hurt.

people are not unhappy because they don’t have a car or a promotion. They’re unhappy because they don’t feel comfortable, safe, successful, and satisfied.

Love and hate: they live and tumble together in every heart, like wolf cubs tussling in a cave. There is no killing the wolf of hate; the aversion in such an attempt would actually create what you’re trying to destroy. But you can watch that wolf carefully, keep it tethered, and limit its alarm, righteousness, grievances, resentments, contempt, and prejudice. Meanwhile, keep nourishing and encouraging the wolf of love.

Try to see the big picture. Whatever has happened is probably a short chapter in the long book of your life.

Knowing without feeling is like a menu without a meal.

Neurons that fire together, wire together.

with practice, you’ll learn to light up the neural circuits of positive states even when you’re rattled or upset, like reaching through clutter to get the tool you need.

We develop mental resources in two stages. First, we need to experience what we want to grow, such as feeling grateful, loved, or confident. Second — critically important — we must convert that passing experience into a lasting change in the nervous system.

Every human being has three basic needs — safety, satisfaction, and connection — that are grounded in our ancient evolutionary history.

If you take care of the minutes, the years will take care of themselves.

in your brain, loving-kindness mobilizes prefrontal language and intention networks as well as limbic emotion and reward networks.

you can decide to get eggs from the refrigerator without craving them — and without getting upset if there are none left.