Quotessence
Home / Authors / Tom Rosshirt

Tom Rosshirt Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllFearPeaceAnxietyPainAddictionBreakdownBreakthroughCoping SkillsCourageDepression

Famous Tom Rosshirt Quotes

“Many of us, often without knowing it, live our lives in narrow corridors, hemmed in by fear. It’s as if there were walls of electrified fencing on the right and left of us, and we’re wearing a shock collar. If we veer too close to one side, we start feeling the fear, and we move back toward the center, often without noticing it. The challenge of change is not to get better at withstanding electric shocks, but to somehow reduce the voltage or remove the shock collar. It’s not about becoming more courageous; it’s about becoming more fearless. When the fear subsides, the walls come down, and we can go anywhere. This is not learning a new coping skill; it’s becoming a new person. We do things we’ve never done before because the fear that hemmed us in is gone, or reduced. The loss of fear is the mark of change, and the proof of change is what’s happening when we’re not trying.”

FearCourageCoping Skills
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image

“The self- image model of happiness … is an approach to happiness that consists of three actions: (1) cultivating a self- image or story that gives us feelings of love and belonging and meaning and purpose, (2) getting the important people in our lives to tell that story about us, and (3) trying to embody that story more fully. When we’re able to manage these three tasks, we’re happy. When we’re struggling to manage them, we’re anxious. When we fail to manage them, we fall into depression or addiction or illness.”

PainFearDepressionAddictionIllness
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image

“From early childhood, I started trying on identities for the buzz they gave me, and I held on to the ones that worked— good reader, gifted writer, strong chess player. At some regrettable point, I took on the identity of being super- reliable. It’s not that I “was” those things but that I got high if others saw me that way, and I got hurt if they didn’t. … And it’s surprising to me how people and events can still affect my mood by affirming or challenging my story and the beliefs that make it up. Without ever planning it or consciously choosing it, I tied my happiness to a story of who I am. If someone contradicts my story, I get angry. If someone honors and affirms my story, I respond with the false grace of an addict who just got a fix. I believe that most of our struggles for happiness can be seen inside this frame, which, for this book, I’m going to call the self-image model of happiness. This is the implicit model of most self-improvement literature—you achieve happiness by deciding who you want to be and becoming that.”

HappinessFearPeace
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image

“The role of fear is especially relevant in neuroplastic healing. If the brain comes to believe that something harmless is dangerous, that belief causes fear that can create or contribute to pain and illness. The healing insight of neuroplasticity is that this association can be reversed: the false sense of danger that causes the fear— and the baseless fear that causes the pain— can be unlearned, and the pain can ease and the body can heal.”

PainPeaceHealingNeuroplasticity
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image

“When we’re in the process of breakdown, there are actually three related things that are breaking down: (1) Our self-image is breaking down— as the evidence mounts that we’re not everything we say we are; (2) our body is breaking down— rom the strain of defending and promoting the self-image; and (3) the self-image strategy for happiness is breaking down— the strategy that says the best way to be happy is to try to become who we want to be in the world. … Breaking down happens to all of us. Whether we’re losing the battle to fulfill our self- image or exhausting ourselves in trying to win it, we all break down. But we don’t always break through. This book is about flipping breakdowns into breakthroughs by surrendering the self- image that once was moving us forward, but now is holding us back.”

PeaceBreakthroughBreakdownSelf0image
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image

“Unlike with past depressions, though, my way out wasn’t to protect my story by going home. I couldn’t go home. So this time I didn’t change my environment to support my story. I changed my story. That is what self-directed neuroplasticity makes possible. We don’t have to fulfill the story, prove the story, insist on the story, or be a servant of the story: we can edit the story— and not just by adding new thoughts to outshout the old thoughts but by editing, even deleting, the old thoughts that tell us “This is who I am. This is what I need to have. This is how things have to be.” No matter who we are or what stage of life we’re in, reality will at some point cause depression in us, making us suffer by defeating our self-image. The pain will get our attention and force us to act. If the pain is great enough, we might see the role of our story in our suffering and start to break through. If we don’t see the role of our story, we will think the action is all external, and we will try to make a change in our surroundings, or blame someone for the defeat of our self-image, or double down on our false stories, which will only make the pain grow.”

FearPeaceAnxiety
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image

“Dissolving the self-image means surrendering our secrets— and this means secret-keeping can give us a tool for assessing a spiritual practice and asking the question, What works? The answer, to be helpful, should come not in the form of a single technique or approach but in the insights and principles that underlie numerous approaches. A successful practice will help us lose the secrets, including the secrets we keep from ourselves. Some people don’t feel comfortable talking about the unconscious. But whether we use the words unconscious or nonconscious, or subconscious, or semiconscious— whether we talk about repressing our feelings, or suppressing them, or shoving them down, or holding them in— it doesn’t really matter. In any language, in any approach, bringing out the things we’re hiding is healing.”

FearPeaceAnxiety
Book:Chasing Peace: A Story of Breakdowns, Breakthroughs, and the Spiritual Power of Neuroscience
Create image