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Quote by Peter Kreeft

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Prayer for Beginners

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the basics of prayer, exploring various forms and techniques to help readers establish a personal prayer routine. more

Author

Peter Kreeft
Peter Kreeft

Peter Kreeft is a renowned American philosopher, theologian, and author. Born in 1937, he is known for his contributions to Christian philosophy and logic. Professor Kreeft has taught at several prestigious universities, including Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught philosophy and theology. His extensive body of work covers a wide range of topics from ethics to religious philosophy. more

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“... when an experience is too strong for our current internal and external regulatory resource to manage ... [chemical changes activate to] tuck these pathways into our ... body. In this way, our ongoing lives are protected from the constant incursion of the raw pain and fear and the injured parts of ourselves are partly shielded from new injury. We might say they have been enwombed, awaiting the arrival of support. At the same time, the memories also remain malleable enough that they can be touched and awakened, which is essential for healing. However, we also remain vulnerable to them being brought into activity when support isn't available... a frowning face (man or woman), certain breathing patterns, and even sensory fragments (the color of a person's shirt or hair, the smell of alcohol on someone's breath) all have some probability of awakening the terror. The widely dispersed individual streams that make up these memories are all gathered into the neural net that formed at the time of the initial experience, and when our outer or inner world tugs on any strand, there is some probability that more of the neural net will open, bringing the rush of embodied feelings. Most often, the explicit memory does not arrive at the same time, so there is no context for the flood of sensations and emotions, which feels as if they are related to what is happening right now .... What can look like an out-of-proportion response to what is happening in the moment is exactly in proportion to what is unfolding internally. If we sense this so deeply that this knowing is viscerally available when our patients are having strong emotional experiences, we will be able to offer them acknowledgement of the validity of their experience rather than having to control or change it.”

HopeUnderstandingHealingTraumaImplicit MemoryEmbodied SafetyOut Of Proportion Reaction
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“The tensions that accompany the impulse to control subside, and the energies of our mental/emotional life are more directed and devoted to listening rather than speaking... We may be able to more easily attend to our people's communications that often remain below conscious awareness: subtle changes in breath, coloring, eye tension, prosody of voice, small movements towards or away, changes in the quality of eye contact. Receptivity means that we don't grasp what we notice for assessment. Instead, we are simply present to those implicit communications in the spirit of holding a tender space in which they can reveal themselves to whatever extent our 'patient's' system feels safe to be vulnerable in the moment.”

AwarenessListeningSafe SpaceEmbodied SafetyPolyvagal TherapyNonjudgementRelaxed Listening
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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“Relational neuroscience increasingly assures us that we are continually shaping one another's embodied brains, and that the safety provided by deep listening offerings a unique support for engagement. However it is one thing to believe it cognitively and quite another to grow into the practice of this belief.”

Deep ListeningCoregulationTherapy SkillsInherent Healing CapacityRelational Neuroscience
Book:The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
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