Richard Schwartz

This is why we try our best to lock these parts away, thinking that we are simply moving on from bad memories, sensations, and emotions—not realizing that we are disconnecting from our most precious resources just because they got hurt.

What they all have in common is the desire to preempt the triggering of our exiles by controlling, pleasing, or disconnecting us.

Managers are parentified inner children. They are usually very tired and stressed out. They’re trying to keep the world safe for our exiles while at the same time keeping our exiles contained. They also have the ability to numb our bodies so we don’t feel so much, because if you don’t feel, then you don’t get triggered. Managers are working all the time—some of them never sleep.

That is, if you can be with your own exiles without blending and being overwhelmed by them and instead show them compassion and help them, then you can do the same for someone in pain who’s sitting across from you.

Similarly, countries obsessed with unlimited growth have little regard for their impact on the majority of their people, or the health of the climate and the Earth

The ‘them-against-us’ thinking that for too long has defined politics between nations, companies and people is profoundly anachronistic.”

I’m not suggesting that you have Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder)

The idea of taking responsibility for oneself and not making excuses is as American as apple pie

observe thoughts and emotions from a distance and from a place of acceptance rather than fighting or ignoring them

Applied to human relations, there is ample evidence that our negative expectations of others have a strong negative impact on their behavior or performance