“We live in a society that educates us to fear being different, to fear thinking differently, something we must avoid in order to belong, with the only argument being the strength of the collective, rewarding imitation, silent obedience, and mimicry. Without questioning, we only contribute to the creation of a sick society. To mimic in order to belong and fit in is to erase freedom it is to renounce oneself. Difference is the valuable force that makes us authentic, creative, and real, helping to create a healthy, strong, and vital society.”

“Settling for the view that illnesses, mental or physical, are primarily genetic allows us to avoid disturbing questions about the nature of the society in which we live. If “science” enables us to ignore poverty or man-made toxins or a frenetic and stressful social culture as contributors to disease, we can look only to simple answers: pharmacological and biological.”

Gabor Maté libro When the Body Says No

Fuente: When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

“The purpose of love is the creation of a safe space, in which we can be ourselves, with independence and freedom. It requires motivation and dedication to comply and commit.”

EmilyBs

“Freedom in society is gauged by our success in getting what we want and conditioned by status and power, by race, class and gender. In the internal world of the psyche, however, freedom means something very different. It is the ability to opt for our long-term physical and spiritual well-being as opposed to our immediate urges. Absent that ability, any talk of ‘free will’ or ‘choice’ becomes nearly meaningless.”

Gabor Maté libro In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Fuente: In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“The problem with socialism is that it is a dehumanized sect that ceases to be unscrupulous people…and we already know what happened in the extermination camps of the Nazi regime, etc. etc. etc.”

EmilyBs

“Death is the voice of conscience, telling us not to waste time, that we are born alone and we die alone.”

EmilyBs

““A therapist once said to me, “If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since. If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide. Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly on our own behalf at what does not work.

We have seen in study after study that compulsive positive thinkers are more likely to develop disease and less likely to survive. Genuine positive thinking — or, more deeply, positive being — empowers us to know that we have nothing to fear from truth. “Health is not just a matter of thinking happy thoughts,” writes the molecular researcher Candace Pert. “Sometimes the biggest impetus to healing can come from jump-starting the immune system with a burst of long-suppressed anger.” Anger, or the healthy experience of it, is one of the seven A’s of healing. Each of the seven A’s addresses one of the embedded visceral beliefs that predispose to illness and undermine healing.””

Gabor Maté libro When the Body Says No

Fuente: When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

“The misfortune of any people is the lack of faith, in God, and excessive faith, in the president who lies to them in exchange for crumbs.”

EmilyBs

“The first condition of humanity is goodness and without it we die in fear and without any greatness.”

EmilyBs

“Love is the greatest thing in life, so you have to live it with intensity, respect and fidelity.”

EmilyBs

“The salient stressors in the lives of most human beings today — at least in the industrialized world — are emotional. Just like laboratory animals unable to escape, people find themselves trapped in lifestyles and emotional patterns inimical to their health. The higher the level of economic development, it seems, the more anaesthetized we have become to our emotional realities. We no longer sense what is happening in our bodies and cannot therefore act in self-preserving ways. The physiology of stress eats away at our bodies not because it has outlived its usefulness but because we may no longer have the competence to recognize its signals.”

Gabor Maté libro When the Body Says No

Fuente: When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress