Knowing oneself comes from attending with compassionate curiosity to what is happening within.

Authenticity is this connection with ourselves, of knowing who we are, knowing which of our emotions belong in the present moment, and which is triggered from the past. Of not rejecting any emotion that arises for us. Not necessarily acting it out either, but not rejecting and not repressing it. Not making ourselves wrong for it.

Attachment is the drive to pursue and preserve closeness and contact with others. The loss of attachment figures, or their physical or emotional unavailability, threatens the child's sense of security and selfhood.

We're born with a need for attachment and a need for authenticity.

As children, we traded authenticity for attachment in order to survive.

The essence of trauma is loss of contact with yourself, loss of connection to yourself.

Addiction is not the primary problem. It's an attempt to solve a problem. In other words, it's always rooted in childhood trauma, and the addiction is an attempt to deal with childhood trauma, which it does temporarily while it creates even more problems in the long term.

Healing means wholeness. Healing comes from an Anglo-Saxon word called whole or wholeness. So healing means to become whole.

Identification means “to make it the same”...If you identify with anything to the extent that you have no independent existence, you have already limited yourself...There is no such thing as healthy identification.

Vulnerability itself is absolutely essential for growth. The word ‘vulnerability’ comes from the Latin word vulnerare, meaning ‘to wound.’ Vulnerability is our capacity to be wounded. The reality is that human beings are vulnerable from conception until death.