Rick Hanson Quotes

#1. Suffering has clear causes in your brain and body, so if you change its causes, you'll suffer a lot less. And you can change those causes.

Rick Hanson

#2. I highly recommend the approach Marshall Rosenberg details in Nonviolent Communication (2nd Edition 2008), which has essentially three parts: When X happens [described factually, not judgmentally], I feel Y [especially the deeper, softer emotions], because I need Z [fundamental needs and wants].

Rick Hanson

#3. There are three fundamental phases to psychological and spiritual growth: being with difficult material (e.g., old wounds, anger); releasing it; and replacing it with something more beneficial.

Rick Hanson

#4. Everything changes. That's the universal nature of outer reality and inner experience. Therefore, there's no end to disturbed equilibria as long as you live.

Rick Hanson

#5. well-being becomes increasingly unconditional,

Rick Hanson

#6. More than ever, the human world needs to find ways to build love, understanding, and peace, individually and on a global scale.

Rick Hanson

#7. All sentient beings developed through natural selection in such a way that pleasant sensations serve as their guide, and especially the pleasure derived from sociability and from loving our families. - Charles Darwin

Rick Hanson

#8. To become happier, wiser, and more loving, sometimes you have to swim against ancient currents within your nervous system.

Rick Hanson

#9. you can decide to get eggs from the refrigerator without craving them - and without getting upset if there are none left.

Rick Hanson

#10. to help our ancestors survive, the brain evolved a negativity bias that makes it like Velcro for bad experiences but Teflon for good ones.

Rick Hanson

#11. The brain is good at learning from bad experiences, but bad at learning from good ones.

Rick Hanson

#12. Nurturing your own development isn't selfish. It's actually a great gift to other people.

Rick Hanson

#13. Your brain is the most important organ in your body, and what happens in it determines what you think and feel, say and do. Many studies show that your experiences are continually changing your brain one way or another. This book is about getting good at changing your brain for the better.

Rick Hanson

#14. Deep down in the emotional memory centers of your brain, imagined experiences build neural structures through mechanisms similar to those that actual, lived experiences use.

Rick Hanson

#15. The mind (and brain) takes its shape from what it rests upon, and you're letting it mold itself around the positive experience that you are taking in.

Rick Hanson