"You are worthy of my attention."

If you grew up in a hurtful home, you may have a hard time imagining that the world can be a soft place to land. You might figure that if your family didn’t hold you in high regard, no one else will. And, perhaps as a result, you hold yourself back from jumping into life, and seizing the day. Perhaps you keep yourself small and compact, skirting the edges of society, trying to go unnoticed. Perhaps you don’t allow yourself to dream, because you are certain that dreams don’t come true. Just like they didn’t come true in your family home, where things never seemed to improve.
If this is you, I have something to tell you: It’s not true. It makes perfect sense that you would feel this way, but it’s just a projected expectation from your lived experience. It’s all you know. But it’s not all that you can know. Because there is a bounty of good people who are willing to support your efforts to create a better life. I know, because I have met many. I entered my twenties certain that the world had to be harsher than my harsh upbringing. And I was proven wrong, time and time again. Sure, there were many who were perpetuating their own ancestral toxicity, but there were also hundreds of wonderful souls, none of whom were remotely interested in abusing or scapegoating me. In fact, many of them were just like me: trauma survivors with hearts of gold, seeking safe and supportive connection. Because at heart, we are all roaming the plains looking for a loving and functional family.
It’s astonishing when you realize that much of the world is kinder than your childhood home. When you do, everything starts to change. You realize that the worst is over (‘worst things first’), and that you are finally free to... live. - Jeff Brown

The way you break toxic ancestral patterns is not by running away from them. It’s by walking back in their direction. Not because you want to keep repeating them, but because you recognize that the only way to truly shift them is to see them up close and heal them at their roots. It’s okay to run from them for a time, but not for all time. Because the flight from what lives inside of you, merely delays your arrival. You think you are on the way to somewhere else, but the plane keeps circling your childhood home. It can’t navigate a new flight path, until you return back to where you came from, and heal its broken wings. ~ Jeff Brown


“There is one thing, I believe, that all of us want, no matter how old we are, no matter whatever differences are between us; the one thing we cherish from another human being is attention.
Love…is not certain. Some people will love us, and some people will not. But the one thing that anyone can give to any other person is simple attention. It is not as involved as in love. This attention may last 20 minutes or many hours. If you live with somebody it is repeated. "You are worthy of my attention." That, I think, is the greatest gift we can give each other." - Magda Gerber

Think of your triggers as ghosts from your experiential and ancestral history. They are ghosts who have not yet found their peace. They want to—that’s why they keep showing up in your life—but they need your help. They need you to get in close, and listen as they share their unresolved past with you. They need you to see them, in just the same way you want to be seen. If you keep ignoring them, they won’t go away. They will just show up more often. And your life will become a kind of ghost-fulfilling prophecy, one where every choice you make will haunt your days. Perhaps its time that we accepted that we are the haunted house that we fear. In each room, a ghost that is ready to be liberated. In the basement, the unconscious that is ready to be revealed. We don’t n
eed to give ourselves candy on Halloween. We just need to give ourselves permission to heal. That’s the sweetest gift of all. - Jeff Brown