90 Quotes by Lindsay C. Gibson

As children, perceptive internalizers can’t help but notice it when their parents aren’t truly connecting with them. They register emotional hurt in a way that a less aware child doesn’t and therefore are affected deeply by growing up with emotionally immature parents. Because internalizers are sensitive to the subtleties of their relationships with loved ones, when they have an emotionally unengaged parent, they are much more aware of the painful loneliness that results.

A good relationship with your inner world reveals what’s meaningful to you and directs your life’s purpose. If you don’t form that trusting relationship with your inner world, you will be dependent on whatever your peers, the culture, or authorities tell you to be. In part II of this book, you will learn more specific ways to get to know your inner world and how to engage in this process more deeply.

Human rights defend people’s rights to feel valuable and good inside, not just safe on the outside.

It’s important to realize that childhood experiences of profound helplessness can feel traumatic, causing people to later react to adult feelings of helplessness with sensations of collapse and a feeling of “There’s nothing I can do, and no one will help me.” As children, sensitive internalizers can be so affected by this feeling that later they’re prone to feeling like victims with no control, at the mercy of powerful people who refuse to give them what they desperately need.

Emotional neglect in childhood leads to a painful emotional loneliness that can have a long-term negative impact on a person’s choices regarding relationships and intimate partners.

Empathy is what makes people feel safe in relationships. Along with self-awareness, it’s the soul of emotional intelligence, guiding people toward prosocial behavior and fairness in dealings with others. In contrast, nonempathic people overlook your feelings and don’t seem to imagine your experience or be sensitive to it. It’s important to be aware of this, because a person who isn’t responsive to your feelings won’t be emotionally safe when the two of you have any kind of disagreement.

If parents don’t label their own behavior as abusive, their child won’t label it that way either. Even as adults, many people have no idea that what happened to them in childhood was abusive. As a result, they may not recognize abusive behavior in their adult relationships.

Nothing hurts their spirit more than being around someone who won’t engage with them emotionally.

To them, your inner world is unnecessary, a needless distraction from what they consider important. They expect you to agree with them, so whenever you express a different opinion or say how you feel, they take it as disrespectful. They act as if anything going on inside you has no merit unless they approve.