“At the most basic level, therefore, secure attachments in both childhood and adulthood are established by two individual's sharing a nonverbal focus on the energy flow (emotional states) and a verbal focus on the information-processing aspects (representational processes of memory and narrative) of mental life. The matter of the mind matters for secure attachments.”

“Emotion is not just some "primitive" remnant of an earlier reptilian evolutionary past. Emotion directs the flow of activation (energy) and establishes the meaning of representations (information processing) for the individual. It is not a single, isolated group of processes; it has a direct impact on th entire mind. (p. 263)”

“Matter is energy plus information. You and I, our bodies are matter. Our minds depend on that. There is no part of mind that is not the flux of information and energy at the classical level. At the classical level matter of a certain density may not share space with other matter. You and I cannot cross over. But at the quantum level, all things may pass through each other. But passing through causes a change in states, a change of information. Every change brings loss, creates anomalies. Losses pile up. Anomalies grow. Forgetting occurs. Without the information being isolated from the process, how can what was be made to the same pattern? It is similar, but it is not the same. New organization is possible, but old patterns are gone forever. The longer you stay at quantum level, interacting with lower levels of organization, the more you lose. Perhaps it's better.”

“What’s so interesting here is that through the course of development, these secure children increasingly “internalize” their parents’ emotional availability and responsiveness and come to hold the same constant or dependable loving feeling toward themselves that their parents originally held toward them (certainly, a beautiful developmental process to watch unfold in securely attached children). Said differently, cognitive development increasingly allows securely attached children to internally hold a mental representation of their emotionally responsive parents when the attachment figures are away and they can increasingly soothe themselves as their caregivers have done—facilitating the child’s own capacity for affect regulation and independent functioning. Thus, as these children grow older and mature cognitively and emotionally, they become increasingly able to soothe themselves when distressed, function for increasingly longer periods without emotional refueling, and effectively elicit appropriate help or support when necessary. In this way, object constancy and more independent functioning develops—facilitating their ability to comfort themselves and become the source of their own self-esteem and secure identity as capable, love-worthy persons. Furthermore, they possess the cognitive schemas or internal working models necessary to establish new relationships with others that hold this same affirming affective valence.”

“No matter what level of success, there is no such thing as a secure writer”

“I can't let safety and security become the focus of my life.”