Daniel J. Siegel Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

We must keep in mind that only a part of memory can be translated into the language-based packets of information people use to tell their life stories to others. Learning to be open to many layers of communication is a fundamental part of getting to know another person's life.

Daniel J. Siegel
Each of us needs periods in which our minds can focus inwardly. Solitude is an essential experience for the mind to organize its own processes and create an internal state of resonance. In such a state, the self is able to alter its constraints by directly reducing the input from interactions with others.

Daniel J. Siegel
We are always in a perpetual state of being created and creating ourselves.

Daniel J. Siegel
Not all encounters with the world affect the mind equally. Studies have demonstrated that if the brain appraises an event as "meaningful," it will be more likely to be recalled in the future.

Daniel J. Siegel
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.

Daniel J. Siegel
Too often we forget that discipline really means to teach, not to punish. A disciple is a student, not a recipient of behavioural consequences.

Daniel J. Siegel
Early experience shapes the structure and function of the brain. This reveals the fundamental way in which gene expression is determined by experience.

Daniel J. Siegel
For "full" emotional communication, one person needs to allow his state of mind to be influenced by that of the other.

Daniel J. Siegel
The number of possible "on-off" patterns of neuronal firing is immense, estimated as a staggering ten times ten one million times (ten to the millionth power). The brain is obviously capable of an imponderably huge variety of activity; the fact that it is often organized and functional is quite an accomplishment!

Daniel J. Siegel
When we begin to know ourselves in an open and self-supportive way, we take the first step to encourage our children to know themselves

Daniel J. Siegel
Adolescents who are absorbing negative messages about who they are and what is expected of them may sink to that level instead of realizing their true potential. As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of being.

Daniel J. Siegel