#deception

The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story. ↗

— Michael Connelly

#deception #los-angeles #make-believe #smog #southern-california

I believe in my mask-- The man I made up is me I believe in my dance-- And my destiny ↗

— Sam Shepard

#faith #idenity #lies #lying #masks

A snake bites your ankle. Recoiling, you scream. Fearing poison, your mind slips into a dream... ...where a man bites your ankle. Expecting no guile, "Again," softly falls from your lips with a smile. Yet, the man and the snake are the same. Your perception is only to blame. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#judgement #perception #poetry #richelle #richelle-goodrich

To deceive oneself is worse than to deceive others." These harsh words pierced me to the core. ↗

— Shinichi Suzuki

#education

We must be careful more than ever what we let our hearts believe in. ↗

— Solange nicole

#deception #faith #life-lessons #solange #faith

Like antidepressants, a substantial part of the benefit of psychotherapy depends on a placebo effect, or as Moerman calls it, the meaning response. At least part of the improvement that is produced by these treatments is due to the relationship between the therapist and the client and to the client's expectancy of getting better. That is a problem for antidepressant treatment. It is a problem because drugs are supposed to work because of their chemistry, not because of the psychological factors. But it is not a problem for psychotherapy. Psychotherapists are trained to provide a warm and caring environment in which therapeutic change can take place. Their intention is to replace the hopelessness of depression with a sense of hope and faith in the future. These tasks are part of the essence of psychotherapy. The fact that psychotherapy can mobilize the meaning response - and that it can do so without deception - is one of its strengths, no one of its weaknesses. Because hopelessness is a fundamental characteristic of depression, instilling hope is a specific treatment for it it. Invoking the meaning response is essential for the effective treatment of depression, and the best treatments are those that can do this most effectively and that can do without deception. ↗

— Irving Kirsch

#depression #effective-treatment #meaning-response #change

Walking away from bad situations and negative people sets a healthier tone for the rest of your life. It also gives those who do not know any better the opportunity to self-correct. ↗

— Gary Hopkins

#energy-healing #enlightenment #god #higher-self #holy-spirit

Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken. ↗

— Jane Austen

#honesty #relationships #truth #relationships

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! ↗

— L. Frank Baum

#attention

When one with honeyed words but evil mind Persuades the mob, great woes befall the state. ↗

— Euripides

#deceit #deception #elections #evil #false-promises