Nothing, but nothing, will block the awareness of anger so effectively as guilt and self-doubt. Our society cultivates guilt feelings in women such that many of us still feel guilty if we are anything...
But one of the hallmarks of emotional maturity is to recognize the validity of multiple realities and to understand that people think, feel, and react differently. Often we behave as if closeness mean...
Don’t use below-the-belt tactics. These include: blam- ing, interpreting, diagnosing, labeling, analyzing, preaching, moralizing, ordering, warning, interrogating, ridiculing, and lecturing. Don’t put...
Control is an illusion—a fact you will learn very fast if you become ill, or have things fall apart in some other way. When we understand vulnerability and suffering as an essential part of being huma...
Moving in this direction requires us to clarify—to ourselves and others—what’s important to us. Having an authentic voice means that: We can openly share competence as well as problems and vulnerabili...
We can influence the other person through our words and silence, but we can never control the outcome.
We all long to have a relationship so relaxed and intimate that we can share anything and everything without first thinking about it. Who wants to hide out in a relationship in which we can’t allow ou...
We diminish people when we don’t allow them to help us, or when we act like we don’t need anything from them and they have nothing to offer us. We also diminish them when we allow them to go on and on...
Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.
Nu ești o persoană mai puțin iubitoare sau incompletă, dacă îți rămân anumite lucruri pe care nu le poți ierta și dacă îți dorești ca pe anumite persoane să nu le mai întâlnești vreodată-n viață. Poat...
To listen with an open heart and ask questions to better help us understand the other person is a spiritual exercise, in the truest sense of the word.
Why must they share their uncensored reactions? She was referring to the corrosive criticism that wears couples down as they selectively attend to what bothers them in a partner rather than speaking t...
Venting anger does not solve the problem that anger signals.
All of us are vulnerable to intense, non-productive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family—in particular, losses...
Anger is inevitable when our lives consist of giving in and going along; when we assume responsibility for other people’s feelings and reactions; when we relinquish our primary responsibility to proce...
Respect the fact that all you do and are now, has evolved for a good reason and serves an important purpose.
Our society doesn’t promote self-acceptance and it never will. First of all, self-acceptance doesn’t sell products. Capitalism would fall if we liked ourselves the way we are now. Also, people who fee...
The best apologies are short, and don't go on to include explanations that run the risk of undoing them. An apology isn't the only chance you ever get to address the underlying issue. The apology is t...
What fuels human unhappiness in both the personal and political realm can be boiled down to these three key emotions—anxiety, fear, and shame.
But therein lies the paradox: Speaking out and being real are not necessarily virtues. Sometimes voicing our thoughts and feelings shuts down the lines of communication, diminishes or shames another p...
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