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...
Feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does n...
We may view it as our responsibility to control something that is not in fact within our control and yet fail to exercise the power and authority that we do have over our own behavior. Mothers cannot...
Everyone freaks out. Sometimes the best we can do with fear is befriend it. Expect it and understand that fear will always reappear. Eventually it subsides. It will return. The real culprits are our k...
But an honorable relationship, she reminds us, is one in which we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us…of life between us. When we are not able to speak authentica...
When we think of fear, we think of a 'fear of' something. Far more daunting is the challenge of how to conduct ourselves in the dailiness of love and work when anxiety is high and shame kicks in. This...
When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people’s problems as our own.
We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate I’s into one worldview.
Our society cultivates guilt feelings in women such that many of us still feel guilty if we are anything less than an emotional service station to others.
It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will ev...
I feel calmed and relieved when my husband knocks at my study door in the middle of a fight, puts his arms around me, and says, I love you. This is stupid. Let’s just drop it. Like two kids in the san...
A marital therapist recently teased me, Are you writing another book to help women speak up? I’m trying to help my clients be quiet. Then she said more seriously, Why do people think they have to tell...
Truth is, nothing you say can ensure that the other person will get it, or respond the way you want. You may never exceed his threshold of deafness. She may never love you, not now or ever. And if you...
The challenge in all intimate relationships is to preserve both the I and the we without losing either when the going gets tough. If we’re faced with a choice, we need to choose speech over silence, k...
Questioning ourselves for being oversensitive is a common way that women, in particular, disqualify our legitimate anger and hurt....The fact that some of us feel more vulnerable than others in a part...
Our goal will be to have relationships with both men and women that do not operate at the expense of the self, and to have a self that does not operate at the expense of the other.
One might debate whether it is preferable to be a cat or a person, but why get into it? If you are reading this now, you are not a cat and never will be. So along with the good days, you’re going to e...
Nereden başlarsanız başlayın ve kendinize nasıl bir yol seçerseniz seçin, aşağıda verilen bazı yap ve yapma kurallarını öfkelenmeye başladığınızda mutlaka hatırlayın:1. Konu sizin için önemliyse, mutl...
NOT EVERYTHING IS FORGIVABLE Accepting an apology doesn’t always mean reconciliation. The best apology in the world can’t restore every connection. The words I’m sorry may be absurdly inadequate even...
Indeed, in many situations wisdom lies in being strategic rather than spontaneous. This is especially true when we’re dealing with a difficult person, a hot issue, or a tense situation. The enormous c...