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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
Contagious
Extremely
Anxiety
Calm

More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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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 evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run but, it will never make you less afraid.
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Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.
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As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.
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Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.
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deception and 'con games' are a way of life in all species and throughout nature. Organisms that do not improve their ability to deceive - and to detect deception - are less apt to survive.
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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.
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The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.
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Self-help books for women are part of a multibillion-dollar industry, sensitively attuned to our insecurities and our purses.
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If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
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The term girl not only serves to avoid certain anxiety-arousing connotations inherent in the word woman regarding aggression, sexuality, and reproduction, it also serves to impart a tone of frivolousness and lack of seriousness to ambitious, intellectual, and competitive striving that women may pursue.
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Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others.
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I'm a good example of wanting to apologize only for my precise share of a problem--as I calculate it, of course--and I expect my husband Steve to apologize for his share, also as I calculate it. Since we're not always of one mind on the math, it can lead to the theater of the absurd.
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We will be in tune with our bodies only if we truly love and honor them. We can't be in good communication with the enemy.
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Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.
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You can't evaluate a prospective partner if you insulate your relationship from your family and friends--and his.
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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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Often when someone apologizes - like a parent who says to a child, I'm very sorry I neglected you when you were a kid - they also ask, Do you forgive me?, because they want the other person to be over it. However, healing can take a great deal of time. And if we forgive too quickly, we cut the process short.
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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
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The miracle is that your children will love you with all your imperfections if you can do the same for them.
Harriet Lerner
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We all fear change, even as we seek it.
Harriet Lerner