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Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
Enrich
Inform
Threaten
Divide
Divides
Differences
Also
Enliven

More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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If what we are doing with our anger is not achieving the desired result, it would seem logical to try something different.
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Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.
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Whole-hearted listening is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to the other person.
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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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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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What initially attracts us and what later becomes 'the problem' are usually one and the same.
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There are some things for which there is no apology, and on the question of slavery, there is no adequate apology for ripping people out of their homeland and bringing them here in chains. There is no adequate apology for the ongoing horrific legacy of racism.
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Although it's not useful to drown in despair, it's also not useful to keep a 'positive attitude' when this means concealing or denying real emotions.
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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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Men are often (though not always) the pursuers for sex, just like women are often (though not always) the pursuers for conversation.
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Women ... have long been discouraged from the awareness and forthright expression of anger. Sugar and spice are the ingredients from which we are made. We are the nurturers, the soothers, the peacemakers, and the steadiers of rocked boats.
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No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
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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.
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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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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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Every time I open Facebook, I see a post with something like, We must forgive or be prisoners of our own bitterness and hate. People think that forgiveness is all-or-nothing, but this myth hurts people. You can forgive 10, 97, or 14 percent. Forgiveness is complicated.
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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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Being who we are requires that we can talk openly about things that are important to us, that we take a clear position on where we stand on important emotional issues, and that we clarify the limits of what is acceptable and tolerable to us in a relationship.
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Women are raised to be the nurturers and steadiers of rocked boats, to hold relationships in place as if our lives depended on it. But it shores up your own dignity and integrity if you're able to say, There are a million things I love about you, and I want our relationship to continue. I forgive you 95 percent, but not this 5 percent.
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We all fear change, even as we seek it.
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