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No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
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More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.
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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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Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.
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We all fear change, even as we seek it.
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If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
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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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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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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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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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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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Wherever you find a wife and mother-in-law slugging it out, you'll find a son who's not speaking up to either his mother or his wife.
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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
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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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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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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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Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.
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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.
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Many people value criticism in the early stage of a relationship, but become allergic to it over time. Remember this: No one can survive in a marriage (at least not happily) if they feel more judged than admired. Your partner won't make use of your constructive criticism if there's not a surrounding climate of admiration and respect.
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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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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.
Harriet Lerner