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The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
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More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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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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Intensity is not the same as intimacy, although we tend to confuse these two words.
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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.
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Believing that all women should want to be mothers makes about as much sense as believing that all men should want to be engineers.
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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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No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
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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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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.
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.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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Sometimes the most helpful thing you can do is to stop trying to be helpful.
Harriet Lerner
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As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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Relationships are most likely to fail when we don't address problems or hold our partner accountable for unfair or irresponsible behavior ... the ability to clarify our values, beliefs, and life goals--and then to keep our behavior congruent with them--is at the heart of a solid marriage.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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Whole-hearted listening is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to the other person.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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Through words we come to know the other person--and to be known. This knowing is at the heart of our deepest longings for intimacy and connection with others. How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice.
Harriet Lerner