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What initially attracts us and what later becomes 'the problem' are usually one and the same.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
Usually
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Problem
Initially
Attracts
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More quotes by Harriet Lerner

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Whole-hearted listening is the greatest spiritual gift you can give to the other person.
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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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Anxiety is extremely contagious, but so is calm.
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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
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We all fear change, even as we seek it.
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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.
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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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The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.
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The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.
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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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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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If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
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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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Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.
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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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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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If you pursue a distancer, he or she will distance more. Consider it a fundamental law of physics.
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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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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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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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