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The bolder and more courageous you are, the more you will learn about yourself.

Harriet Lerner

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Harriet Lerner
Bolder
Courageous
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More quotes by 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
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Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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If you want a recipe for relationship failure, just wait for the other person to change first.
Harriet Lerner
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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
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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.
Harriet Lerner
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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.
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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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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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.
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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Silence can pose a greater threat than the difficult truth.
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.
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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Differences don’t just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.
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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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.
Harriet Lerner
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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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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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You can't evaluate a prospective partner if you insulate your relationship from your family and friends--and his.
Harriet Lerner