Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Harriet Lerner
Despair
Mean
Positive
Concealing
Emotion
Drown
Attitude
Denying
Means
Useful
Keep
Emotions
Also
Although
Real
More quotes by Harriet Lerner
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
Anger is a signal, and one worth listening to.
Harriet Lerner
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
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
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.
Harriet Lerner
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.
Harriet Lerner
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
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
Self-help books for women are part of a multibillion-dollar industry, sensitively attuned to our insecurities and our purses.
Harriet Lerner
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
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
Many of our problems with anger occur when we choose between having a relationship and having a self.
Harriet Lerner
The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.
Harriet Lerner
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
As many have observed, it is easy to tell a lie, but it is almost impossible to tell only one.
Harriet Lerner
You can't evaluate a prospective partner if you insulate your relationship from your family and friends--and his.
Harriet Lerner
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.
Harriet Lerner
Only through our connectedness to others can we really know and enhance the self. And only through working on the self can we begin to enhance our connectedness to others.
Harriet Lerner
No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human.
Harriet Lerner
If what we are doing with our anger is not achieving the desired result, it would seem logical to try something different.
Harriet Lerner