|
d3130ee
|
The strongest relationships are between two people who can live without each other but don't want to.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
69d019c
|
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 |
|
b7a6120
|
But one of the hallmarks of emotional maturity is to recognize the validity of multiple realities and to understand that people think, feel, and react differently. Often we behave as if "closeness" means "sameness."
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
1928d68
|
Our society doesn't promote self-acceptance and it never will. First of all, self-acceptance doesn't sell products. Capitalism would fall if we liked ourselves the way we are now. Also, people who feel shamed and inadequate themselves tend to pass it on. I'm sure you've noticed that many individuals and groups try to enhance their self-esteem by diminishing others.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
83fca4b
|
We cannot make another person change his or her steps to an old dance, but if we change our own steps, the dance no longer can continue in the same predictable pattern. 4.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
f19b2f4
|
Differences don't just threaten and divide us. They also inform, enrich, and enliven us.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
379c910
|
Letting go of anger and hate requires us to give up the hope for a different past, along with the hope of a fantasized future. What we gain is a life more in the present, where we are not mired in prolonged anger and resentment that doesn't serve us.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
4070e08
|
Everyone freaks out. Sometimes the best we can do with fear is befriend it. Expect it and understand that fear will always reappear. Eventually it subsides. It will return. The real culprits are our knee jerk responses to fear and the way we try to avoid feeling fear, anxiety and shame. Don't get me wrong, wanting to feel better fast is a perfectly natural human impulse. It is healthy to seek relief when you feel hopelessly mired in the emo..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
a24d225
|
But therein lies the paradox: Speaking out and being "real" are not necessarily virtues. Sometimes voicing our thoughts and feelings shuts down the lines of communication, diminishes or shames another person, or makes it less likely that two people can hear each other or even stay in the same room. Nor is talking always a solution. We know from personal experience that our best intentions to process a difficult issue can move a situation fr..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
112a52c
|
it is no wonder that it is hard for us to know, let alone admit, that we are angry. Why are angry women so threatening to others? If we are guilty, depressed, or self-doubting, we stay in place. We do not take action except against our own selves and we are unlikely to be agents of personal and social change. In contrast, angry women may change and challenge the lives of us all, as witnessed by the past decade of feminism. And change is an ..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
d17971a
|
feeling angry signals a problem, venting anger does not solve it. Venting anger may serve to maintain, and even rigidify, the old rules and patterns in a relationship, thus ensuring that change does not occur. When emotional intensity is high, many of us engage in nonproductive efforts to change the other person, and in so doing, fail to exercise our power to clarify and change our own selves. The old anger-in/anger-out theory, which states..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
8fa836a
|
Shame is paralyzing and debilitating. It invites us not to be heard, at least not in an authentic way. Acting courageously when shame enters the picture requires extraordinary courage because people will do anything to escape from shame or from the possibility that shame will be evoked. It is just too difficult to go there. Even for people who will walk in to the fires of transformation to face fear. Men and women tend to manage shame dif..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
a46a424
|
Questioning ourselves for being "oversensitive" is a common way that women, in particular, disqualify our legitimate anger and hurt. ...The fact that some of us feel more vulnerable than others in a particular context does not mean we are weak or lesser in any way."
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
34f819a
|
We all long to have a relationship so relaxed and intimate that we can share anything and everything without first thinking about it. Who wants to hide out in a relationship in which we can't allow ourselves to be known? Speaking in our own voice, not in someone else's, is an undeniably good idea. I've yet to meet the person who aspires to be phony or invisible in her closest relationships. The dictate "Be yourself" is a cultural ideal tout..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
08c1242
|
Anger is inevitable when our lives consist of giving in and going along; when we assume responsibility for other people's feelings and reactions; when we relinquish our primary responsibility to proceed with our own growth and ensure the quality of our own lives; when we behave as if having a relationship is more important than having a self.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
e5ca303
|
If you treat man as he appears to be, you make him worse than he is. But if you treat man as if he already were what he potentially could be, you make him what he should be.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
c76a8f5
|
If you pay attention, you may find that 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 the thing that will evoke fear and other disquieting emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.
|
|
fear
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
2ae3318
|
Indeed, in many situations wisdom lies in being strategic rather than spontaneous. This is especially true when we're dealing with a difficult person, a hot issue, or a tense situation. The enormous challenge is to make wise decisions about how and when to say what to whom, and even before that, to know what we really want to say and what we hope to accomplish by saying it.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
8a009c6
|
But an honorable relationship, she reminds us, is one in which "we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us...of life between us." When we are not able to speak authentically, our relationships spiral downward, as does our sense of integrity and self-regard."
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
3b2d13d
|
The best apologies are short, and don't go on to include explanations that run the risk of undoing them. An apology isn't the only chance you ever get to address the underlying issue. The apology is the chance you get to establish the ground for future communication. This is an important and often overlooked distinction.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
e0d9e2a
|
We can influence the other person through our words and silence, but we can never control the outcome.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
c2b31c1
|
Of course, adult life is not always so simple. Some issues need to be revisited--not dropped--and talk is essential to this process. We need words to begin to heal betrayals, inequalities, and ruptured connections. Our need for language, conversation, and definition goes beyond the wish to put things right. 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 ..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
3dba3d0
|
Don't use "below-the-belt" tactics. These include: blam- ing, interpreting, diagnosing, labeling, analyzing, preaching, moralizing, ordering, warning, interrogating, ridiculing, and lecturing. Don't put the other person down."
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
df57720
|
We may view it as our responsibility to control something that is not in fact within our control and yet fail to exercise the power and authority that we do have over our own behavior. Mothers cannot make children think, feel, or be a certain way, but we can be firm, consistent, and clear about what behavior we will and will not tolerate, and what the consequences are for misbehavior. We can also change our part in patterns that keep family..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
fa2a1d2
|
We diminish people when we don't allow them to help us, or when we act like we don't need anything from them and they have nothing to offer us. We also diminish them when we allow them to go on and on, even after we've exceeded our capacity to pay attention.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
a229e58
|
But here is the real point when it comes to the challenge of apologies in family relationships. If our intention is to have a better relationship, we need to be our best and most mature self, rather than reacting to the other person's reactivity. Also, some of the other person's complaints will be true, since we can't possibly get it right all the time.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
cde3a8c
|
When we do not put our primary emotional energy into solving our own problems, we take on other people's problems as our own.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
74d9de4
|
We need to listen carefully to the wisdom of our symptoms and to try to decode their meaning, because some of us have learned to settle, to fall silent; to deny that unfair circumstances exist or matter, and then to call our compromises "life." But our bodies, our deeper unconscious selves, remain harder to fool."
|
|
decode
exist
life
self
settle
silent
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
1dad8ea
|
When forgiveness experts talk in binary language ("You either forgive the wrongdoer or you are a prisoner of your own anger and hate"), they are collapsing the messy complexity of human emotions into a simplistic dichotomous equation."
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
5ca899d
|
When we think of fear, we think of a 'fear of' something. Far more daunting is the challenge of how to conduct ourselves in the dailiness of love and work when anxiety is high and shame kicks in. This is the human condition. We need not let anxiety and shame silence our authentic voices, close our hearts to the different voices of others or stop us from acting with clarify compassion and courage. In today's world, no challenge is more impor..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
5669733
|
Truth is, 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. She may never love you, not now or ever. And if you are courageous in initiating, extending, or deepening a difficult conversation, you may feel even more anxious and uncomfortable, at least in the short run.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
7390d87
|
Why must they share their uncensored reactions?" She was referring to the corrosive criticism that wears couples down as they selectively attend to what bothers them in a partner rather than speaking to what they appreciate and admire. And she was referring to the raw, unbridled emotional exchanges that, when unchecked, erode intimacy and connection in family relationships." --
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
df068d0
|
Change requires courage, but the failure to change does not signify the lack of it.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
cadcd08
|
All the assertiveness training and communication skills in the world can't prevent a relationship from becoming fertile ground for silence and stonewalling, or for anger and frustration, or for just plain hard times. No book or expert can protect us from the range of painful emotions that make us human. We can influence the other person through our words and silence, but we can never control the outcome. That said, what we can
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
24f9df5
|
One might debate whether it is preferable to be a cat or a person, but why get into it? If you are reading this now, you are not a cat and never will be. So along with the good days, you're going to experience the entire range of painful emotions that make us human.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
59ed91c
|
Yet all of us are vulnerable to intense, nonproductive angry reactions in our current relationships if we do not deal openly and directly with emotional issues from our first family--in particular, losses and cutoffs.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
2c40f1d
|
If only our passion to understand others were as great as our passion to be understood. Were this so, all our apologies would be truly meaningful and healing.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
858f386
|
The need for apologies and repair is a singularly human one---both on the giving and receiving ends. We are hardwired to seek justice and fairness (however we see it), so the need to receive a sincere apology that's due is deeply felt. We are also imperfect humans and prone to error and defensiveness, so the challenge of offering a heartfelt apology permeates almost every relationship.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
183bb56
|
Countless self-help books, blogs and seminars promise relief from suffering, when pain and suffering are as much part of life as happiness and joy.The only way to avoid being mistreated in this world is to fold up in a dark corner and stay mute. If you go outside, or let others in, you'll get hurt many times. Ditto if you've grown up in a family rather than begin raised by wolves. Some people will behave badly and will not apologize, repair..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
512de7e
|
Moving in this direction requires us to clarify--to ourselves and others--what's important to us. Having an authentic voice means that: We can openly share competence as well as problems and vulnerability. We can warm things up and calm them down. We can listen and ask questions that allow us to truly know the other person and to gather information about anything that may affect us. We can say what we think and feel, state differences, and ..
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
b3a8761
|
Likewise, the other person has a right to know us accurately, to consider the relationship and make plans for the future based on facts, not fantasies or projections.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
955d966
|
Respect the fact that all you do and are now, has evolved for a good reason and serves an important purpose.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
bb0d1fb
|
To listen with an open heart and ask questions to better help us understand the other person is a spiritual exercise, in the truest sense of the word.
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |
|
97e37f3
|
We commonly confuse closeness with sameness and view intimacy as the merging of two separate "I's" into one worldview."
|
|
|
Harriet Lerner |