Harriet Lerner is an American psychologist and preeminent voice on the psychology of women, family, and relationships. She is the author of several books on these subjects, including the New York Times bestseller The Dance of Anger.
CLEAR ALL
Finally I saw that everything had come to nothing. and gave it up. and took my old body and went out into the morning and sang.
10
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.
1
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.
The greatest satisfaction comes not from chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, but from the radical acceptance of life as it is, without fighting and clinging to passing desires.
2
Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.
Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but it will never make you less afraid.
4
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.
6
How relationships unfold with the most important people in our lives depends on courage and clarity in finding voice. This is equally true for our relationship with our self.
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.
3
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.