173 Quotes by Harriet Lerner

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.

Our first family: where we learned (not) to speak.

Acting out rather than speaking out became a pattern.

Change is an anxiety-arousing business because whenever you make a change, you can’t make only one. There is no guarantee where it will stop.

Learning is finding. Finding is losing something else.

Change is an anxiety-arousing business, both for the one doing the changing and for those affected by the change. Often we fear that another person’s move toward new ideas and experiences will create a gulf so wide that we will not be able to reach them.

..All of us are vulnerable to intense, non-productive 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. If we do not observe and understand how our triangles operate, our anger can keep us stuck in the past, rather than serving as an incentive and guide to form more productive relationship patterns for the future.

Working to restore our voice with members of our first family can be a terrific learning experience. We didn't choose these difficult folks, but, as adults, how we talk to them is up to us. Observing and changing our part in family conversations is one royal road to change. In other words, if you can learn to speak clearly and to respond in a new way with your difficult mother or sister, then other relationships will be a piece of cake.

When women equate requesting a behavioral change with trying to teach the proverbial pig to sing, we don’t strengthen our voice. Instead, we get sucked in by the latest research findings about how male and female brains are different, so men can’t really be expected to pick up their socks. It feels easier to give up and adapt to unfair circumstances, despite the enormous long-term toll of making such accommodations.