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
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.
If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself. Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
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A bird was lying on his back in the road with his feet in the air. A horse saw him and asked, “What’re you doing?” The sparrow said, “I’m helping hold back the darkness.” The horse sneered and said, “Yeah, right,” and the sparrow said, “One does what one can.”
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Every genuinely new technology has a genuinely new way of breaking—and every now and then, those malfunctions open a new door to the adjacent possible. Sometimes the way a new technology breaks is almost as interesting as the way it works.
In moving through apprehensive chills to mounting excitement and waves of moist tingling warmth, the body, with its innate capacity to heal, melts the iceberg created by deeply frozen trauma.
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Excessive use of external motivation can slow and even stop your journey to mastery.
Learning any new skill involves relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it . . . the upward spurts vary; the plateaus have their own dips and rises along the way. . . .
What we call ‘mastery’ can be defined as that mysterious process through which what is at first difficult or even impossible becomes easy and pleasurable through diligent, patient, long-term practice.
Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to low energy, depression, despair.
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The intention of the universe is evolution. We exist as a locus of waves that spreads its influence to the ends of space and time. The whole of a thing is contained in each of its parts. We are completely, firmly, absolutely connected with all of existence.