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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.

By Harriet Lerner
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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.

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Pema Chödrön
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FindCenter Quotes ImageEmpathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart.

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Gary Chapman
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FindCenter Quotes ImageWhen 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.

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FindCenter Quotes ImagePeople’s sense of self-worth is pivotal to their ability to look clearly at the hurt they’ve caused. The more solid one’s sense of self regard, the more likely that that person can feel empathy and compassion for the hurt party, and apologize from an authentic center.

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Harriet Lerner
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FindCenter Quotes ImageThe 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.

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Harriet Lerner
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FindCenter Quotes ImageAnger 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...

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Harriet Lerner
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FindCenter Quotes ImageFeeling 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.

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Harriet Lerner
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FindCenter Quotes ImageWe 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.

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Harriet Lerner
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FindCenter Quotes ImageThe major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn’t get written because someone knocked on the door.

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Martin Luther King Jr.
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FindCenter Quotes ImageHow ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.

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Elizabeth Lesser
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Relationship Challenges