Harriet Lerner Quotes - Page 4

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Anger Anxiety Apologizing Apology Belief Challenges Children

Often when someone apologizes - like a parent who says to a child, "I'm very sorry I neglected you when you were a kid" - they also ask, "Do you forgive me?," because they want the other person to be over it. However, healing can take a great deal of time. And if we forgive too quickly, we cut the process short.

Harriet Lerner

Children, Sorry, Healing

Source: www.elle.com

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The more we seek exclusivity in friendship, the more it becomes obligatory and the less likely it is to fulfill the wonderful vision of what true friendship can be.

Harriet Lerner

Friendship, True Friend, Vision

Harriet Goldhor Lerner (1996). “Life preservers: staying afloat in love and life”

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It's true that over-apologizing interrupts the flow of conversation and irritates the person who has to stop and offer reassurance, like, "No, it's fine, don't worry about it." But far greater than the challenge of toning down unnecessary "sorrys" is offering an apology when one is due.

Harriet Lerner

Apology, Worry, Challenges

Source: www.elle.com

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Wherever you find a wife and mother-in-law slugging it out, you'll find a son who's not speaking up to either his mother or his wife.

Harriet Lerner

Mother, Son, Speaking Up

Harriet Lerner (2012). “Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up”, p.145, Penguin

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My debt to feminism is simply incalculable. Feminism allowed me to see past a 'reality' that I had once taken as a given. It helped me to pay attention to countless voices, my own included, that I had been taught 'don't count.' Feminism allows me to maintain hope.

Harriet Lerner

Taken, Past, Reality

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Whatever your sex fantasy is with your partner, consider it normal.

Harriet Lerner

Sex, Normal, Fantasy

Harriet Lerner (2012). “Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up”, p.109, Penguin

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Self-help books for women are part of a multibillion-dollar industry, sensitively attuned to our insecurities and our purses.

Harriet Lerner

Book, Self, Insecurity

Harriet Goldhor Lerner (1996). “Life preservers: staying afloat in love and life”

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Judging people for whom they love (a same sex partner) rather than by whom they harm, should in itself merit a psychiatric diagnosis.

Harriet Lerner

Sex, Judging People, Diagnosis

FaceBook post by Harriet Lerner from Oct 18, 2015

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As long as we can feel hope, there is hope.

Harriet Lerner

Hope, Long, Feels

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Men are often (though not always) the pursuers for sex, just like women are often (though not always) the pursuers for conversation.

Harriet Lerner

Sex, Men, Conversation

Harriet Lerner (2012). “Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up”, p.116, Penguin

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I'm a good example of wanting to apologize only for my precise share of a problem--as I calculate it, of course--and I expect my husband Steve to apologize for his share, also as I calculate it. Since we're not always of one mind on the math, it can lead to the theater of the absurd.

Harriet Lerner

Husband, Math, Mind

"Waiting For An Apology? Don’t Hold Your Breath" by Harriet Lerner, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2012.

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Anger is a tool for change when it challenges us to become more of an expert on the self and less of an expert on others. . . .If, however, we do not use our anger to define ourselves clearly in every important relationship we are in--and manage our feelings as they arise--no one else will assume this responsibility for us.

Harriet Lerner

Anger, Responsibility, Self

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If what we are doing with our anger is not achieving the desired result, it would seem logical to try something different.

Harriet Lerner

Inspirational, Trying, Different

Harriet Goldhor Lerner (1986). “The dance of anger: a woman's guide to changing the patterns of intimate relationships”, HarperCollins Publishers

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If you exchanged wedding vows, tape them to your bathroom mirror and read them aloud to yourself every morning along with the ritual brushing of teeth. It's not realistic to believe that you will live your promises as a daily practice -- unless you're a saint or a highly evolved Zen Buddhist. Not where marriage is concerned. But you can make a practice of returning to your vows when the going gets rough.

Harriet Lerner

Buddhist, Morning, Believe

"Returning To Your Wedding Vows" by Harriet Lerner, www.huffingtonpost.com. April 2, 2012.

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Throughout evolutionary history, anxiety and fear have helped every species to be wary and to survive. Fear can signal us to act, or, alternatively, to resist the impulse to act. It can help us to make wise, self-protective choices in and out of relationships where we might otherwise sail mindlessly along, ignoring signs of trouble.

Harriet Lerner

Wise, Fear, Self

FaceBook post by Harriet Lerner from Nov 19, 2015

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Before modern feminism, stories of female ambition were silenced or erased; even now, they are told with apology ("Yes, it's a great honor to be a Nobel Prize laureate, but really, what I love best is staying home and being a mother to Kevin and Annie").

Harriet Lerner

Mother, Home, Ambition

Harriet Goldhor Lerner (1993). “The Dance of Deception: Pretending and Truth-Telling in Women's Lives”, Harpercollins

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Pretending can be a bold form of experimentation and inventiveness. In pretending joy or happiness, we may discover or enhance our capacity for it.

Harriet Lerner

Joy, May, Pretending

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deception and 'con games' are a way of life in all species and throughout nature. Organisms that do not improve their ability to deceive - and to detect deception - are less apt to survive.

Harriet Lerner

Games, Deception, Way

Harriet Lerner (2009). “The Dance of Deception: Pretending and Truth-Telling in Women's”, p.19, Harper Collins

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When anxiety disrupts functioning, it's psychiatric illness.

Harriet Lerner

Anxiety, Illness, Psychiatric

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Latest quotes from interviews

"The best apology, I think, was from my husband, Steve, who slept with a close friend of mine decades back, when we were committed to being life partners but not yet married. And many of the factors that made Steve's apology so healing are universal. One important thing is that he confessed to the affair, rather than my discovering it. He looked deeply into his own history in terms of why this happened, but he never used that history as an excuse."

- Harriet Lerner,

www.elle.com, added May 9, 2017

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Harriet Lerner

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Born: November 30, 1944
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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