Steven Stosny > Quotes

“Love without compassion is possessive, controlling, rejecting, and dangerous.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“What is lonelier than distrust? Human beings very much need to feel trust and to be trusted by others.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Relationships can be happy with low levels of love and high levels of compassion, but not the other way around.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Resentful, angry, and abusive people drastically misinterpret the message of their own pain.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Shame and fear are the most potent and universal emotional inhibitors. I cannot experience love if it smacks of the probability of rejection or augurs my inability to sustain it. I cannot experience sufficient interest to achieve my fullest potential if I sense the shame of failure or the risk of harm, deprivation, or isolation.”
― Steven Stosny, The Laws of Emotion and Meaning

“You don’t have to take it anymore: Turn your resentful, angry, or emotionally abusive relationship into a compassionate, loving one / Steven Stosny.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Worst of all, your sense of self becomes a monument to someone else’s bad behavior”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Sometimes it seems like starving a hungry heart will make you stronger.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“A love relationship that isolates one or both parties from parents, friends, community, and spiritual connection is doomed to failure.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Resentment and anger have amphetamine and analgesic effects.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“And you are not protective of your husband by staying with him if he does not overcome his addiction to blame.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“hungry heart.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Think about it, she’s complaining because she misses him and wants to be with him.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Your love isn’t what’s hurting you; the person you love is hurting you.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Thus compassionate behavior builds the sense of self.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“He hurts you because he loves you inadequately. When he senses your emotional needs, he feels like a failure as a husband. Instead of doing better he blames his failure on you. You remind him how much of a failure he is, just by having your own emotions.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“In fact, most anger and abuse rise out of deep wells of resentment.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Most positive emotions and virtually all passion, purpose, and conviction come from creating value and staying true to it. On the other hand, most painful emotions, emptiness, and virtually all aggression rise from failure to create value or stay true to it.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Due to their mental efficiency, habits dominate under stress and when physical resources are low. That makes it hard to maintain change. As soon as you’re tired, stressed, or distracted, the old habit returns.”
― Steven Stosny, The Laws of Emotion and Meaning

“You can improve your experience of the situation by recognizing that your opinion does not require his validation.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“psychological sense of spirituality is a feeling of union and transcendence, motivated by compassion, awe, or joy.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Everyone in a walking-on-eggshells family loses some degree of dignity and autonomy. You become unable to decide your own thoughts, feelings, and behavior, because you are living in a defensive-reactive pattern that runs largely on automatic pilot.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Specifically, he should: Initiate at least six hugs per day, holding each for at least six seconds.* Stop what he’s doing and greet you whenever you come into the house. Tell you how he’s trying to feel connected to you when you’re apart. Keep his contractual agreement to make a daily gesture (something small and brief) to let you know that you are important to him.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Children also need to love back, as research with severely depressed mothers indicates.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“you need to cut back on social activities, including after school activities for your kids, in favor of more family dinners and quality time together.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“we are hard-wired to respond to the needs of loved ones, and we fail to do so at our emotional peril.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“But the implication when you defend yourself is that you don’t care about her hurt, you care only about defending your own ego.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“improve, appreciate, connect, or protect.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One

“Disconnection of internal reality from external appearance. No one understands us and/or we don’t understand anyone else. Emotions, particularly negative emotions, often feel different on the inside than they look on the outside. Low emotional intelligence. The inability to understand and regulate our own emotions or to read and understand the emotions of others, especially the effects of our behavior on others, spells intimate and social disaster.”
― Steven Stosny, The Laws of Emotion and Meaning

“Attachment with little trust can become an utter hell of suspicion and dread.”
― Steven Stosny, You Don't Have to Take it Anymore: Turn Your Resentful, Angry, or Emotionally Abusive Relationship into a Compassionate, Loving One