Mohamed

“1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us.
2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us.
3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us. These three reasons have one thing in common: they see people as “bigger” (that is, more powerful and significant) than God, and, out of the fear that creates in us, we give other people the power and right to tell us what to feel, think, and do.”
― Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

“When you give another person the power to define you, then you also give them the power to control you.”
― Leslie Vernick, The Emotionally Destructive Relationship: Seeing It, Stopping It, Surviving It

“Often, our misunderstandings about love are born in disruptive family relationships, where someone was either one-up or one-down to an extreme. There is an appropriate and necessary difference in the balance of power between parents and young children, but in the best situations, there should be no power struggles by the time those children have become adults - just deep connection, trust, and respect between people who sincerely care about each other.
In disruptive families, children are taught to remain one-up or one-down into adulthood. And this produces immature adults who either seek to dominate others (one-up) or who allow themselves to be dominated (one-down) in their relationships - one powerful and one needy, one enabling and one addicted, one decisive and one confused.
In relationships with these people, manipulation abounds. Especially when they start to feel out of control.”
― Tim Clinton, Break Through: When to Give In, How to Push Back: The Moment that Changes Everything

“When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realization turns into self-absorption, other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfillment of our needs and desires.”
― P.M. Forni, The Civility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude