Getting Cooperation
“When people feel valued, they cooperate, when they feel devalued, they either resist or submit with resentment.”
— Steven Stosny, Compassion Power Boot Camp
Category: Compassion
10 Posts
Your Choice
“Everything you resent, you could feel compassionate about.”
— Steven Stosny, Compassion Power Boot Camp
Incompatible Emotional States
“It’s not possible to feel loving or worthy of love at the same time that you feel resentful or angry–they are incompatible emotional states; you can feel one and then the other, but not both at once.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 49
Accepting Ourselves
“Codependents cannot change until we accept our codependent characteristics — our powerlessness over people, alcoholism, and other circumstances we have so desperately tried to control. Acceptance is the ultimate paradox: we cannot change who we are until we accept ourselves the way we are.”
— Melody Beattie, Codependent No More, p. 121
The Secret to Loving Adequately
“To love adequately, you have to tolerate feeling inadequate.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 40
Compassion Is the Key
“Compassion shines light on our differences and lets us appreciate and sympathize with loved ones. Love without the sensitivity of compassion is rejecting of who you really are as a person, possessive, controlling, and dangerous.”
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 32
Compassion Power
“Compassion puts us in touch with the only form of genuine pride: Pride in oneself as a competent, growing, creative, healing, nurturing, and compassionate person.”
— Steven Stosny, The Powerful Self, p. 103
Core Value
Affirmation of core value from Steven Stosny’s The Powerful Self:
I am worthy of respect, value, and compassion, whether or not I get them from others. If I don’t get them from others, it is necessary to feel more worthy, not less. It is necessary to affirm my own deep value as a unique person, a child of God. I respect and value myself. I have compassion for my hurt. I have compassion for the hurt of others. I trust myself to act in my best interests and in the best interests of loved ones.”
Disarming Defenses
“Compassion disarms the defenses of others. Compassion rarely stimulates anger in others, making hostile or destructive defenses unnecessary, thereby breaking the cycle of reciprocal and escalating aggression. It is virtually impossible to sustain aggression in the face of compassionate behavior.”
— Steven Stosny, The Powerful Self, p. 30
Validating Emotions, not Opinions
“You can disagree completely and still have compassion for one another.”
–Steven Stosny, The Powerful Self, p. 30