Emotional pain moves you to do something that will make you feel more alive, not numb. The primary purpose of emotional pain is to make us take action to increase the value of our lives. The purpose of guilt, shame, and anxiety is to get you to be more loving and protective. They hurt us until we act with love and compassion.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 163
The first thing to realize about the terrible Chain of Resentment is that you don’t have to feel it. The experience of resentment is a choice you make.
The second thing to realize is that the Chain of Resentment binds the self more than anyone else. Breaking the chain of resentment means unburdening the self, setting the self free.
No one can just “let go” of resentment. You can resolve resentment only by investing more value in your life. The more you value, the less you will resent. The more compassionate you are, the less you are able to resent.
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 74.
“Love is not about opening old wounds, it’s about healing them.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 157
You have an absolute right to be resentful and angry, but exercising that right will only keep the thorns in your heart. You have a more compelling right to heal the wounds you’ve suffered. You can heal with compassion for yourself, with sympathy for your own hurt, and with the motivation to heal and improve. Emotional healing is replacing your core hurts to your core value, so that you can realize your fullest potential as the loving, compassionate, competent, creative person you are meant to be.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 121
If you choose to heal — and it is certainly your choice — you make the choice out of compassion for yourself, with awareness that your emotional health and well-being are more important than anyone else’s resentment, anger, or abuse.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 106
The goal of healing is to have whatever harm you’ve suffered become the least important thing about you. Other people’s behavior is not about you at all. Only your core value is about you.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 105
The road to psychological ruin begins with blame.
The road to psychological power begins with responsibility.
You cannot blame and find good solutions at the same time. You must choose between blame and making things better.
Blame is always about the past. Solutions must occur in the present and the future.
Blame focuses attention on damage, injury, defects, weakness — on what is wrong. Blame makes you feel like a powerless victim.
Responsibility focuses attention on strengths, resiliency, competence, growth, creativity, healing, and compassion, all of which are necessary for solving family problems.
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 44
“In recovery, we stop enduring life and begin to live it…. We forego worrying and denial, and learn constructive problem solving skills…. We learn to value what we want and need; we stop punishing ourselves for other people’s problems, nonsense and insanity. We stop expecting ourselves to be perfect, and we stop expecting perfection of others…. We stop getting tangled up in craziness…. We stop compulsively taking care of other people and we take care of ourselves. We learn to be good to ourselves, to have fun, and to enjoy life. We learn to feel good about what we’ve accomplished. We stop focusing on what’s wrong and we notice what’s right.”
— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency:Â And Getting Better All the Time, p. 13.
“The comment, ‘You will never change,’ must delight the enemy trying to destroy your family.”
— Robert E. Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen
“Shame never tells you you’re bad; it tells you that in your heart, you want to do better.”
— Steven Stosny, Compassion Power Boot Camp