I will work hard to heal my hurt. This means understanding my own deepest emotions and those of all my loved ones. I will not hurt their feelings or try to control them, even if they hurt mine or try to control me.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 186
No matter how bad you feel, if you do one of these — improve, appreciate, protect or connect — you will feel better.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 184
Approach everyone you meet as an individual with dignity and a life as complicated and mysterious as your own. Discard preceonceptions and suspend, even for a moment, the idea that you “know this type.”
Do these things and perhaps you might learn the most important lesson that love can teach us: that each person is worthy of our love simply because they are human, one of God’s unique creations, and begin from there.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 179
Most human beings subjected to the amplification, magnification, and oversimplification of resentment or anger get resentful, contentious, or sulky in return, just like you do. Resentment and anger also cause you to focus only on your own perspective, to the exclusion of everyone else’s….
On the other hand, compassion not only keeps you from avoiding and attacking, it also motivates behavior to improve, appreciate, connect, or protect, all of which are likely to make things better…. Compassion is power.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 167-169
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
People who feel good about themselves are not easily threatened by the future.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 177
Real power is acting in your best interests, and your long-term emotional best interests depend entirely on acting according to your deepest values. If you do that, you will feel valuable and powerful at the same time.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 160
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.
Real personal power comes from focusing on what you can control, from acting in your best interests. You feel empowered when you control how you behave, in accordance with your deepest values.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 152
The greatest leverage parents have to help and guide children is to form strong, resentment-free emotional bonds with them, based on value, mutual respect, and empowerment.
Empowerment gives someone the right and the confidence to offer solutions to problems that respect the best interests of all involved. In other words, it activates Core Value and motivations to improve, appreciate, connect, and protect.
The trick in empowering children is to get them to come up with solutions that work for them and you. When they come up with the solutions, you avoid power struggles, resentment, and hostility. Most people, including children, like to cooperate, but hate to submit.
Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 51