Relationship is the true proving ground for spirituality. Ultimately, joy is not something to learn, it is something to live. And our greatest joy is lived in deep, loving, and generous relationships with others.
— Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy, p. 348
When we’re in the Gift Zone we hold a certain luminosity. Even in sadness we are somehow lit from within, because we are holding our experience with a quality of compassion. This is the zone that attracts love. And like anything that precious, the stakes get raised if we want to claim it. Claiming our authentic self is one of the scariest and most heroic things we can do. In our Gift Zone, there’s a sense of aliveness, a sense of self — even if that sense of self doesn’t feel as secure or happy as we think it should. We brave a new frontier when we face the risk of entering our Gift Zone And that very sense of risk heightens our ability to love.
— Ken Page, Deeper Dating, p. 26-27.
There is a formula that I’ve seen proven true in my work and my life: to the degree that we treasure our Core Gifts (yes, treasure them; dispassionate acceptance isn’t enough) we attract caring, thoughtful people who are also (miracle of miracles) attracted to us. And, equally amazing, we become more attracted to people who are good for us, and less interested in people who diminish us or leave us feeling insecure.
— Ken Page, Deeper Dating, p.19
The real search for love is about embracing our most authentic self, sharing that true self with the precious people who know how to honor it, and learning to offer others the same in return.
— Ken Page, Deeper Dating, p. 2
This is why appreciating and being appreciated are so appealing in relationships: both parties become better people. What’s more, my appreciation of you has a ripple effect. It helps me appreciate the beauty of the sunset, the drama of the painting, or the excitement of the movie or play.
— Steven Stosny, Soar Above, p. 111
Through her own challenging experiences of both love and solitude, she had come to know that love is first and foremost an inside job — not in the sense of trying to love herself with positive affirmations but rather in becoming intimate with her own experience, with allowing herself to be transparent to herself and others rather than protecting her heart for fear of being known too well and then rejected.
She was also engaged in a creative and fulfilling life that she loved. As an individual ripens, becomes something in herself, as Rilke puts it, there is less need to find someone else to fill the missing gap. Athena wasn’t averse to an intimate relationship; on the contrary, she knew that she wanted one, but she didn’t need it.
— Roger Housden, Dropping the Struggle: Seven Ways to Love the Life You Have, p. 74-75
Very early on in my work I had discovered that the most compassionate people I interviewed also have the most well-defined and well-respected boundaries. It surprised me at the time, but now I get it. They assume that other people are doing the best they can, but they also ask for what they need and they don’t put up with a lot of crap. I lived the opposite way: I assumed that people weren’t doing their best so I judged them and constantly fought being disappointed, which was easier than setting boundaries. Boundaries are hard when you want to be liked and when you are a pleaser hell-bent on being easy, fun, and flexible.
Compassionate people ask for what they need. They say no when they need to, and when they say yes, they mean it. They’re compassionate because their boundaries keep them out of resentment.
— Brené Brown, Rising Strong, p. 114-115.
The use of compassion to cajole someone into changing is especially tragic in abusive relationships, when abused partners are desperate to bring about change. Their desperation is misconstrued by abusers as pure manipulation, to which they respond angrily and often abusively. Compassion is a healing emotion for the person who behaves compassionately because it engages Adult brain power to access our deepest humane values. But it’s helpful to recipients only when they are in the Adult brain. The Toddler brain does not receive compassion positively. If you’re in an abusive relationship, you must understand that your compassion will change you by putting you more in touch with your humanity, but it will not change your partner. Only your partner’s compassion for you will change him or her.
Steven Stosny, PhD, Soar Above, p. 52
I grew up with angry and resentful people and have struggled my whole career to help thousands of resentful and angry clients achieve a better life. The hardest truth for any of them to grasp is the difference between feeling powerful and being powerful. Most anger and resentment are attempts to feel powerful at the cost of being powerful.
Steven Stosny, PhD, Soar Above, p. 45
Rising strong changes not just you, but also the people around you. To bear witness to the human potential for transformation through vulnerability, courage, and tenacity can be either a clarion call for more daring or a painful mirror for those of us stuck in the aftermath of the fall, unwilling or unable to own our stories. Your experience can profoundly affect the people around you whether you’re aware of it or not.
— Brené Brown, Rising Strong, p. 10