But if there’s even a little piece of you that thinks you’re not good enough by yourself — if even a small part of you feels you need your gaslighter’s love or approval to be whole — then you are susceptible to gaslighting.
— Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect, p. 5
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
Conviction is for something, like justice and fair treatment, while anger and resentment are against something, like injustice or unfair treatment. Those who hate injustice want retribution and triumph, not fairness; they fantasize about punishment of their unjust opponents, who must submit to humiliation. The fantasies of those who love justice are of equality, harmony, and triumphant good.
Being for something generates energy and creates positive feelings and relationships, while being against something depletes energy, creates negative feelings, and usually has deleterious effects on relationships — if you’re resentful about something at work, you won’t be as sweet to your kids when you get home.
— Steven Stosny You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 117
If you want to feel lovable, the easiest way is to be compassionate to someone — a child, friend, stranger — anyone will do.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 110
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
“Disappointment, sadness, anxiety, and distress are part of everyday living. Only if they stimulate core hurts that are blamed on someone else will they become anger.
“Disappointment means you didn’t get something you wanted. It doesn’t mean that you are unworthy of it, it just means you didn’t get it.
“Sadness means you’ve lost something. It doesn’t mean that you are unlovable, it just means that you lost something.
“Anxiety is a dread that something bad might happen. It does not tell you that you are bad; it tells you to pay attention to a problem, so you can solve it.
“Distress means that you are currently overloaded in emotional response. It doesn’t mean that you are inadequate, it means your overexcited emotional circuits need a moment to calm. HEALS will do the trick quickly.”
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 40
“General Rule: If you have to justify your emotions or behavior, to yourself or others, they are almost always harmful.
“The urge to justify should be a trigger to heal the hurt that causes the anger. Justifying anger never heals the hurt that causes it.”
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 39-40.
“We can never feel taken advantage of or exploited in the experience of compassion, for compassion is its own reward. Even if it turns out that someone else’s defenses or weaknesses have motivated manipulation, we have the self-satisfaction of knowing that we acted out of compassion, which is always the right thing.”
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 36