Positivity
“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.”
— Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind, p. 27
Intellectual Freedom
Bad thought made freely available is rendered sterile.
— Michael Gorman, quoting Ranganathan in Our Singular Strengths: Meditations for Librarians, p. 25
Real Power
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
Empowering Children
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
Core Value Again
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
Caution
You cannot diminish or hurt the parent of your children without diminishing and hurting your children.
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 48
The Crux of Christianity
What matters most to me is that God had that son to begin with. And that he has other sons and daughters like me that he loves and doesn’t want to be parted from. That he loves his children as I love my own daughters, only more so, with a hot, knowing, parental love that says, “Be who you are, but love me back. Only love me back.”
— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 8
Healing
“Love is not about opening old wounds, it’s about healing them.”
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 157
A More Compelling Right
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, not Anger
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