What you cannot get from others is your core value, your internal sense of importance, value, worthiness, equality, and personal power — your ability to act according to your own deepest values. These are too personal and too important to rely on the advice or behavior of others. They must be self-regulated.
— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 116
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
Next time something or someone comes along seeking your time, ask yourself, If I agree and answer yes to this request, what am I saying no to?
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 75
Stop and celebrate each of those small successes, each of those little steps we take on our journey to success. Don’t skip over them, don’t rush through them, but take time to enjoy each as it comes. It will encourage you and, most important, it will motivate you to keep going.
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together: Discover God’s Pattern for Your Life, p. 67
“Truthfulness is a more helpful concept than honesty. In conversations with the ones you love, be true to your heart instead of honest to your moods.”
— Hugh Prather, The Little Book of Letting Go, p. 157
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
“Nothing your prodigal, or you, are involved in right now has God wringing His hands, searching for a solution. We only need to allow God to be God….
“Nothing that concerns you is too petty for God to resolve for you.”
— Robert E. Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen, p. 172-173
“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