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
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 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
“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
“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
“If you feel devalued by something your partner, child, or parent says or does, he or she probably feels devalued too. Devaluing him or her in return will only make it worse. Compassion will make it better.
“Compassion does not mean giving in. Giving in or ‘going along to avoid an argument’ virtually guarantees resentment. Resentment undermines and ruins attachment relationships.
“Most of the time resolution without resentment is possible with a sincere effort to understand one another. We become the angriest (the most hurt), not when disappointed for not getting what we want, but when feeling misunderstood or disregarded. With compassion, we never feel unimportant or disregarded or unlovable (although we may feel disappointed). This makes negotiation on all issues much easier. Compassion is absolutely necessary for resolution in the event of hurt feelings….
With compassion the goal is not to ‘win’ a dispute, but to find a solution in which all parties feel regarded, important, and valuable.”
— Steven Stosny, Manual of the Core Value Workshop, p. 37
“The comment, ‘You will never change,’ must delight the enemy trying to destroy your family.”
— Robert E. Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen
“Attachment is like languages — you have to tolerate feeling not good at it in order to get better at it.”
— Steven Stosny, Compassion Power Boot Camp
“You do not want ‘obedience’ in your home, you want cooperation. When people feel valued, they cooperate. When they don’t feel valued, they resist what feels to them like submission. The keys to resentment-free cooperation are making behavior requests, instead of demands and, above all, tolerance of differences.
When a partner gives in to a demand, he’ll be resentful.”
— Steven Stosny, Compassion Power Boot Camp