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“The only way out is through.” The only way to get to the other side of the tunnel is to go through it, not around it. But I can’t even picture the entrance right now.
you avoid rocking the boat to spare people’s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty.
There is a continuing decision to be made as to whether to evade pain, or to tolerate it and therefore modify it.
Her list of mistakes was long: choosing the wrong husbands, failing to put her children’s needs above her own
She had numbed herself with denial for as long as that worked.
a senior citizen, utterly alone, lacking in purpose and full of regret. By her account, she had never truly been loved by anybody. The only child of older and distant parents, she had messed up her own children so badly that none of them spoke to her, and she had no friends or relatives or social life.
had been forced to act as a grownup prematurely, like an underage driver navigating her life without a license. She rarely got to see her parents acting like adults, like her friends’ parents.
forced to act as a grownup prematurely, like an underage driver navigating her life without a license. She rarely got to see her parents acting like adults, like her friends’ parents.
avoidance is almost always about fear.
“Avoidance is a simple way of coping by not having to cope.”
I try to wrap my mind around this paradox: self-sabotage as a form of control.
Through his tears, John says that this is exactly what he didn’t want to happen, that he didn’t come here to have a breakdown. But I assure him that he’s not breaking down; he’s breaking open.
You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on, and pretending to feel a certain way isn’t one of them.
even in the best possible relationship, you’re going to get hurt sometimes, and no matter how much you love somebody, you will at times hurt that person, not because you want to, but because you’re human. You will inevitably hurt your partner, your parents, your children, your closest friend—and they will hurt you—because if you sign up for intimacy, getting hurt is part of the deal.
If, however, your childhood ruptures didn’t come with loving repairs, it will take some practice for you to tolerate the ruptures, to stop believing that every rupture signals the end, and to trust that even if a relationship doesn’t work out, you will survive that rupture too.
People may seek peace and clarity, understanding and healing, but deathbeds themselves are often a stew of drugs, fear, confusion, weakness. That’s why it’s especially important to be the people we want to be now, to become more open and expansive while we’re able. A lot will be left dangling if we wait too long.
Relationships in life don’t really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you’ve been close to lives on somewhere inside you. Your past lovers, your parents, your friends, people both alive and dead (symbolically or literally)—all of them evoke memories, conscious or not. Often they inform how you relate to yourself and others. Sometimes you have conversations with them in your head; sometimes they speak to you in your sleep.
