Rafaelle’s Reviews > How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving > Status Update

It is better to light the candle than to curse the darkness.

have come to accept that fear is a given of life, at least for me. But there is one thing I can commit myself to: I will not let fear stop me from doing what I need to do or drive me to do what I don’t want to do.

Likewise, we might stay put in what isn’t working because we want to be faithful to the promise we made, to be a “man of my word.” Then, when the relationship ceases to work for either of us, either of us can’t leave because guilt holds us back.

We are not respecting ourselves when we put up with a general pattern of negativity or hardly any need fulfillment or happiness.

The terror that strikes us in a crisis comes from the powerlessness we feel in the face of it. (Joseph Campbell defines hell as being “stuck in ego.”)

The next time you see someone acting arrogantly, realize what pain and fear he carries under that mask of omnipotence and have compassion toward him.

Spiritual adulthood includes a frequent examination of conscience and a need to make amends when appropriate. The alternative—that evil is only out there in others—grants us a sinister permission to retaliate and punish. We build trust when we admit we are not perfect.

To state our needs rather than to blame others for not fulfilling them leads to the very openness and vulnerability that makes for authentic intimacy.

People dislike us for what they uncover not about us but about what we hide. Indeed, they like and respect us for our disarming admissions about our limits and inadequacies. Knowing this gives us yet another chance to articulate our truth, to drop a pretense. We then want to be ex-posed so we can act freely with no further need to invent or protect a self-created image.

Once we cease our dispute with circumstances and simply face them and deal with them, we feel serenity, changing what can be changed and accepting what cannot be changed. By doing so, we build a strong foundation for self-respect, a healthy alternative to universal entitlement. This means, among other things, establishing and maintaining personal boundaries so that others do not take advantage of us