The Dance of Connection Quotes

“A marital therapist recently teased me, “Are you writing another book to help women speak up? I’m trying to help my clients be quiet.” Then she said more seriously, “Why do people think they have to tell each other everything they feel?”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“Children know at a deep, automatic level what they are not supposed to say or tell or even remember. Their utter emotional and economic dependency necessitates a fierce, unconscious loyalty to unspoken family rules. As adults they may remain locked in silence, or attempt to belong by constructing a pseudo-self.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“Children know at a deep, automatic level what they are not supposed to say or tell or even remember. Their utter emotional and economic dependency necessitates a fierce, unconscious loyalty to unspoken family rules”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“The kind of intuitive understanding that most of us have for friendship, for family relations, for collegial getting along, Archie had for motors, for power tools, for electricity, plumbing, and construction,for how all things were put together and how they could betaken apart.” He could fix or build anything without any instruction and seemingly without trial and error—an ability that seemed magical to my sister and me. But relationships had him stumped when they moved beyond bantering.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“The kind of intuitive understanding that most of us have for friendship, for family relations, for collegial getting along, Archie had for mo-tors, for power tools, for electricity, plumbing, and construction,for how all things were put together and how they could betaken apart.” He could fix or build anything without any instruction and seemingly without trial and error—an ability that seemed magical to my sister and me. But relationships had him stumped when they moved beyond bantering.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“Despite three decades of feminism, the world’s major institutions are still run almost exclusively by men (although probably not by the particular guys we hang out with). But in their private lives, even those men often fall silent—or speak too loudly—when they feel they can’t hold their own in talking things through.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“People are my stock-in-trade, but when I’m anxious or angry enough, I have the brain of a reptile. For many adults, love and marriage may be the arena where maturity peels away or a fog descends on our brain and dissolves our thinking center.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“Getting clear about what really matters is almost impossible when one’s energy is dissipated in reacting to one’s partner. It wasn’t that Harry and Augusta weren’t creative or smart enough to think through these questions. But they were both so locked into unproductive patterns that they didn’t give themselves a chance to even ask these questions, let alone answer them.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“In a sad paradox, the more important and enduring a relationship (say, with a partner or relative), the more we tend to participate in narrow, habitual conversations where our experience of our self and the other person becomes fixed and small. My goal is to challenge us to engage in novel conversations that will create a larger, more empowering view of who we are and what is truly possible.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“You know, Dad,” Ben said matter-of-factly, “as we get closer and closer to home, I can just feel the layers of maturity peeling off me.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“My father chose to have relationships at the expense of having a self, a pattern that began long before he met and married Rose.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“When we speak from the heart, we long for an ear to hear us, and we all have experienced that down feeling when we perceive ourselves as written off or misunderstood.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“Our challenge as adults is to develop a strong voice that is uniquely our own, a voice that reflects our deepest values and convictions. Once we are comfortable within that voice, we can bring it to our most important relationships.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

“trăirile emoționale intense, indiferent cât ar fi de pătrunzătoare, nu țin locul unei apropieri reale, care rezistă în timp. Intensitatea si intimitatea nu sunt același lucru, chiar dacă mulți oameni le confundă.”
― Harriet Lerner, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate