The Inner Work of Relationships Quotes

“Rejection should be seen as a sign of redirection, not a label for self-identification. We must accept accountability for our actions, focusing on behavior rather than questioning intrinsic worth.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“A healthy and conscious relationship is one in which we know we are entirely accepted, cherished, and wanted, even for the parts of ourselves we once considered unlovable.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Your wound was probably not your fault,
but your healing is your responsibility.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Underneath all those layers of defense mechanisms is an innocent child who is not only eternally worthy of being loved but is yearning for it.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“To give love, we must cultivate self-love, a personal journey; to receive love, we must admit our need for it from another person, a shared journey.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“However, true love isn't just about the rush of attraction or the infatuation of the honeymoon phase of a relationship. It's not about feeding our ego by always getting our way or boosting our own self-importance by always being “right” or admired. Rather, it's about two souls being humbly devoted and willing to weather the storms of life together as a team. This requires accountability, tolerance, and a willingness to put in the work to build a strong foundation of cooperation.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“The act of saying goodbye to what we don’t want allows us to make space for what we do want.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“True love is not something that we find;
it is something that we consciously create and build together”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Our wounded inner child believes that love is conditional and scarce, leading to our relentless drive for comparison and a constant need to be perceived as better than others. This mindset is often triggered by anything that poses a threat to our admiration and praise,”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“The phrase "pride before the fall" encapsulates this idea. In our fixation on being praised and admired for only our best qualities, we become blind to our vulnerabilities, leading to denial and an inevitable downfall.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Encourage your partner to take responsibility for their actions by acknowledging the impact of their behavior. Facilitate a culture of apology and making amends when actions cross the line by showing them that vulnerability and accountability are strengths, not weaknesses.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Holding onto the expectation that others will change to meet our needs is naive, wishful thinking maintained by the wounded inner child. We must confront the reality that some people may never fulfill our expectations, and in doing so, we fail to respect their limits and boundaries for what they are capable of offering.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“We can only truly give to another
what we have learned to give to ourselves.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“root of our fear isn't about the potential of things falling apart or others causing us pain but rather a concern over our own adequacy to manage these situations. When we recognize our ability to navigate the unpredictability of life, fear loses its grip. It’s about trusting in our own resilience,”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“When a relationship seems too stable and trusting, we like to introduce instability. This is our way of maintaining control over uncertainty rather than passively waiting to be hurt by unforeseen events.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Take sadness or grief, for instance; these aren't inherently negative emotions; instead, they are transient waves of energy that reflect our appreciation, love, and depth of connection to something or someone we cherished that has now transformed. Sadness and grief are simply the other side of happiness, love, joy, and appreciation. They shouldn't be shunned or resisted but acknowledged and accepted as integral components of life's passion and love.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“We place a high value on loyalty and may unknowingly romanticize the concept of enmeshment or codependency.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Our attempt to overcompensate to avoid any future loss by lingering in the past ironically stifles life's natural rhythm, and it often feels as if we're always in the midst of a crisis.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“It's essential for our relationship to become a refuge where each of us can safely be vulnerable.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“It is only when we block our uncomfortable emotions that we can no longer cope with the human condition.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Due to our early childhood responsibilities, we tend to gravitate toward partners who require our care, perpetuating a cycle of self-neglect.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“We think punishment is learning when, in reality, punishment is just arbitrary added shame that has nothing to do with the lesson to be learned. Sitting in the discomfort of the consequences of negative choices is our teacher”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Judgment can lead us down two distinct paths: one where we become obsessively judgmental, not just of others but also of ourselves, in a neverending quest for perfection, or another where we bury and repress our true selves to never be perceived negatively, thus becoming people-pleasers and inauthentic.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“To help someone who is coping with the wound of rejection heal, the most important thing they need is to feel loved, innocent, and accepted even though they have been through trauma and have been acting out of their trauma and creating turmoil in their life to prove they should be rejected. The more intense the trauma, the more they will tend to lash out and the more love and reassurance they need.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“To foster a relationship free from shame and rejection, it's crucial to safely acknowledge and honor our less savory past, those moments when either we were traumatized, or we ourselves were hurtful. This act of vulnerability lets our partner respond with grace and compassion for the hurt endured or caused, which may now be influencing our relationship. This step is the bedrock of a conscious relationship and opens the door for us to develop discernment of choosing to behave differently”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“They can not allow things to be good for too long and subconsciously seek out chaos to revalidate their unlovability. Instability is all they know and where they feel safe, and if it isn’t arising naturally, they will subconsciously seek to create it.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“To cope with our fears of abandonment, we unintentionally provoke dysfunction, sow seeds of chaos, and cause hurt within our relationships. This unconscious behavior pushes our partner to their breaking point, eventually leading them to give up. In doing so, we can assert, "See, I knew you didn't love me. I knew you would reject me." We seek confirmation of our unworthiness by compelling our partner to reject us, ultimately striving to prove our shame of abandonment right.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“Our belief that we are inherently unlovable or unworthy of commitment becomes deeply ingrained, making it difficult for us to fully accept and internalize expressions of love and care from a healthy partner or compels us to abandon ourselves in order to receive crumbs of affection from unhealthy partners.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“When we are dealing with inner child wounds of rejection, we tend to find ourselves trapped in a cycle of toxic relationships, a pattern often rooted in the trauma we repeatedly endured, particularly during our formative years. The wound of rejection is the source of feelings of shame and abandonment. Unaware of how to break free from this cycle and heal, we unconsciously recreate situations that perpetuate our rejection wounds, resulting in a painful cycle of self-sabotage within our relationships.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together

“It’s common to experience consistent instability where we become accustomed to breaking up and getting back together again, each time restimulating our abandonment wounds and reinforcing our beliefs that love equals inconsistency and unpredictability.”
― Mathew Micheletti, The Inner Work of Relationships: An Invitation to Heal Your Inner Child and Create a Conscious Relationship Together