87Best Quotes from Making Great Relationships

A great piece of work released this year was written by Rick Hanson, a famous psychologist and writer. The book talks about how to improve your relationship with yourself, and with the entire world, and how to perceive things coming from the external world.

Today, We’ll go through the best 87 quotes from this book.

Quotes

1. Being loyal to yourself is like being loyal to anyone else. You see the good in that person. You’re a faithful ally, both compassionate and supportive. This stance, applied to yourself, is the foundation of every good action you might take on your own behalf.
2. Imagine that your mind is like a garden; you can witness it, pull weeds, and grow flowers. In sum: let be, let go, and let in.
3. Being able to be with what you’re experiencing is the foundation of all other practices.
4. Just as a bird needs two wings, practicing with your mind requires both being with and working with in order to fly.
5. Even when the outer world is stuck in a really bad place, you can always heal and grow a little each day inside yourself. Breath by breath, synapse by synapse, you can gradually develop a resilient well-being that’s hardwired into your nervous system.
6. Bit by bit, you’ll be growing an underlying sense of peacefulness, contentment, and love.
7. If your mind wanders to the past or the future, that’s normal; just return to the present, noticing that you’re alright now, and now, and now.
8. Many people don’t appreciate how strong they really are. Strong in their determination, clarity of purpose, and heart.
9. Feeling strong while being challenged—will help you stay calm and centered when the world is flashing Red.
10. When life is challenging and others are clueless or cold, you can tune into the sense that you have been cared about and that you are cared about—no matter what else is happening.
11. If you suppress or disown parts of yourself, feeling bad about who you are can easily follow, with the sense that there are nasty, weak, shameful, or unlovable things inside you.
12. You can be wise and appropriate about what you reveal about yourself to others while still being fully revealed to yourself; this fosters greater confidence and self-worth.
13. If anything feels overwhelming, step back from it, reestablish a sense of openhearted calm strength, and then see if you can return to awareness of it.
14. Try to accept what you’re experiencing as it is, without making it good or bad, right or wrong.
15. Appreciate yourself for having the courage and strength to be open to all that can arise in awareness.
16. When we overreact to others, it’s often because we’ve seen something in them that we’ve scorned and exiled in ourselves.
17. Try to accept each part of you for what it is.
18.  You and I and everyone else are frail, soft, vulnerable, hurt by little things, and hungry for love. When we accept this universal fact, we’re not so hard on ourselves—and others.
19. The first step in getting others to meet your needs better is to respect your needs yourself.
20. It’s really good to make a plan for how you will respect your needs more fully—especially if you’ve been raised or treated in ways that criticized or downplayed your needs.
21. When we are not disturbed by pain loss or fear, the human brain defaults to a basic equilibrium of calm, contentment, and caring.
22. Really, the truth, the fact, is that you are a basically good person! When you feel your own natural goodness, you are more likely to act in good ways.
23. When you have a chance to feel included, seen, appreciated, liked, or loved, stay with this experience for a breath or longer, letting it fill your mind and body, sinking into it as it sinks into you.
24. You don’t need to be perfect to relax, say what you really feel, and take your full shot at life. It’s the big picture that matters most, and the long view.
25. Guide your inner world like a loving parent, recognizing that not every thought or feeling or want should be voiced or enacted.
26. when you give more to yourself, you’ll have more to offer others, since your own cup runneth over.
27. It’s important to acknowledge mistakes, feel appropriate remorse, and learn from them so they don’t happen again.
28. The beneficial purpose of guilt, shame, or remorse is learning—not punishment!—so that you don’t make that mistake again.
29.  The fact that you have the right to decide what you are not responsible for enables you to really own what you are responsible for.
30.  As you develop greater compassion, kindness, and interpersonal skills, you naturally become stronger, more patient, and less annoyed or resentful.
31.  Empathy gives you lots of useful information, such as what’s most important to someone or what’s really bothering them.
32.  The sense of being recognized is usually what people want most; it’s more fundamental than whatever issue is on the table.
33.  Paradoxically, a little sense of detachment can actually help us be more open and receptive to other people, especially if things are getting intense.
34. Notice how your empathy can change the course of an interaction—perhaps softening it and making it more authentic, and maybe leading to a good resolution more gently and quickly.
35. Compassion is essentially a heartfelt wish that someone not suffer. It is not agreement, approval, or giving up your own needs and rights. You can have compassion for people who’ve wronged you while also insisting that they treat you better.
36. Compassion reflects the wisdom that everything is related to everything else, and it naturally draws you into feeling more connected with all things.
37. Seeing the good in others offers a powerful lesson, that much of how we experience life is based on what we see in it, and that we have the power to see much that is good—for our own sake and that of others.
38.  Seeing the good aims underlying bad actions can soften defensiveness and help move a person to appropriate remorse, and to greater resolve to find better ways to pursue those aims.
39. There’s an ember of goodness in each one of us, including the one looking back in the mirror. Recognizing positive intentions blows on that ember and helps it grow into a warm and beautiful flame.
40.  Kindness to me is kindness to you, and kindness to you is kindness to me, in a lovely upward spiral. The opposite is also true: Harming yourself harms others, and harming others harms you, in a painful downward spiral.
41.  You can be kind to people while still pursuing your own goals, even ones that are different from theirs. You can wish people well while still having issues with them.
42.  The sky stays open to all clouds, and it isn’t harmed by even the stormiest ones. Keeping your heart open actually makes it harder for others to upset you.
43. Love in all its forms is like air. It might be hard to see—but it’s in you and all around you.
44.  You can trust in love that’s as present as air, and trust in loving that’s as natural as breathing.
45.  Wounds from not receiving love are soothed and sometimes even healed by giving love.
46. Love is more about us being loving than about other people being lovable.
47. Trusting in love does not mean assuming that someone will love you. It means having confidence in the underlying loving nature of every person, and in the wholesome power of your own lovingness to protect you and touch the heart of others.
48.  The better you take care of yourself as a person, the less you’ll take things personally. Simple things like getting enough sleep and finding something to enjoy each day can make a big difference. Then what others do is less likely to feel like a personal injury.
49. We can recognize the war inside ourselves, rather than getting drawn into the accusations, positions, threats, and recriminations of others. The world outside may not change. But if you end the war in your own head, you’ll feel better and act better.
50. Accepting people does not itself mean agreeing with them, liking them, or downplaying their impact on you. You can still take appropriate actions. You’re simply accepting the reality of the other person.
51.  Criticism is unavoidable. We’re not robots or big bugs, and it’s natural for criticism to be uncomfortable and sometimes hurt.
52.  Anxiety is something that’s added to our responses. Sometimes it’s helpful, but so often it clouds our thinking, compounds suffering, and worsens conflicts with others.
53. It’s important to realize that you can be alert and strong about potential threats while not feeling anxious.
54. Anger hurts others, too, sometimes in ways that come back to hurt us.
55. When triggers land, try to slow down before you say or do anything you’ll regret later.
56. The disregard for truth-telling and fair play is the fundamental issue.
57. Try to be aware of any innocence or naivete inside you that just can’t believe another person or group would act that way.
58. If things get heated, try to remember that how you speak is your own responsibility, no matter what the other person does.
59. Truth is bedrock. Even if you wish the truth were different, it’s what you can count on in a world that’s full of spin, sales pitches, disinformation, and plain BS.
60. Identifying your significant undelivered communications and then gradually expressing them in appropriate ways is one of the most powerful personal growth methods.
61. If you are addressing an issue in a relationship, speaking from your heart is compelling and usually moves others toward greater openheartedness themselves. And if it doesn’t, the contrast between you and them is a powerful statement all by itself.
62. Recognize that others may not like what you have to say, but you have a right to say it without needing to justify it.
63. As we come to know others better, we can better know ourselves.
64. You can compliment someone who’s intensely hungry for praise while setting boundaries in the relationship; you can recognize that feeding them does not need to deplete you.
65. Try to be mindful of your tone, especially if you’re already feeling stressed, pressured, frustrated, tired, or hungry.
66. Acknowledging your own part in a difficult situation is one of the hardest—and I think most honorable—things a person can do.
67. Focus on the tender underlying feelings inside yourself and bring compassion to them. If your mind starts to go back to the verbal activity of the case, return your attention to your underlying feelings and body sensations.
68. Recognize that some wrongs will never be righted. This doesn’t mean minimizing or excusing bad behavior. It’s just a reality that sometimes you can’t do anything about it.
69. Stay focused—don’t pursue their distracting accusations. Keep breathing. Stay measured and to the point. Don’t feel that I need to “prove” or justify myself.
70. Say less to communicate more.
71. Much of the time, you’ll realize that you just don’t have to resist the other person. Their words can pass on by like a gust of air swirling some leaves along the way. You don’t have to be contentious.
72. We need to find peace in our own hearts, even if it’s not present out there in the world. A peace that comes from keeping your eyes and heart open, doing what you can, and letting go along the way.
73. Good process leads to good results; bad results come from bad process.
74. You can’t make agreements with others about what you want if you can’t say what that is.
75. You want them to listen to you, so it’s wise to listen to them.
76. Talk about the past if you need to, but, as much as you can, turn complaints about the past into requests for the future.
77. Bounding and concretizing what you are asking for could help the other person realize that it may not be such a big deal to do that for you
78. In a significant relationship, even if what you want is a matter of mere preference or even if the other person doesn’t understand why you would ever want that … they could still choose to give you what you want because, um, they care about you.
79. By turning toward what is good you’ll be strengthening yourself to bear the things that are painful and sad.
80. The person who gains the most from forgiveness is often the one who does the forgiving.
81. Forgiveness frees you from the tangles of anger and retribution, and from preoccupations with the past and the case in your mind about another person.
82. Whatever you find sacred is real.
83. Telling the truth—and supporting others who do the same—is an active and courageous way to love what’s real.
84. Even in a world with billions of people, what we do affects each other, for better or worse. We are connected with every other human being.
85. The votes we cast—with our ballots and words and deeds—are no guarantee of success. But if we don’t vote, again and again, what’s guaranteed is failure.
86. Being foggy about facts is like driving a car with your eyes closed.
87. Telling the truth and playing fair is the foundation of all relationships—from two people in a couple to millions of people in a country.