Emotions Related Quotes

…the sad part is, that I will probably end up loving you without you for much longer than I loved you when I knew you. Some people might find that strange. But the truth of it is that the amount of love you feel for someone and the impact they have on you as a person, is in no way relative to the amount of time you have known them.

Sometimes parents will respond to this kind of honesty and neutrality by relating in a more emotionally genuine way. Though it may seem paradoxical, they may open up more once you stop wanting them to change. When you seem strong and they sense that you no longer need their approval, they may be able to relax more. As you stop trying to win their attention, the emotional intensity ebbs to a point where they sometimes can tolerate more openness. Because they’re no longer terrified that your needs will trap them in unbearable levels of emotional intimacy, they may be able to respond to you as they would any other adult, with more reasonableness and courtesy.

True change doesn’t happen with denial. But getting at truth requires personal insight. It’s relative to your ability to react emotionally to the pain of others. We have a racial empathy gap in Australia, where the pain of Aboriginal people is not being felt. It’s not being validated. It’s being celebrated. The psychologist in me is not at all interested in just talking for talking’s sake. Putting people in scenarios that make their racism conscious to them, and doing so in a way that ensures behavioural change, is hard. That’s a challenge I have taken head-on because while I can work with Aboriginal clients about how they manage racism – in themselves and in their children – it is never the case that victims of racism are ‘more responsible’ than the perpetrators of it.