John Townsend Quotes

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears.

Don't go overboard in praising required behavior: 'We have only done our duty' (Luke 17:10). But do go overboard when your child confesses the truth, repents honestly, takes chances, and loves openly. Praise the developing character in your child as it emerges in active, loving, responsible behavior.

Anger is frustration at the fact that we are not God, and do not have control over reality.

Values are sometimes worth living and dying for, and are certainly worth dating and breaking up over.

Training moments occur when both parents and children do their jobs. The parent's job is to make the rule. The child's job is to break the rule. The parent then corrects and disciplines. The child breaks the rule again, and the parent manages the consequences and empathy that then turn the rule into reality and internal structure for the child.

Emotions, or feelings, have a function. They tell us something. They are a signal....Anger tells us that our boundaries have been violated. Much like a nation's radar defense system, angry feelings serve as an "early warning system" telling us we're in danger of being injured or controlled.

And healthy people love honesty. Normalizing truthfulness in your relationships is simply inserting your own realities into the conversation, the meeting, or the event.

The most basic boundary-setting word is “no.” It lets others know that we exist apart from them and that we are in control of ourselves.

When one person is in control of another, love cannot grow deeply and fully, as there is no freedom.

When we ask we are owning our needs. Asking for love, comfort or understanding is a transaction between two people. You are saying: I have a need. It's not your problem. It's not your responsibility. You don't have to respond, but I'd like something from you. This frees the other person to connect with you freely and without obligation. When we own that our needs are our responsibility we allow others to love us because we have something to offer. Asking is a far cry from demanding. When we demand love, we destroy it.

Be careful not to give your child the impression that you love her perfect, performing parts more than you do her mediocre, stumbling parts.

A strong strand throughout the Bible stresses that you are to GIVE to needs and put LIMITS on sin. Boundaries help you do just that.

Love cannot exist without freedom.

When two people are free to disagree, they are free to love. When they are not free, they live in fear, and love dies.

Our real concern with others should not be "Are they doing what I would do or what I want them to do?" but "Are they really making a free choice?" When we accept others' freedom, we don't get angry, feel guilty, or withdraw our love when they set boundaries with us. When we accept others' freedom, we feel better about our own.

Healthy intimate relationships involve a dedication of one’s self to the betterment of the other. You need someone who will count the cost of having an attachment to you and who is willing to then make a real commitment.

Boundaries in no way mean to stop loving. They mean the opposite: you are gaining the freedom to love.

The habit of doing what is best, rather than what is comfortable, to achieve a worthwhile outcome.

Humility is simply accepting the reality of who God is and who you are.

You have to learn the difference between a need, which should be met, and an entitled desire, which should be starved.

Meeting a need leads to life, and feeding an entitlement leads to destruction.

Love can’t rule when shame is in charge.

- Still reading, Miss St John? You read a lot, don't you? - It saves me from conversation.

Misinformation about the Bible's answers to these issues has led to much wrong teaching about boundaries. Not only that, but many clinical psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety disorders, guilt problems, shame issues, panic disorders, and marital and relational struggles, find their root in conflicts with boundaries.

Entitlement is the belief that I am exempt from responsibility and I am owed special treatment.

Entitlement is: The man who thinks he is above all the rules. The woman who feels mistreated and needs others to make it up to her.

Rewards and praise are most effective when they focus on an achievement that took time and energy.

SOME OF THE NICEST PEOPLE in the world are also total flakes. They can be caring, well-intentioned, and thoughtful. Yet at the same time, they can be undependable and unreliable. I

The best example of a safe person is found in Jesus. In him were found the three qualities of a safe person: dwelling, grace, and truth.

Lock your doors." Coming from a man she'd never met face to face, this ought to sound creepy instead of panty-dampening and protective in a John Wick meets Mr. Darcy kind of way.

People who have happiness as their goal get locked into the pain/pleasure motivation cycle. They never do what causes them pain, but always do what brings them pleasure. This puts us on the same thinking level as a child, who has difficulty seeing past his or her fear of pain and love of pleasure.

F. Franklin the Fourth has a job with a firm rich in heritage, money and pretentiousness, a firm vastly superior to Brodnax and Speer. His sidekicks at the moment are W. Harper Whittenson, an arrogant little snot who will, thankfully, leave Memphis and practice with a mega-firm in Dallas; J. Townsend Gross, who has accepted a position with another huge firm; and James Straybeck, a sometimes friendly sort who's suffered three years of law school without an initial to place before his name or numerals to stick after it. With such a short name, his future as a big-firm lawyer is in jeopardy. I doubt if he'll make it.

When boundaries are not established in the beginning of a marriage, or when they break down, marriages break down as well. Or such marriages don't grow past the initial attraction and transform into real intimacy. They never reach the true "knowing" of each other and the ongoing ability to abide in love and to grow as individuals and as a couple-the long-term fulfillment that was God's design.

Learning to accept powerlessness has profound spiritual implications for your child. When we accept the reality of our human condition -- that we are ultimately powerless to change our fallen state, yet totally responsible for being in it -- we are driven to receive God's solution based on his Son's payment of a debt we can't pay.

If I am not forgiving them, I am still in a destructive relationship with them. Gain grace from God, and let others' debts go. Do not keep seeking a bad account. Let it go, and get what you need from God and people who can give. That is a better life. Unforgiveness destroys boundaries. Forgiveness creates them, for it gets bad debt off of your property.

The Hard Way is the entitlement cure. It is a path of behaviors and attitudes that undo the negative effects of entitlement, whether in ourselves or in others.

all aspects of our lives are deeply affected by the presence or absence of friendships. Friendships are more than a luxury or icing on the cake. They are a necessity.

We can learn to trust again, no matter what has happened, if we take the right path, step by step.

Sad to say, there are people whose insides are so dark that they are adroit at manipulating others’ impressions of them.

The more clear and honest you are with others about who you really are, the more ready you will be to move beyond boundaries and into the intimate connections you seek.

Teens are impulsive, self-centered, and irrational. They have outbursts of anger and disrespect, then in a few minutes, they swing back to love and compliance.

Be a supporter of your kid’s extra-family world, as long as that world is one that is reasonably safe and supports your own values and beliefs.

Always remember that while grace and truth come together, grace comes before truth.

Kate, like many other people, found herself a fascinating topic, and when encouraged was very willing to hold forth.

Many times we have boundary problems because we lack initiative - the God-given ability to propel ourselves into life. We respond to invitations and push ourselves into life.

We are ultimately responsible for what we do with our injured, immature souls.

We can't terrorize or make others feel guilty and be loved by them at the same time.

Basically, children will mature to the level the parent structures them, and no higher.

If you can’t say no to people’s needs for your time and energy, own that they aren’t the bad guy for asking, and that you need to learn to set a limit and say a kind but firm no.

And people who have trust issues typically prefer to find some way to disqualify a new relationship rather than to risk damage by making a poor judgment call. Better safe than sorry.

Praise should be reserved for those times when someone stretches himself beyond the norm, puts extra effort or time into a task, or exceeds expectations. It’s not about doing the minimum, the expected.

Keep in mind that while your child may be better in ability, she is no better intrinsically. In the eyes of God, she is no better than anyone else, as the Lord is no respecter of persons (see Acts 10:34).

Some parents mistakenly view guilt as a sign that they care about their teen. But guilt is more about the parent, because guilt centers on the parent’s failures and badness rather than on the teen’s difficulty and hurt.

Defensive grandiosity is simply a shell we construct to keep negative feelings at bay. When the entitled person begins the process of growth, the shell begins to dissolve, and healthy feelings and behavior begin to form.

Christians who fail also avoid other Christians, especially when they are feeling bad and guilty in the midst of their failure. It's sad to see this dynamic of the law happen in the church and then see the opposite happen in Twelve Step groups. In these recovery groups, people are taught that the very first thing to do when you fail is to call someone in the group and get to a meeting. They are taught to "run to grace," as it were, to turn immediately to their higher power and their support system. The sad part is that this theology is more biblical than what is practices in many Christian environments, where people in failure run from instead of to God and the people they need.

I had told our kids in a thousand ways, “As you go through life with us, you will need a lot of things. You’ll get what you need — things like love, food, shelter, safety, values, structure, faith, opportunity, and an education. We are committed to seeing that you get what you need. But we also want you to know that you really don’t deserve anything. You can’t demand a toy, a phone, a laptop, or a car. That attitude won’t work with us. Need, yes; deserve, not so much.” The

Love is not enough. Nor are attentiveness, romantic feelings, a charming personality, great competencies and skills, or promises to change. You need substance underneath the topping. Don’t sell yourself short. Character always wins over time.

So the best answer is to keep developing your own boundaries, your ability to say yes and no in love, and to be truthful. Then you will be confident in your abilities to take care of yourself in relationships, and you will enjoy getting to know those people you

encourage one another daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:13, emphasis added). We impact one another to the extent to which we mutually encourage each other. Without that, we run the risk of becoming hardened.

Being a parent of a teen can cure a person of narcissism. When your child was born, you were the center of her world. You were special to her. Now that she is an adolescent, you have become less central. No matter what you do, she continues to invest in the outside world more than she does in the home.

Understand that her desire to get away from you is normal. Accept that she is getting tired of your control, rules, and restrictions. Provide her with some positive and happy experiences at home. Work with her on establishing a reasonably happy and functional environment at home. Compromise when you can, love always, and be strict when you need to.

In its essence, entitlement goes deeper than a person thinking, It’s okay if I want to be lazy because someone else will bear my burdens, or I’m so special that the rules don’t apply to me. In fact, entitlement goes so deep that it rejects the very foundations on which God constructed the universe. At its heart, entitlement is a rejection of reality itself.

A similar unhappy fate awaited the delightful Bachman’s warbler. Always rare, it was said to have one of the loveliest songs of all birds. For years it escaped detection, but in 1939, two birders, operating independently in different places, coincidentally saw a Bachman’s warbler within two days of each other. Both shot the birds (nice work, boys!), and that, it appears, was that for the Bachman’s warbler. But there are almost certainly others that disappeared before anyone much noticed. John James Audubon painted three species of bird—the small-headed flycatcher, the carbonated warbler, and the Blue Mountain warbler—that have not been seen by anyone since. The same is true of Townsend’s bunting, of which there is one stuffed specimen in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

It is natural if you feel as strongly as most decent people do about racial discrimination to welcome books that give it short shrift; but to assess books on their racial attitude rather than their literary value, and still more to look on books as ammunition in the battle, is to take a further and still more dangerous step from literature-as-morality to literature-as-propaganda—a move toward conditions in which, hitherto, literary art has signally failed to thrive. ("Didacticism in Modern Dress" from Only Connect (2nd ed., 1980).

The real loser in the eastern forests has been the songbird. One of the most striking losses was the Carolina parakeet, a lovely, innocuous bird whose numbers in the wild were possibly exceeded only by the unbelievably numerous passenger pigeon. (When the first pilgrims came to America there were an estimated nine billion passenger pigeons—more than twice the number of all birds found in America today.) Both were hunted out of existence—the passenger pigeon for pig feed and the simple joy of blasting volumes of birds from the sky with blind ease, the Carolina parakeet because it ate farmers’ fruit and had a striking plumage that made a lovely ladies’ hat. In 1914, the last surviving members of each species died within weeks of each other in captivity. A similar unhappy fate awaited the delightful Bachman’s warbler. Always rare, it was said to have one of the loveliest songs of all birds. For years it escaped detection, but in 1939, two birders, operating independently in different places, coincidentally saw a Bachman’s warbler within two days of each other. Both shot the birds (nice work, boys!), and that, it appears, was that for the Bachman’s warbler. But there are almost certainly others that disappeared before anyone much noticed. John James Audubon painted three species of bird—the small-headed flycatcher, the carbonated warbler, and the Blue Mountain warbler—that have not been seen by anyone since. The same is true of Townsend’s bunting, of which there is one stuffed specimen in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Between the 1940s and 1980s, the populations of migratory songbirds fell by 50 percent in the eastern United States (in large part because of loss of breeding sites and other vital wintering habitats in Latin America) and by some estimates are continuing to fall by 3 percent or so a year. Seventy percent of all eastern bird species have seen population declines since the 1960s. These days, the woods are a pretty quiet place.

Another danger is that—as is already happening to some extent—authors and editors run scared and go to absurd lengths to avoid giving offence. (An American editor rejected Polar, a picture book about a toy polar bear which is published in England by Andre Deutsch, on the ground that the text, written by Elaine Moss, states explicitly that the bear is white). A demand to avoid stereotypes can easily become in effect a demand for a different stereotype: for instance that girls should always be shown as strong, brave and resourceful, and that mothers should always have jobs and never, never wear an apron. And books written to an approved formula, or with deliberate didactic aim, do not often have the breath of life. Some members of women’s groups in North America have published their own anti-sexist books, featuring such characters as fire-fighting girls or boys who learn to crochet. Good luck to them; but those I have seen are far below professional standard. ("Are Children's Books Racist and Sexist?" from Only Connect, 2nd ed., 1980)

As our steamboat touched at Port Townsend, Muir received a long telegram from a San Francisco newspaper, offering him a large sum if he would go over the mountains and down the Yukon to the Klondyke, and write them letters about conditions there. He brought the telegram to me, laughing heartily at the absurdity of anybody making him such a proposition. "Do they think I'm daft," he asked, "like a' the lave o' thae puir bodies? When I go into that wild it will not be in a crowd like this or on such a sordid mission. Ah! my old friend, they'll be spoiling our grand Alaska." He offered to secure for me the reporter's job tendered to him. I refused, urging my lack of training for such work and my more important and responsible position. "Why, that same paper has a host of reporters on the way to the Klondyke now," I said. "There is ——" (naming a noted poet and author of the Coast). "He must be half-way down to Dawson by this time." "—— doesn't count," replied Muir, "for the patent reason that everybody knows he can't tell the truth. The poor fellow is not to blame for it. He was just made that way. Everybody will read with delight his wonderful tales of the trail, but nobody will believe him. We all know him too well." Muir

The sultan’s official party included Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Qais Al-Zawawi, advisors Ghassan Shaker and Yehia Omar, Sayyid Tariq bin Taimur, Lt. Col. Landon, and economic advisor John Townsend.

Human connections are one of the greatest things that anyone can experience in life.

Over a three-year period the Chinook population declined to one-tenth its former size, and riverbanks were strewn with the unburied dead. “The depopulation here has been truly fearful,” observed the physician John Kirk Townsend in his eyewitness account of the lower Columbia River in 1834. “A

Gerçek "ben"i ve gerçekte neyi arzuladığımızı tarif edemeyiz. Arzuların pek çoğu, gerçekmiş gibi gizlenir. Onlar, gerçek arzulara sahip olmamamızla ortaya çıkan heveslerdir.

Gerçek sevgi karşılık beklemez. Bir başkasının bize önem vermesi için ona önem vermek, o kişiyi kontrol etmek için kullandığımız bir yöntemden başka bir şey değildir.

Kimse yaşamın verdiği eğitimden gerçek anlamda kurtulamaz. O her zaman galip gelir. Bizler her zaman ektiğimizi biçeriz. Ve disiplin yaşamımıza ne kadar geç girerse, tablo o kadar hüzünlü olur, çünkü bedeli de o kadar ağır olacaktır.

When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to that person forever.

Age is a powerful impediment to marriage for women. One study estimates that women who reach 30 unmarried have only a 20 percent chance of marrying; at 35, they have about a 5 percent chance; at 40, they have a 1 percent chance. Blumstein and Schwartz report similar statistics for remarriage. Women in their twenties have a 76 percent chance of remarrying; women in their thirties have 56% percent chance; in their forties a 32 percent chance; in their fifties or older, less than 12 percent chance.

We are never so spiritual that we don't need the encouragement that God provides through other people.

It comes down to this: that which creates love, growth, and ownership vs. that which creates superiority or a demand for special treatment.

You have to learn the difference between a need, which should be met, and an entitled desire, which should be starved. Meeting a need leads to life, and feeding an entitlement leads to destruction. It comes down to this: that which creates love, growth, and ownership vs. that which creates superiority or a demand for special treatment.

The entitled person feels good and lives badly, while those around him feel bad about the situation but have more successful relationships and careers.

God expects us to spend time and energy carrying our loads of responsibility for family, finances, and other challenges. That’s how a successful life works.

They all dread hard talks and setting limits. But when they don’t address these issues, they inevitably foster an attitude in others that I have the right to do whatever I want because there is no reality that conflicts with my belief. In other words, they develop a culture of entitlement. If you’re on the board, if you’re the CEO or the pastor or the parent, you need to be the reality that conflicts with this belief.

when we avoid setting the right boundaries and following up with the appropriate consequences, we can inadvertently encourage entitlement.

I am on your side. I am not doing this because I’m mad, or want to punish you, or don’t care about you. I am doing this because I want your best.” You may not be feeling especially

I need to be clear about this, because I don’t think I have been clear in the past, or I haven’t been very loving about it. But I want there to be no misunderstanding. I will not tolerate your ditching school and your drinking. It is definitely not okay in our house. Whether or not you agree with that, it is the rule in this home.

Even a clown can get away with murder, Justine. Ask John Wayne Gacy.

Just remember to be loving and be “for” the person you’re trying to help when you set limits, no matter how unloving they behave toward you. If you lose compassion, it’s harder for them to learn the lesson. You want them to learn to accept and adapt to reality. You don’t want their takeaway to be, “I have a mean boss/parent/ spouse.” Loving but firm is both the right way and the Hard Way.

Setting boundaries isn't an alternative to loving your child. It is a means of loving her.

Anchor #1 Love: I Am on Your Side

Research is now showing that who you spend time with influences your behavior even more than your BFs.

Remorse, the healthy alternative to guilt, centers on the other person. Remorse is an empathic concern for the pain that your teen feels. It is also solution oriented.

Some parents fear that if they set limits, their teen will distance and detach themselves and withdraw their love from them. This fear can cause these parents to avoid boundaries at all costs, and to do their best to keep their kid connected.

To resolve your fear of withdrawal of love, connect with other adults who will support, affirm, and encourage you,

When your teen withdraws, take the initiative to go after him and try to reconnect. Teens sometimes don’t have the skills to pull themselves back into relationship, so they need their parents to help them. But while you are inviting your teen back into connection with you, keep your requirements and expectations intact.

But some parents are conflict-phobic — they are uncomfortable and afraid of being the object of their teen’s wrath, and so they avoid setting the limits their teen needs. However, this teaches adolescents that if they throw a tantrum, they can get out of a limit.

no matter how much you love your teen, you have a built-in limitation, and it is this: you can only parent to your own level of maturity.

What can you do? The answer isn’t trying harder, or using your will power. Instead, realize that you don’t have what you don’t have. You will need to get from the outside what you don’t possess on the inside. You need to do this for your kid, and for yourself as well. You may need to take a break from the fracas and say, “I’m getting worn out with this, but I want to finish it. I’ll get back to you.” Call a safe and sane friend and get your emotional tank filled, and then enter the ring again and resolve the issue.

your teen needs a process of time in which to let go of parental dependence and move into adult independence. This cannot be done instantly.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23).

Then I referred him to Solomon: “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Proverbs 20:5).