Why can't women get along? Because we're afraid. We're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to be soft. We're afraid to be hurt. But most of all, we're afraid of our power. So we become controlling and aggressive and vicious.
Iyanla VanzantRead
You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.
Interpretation
True love does not come at a personal cost; it is not about control or fear.
This quote emphasizes that genuine love should never harm or diminish oneself. If love leads to personal sacrifice, possession, or fear, it instead reflects unhealthy attachment rather than true affection. True love should empower both individuals, rather than create a sense of ownership or control over one another.
In practice
During a relationship workshop to illustrate the importance of healthy love.
Why can't women get along? Because we're afraid. We're afraid to be vulnerable. We're afraid to be soft. We're afraid to be hurt. But most of all, we're afraid of our power. So we become controlling and aggressive and vicious.
Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on.
Feminine power is silent, dark, mysterious, healing, nurturing. A woman can walk into a room and control it. She doesn't even have to open her mouth if she knows where her power is.
You know when I was 20 and 30, they were insecurities. Now they're just a new normal. I'm 60 years old, so my expectations of who I am and how I look and how I show up in the world had to shift. Not because I couldn't help it, or not because I did anything wrong, but because I had to get into the natural flow of my being as a woman.
Your greatest adversary is also your greatest teacher. Like it or not, it is the job of certain people to bring out the worst in you. What they trigger is already in you. They are here to reveal the sore, tender wounded places in your heart and mind, and they are providing you with a wonderful and divine opportunity for healing.
You have a right to say no. Most of us have very weak and flaccid 'no' muscles. We feel guilty for saying no. We get ostracized and challenged for saying no, so we forget it's our choice. Your 'no' muscle has to be built up to get to a place where you can say, 'I don't care if that's what you want. I don't want that. No.'
The bones of the story of 'War Horse' is a love story. That's what makes it universal.
When we see the Beloved in each person, it's like walking through a garden, watching flowers bloom all around us.
Love is contagious. When I share love, it comes back to me multiplied. Love opens every door.
The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
It is certain that the love of God does not consist in this sweetness and tenderness which we for the most part desire; but rather in serving Him in justice, fortitude, and humility. His Majesty seeks and loves courageous souls.
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