Telling a true story about personal experience is not just a matter of being oneself, or even or finding oneself. It is also a matter of choosing oneself.
Interpretation
Sharing personal experiences involves authenticity and conscious choices about how we present ourselves.
In this quote, Harriet Lerner emphasizes that narrating one's own experiences goes beyond merely being authentic or on a journey of self-discovery. It entails a deliberate decision to embrace and present one's true self, highlighting the importance of choice in the expression of personal identity and stories.
In practice
This quote can inspire a personal development workshop focused on self-expression.
It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run but, it will never make you less afraid.
Those of us who are locked into ineffective expressions of anger suffer as deeply as those of us who dare not get angry at all.
If we only listened with the same passion that we feel about being heard.
An intimate relationship is one in which neither party silences, sacrifices, or betrays the self and each party expresses strength and vulnerability, weakness and competence in a balanced way.
Although the connections are not always obvious, personal change is inseparable from social and political change.
"Beauty fades," my father would tell me, "but dumb? Dumb is forever."
Once, in a spasm of sappiness, you asked Q-Jo if she thought your dreams would ever come true. 'You aren't talking about dreams,' she corrected you, 'you're referring to your pathetic bourgeoisie ambitions. Dreams don't come true. Dreams are true.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do in a pressure situation is to allow the tension to persist. The temptation is to make a decision, any decision, even if it is an inferior choice.
Repetition is not failure. Ask the waves, ask the leaves, ask the wind.
In my clinical experience, the greatest block to a person's development is his having to take on a way of life which is not rooted in his own powers.
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.
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