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David Richo

David Richo Quotes

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Famous David Richo Quotes

“A person with self-trust knows that a healthy relationship is not based on absolute trust in anyone else. No one is trustworthy all the time. Adult relationships are based on acceptance of that given of human fallibility, not on rigid trust but flexible, unconditional love that allows us to get angry about betrayal but then leaves us enough heart to forgive it when a partner apologizes, makes amends, and truly changes.”

RelationshipAcceptanceTrust
Book:How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving
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“Our trust is core trust because it is actually trust in the core of ourselves. Built into our human personhood is a gift from the universe. This gift is an ability, an inclination to make something good, growth-fostering, or useful out of anything that happens, no matter how painful or negative it is. This is also a way of saying that the universe is ultimately friendly, helpful to and in favor of our evolving richly in love, wisdom, and healing power. Thus, nothing is fully negative, since anything can be passed through the life-trusting core of us and be transformed. As early as the Book of Genesis, this possibility was noticed by humans and the word God was used for 'core' : 'What you intended for evil, God has turned into good' (Gen. 50:20).”

TrustTrust YourselfGenesisTrusting God
Book:Daring to Trust: Opening Ourselves to Real Love and Intimacy
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“We do not allow others to control us, but we do understand and feel their pain when we realize that their controlling manner is a compulsion. Most controlling people cannot help themselves; they are not in control of the controlling. They are not insulting us by trying to control us; rather, they automatically take charge and dominate people and situations. They do this because of a chilling fear that they cannot handle letting the chips fall where they may. It takes a spiritual program to be liberated from the compulsion to be controlling - and to become compassionate toward controlling people.”

LoveFearRelationshipsLiberationControlCompassionateCompulsionChargeDominate
Book:How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving
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“There is a connection between freedom and self-confidence: When you are kept from expressing your deepest needs and wishes, you lose trust in their validity and in your own judgement. You survive by finding out the rules and following them, thus hiding what you really want. You make it your purpose in life to please others rather than to affirm yourself.”

LoveLifeRelationshipsFreedomJudgementRulesAffirm
Book:How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving
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“People who have an extreme fear of abandonment become angry at the slightest form of distance. They may then react by becoming controlling, demanding, angry, or critical. We can be triggered and then react in indignation. Healthy adults, of course, will not stay long in such a relationship without seeking professional help, each for individualized issues. We can only stay when we don't need to walk on eggshells anymore because we are getting help in changing things. Sometimes a relationship can only work with work.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyAbandonment
Book:亲密关系的重建
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“Romance is the best way to begin a relationship and is a bridge to a more mature commitment. But we should not be surprised that it does not last. It is a phase that builds a bond, but it is not a mature bond in itself. Nature designed romance to bring people together to mate, to propagate the species, and to support one another. In this phase the sexual energy is high, and so is the adrenaline. However, continued high adrenaline levels lower our immune response and eventually undermine our health. Thus, in the best interests of our health, romance lasts only as long as is needed for sex and procreation to occur.”

LoveRomanceRelationshipsPsychology
Book:亲密关系的重建
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“On first glance, relationship addiction looks exactly like the romance phase of any relationship. The difference is that romance is phase appropriate, whereas addiction defies flux and attaches itself to the crest of excitement and drama. Romance moves on; addiction halts and paralyzes us. Addiction is unsatisfiable because, ultimately, satisfaction flows from moving over the curve of exhilaration to repose while addiction tarries at the crest of excitement.”

LoveRomanceRelationshipsPsychologyAddiction
Book:亲密关系的重建
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“In healthy relating, we connect but do not attach. We can only really possess what does not possess us. This leads us to the great irony of addictive relating: We attach and thereby do not have. The second irony is that the more we rely on someone for security, the less secure we feel. It is sometimes frightening to realize how much impact a partner has come to have on our life and thoughts. We may react in counter-phobic ways like getting even closer!”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyAttachment
Book:亲密关系的重建
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“If closeness was associated with danger in the past, it may remain so as a post-traumatic stress reaction. The fear of closeness and engulfment is subtle and long-lived; we are only released from it when we work through it and practice overriding it again and again. We do this when we allow the other person to direct our love rather than controlling how much or in what way we show it. To let go of control that way is terrifying to someone who fears closeness.”

LoveRelationshipsPsychologyTrauma
Book:亲密关系的重建
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“You may be unable to get the other person or the betrayal out of your mind. The ego prefers to choose one side of a polarity and ignore the other, which helps explain the origin and longevity of obsessive thoughts in which we can focus on only one option. You are not in the control tower. Rather you are challenged to become the landing strip. Simply allow any feelings and thoughts that may safely land or crash on you. They are normal and usually fade with time.”

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Book:亲密关系的重建
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“I'm totally vulnerable to all conditions of existence all the time, no matter where I go or how good I am. Really getting this deconditions me from illusion and entitlement. It’s a fast track to letting go of the ego. To say yes, to the conditions of existence liberates me. I face them directly rather than F.A.C.E them, with fear, attachment, control, and entitlement.”

TimeExistenceLetting GoEgoIllusionVulnerableEntitlementFast Track
Book:How to Be an Adult in Love: Letting Love in Safely and Showing It Recklessly
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“Acceptance is approval, a word with a bad name in some psychologies. Yet it is perfectly normal to seek approval in childhood and throughout life. We require approval from those we respect. The kinship it creates lifts us to their level, a process referred to in self-psychology as transmuting internalization. Approval is a necessary component of self-esteem. It becomes a problem only when we give up our true self to find it. Then approval-seeking works against us.”

GivingSelfProblemNamesProcessLevelsPsychologyChildhoodSelf EsteemAcceptanceGiving UpNormalSeekingEsteemLiftsApprovalTrue SelfComponentsKinshipPerfectly Normal
Author:David Richo
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“We all recall the cruel stepmother in fairy tales. That archetype is often a necessary element in a fairy tale so that the heroine/hero can become a person of character and power. Stories of heroes and heroines often begin with a wound or loss or injustice and end with heroic acts of restoration.”

PersonsEndsCharacterStoriesLossHeroElementsInjusticeWoundsTalesFairyHeroicFairy TaleRecallsRestorationHeroinesArchetypeStepmothersHeroes And HeroinesHeroic Acts
Book:The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know
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“Just as our fingerprints are one-of-a-kind, so is our identity. Each of us is a once-only articulation of what humans can be. We are rare, unmatched, mysterious. This is why the quality of openness is so crucial to our self-discovery. We cannot know ourselves by who we think we are, who others take us to be, or what our driver's license may say. We are fields of potential, some now actualized, most not yet.”

ThinkingKnowsHumansKindMaySelfQualityFieldsIdentityDiscoverySelf DiscoveryMysteriousDriversOpennessCrucialLicenseFingerprintsOne Of A KindArticulation
Author:David Richo
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“Fate often allows a future to take shape with no regard for our expectation, plan, or readiness. Fate's skillful editing of our life choices is like the careful grooming of lads on their first day of school: combed, polished, scrubbed, newly dressed, and glowing too. This is how we become ready for our life lessons.”

FirstsSchoolChoicesOur LivesFatePlansReadyLessonsShapesExpectationsRegardCarefulLife LessonEditingGlowingReadinessPolishedSkillfulLife ChoicesLadGroomingFirst Day Of School
Book:The Power of Coincidence: How Life Shows Us What We Need to Know
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“The most exciting part of finding out who we are is discovering our own uniqueness, who we are outside the box, beyond the categories in a Psychology 101 textbook. In our inimitable singularity, there is an infinite range of possibility that cannot be tied to any one description of what it means to be human or healthy.”

HumansMeanPsychologyPossibilityHealthyFindingsExcitingInfiniteBoxesRangeWho We AreDescriptionCategoriesDiscoveringTiedUniquenessTextbooksSingularityOutside The BoxWhat It Means To Be Human
Author:David Richo
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“A healthy person is not perfect but perfectible, not a done deal but a work in progress. Staying healthy takes discipline, work, and patience, which is why our life is a journey and perforce a heroic one.”

PersonsDoneLife IsPerfectDealsOur LivesProgressJourneyDisciplineHealthyStayingHeroicNot PerfectWork In ProgressLife Is A JourneyHealthy Person
Book:How to Be an Adult in Relationships: The Five Keys to Mindful Loving
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