How to Be an Adult

Assertiveness makes clarity valuable. As a result you will be quite satisfied after an encounter with someone if you have honestly presented yourself and your position. Your satisfaction will no longer depend upon whether the other person acknowledged you or agreed with you. You will no longer wish you had said more. You will have no need to correc

If our self-actualization means that our inner work must all be done and we must be perfect, we are choosing never to be happy. No human being is perfect like that, except momentarily. If integration means wholly containing a process, then, as St. Catherine of Siena says, “All the way to heaven is heaven.” We are complete now and all along the path

A commitment to an essential bond—an enduring “given” of mutuality—that weathers the stresses and crises of change. This bond is unconditional. If “someone else has come along” who is more attractive, more fun, “just right,” it will be taken only as information about the charms of the new person or the deficits of the present relationship. It will

Every adult relationship requires conflict before true commitment can happen. Each struggle helps you discard yet another illusory ideal about the other person, yet another illusory title to have your expectations met. Every conflict clears away the sham in favor of a fuller revelation of this real person who has not met my every need or measured u

The practice of assertiveness means acting. Act as if you are already the healthiest person you can be. Do not wait until you feel better about yourself or until you believe you have what it takes. Act as if you are self-actualized and your beliefs will follow suit. Act while you fear rather than waiting until you feel unafraid.

Our problem is not that as children our needs were unmet, but that as adults they are still unmourned! The hurt, bereft, betrayed Child is still inside of us, wanting to cry for what he missed and wanting thereby to let go of the pain and the stressful present neediness he feels in relationships. In fact, neediness itself tells us nothing about how

The starting point of our love for others is our sane and fearless love of ourselves.

• Trying without doing is wishing rather than choosing. You either have a plan in place or you are choosing not to act.

“your inner emptiness conceals just as great a fullness if you only allow it.”

In a functional ego investment, we will give power without thereby being personally diminished. We are vulnerable as lovers not as victims. In other words, our commitment does not mean losing our boundaries. In a neurotic ego investment, we lose our ability to protect ourselves. The actions of our partner then determine our state of mind, rather th