Quotes About Autonomy

Only we can decide how important emotional independence and emotional sobriety are, and what we are willing to do to obtain and maintain them.

Add the fact that we so-called normal people frequently allow other people and situations to control our emotions (and thereby our thinking and behavior), and the difference between us and them begins to blur.

Both must maintain their emotional independence in order to survive.

I had given Max a written declaration of emotional independence stating that she was no longer responsible for my feelings. Thereafter, I could no longer tell her, "You made me angry," or "I feel bad and it's your fault because of what you did (or said)." I also explained how, as a corollary, I was no longer responsible for her feelings. We both agreed that from now on we are each responsible for our own feelings.

In order to maintain their sobriety, recovering alcoholics can not afford to let others control how they feel.

The more you try to control another person, the more you are under that person's control." If how you feel or what you do next depends on what the person you are trying to control does or does not do next, then you are under that person's control.

When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.

Psychologically [the proliferation of] silent reading emboldened the reader because it placed the source of his curiosity completely under personal control.

English people are not mass-produced. They do not come off a factory line all looking, speaking, thinking, acting the same. Neither do we.

I understood the connexion between his idea, and my idea that no one had any rights over me, that there wasn't anyone I was answerable to except myself.

Independence is not something you can divide into phases. It exists or does not exist.

Don't come crying to me, Stanley. Fight your own battles." Fight my own battles? I'm five!

You can always encourage people to do what you want through subtle or blatant rewards and punishments. But it is still their decision how to act.

People with BPD need their friends and family members to be stable and clear—not to reject them and not to smother them. They need you to let them take care of themselves and to not do things for them that they can do for themselves. The best way to do this and help them is by working on yourself.

However, children who have not fully developed through the earlier stages—i.e., they have not developed trust, initiative, and an ability to learn autonomously—will grow to doubt their ability to be successful. If they are not supported by caring adults at this stage, they may develop low self-esteem, culminating in a strong sense of inferiority.

The best way for them to ensure their psychological survival is to be in control of their environment and the people in it at all times. That's why it's their way or the highway, and compromise and flexibility seem impossible.

But it is our job to state our thoughts and feelings clearly and to make responsible decisions that are congruent with our values and beliefs. It is not our job to make another person think and feel the way we do or the way we want them to.

Allow people to be who they are instead of what you want them to be. Send healthy support messages like, "I'm here if you need me, but your choices—and the consequences—belong to you.

Acknowledging that you have the authority to make your own decisions is the first step toward making new choices and changing your life for the better.

Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? "She drove me to my practice at four in the morning," etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.

If you figure a way to live without serving a master - any master - then let the rest of us know, will you.

We must be ourselves, we must decide where to go.

That is what marriage really means: helping one another to reach the full status of being persons, responsible and autonomous beings who do not run away from life.

s Morgens ben ik het liefst alleen, ik wil een paar uur voor mezelf. Later op de dag heb ik behoefte aan anderen. Een week teruggetrokken leven, in mijn eentje, doet mij erg veel deugd. Maar aan het einde van zo'n week kan ik meestal niet snel genoeg bij mijn geliefden zijn. De wankeling tussen het verlangen om samen te vallen met de ander en te verdwijnen in hem of haar enerzijds, en het verlangen naar autonomie en dus naar scheiding van hem of haar anderzijds, zit ingebakken in wie wij zijn.