Mercedes Lackey Quotes

I think it's really important to find out why people hurt you or try to oppose you or whatever.

Fear runs our lives. It doesn't matter who you are. You have to understand your relationship with fear. Whether you're scared of getting into a relationship; or taking the new job; or a confrontation - you have to size fear up.

A lot of people live in fear because they haven't figured out how you're going to react when faced with a certain set of circumstances. I've come to terms with this by looking deeply into whatever makes me fearful - what are the key elements that get the hairs up on the back of my neck - and then figuring out what I can do about it.

I'm sensitive, you know, about some things, and as some of my partners could attest to, incredibly insensitive.

The first step is to distinguish the loving parts of your personality that are active from the frightened parts of your personality that are active - in other words, to learn to distinguish love from fear in you. The second step is to choose love, no matter what.

I have a good relationship with the world. But I don't know what the trick is to maintaining it.

I'm fortunate enough to have learned not to waste time getting frustrated with my kids, or co-workers, or friends and family for not doing everything I wish they would. If someone doesn't respond to me the way I want them to, I understand that it doesn't have anything to do with me.

The wiser you get, the more experience you have, and the more you see people for who they are as human beings, as opposed to figures you have to fight against.

Continuing to listen and grow is important because we get into bad habits in relationships.

Parenting three children at the same time has helped me grow as a filmmaker. It taught me to be more empathetic and understand what people want from me.

Whenever I'm trying to understand people that I don't understand, or things in people or even in myself, I'll say, 'When did this negativity get here?' I try to think back to how I was raised to deal with things, and then consider how the person that I'm dealing with grew up.

I'll admit that I'm self-centered - all of us are - but I can also be external and giving and listening and empathetic and all that sort of stuff.

Sometimes, when life moves along, you're presented with situations where you find it necessary to speak because so many people either seem to be afraid to or, more sinister, are unwilling to face things and let things go and worry about their own situations.

Don't take anything personally. Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. Their point of view and opinion come from all the programming they received growing up. When you take things personally, you feel offended and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflict. You make something big out of something so little because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong.

Sometimes I wonder which is worse - confrontational people who are afraid of caring or caring people who are afraid of confrontation.

I had an occasional flash of understanding, but then got selfishly wrapped up again in my own problems and pleasures.

How can you blame a person for his fears and weaknesses unless you have felt the same and done differently?

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

Real charity and real ability never to condemn-the one real virtue-is so often the result of a waking experience that gives a glimpse of what lies beneath things.

Each of us needs to eliminate our anger, fear and greed. The roots of social conflicts and political tensions are in personal anger, fear and greed.

Learning from one's enemies is the best way to love them, for it puts one into a grateful mood toward them.

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding.

The understanding of fear cures fear.

As a young man, I yearned for the day when, rooted in the experience that comes only with age, I could do my work fearlessly. But today, in my mid-sixties, I realize that I will feel fear from time to time for the rest of my life. I may never get rid of my fear. But . . . I can learn to walk into it and through it whenever it rises up . . . naming the inner force that triggers . . . fear . . . Naming our fears aloud . . . is the first step toward transcending them.

Each aspect within us needs understanding and compassion. If we are unwilling to give it to ourselves how can we expect the world to give it to us?