Henry Cloud > Quotes

“In safe relationships, empathy is a large part of the equation. We literally “enter the other person’s head” and attempt to understand how he feels, what he believes, and how he thinks. Empathy is walking in the moccasins of another person, and not judging him until we can see what suffering he’s been through to get to the point he’s at. Empathy is not easy. It involves letting go of your opinion and what you’re needing in the relationship so that you can enter the world of the other person, if only for a brief time. We can’t stay in the empathic position permanently, because we could lose ourselves. But empathy is what makes a relationship real—and safe.”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

“Self-centered people often get angry when someone tells them no.

Stan said yes out of fear that he would lose love and that other people would get angry at him. These false motives and others keep us from setting boundaries:”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

“If we demand perfection from ourselves we are not living in the real world...The inherent problem in the relationship between the ideal & the real is that the ideal judges the real as unacceptable and brings down condemnation and wrath on the real. This sets up an adversarial relationship between the two and like all adversaries, they move further and further apart.”
― Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal: How to Understand the Past to Ensure a Healthier Future

“We are all deceivers to some degree. The difference between safe and unsafe “liars” is that safe people own their lies and see them as a problem to change as they become aware of their deception.”
― Henry Cloud

“There is a difference between helping someone who is disabled, incapable, or otherwise infirm versus helping someone who is resisting growing up and taking care of what every adult (or child, for that matter) has to be responsible for: herself or himself. When you find yourself in any way paying for someone else’s responsibilities, not only are you stuck with a delayed ending, but you are probably harming that person.”
― Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

“Repentant people will recognize a wrong and really want to change because they do not want to be that kind of person. They are motivated by love to not hurt anyone like that again. These are trustworthy people because they are on the road to holiness and change, and their behavior matters to them. People”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

“If you do not allow yourself to rush into falling for someone that you have not become friends with first, you will be more sure when you let yourself go to the next step. Certainly you might find yourself having all sorts of feelings. Enjoy them. But do not believe them. Only believe your experience of getting to know a person and seeing if you can share at a deep level. See if you find that he or she is a person of the kind of character you would trust as a friend. And as important as all of that, see if that person is a person that you would like spending time with if there were no romance at all. That is the one true measure of a friend, a person with whom you like to spend time, having no regard to how you are spending it. “Hanging out” is fulfilling in and of itself. And that, long-term, requires character, and in the deepest of friendships, shared values as well. You would want your best friends to be honest, faithful, deep, spiritual, responsible, connecting, growing, loving, and the like. Make sure that those qualities are also present in the person you are falling in love with.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries in Dating

“Sometimes we represent our weakness as if it were bad. We don’t think it’s okay to be weak…We have been injured in many ways and our real self houses all of the evidence of those injuries. The pain, the brokenness and the emotional underdevelopment we all possess is part of who we really are.”
― Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal: How to Understand the Past to Ensure a Healthier Future

“Unsafe people will never identify with others as fellow sinners and strugglers, because they see themselves as somehow “above all of that.”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

“You will be amazed how much can change in your life when you finally begin to let go of what you can never have.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

“There is no simple theological answer to pain; the answer is a relationship with God in the midst of pain. Those who need things in neat little black-and-white packages cannot tolerate such a faith.”
― Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal: How to Understand the Past to Ensure a Healthier Future

“So if you feel resistance about executing a certain ending, figure out what two or more desires are in conflict, admit to yourself that you can have only one, and then ask yourself this question: Which one am I willing to give up to have the other one?”
― Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

“Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“Good boundaries prevent resentment.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“Make friends with your needs. Welcome them. They are a gift from God, designed to draw you into relationship with him and with his safe people. Your needs are the cure to the sin of self-sufficiency.”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

“We must own our own thoughts. Many people have not taken ownership of their own thinking processes. They are mechanically thinking the thoughts of others without ever examining them. They swallow others’ opinions and reasonings, never questioning and “thinking about their thinking.” Certainly we should listen to the thoughts of others and weigh them; but we should never “give our minds” over to anyone. We are to weigh things for ourselves in the context of relationship, “sharpening” each other as iron, but remaining separate thinkers.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“Time is an important ingredient for growth, but sometimes we pass through time and get better; at other times we pass through time and do not get better. Why? That’s because of what I call “good time” and “bad time.” From our vantage point, time is present experience. The only time we have is whatever we are experiencing at the present moment. Going forward or back in time is impossible. Right this instant is the only place where we can ever live. When we truly live in time, which is where we are now, we are present with our experience. We are present in the “here and now.” We are aware of our experience. If we are not aware of our experience, or are not experiencing some aspect of ourselves, that part is removed from time and is not affected by it. Change only takes place in “good time.” Good time is time in which we and our experiences can be affected by grace and truth. If we have removed some aspect of ourselves from time, grace and truth cannot transform it. Whatever aspect of ourselves that we leave outside of experience, that we leave in “bad time,”goes unchanged. Grace and truth cannot affect the part of ourselves we won’t bring into experience.”
― Henry Cloud, Changes That Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You

“Great is the art of the beginning, but greater is the art of ending. —HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW”
― Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

“We were created for intimacy, to connect with someone with heart, soul, and mind. Intimacy occurs when we are open, vulnerable, and honest, for these qualities help us to be close to each other.”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

“We are drawn to Jesus because “he learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8). People who are growing up are also drawn to individuals who bear battle scars, worry furrows, and tear marks on their faces. Their lessons can be trusted, much more than the unlined faces of those who have never failed—and so have never truly lived.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“Our ability to give and respond to love is our greatest gift. The heart that God has fashioned in his image is the center of our being.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“Numerous New Testament passages teach that we need to forsake our allegiance to our original family and become adopted by God (Matt. 23:9). God commands us to look to him as our father and to have no parental intermediaries. Adults who are still holding an allegiance to earthly parents have not realized their new adoptive status. Many times we are not obeying the Word of God because we have not spiritually left home. We feel we still need to please our parents and their traditional ways of doing things rather than obey our new Father (Matt. 15:1–6). When we become part of God’s family, obeying his ways will sometimes cause conflict in our families and sometimes separate us (Matt. 10:35–37). Jesus says that our spiritual ties are the closest and most important (Matt. 12:46–50). Our true family is the family of God.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No

“Where there is deception there is no relationship.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries in Dating

“Many people wish for a different universe than the one in which we live. They want one where every day is harvest time and there are no long laborious summer months to go through in order to get there. And when the harvest is ripe and they are thriving, they want no approaching winters where they see that the harvest is over and a cold death is looming.”
― Henry Cloud, Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

“The wise parent lets the child’s world teach him the lessons of life and then empathizes with his pain. Then he learns to respect the outside world’s limits as well as his parents”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries with Kids: When to Say Yes, How to Say No

“Who a person is will ultimately determine if their brains, talents, competencies, energy, effort, deal-making abilities, and opportunities will succeed.”
― Henry Cloud, Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality

“Don’t get angry with your spouse for her weakness! This is the worst thing you can ever do. It is using your strength in that area to destroy. If you have done that, if you have judged your spouse’s weakness or inability, put down this book and go apologize, if not for her sake, then for your own (see James 2:13).”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries in Marriage

“Character = the ability to meet the demands of reality.”
― Henry Cloud, Integrity: The Courage to Face the Demands of Reali

“Safe relationships are centered and grounded in forgiveness. When you have a friend with the ability to forgive you for hurting her or letting her down, something deeply spiritual occurs in the transaction between you two. You actually experience a glimpse of the deepest nature of God himself. People who forgive can—and should—also be people who confront. What is not confessed can’t be forgiven. God himself confronts our sins and shows us how we wound him: “I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from me, and by their eyes, which played the harlot after their idols” (Ezek. 6:9 NASB). When we are made aware of how we hurt a loved one, then we can be reconciled. Therefore, you shouldn’t discount someone who “has something against you,” labeling him as unsafe. He might actually be attempting to come closer in love, in the way that the Bible tells us we are to do.”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't

“Defensive devaluation is a protective device that makes love bad, trust unimportant and people "no darn good any way". People who have been deeply hurt in their relationships will often devalue love so it doesn't hurt so much. And they often become resigned to never loving again.”
― Henry Cloud, Safe People: How to Find Relationships That Are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't