How to Be an Adult in Relationships emphasizes mindful loving through the five A’s—attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing—as the foundation for mature, fulfilling relationships. By integrating Buddhist mindfulness with psychological insights, the book guides readers to heal childhood wounds, set healthy boundaries, and foster emotional growth for deeper connections.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• We feel loved when we receive attention, acceptance, appreciation, and affection, and when we are allowed the freedom to live in accord with our own deepest needs and wishes.
• There are many trails in this life, but the one that matters most, few are able to walk…. It is the trail of a true human being.
• Those who love us understand us and are available to us with an attention, appreciation, acceptance, and affection we can feel. They make room for us to be who we are.
• The recurrent fantasy of, or search for, the “perfect partner” is a strong signal from our psyche that we have work to do on ourselves.
• Attention from others leads to self-respect. Acceptance engenders a sense of being inherently a good person. Appreciation generates a sense of self-worth. Affection makes us feel lovable. Allowing gives us encouragement to pursue our own deepest needs, values, and wishes.
• It is a joy to be hidden but a disaster not to be found. —D. W. Winnicott
• The way we were loved in early life is the way we want to be loved all our lives. Most of us know just what it takes for us to feel loved. What we have to learn is how to ask for it. A partner is not a mind reader, so it is up to each of us to tell our partner what our brand of love is.
• Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be? —Charles Bukowski,
Zen Master Wuzu reports: “The ancients were always so glad to hear of their mistakes.” I commit myself to find some truth in any feedback I receive.
• We cannot unlive our painful history, but we do not have to relive it. We cannot let go of it, but we do not have to hold on to it.
• I will…get ready and someday my chance will come. —Abraham Lincoln
• In healthy relating, we connect but do not attach. We can only really possess what does not possess us.
• “I am fully present here and now with all my unconditional attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. I am happy to let go of judgment, fear, control, and demands. May this be the way I show my love to everyone. May I be ever more open to the love that comes to me. May I feel compassion for those who are afraid of love. May all beings find this path of love.”
• The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being. —Teilhard de Chardin
• we attain satisfaction not by indulgence of desires but by renunciation of clinging.
• When we salute and surrender to reality, we no longer ask, “Why did this happen to me?” but rather, “Yes, now what?” Yes opens the door to the next step on our journey
• Things do not always go according to plan—yet we can find the equanimity to say yes to what is and thanks for what has been.
• We give our attention to the changes and endings, the failed plans, the unfairness, the suffering, the occasional disloyalty in our life story. We accept all that as part of the mix of a human life. We appreciate it all as somehow valuable to our development. We look with affection on what is and what has been. We allow events and people to be themselves.
• We know ourselves through our relationships and how we end them. —Sigmund Freud
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