Henry Cloud Quotes

People who don't have experience setting healthy boundaries, they have secrets instead.

You can't be everything for another person.

You best teach others about healthy boundaries by enforcing yours.

Taking on responsibilities that properly belong to someone else means behaving irresponsibly toward yourself. You need to know where you end and someone else begins. You need to understand boundaries. You need to know what is and is not up to you, what is and is not in your control, what is and is not your responsibility.

You have to take responsibility for how you act. You can't fix everyone.

The closer you are to people, the more you realise what has happened to them.

Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.

If you can't help me grow, there's no point with you being in my life.

I'm not in the business of holding people's hands after I've expressed to them my needs numerous times.

For me to stay healthy in a relationship, the individuals have to nurture themselves.

Two things scare me. The first is getting hurt. But that's not nearly as scary as the second, which is losing.

I don't have to go around trying to save everybody anymore; that's not my job.

When it's time for me to walk away from something, I walk away from it. My mind, my body, my conscience tell me that enough is enough.

No one could save me from the grief of losing my child or losing my first marriage. I had to do that on my own.

I look at people in certain circumstances, and I fall into caretaker mode real quick, real easy. I like to shoulder people up and carry them along, and then I end up creating some kind of dependency. I enable. It's really, really hard for me.

You need to learn to say no and need to recognise when you're being exploited.

I have a tendency to overempathize with people, which gets me into tricky situations. I can get sucked in and feel like I need to get involved, which is sometimes helpful and sometimes not. It's better to have more distance.

I wish that young people, most of all, would learn to cut ties with those who make them feel bad about themselves or about the other people they love and care for.

Sometimes if you spend your time focusing on other people, you give them energy over you; you give them power.

Once you're in a position where you can choose to not be around toxic environments, just do that as much as you can.

Sometimes you have to say, 'I don't have to do everything that comes my way.'

There was a long time in my professional life that I was not happy, and there was nothing anyone else could have done to make me happy. There was a big stretch where I was very sick, and I was very hurt. Those charged with taking care of my health and well-being weren't very good at their jobs. Or maybe they were too good at their jobs.

Empathy feels these thoughts; your hurt is in my heart, your loss is in my prayers, your sorrow is in my soul, and your tears are in my eyes.

Saying no can be the ultimate self-care.