Category Archives: Robin Prag Psychologist

“Human beings are impelled … to be dissatisfied with what they have, to want more, to over-perceive threats and act on them, to ignore what we mistakenly think is unimportant, to build and make love and achieve and flee danger – only to recognize, sooner or later, that we can never win the battle. On the grand scale, we will all die, and lose much of what we love along the way. Yet even in our mundane lives, we lose the battle every day – often in ways less tragic than comic. The damn webpage won’t load, the mortgage has to be paid, the boss is a jerk, I’m a jerk – every day, the God-or-evolution given instinct to “want it all” butts up against a reality that rarely provides it. From the paramecium recoiling from the scientist’s pinprick to the existentialist bewailing the emptiness of the human condition, life on earth is hard-wired for kvetching. All life forms want more of the pleasant and less of the unpleasant, more of the good and less of the crap. But you can’t always get what you want.”

– Jay Michaelson

“Happy comes and goes. Loving someone isn’t that crazy infatuation that you feel at first. That passes. Well, not passes, but it calms down, and then sometimes, when you least expect it, you get a glimpse of the person and it all comes back again, in a big rush.

But even that’s not what you’re looking for. What you’re looking for is the feeling that no matter what, being with that person is always going to be better than being without that person. Good times or bad. That having that person around makes whatever you’re going through better, or at least more tolerable.”

– Robin Hobb. 

“Yet, my fantasy of marriage as a wellspring of contentment has completely disappeared, and so should yours. Thinking you get happiness ever after is a ticket to divorce. I’ll tell you the four things I now know about marriage, from my own transforming relationship and from conversations with other flummoxed spouses:

A.    Marriage can be hell;

B.    The grass is not greener on the other side;

C.    Savour the highs, because one thing you can count on – the dips are just around the corner; and

D.    Nobody is perfect, so you may as well love the one you’re with.

To get to this stage took a lot of work and a lot of tears. I cannot imagine going through this psyche-searing task again with someone new. Therefore, I surrender to this imperfect marriage, because I love it more than I hate it and I committed to this man with a promise that I need to, we all need to, do our best to fulfill.

–    Iris Krasnow: Surrendering to Marriage.

“We are wired psychologically and biologically to need other people. A relational bond with another person that provides an ongoing, pervasive sense of safety and security provides a secure base – a safe harbour from existential loneliness and despair, and a bioenergetic launching pad from which to brave the outside world”.

– Marion Solomon & Stan Tatkin

“Prayer is a paper ship of wakefulness on the stream of worldly weariness”.

– Peter Hoeg. 

“We have an illusion that a certain time, a certain place, a certain person is the only way. Without it or them, we are lost.

It is not true. Impermanence teaches us this. There is no one thing to hold on to.”

– Natalie Goldberg, in Long Quiet Highway.

Today, whilst reflecting on an intimate relationship that had ended against her will and control, one of my patients (who gave me permission to quote her) said,

“I’ve realized, you can’t develop a relationship one-way”.

How many of us have realized that too, or accepted that yet… ?

“Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?”

– Mary Oliver. 

“This being human is a guest-house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you

out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.”

– Rumi: The Guest-House.

“We must become the changes we want to see in the world”.

– Mahatma Ghandi

“Unless someone like you cares a lot, it’s not going to happen, it’s not”.

– Dr Suess – from The Lorax.

“A problem is a stepping stone to a higher spiritual level”.

– Janice Dommisse; in conversation.

“Death is the unknown in which all of us lived before birth.”

– Alan Watts in The Wisdom of Insecurity.