"Beginning with Mom and Dad, most children learn to get love by providing others with what is demanded, expected, or merely implied. Accommodation is a leaned response, sometimes even necessary for civilization to survive. But when repeated accommodation overrides the desires of our inner life, becomes a violation of personal integrity, the results are ugly. Notice there are many polite words for we have learned to accommodate our accommodations. We say someone is "sweet," "personable," "amicable," "easygoing," and most often, "nice." When these labels repeatedly apply to someone's behavior the consequences to the person's inner life may in fact be ugly . . . If we find ourselves repeatedly, reflexively being nice, we have not only lost integrity through reflexive response, we have lost the power to conduct our own life."
"Learning to find one's own truth, hold to it, and negotiate with others seems easy enough on paper. In practice, it means catching reflexive actions while they occur, suffering the anxiety aroused by acting more consciously in integrity, and tolerating the assault of anxiety-driven "guilt" thereafter. (This guilt is not genuine; it is a form of anxiety aroused by the anticipated negative reaction of the other person. Such reactions for the child were enormously distressing, and are still debilitating in adulthood.)"