Henry Cloud Quotes & Sayings

You need to get far enough away from abusive people to be able to fence your property against further invasion. And then you need to own the treasures you find in your soul. — Henry Cloud

Values What we value is what we love and assign importance to. Often we do not take responsibility for what we value. We are caught up in valuing the approval of men rather than the approval of God (John 12:43); because of this misplaced value, we miss out on life. We think that power, riches, and pleasure will satisfy our deepest longing, which is really for love. When — Henry Cloud

Christianity is not about morality. It's about reality. — Henry Cloud

No matter how much you talk to yourself, read, study, or practice, you can't develop or set boundaries apart from supportive relationships with God and others. Don't even try to start setting limits until you have entered into deep, abiding attachments with people who will love you no matter what. — Henry Cloud

Denial of one's need for others is the most common type of defense against bonding. If people come from a situation, whether growing up or later in life, where good, safe relationships were not available to them, they learn to deny that they even want them. Why want what you can't have? They slowly get rid of their awareness of the need. — Henry Cloud

The best way to advance in a career is to get great results while working with people. — Henry Cloud

Misinformation about the Bible's answers to these issues has led to much wrong teaching about boundaries. Not only that, but many clinical psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety disorders, guilt problems, shame issues, panic disorders, and marital and relational struggles, find their root in conflicts with boundaries. — Henry Cloud

The assumption "It's selfish to have my needs met" makes people crazy not only because it hurts people, but because it isn't true. It isn't logical, and it doesn't make sense. To give a cup of cold water to those who need it, we need to have drunk from it ourselves. — Henry Cloud

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

Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them. — Henry Cloud

Many people give out of obligation and compulsion, which leads to resentment. — Henry Cloud

finding the other person's heart is more important than getting that person to see that you are right. — Henry Cloud

A child needs to internalize a model of someone who has a life of her own. The parent whose life is centered around her children is influencing them to think that life is about either becoming a parent or being forever served by a parent. Let your child know you have interests and relationships that don't involve her. Take trips without her. Show her that you take active responsibility in meeting your own needs and solving your own problems. — Henry Cloud

Wisdom comes from experience, either the experience of others or of oneself. And to let experience do its work, a person has to be open to receiving the lessons that it has to teach. — Henry Cloud

If your boundary training consists only of words, you are wasting your breath. But if you 'do' boundaries with your kids, they internalize the experiences, remember them, digest them, and make them part of how they see reality. — Henry Cloud

1. Whose problem is this?
2. What can I do to help him experience the problem?
3. What am I doing to keep him from experiencing the problem? — Henry Cloud

When things are darkest, God shines his light the brightest. — Henry Cloud

Seeking God first means that we know him as the God of grace who is for us. He is the one who will provide what we need, and we must give up our own self-help programs. But we can't just have him and have it all done. We also have to be changed into people who can produce the fruit of the life we desire, and we do that by finding his ways and learning to live them. — Henry Cloud

When we can't hold back, or set boundaries, on what comes from our lips, our words are in charge-not us. But we are still responsible for those words. Our words do not come from somewhere outside of us, as if we were a ventriloquist's dummy. They are the product of our hearts. Our saying, "I didn't mean that," is probably better translated, "I didn't want you to know I thought that about you." We need to take responsibility for our words. "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken" (Matt. 12:36). — Henry Cloud

Love 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. Its abilities to open up to love and to allow love to flow outward are crucial to life. — Henry Cloud

Many frustrated people try to live their lives as others have defined them. — Henry Cloud

The sin God rebukes is not trying and failing, but failing to try. — Henry Cloud

This principle is taught in Scripture: "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). In other words, we learn to be loving because we are loved. Grace must come from the outside for us to be able to develop it inside. The opposite side of this truth is that we can't love when we aren't loved. And, taking the thinking further, we can't value or treasure our souls when they haven't been valued or treasured. — Henry Cloud

If people are really narcissistic or have a need to be seen as more than they really are, or to be admired as having it all together, then they cannot be followed and trusted by others. — Henry Cloud

Leaders set a very clear path every day, in a thousand different ways, of what the people must attend to, inhibit, and keep it current in front of them. — Henry Cloud

People who apologize quickly may act like they are sorry or as if they are interested in holiness, but they are really leading someone on. They may say all the words, and some are taken in by their tears and "sorrow." But in reality they are more sorry about getting caught. They do not change, and the future will be exactly like the past. — Henry Cloud

We've all been around middle-aged people who have the boundaries of an eighteen-month-old. They have tantrums or sulk when others set limits on them, or they simply fold and comply with others just to keep the peace. — Henry Cloud

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

The antidote to entitlement is forgiveness in two directions. — Henry Cloud

getting better is not about just 'willing' better performance. It's about becoming someone who performs better, and performs differently. — Henry Cloud

Physical presence provides chemical, relational, psychological and physiological effects that virtual relationships cannot. Our brains change in the presence of another person and their behavior. — Henry Cloud

Good pain is pain in the service of a purpose. Bad pain is pain endured because we are resisting a needed growth step. — Henry Cloud

Successful leaders are bigger than any individual outcome; their sense of self-worth doesn't depend on its having to work. Their whole self-image is not at stake. They are separate from the deal. — Henry Cloud

Boundaries are basically about providing structure, and structure is essential in building anything that thrives. — Henry Cloud

The statement "I'll always be your parent" is true in one sense, but not in another. You will always have that heritage, but you won't always have that responsibility. Your goal is a mutual affection between two adults, not a permanent one-up position. — Henry Cloud

Boundary construction is most evident in three-year-olds. Boundary construction is most evident in three-year-olds. By this time, they should have mastered the following tasks:

1. The ability to be emotionally attached to others, yet without giving up a sense of self and one's freedom to be apart,

2. The ability to say appropriate no's to others without fear of loss of love,

3. The ability to take appropriate no's from others without withdrawing emotionally.

Noting these tasks, a friend said half-joking, "They need to learn this by age three? How about by fourty-three?" Yes, these are tall orders but boundary development is essential in the early years of life. — Henry Cloud

To be in touch with God's truth is to be in touch with reality, and to live in accord with that reality makes for a better life (Ps. 119:2, 45). — Henry Cloud

People with a style of denial and blaming are definitely on the list of unsafe people to avoid. 10. — Henry Cloud

You have to be able to face losing some things you might want in order to be free to do the right thing. — Henry Cloud

A person who hasn't grieved a significant loss has unfinished business inside and can cause others great grief as a result. — Henry Cloud

In the language of Ecclesiastes, are there situations in business or in life where you are trying to birth things that should be dying? Trying to heal something that should be killed off? Laughing at something that you should be weeping about? Embracing something (or someone) you should shun? Searching for an answer for something when it is time to give up? Continuing to try to love something or someone when it is time to talk about what you hate? — Henry Cloud

God's solution for "I can't live that way anymore" is basically, "Good! Don't live that way anymore. Set firm limits against evil behavior that are designed to promote change and redemption. Get the love and support you need from other places to take the kind of stance that I do to help redeem relationship. Suffer long, but suffer in the right way." And when done God's way, chances are much better for redemption. — Henry Cloud

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

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

Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Prov. 13:12). — Henry Cloud

You can set a boundary with your words when you are honest and when you establish a consequence for another's hurtful actions. — Henry Cloud

We know that God is not mean to people who are afraid; the Scripture is full of examples of his compassion. But he will not enable passivity. The "wicked and lazy" servant was passive. He did not try. God's grace covers failure, but it cannot make up for passivity. We have to do our part. — Henry Cloud

For he never thought of doing a kindness, but hounded to death the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted" (Ps. 109:16, — Henry Cloud

Learning to accept powerlessness has profound spiritual implications for your child. When we accept the reality of our human condition
that we are ultimately powerless to change our fallen state, yet totally responsible for being in it
we are driven to receive God's solution based on his Son's payment of a debt we can't pay. — Henry Cloud

You can always create, seek, and find a range of options to determine how you will respond to what happens, and how you will play the cards in your hand. — Henry Cloud

To be purposeful people who can get things done, we need to be able to organize our desires, goals, time, and efforts. This is an important aspect of functioning. — Henry Cloud

Victims declare,"The world is responsible for me," and never do anything to better their quality of life. — Henry Cloud

A good test of a relationship is how a person responds to the word 'no.' Love respects 'no,' control does not. — Henry Cloud

You can't master people, but you can become a master at choosing and dealing with people. — Henry Cloud

Many people do not think very often about what they think about. They just let their thoughts live inside their head, without observing or questioning them. — Henry Cloud

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. — Henry Cloud

Values are sometimes worth living and dying for, and are certainly worth dating and breaking up over. — Henry Cloud

A runner can never see the finish line in the middle of a marathon, — Henry Cloud

God uses people not only to nurture us, but also to open our eyes to sins, selfishness, and denial in us. Love also means saying, "I hold this against you," as Jesus did when he confronted the churches (Rev. 2:4, 14, 20). Being confronted on character issues isn't pleasant. It hurts our self-image. It humbles us. But it doesn't harm us. Loving confrontations protect us from our blindness and self-destructiveness. — Henry Cloud

your own performance is either improved or diminished by the other people in your scenario. — Henry Cloud

If we accept the premise that pruning is necessary but still notice that we have an emotional misalignment with that premise, we will struggle to realize our vision of the future and our potential. But if you can become aware of your resistances and internal conflicts now, then you can begin to face them and work them through. — Henry Cloud

If you do not forgive, you are demanding something your offender does not choose to give, even if it is only confession of what he did. This "ties" him to you and ruins boundaries. Let the dysfunctional family you came from go. Cut it loose, and you will be free. — Henry Cloud

When you cease to blame your spous eand own the problem as yours, you are then empowered to make changes to solve your problem. — Henry Cloud

Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn't. — Henry Cloud

The screaming four-month-old child is trying to find out whether the world is a reasonably safe place or not. She is in a state of deep terror and isolation. She hasn't learned to feel comfort when no one is around. To put her on the parents' schedule instead of her own for holding and feeding is to "condemn the innocent," as Jesus said (Matt. 12:7). — Henry Cloud

A culture is like an immune system. It operates through the laws of systems, just like a body. If a body has an infection, the immune system deals with it. Similarly, a group enforces its norms, either actively or passively. — Henry Cloud

Remember the Law of Power: You only have the power to change yourself. You can't change another person. You must see yourself as the problem, not the other person. To see another person as the problem to be fixed is to give that person power over you and your well-being. — Henry Cloud

Dating is a give and take. If you only see it as "Taking," you are not getting it. — Henry Cloud

You will not grow without attempting to do things you are unable to do. — Henry Cloud

You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem. — Henry Cloud

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

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

Something about me scares people away. — Henry Cloud

When we ask we are owning our needs. Asking for love, comfort or understanding is a transaction between two people. You are saying: I have a need. It's not your problem. It's not your responsibility. You don't have to respond, but I'd like something from you.
This frees the other person to connect with you freely and without obligation. When we own that our needs are our responsibility we allow others to love us because we have something to offer. Asking is a far cry from demanding. When we demand love, we destroy it. — Henry Cloud

The point here is that grace can be available to us, but we might not be available to grace. — Henry Cloud

To be truly biblical, as well as truly effective, the growth process must include the Body of Christ. — Henry Cloud

He is the Truth, and He wants us to deal in truth with ourselves and our loved ones. We want the truth about you and your family to flood into and overrun the secrets that keep you in bondage to dysfunctional behavior and relationships — Henry Cloud

Parents have two tasks associated with no. First, they need to help their child feel safe enough to say no, thereby encouraging his or her own boundaries. Though they certainly can't make all the choices they'd like, young children should be able to have a no that is listened to. Informed parents won't be insulted or enraged by their child's resistance. They will help the child feel that his no is just as loveable as his yes. They won't withdraw emotionally from the child who says no, but will stay connected. One parent must often support another who is being worn down by their baby's no. This process takes work! — Henry Cloud

Whatever's happening today, remember it is only ONE SCENE in a long movie. Don't treat it like it's the whole story. Keep writing the story. — Henry Cloud

Pruning is strategic. It is directional and forward-looking. It is intentional toward a vision, desires, and objectives that have been clearly defined and are measurable. If you have that, you know what a rose is, and pruning will help you get one of true beauty. — Henry Cloud

Be Hard on the issue, Soft on the person. — Henry Cloud

One of the worst things you can die with is potential. — Henry Cloud

Proverbs 22:3 says that "the prudent man sees the evil and hides himself." Sometimes physically removing yourself from a situation will help maintain boundaries. You can do this to replenish yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually after you have given to your limit, as Jesus often did. — Henry Cloud

The truth we need to achieve has many aspects. It includes the developmental needs of the real self, the grace of relationship, and the external truth of the precepts of God. And it takes time for all of these to work. — Henry Cloud

Here is what the scientific research is finding about happiness: we are wired to experience happiness, but we keep hitting the wrong buttons in our efforts to turn our happiness on. — Henry Cloud

Dating is about finding out who you are and who others are. If you show up in a masquerade outfit, neither is going to happen. — Henry Cloud

When we refuse to be kind to someone when it would be right to do it; when we lie to each other; when we lash out in violence, we transgress, disregarding the standards and statutes of God. — Henry Cloud

The most important tool ultimately is the person and his or her makeup, and yet it seems to get the least amount of attention and work. — Henry Cloud

A leader's responsibility is to cause a vision and mission to have tangible results in the real world. — Henry Cloud

Simple logic tells us that if we are going to have a good life and good relationships, we need to accept that we live in a world where bad things happen and everyone we love hurts us or disappoints us in some way. So to experience anything good with anyone, even the best of people, we have to forgive their imperfections, sins, and transgressions toward us. It is just reality. — Henry Cloud

Your business and your life will change when you really, really get it that some people are not going to change, no matter what you do, and that still others have a vested interest in being destructive. — Henry Cloud

Many couples have trouble with this aspect of marriage. They feel abandoned when their spouse wants time apart. In reality, spouses need time apart, which makes them realize the need to be back together. Spouses in healthy relationships cherish each other's space and are champions of each other's causes. — Henry Cloud

One of the biggest oxymorons is the term "self-made" man or woman. No man or woman ever "made" him- or herself. The psalmist understood this when he wrote, "It is [God] who has made us, and not we ourselves" (Psalm 100:3, NKJV). I also love what he goes on to say at the end of the verse: "We are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. — Henry Cloud

Part. The sin God rebukes is not trying and failing, but failing to try. Trying, failing, and trying again is called learning. — Henry Cloud

When two people are free to disagree, they are free to love. When they are not free, they live in fear, and love dies. — Henry Cloud

We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them. — Henry Cloud

Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something's time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings. — Henry Cloud

Making decisions based on others' approval or on guilt breeds resentment, a product of our sinful nature. We have been so trained by others on what we "should" do that we think we are being loving when we do things out of compulsion. — Henry Cloud

As iron sharpens iron, we need confrontation and truth from others to grow. No one likes to hear negative things about him or herself. But in the long run it may be good for us. — Henry Cloud

We all make mistakes, but the people who thrive from their mistakes are the successful ones. — Henry Cloud