Putting labels on others creates a black hole of disregard where judgment thrives and schisms deepen.
Love, Family, Change
Change will not successfully happen unless the emotional component is solved.
Love, Trust, Emotions
Change is hard, difficult, painful, and often messy
Being real is being true to you.
When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.
Love, Trust, Family
We ardently desire to take down our masks and say to the world, “This is who I am…and I am okay.” This is simple…not easy.
Boundaries represent awareness, knowing what the limits are and then respecting those limits.
Love, Family
Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners.
Love, Children, Family
Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don’t see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that.
Love, Family, Responsibility
Under this aura of perfection he knows how flawed he really is but his intact denial system keeps this awareness suppressed in the far recesses of his mind.
Making amends is not only saying the words but also being willing to listen to how your behavior caused another’s pain, and then the really hard part…changing behavior.
Love, Family, Forgiveness
The more dysfunctional, the more some family members seek to control the behavior of others.
If no one has boundaries…how can there be any transgression?
It is one thing to know about your dysfunctional habits but quite another to change them.
Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living.
Chaos limits the free-flow of love and becomes a roadblock to what family members want most and sadly, it becomes the normal for the family.
Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence.
As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.
Children naturally believe without question and absorb knowledge at an incredible rate; since there is no other frame of reference; they believe their parental reality, true or false.
Love, Truth, Children
Swirling in a squirrel cage of perpetual motion, the head-committee meets, argues, votes out the guidance available from emotions, and successfully keeps serenity at bay and chaos close at hand.
Love, Family, Feelings