- How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
- “Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.” - Carl Jung
- Introduction: The Secret Language of Fear
- “In a dark time, the eye begins to see . . .” - Theodore Roethke
- The latest scientific research, now making headlines, also tells us that the effects of trauma can pass from one generation to the next.
- Pain does not always dissolve on its own or diminish with time. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, even if his or her story lies submerged in years of silence, fragments of life experience, memory, and body sensation can live on, as if reaching out from the past to find resolution in the minds and bodies of those living in the present.
- When we try to resist feeling something painful, we often protract the very pain we’re trying to avoid. Doing so is a prescription for continued suffering.
- Everything that happens to us has merit, whether we recognize the surface significance of it or not. Everything in our lives ultimately leads us somewhere.
- “A guru gives us himself and then his system; a teacher gives us his subject and then ourselves.” - Adam Gopnik
- The great teachers understand that where we come from affects where we go, and that what sits unresolved in our past influences our present. They know that our parents are important, regardless of whether they are good at parenting or not. There’s no way around it: The family story is our story. Like it or not, it resides within us.
- Part I: The Web of Family Trauma
- Chapter 1: Traumas Lost and Found
- “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” - William Faulkner
- Traumatic reenactment, or “repetition compulsion,” as Sigmund Freud called it, is an attempt of the unconscious to replay what’s unresolved, so we can “get it right.” This unconscious drive to relive past events could be one of the mechanisms at work when families repeat unresolved traumas in future generations.
- Carl Jung also believed that what remains unconscious does not dissolve but, rather, resurfaces in our lives as fate or fortune.
- Both Jung and Freud noted that whatever is too difficult to process does not fade away on its own but, rather, is stored in our unconscious.
- It’s human nature: when pain is too great, people tend to avoid it. Yet when we block the feelings, we unknowingly stunt the necessary healing process that can lead us to a natural release.
- The traumas we inherit or experience firsthand can not only create a legacy of distress, but also forge a legacy of strength and resilience that can be felt for generations to come.
- Chapter 2: Three Generations of Shared Family History: The Family Body
- “I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family, which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to . . . complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.” - Carl Jung
- When your grandmother was five months pregnant with your mother, the precursor cell of the egg you developed from was already present in your mother’s ovaries.
- The pioneering cell biologist Bruce Lipton demonstrates that our DNA can be affected by both negative and positive thoughts, beliefs, and emotions.
- According to Lipton, “The mother’s emotions, such as fear, anger, love, hope among others, can biochemically alter the genetic expression of her offspring.”
- The findings demonstrated that babies exposed to increased cortisol in utero, as early as seventeen weeks after conception, exhibited impaired cognitive development when they were evaluated at seventeen months old.
- Psychiatrist Thomas Verny tells us: “If a pregnant mother experiences acute or chronic stress, her body will manufacture stress hormones (including adrenaline and noradrenaline) that travel through her bloodstream to the womb, inducing the same stressful state in the unborn child.”
- Verny goes on to say, “Our studies show that mothers under extreme and constant stress are more likely to have babies who are premature, lower than average in weight, hyperactive, irritable, and colicky. In extreme instances, these babies may be born with thumbs sucked raw or even with ulcers.”
- A child’s development and health can be profoundly influenced by the parent’s thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors.
- One study in England found that children’s emotional and behavioral problems doubled when their mothers were anxious during pregnancy.
- The Bible, in Numbers 14:18, appears to corroborate the claims of modern science—or vice versa—that the sins, iniquities, or consequences (depending on which translation you read) of the parents can affect the children up to the third and fourth generations.
- “The LORD is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love, forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. But he does not excuse the guilty. He lays the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations.”
- Chapter 3: The Family Mind
- “The parents eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” - Ezekiel
- From an infant’s perspective, a separation from the mother can be felt as life threatening.
- Thomas Verny says, “From the moment of conception, the experience in the womb shapes the brain and lays the groundwork for personality, emotional temperament, and the power of higher thought.”
- It’s not only what we inherit from our parents but also how they were parented that influences how we relate to a partner, how we relate to ourselves, and how we nurture our children.
- In our fear and anxiety, we often try to control our environment to feel safe. That’s because we had so little control when we were small, and there was likely not a safe place for the intense emotions we experienced. Without our consciously changing the pattern, bonding injuries can echo for generations.
- Bert Hellinger has observed that traumatic events, such as the premature death of a parent, sibling, or child or an abandonment, crime, or suicide, can exert a powerful influence over us, leaving an imprint on our entire family system for generations. These imprints then become the family blueprint as family members unconsciously repeat the sufferings of the past.
- When entangled, you unconsciously carry the feelings, symptoms, behaviors, or hardships of an earlier member of your family system as if these were your own.
- Even children born of the same parents, in the same family home, who share a similar upbringing, are likely to inherit different traumas and experience different fates.
- Most of us carry at least some residue from our family history. However, many intangibles also enter into the equation and can influence how deeply entrenched family traumas remain. These intangibles include self-awareness, the ability to self-soothe, and having a powerful internal healing experience.
- Norman Doidge tells us that we can change our brains simply by imagining. Just by closing our eyes and visualizing an activity, our primary visual cortex lights up, just as it would if we were actually performing the action.
- Norman Doidge says that “visualizing, remembering, or imagining pleasant experiences activates many of the same sensory, motor, emotional, and cognitive circuits that fired during the ‘real’ pleasant experience.”
- “Filling our minds with positive images of wellbeing, can produce an epigenetic environment that reinforces the healing process.” - Dr. Dawson Church
- Dr. Dawson Church says that when we meditate, we are “bulking up the portions of our brains that produce happiness.”
- Human beings are resilient and are capable of healing most types of trauma. This can happen at any time during our lives. We just need the right insights and tools.
- Chapter 4: The Core Language Approach
- “The unconscious insists, repeats, and practically breaks down the door, to be heard.” - Annie Rogers
- The intense or urgent words we use to describe our deepest fears—that’s our core language. We can also hear it in the complaints we have about our relationships, our health, our work, and other life situations.
- Chapter 5: The Four Unconscious Themes
- “The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth . . . it hardly seems to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills.” - Anthony Brandt
- Life sends us forward with something unresolved from the past.
- We delude ourselves when we believe we can make our lives go exactly as we plan. Too often, our intentions are at odds with our actions. We might desire good health, but eat far too much junk food or find excuses not to exercise. We might yearn for a romantic relationship, but distance ourselves as soon as a potential partner gets close. We might want a career that’s meaningful, but fail to take the steps necessary to achieve it. The worst part is that the very thing that holds us back is often invisible to us, keeping us frustrated and confused.
- When our connection to our parents flows freely, we experience ourselves as more open to receiving what life brings our way. When our connection to our parents is impaired in some way, the life force available to us can feel limited. We may feel blocked and constricted, or feel outside the flow of life, as if we’re swimming upstream against the current.
- Four Unconscious Themes That Interrupt the Flow of Life
1. We have merged with a parent.
2. We have rejected a parent.
3. We have experienced a break in the early bond with our mother.
4. We have identified with a member of our family system other than our parents.
- Another type of interruption occurs when we feel guilty for an action we have taken or a crime we have committed. Perhaps we made a decision that hurt someone, or left a relationship in a cruel way, or took something that didn’t belong to us, or purposely or accidentally took a life. Guilt can freeze up our life force in myriad ways. And, when not owned or resolved, it can extend to our children and even to their children.
1. Did You Merge with the Feelings, Behaviors, or Experience of a Parent?
- Did one of your parents struggle emotionally, physically, or psychologically? Did it hurt you to see them suffer? Did you want to take their pain away? Did you try? Did you ever side with the feelings of one parent against the other? Were you afraid to show your love to one parent for fear of hurting the other? In your life today, do you struggle in a way similar to how your parents struggled? Do you recognize your parents’ pain in you?
- When we merge with a parent, we unconsciously share an aspect, often a negative aspect, of that parent’s life experience. We repeat or relive certain situations or circumstances without making the very link that can set us free.
- The last thing parents would want to see is their child suffering on their behalf. It is arrogant and inflated to think that we, as children, are better equipped to handle our parents’ suffering than they are.
- Even when we care for ill or elderly parents, providing what they cannot do for themselves, it is important to preserve and respect the integrity of the parent-child relationship, rather than diminish our parents’ dignity.
2. Have You Judged, Blamed, Rejected, or Cut Yourself Off from a Parent?
- If we truly want to embrace life and experience joy, if we truly want deep and satisfying relationships, and health that’s vibrant and resilient, if we truly want to live up to our full potential, without the sense of being broken inside, we must first repair our broken relationships with our parents.
- Broken relationships often stem from painful events in our family history and can repeat for generations until we summon the courage to let go of our judging minds, open our constricted hearts, and regard our parents and other family members with the light of compassion. Only by doing so can we resolve the pain that prevents us from wholly embracing our lives.
- Ninety-one percent of participants who stated that their relationship with their mother was tolerant or strained were diagnosed with a significant health issue (such as cancer, coronary artery disease, hypertension, etc.) in midlife, compared with 45 percent of participants—less than half—who reported that their relationship with their mothers was warm or close.
3. Did You Experience an Interruption in the Early Bond with Your Mother?
- What is more likely with an interruption during this period is that you experience some degree of anxiety when you attempt to bond with a partner in an intimate relationship. That anxiety could translate into a difficulty maintaining a relationship or even not wanting a relationship at all. It could also translate into making the decision not to have children.
4. Are You Unconsciously Identified with a Member of Your Family System Other than Your Parents?
- Part II: The Core Language Map
- Chapter 6: The Core Complaint
- “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.” - Carl Jung
☆ Written Exercise #1: Investigating Your Core Complaint
1. Focus on a problem that’s most pressing in your life right now. It might be an issue with your health, your job, your relationship—any issue that disrupts your sense of safety, peace, security, or well-being.
2. What is the deepest issue you want to heal? Maybe it’s a problem that feels overwhelming to you. Maybe it’s a symptom or a feeling you’ve had all your life.
3. What do you want to see shift?
4. Don’t edit yourself.
5. Write down what feels important to you.
6. Write it down as it comes to you. For example, you may carry a fear of something terrible happening to you in the future. It doesn’t matter what comes out; just keep writing.
7. If nothing comes, answer this one question: If the feeling or symptom or condition you have never goes away, what would you be afraid could happen to you?
8. Don’t continue reading until you’ve written down your most pressing concern.
- Don’t get caught up in the words or feelings. Scan it lightly without feeling the emotions. You’re looking for words or phrases that stand out as unusual or peculiar. What words or phrases do you always say, or perhaps have never said before this writing exercise? What language seems to jump out at you? What language calls out to be noticed?
- Read it out loud to yourself. Try to hear with a new ear that hears without feeling emotions. What words or sentences have an urgent quality to them? What words have a strong emotional resonance or a dramatic feeling? What words have a feeling of strangeness or peculiarity? What words may not fit entirely in the context of your life experience?
- Once key connections are made, and we practice focusing on our healing images and experiences, we lay the groundwork for new neural pathways. Healing can then be surprisingly efficient.
☆ Written Exercise #2: Ten Questions That Generate Core Language
1. What was taking place in your life when your symptom or problem first appeared?
2. What was going on right before it started?
3. What age were you when the symptom or problem first appeared?
4. Did something traumatic happen to someone in your family at a similar age?
5. What exactly happens in the problem?
6. What does it feel like in its worst moments?
7. What happens right before you feel this way or have the symptom?
8. What makes it better or worse?
9. What does the problem or symptom keep you from being able to do? What does it force you to do?
10. If the feeling or symptom were never to go away, what would be the worst thing that could happen to you?
- Chapter 7: Core Descriptors
☆ Take a moment to describe your mother when you were growing up. What was she like? What adjectives or phrases instantly come to mind? Was she warm? Loving? Cold? Distant? Happy? Sad? Did she hug you a lot or rarely hug you? Grab your notebook and write down your first thoughts, the first words that come to mind.
- Written Exercise #3: Describing Your Mother
- My mother was . . .
Also, write down what you blame her for.
I blame my mother for . . .
- Now do the same thing for your father. How would you describe him? Was he kind? Easygoing? Harsh? Critical? Was he involved or not involved? Write everything down. Resist the impulse to edit.
- Written Exercise #4: Describing Your Father
- My father was . . .
Also write down what you blame him for.
I blame my father for . . .
- Written Exercise #5: Describing Your Partner, Close Friend, or Boss
- My partner, close friend, or boss is . . .
I blame him/her for . . .
- When we feel positive toward our parents, we tend to feel positive about life, and trust that good things will continue to come our way.
- Parents, in the course of being parents, inadvertently cause their children pain. It’s inevitable. The problem is not what our parents have done to us; the problem is how we’re still holding on to it. Generally, when our parents caused us harm, it was unintentional. All of us feel that there are things we didn’t get from our parents. But being at peace with our parents means that we are at peace with what we did receive as well as what we did not receive. When we hold what was given in this light, we can gain strength from our parents, who, even if they couldn’t always show it, wanted only the best for us.
- It is essential that we make peace with our parents. Doing so not only brings us inner peace, it also allows for harmony to spread into the generations that follow. By softening toward our parents and dropping the story that stands in the way, we are more likely to halt the senseless repetition of generational suffering.
- Chapter 8: The Core Sentence
- “The very cave you are afraid to enter turns out to be the source of what you are looking for.” - Joseph Campbell
- Fear and anxiety shrink your world and drain your vitality, restricting the day in front of you and limiting the life ahead of you.
- What is your worst fear, the worst thing that could ever happen to you?
- If your life were to fall apart, if things were to go terribly wrong, what’s your worst fear? What’s the worst thing that could happen to you?
- And if that happened, then what? What would be the worst part of that?
- Chapter 9: The Core Trauma
- Excavating the feelings of your greatest fear can lead you to the person in your family system who had cause to feel the same way you do.
- When people suffer deeply, they often attempt to distance themselves from their emotional pain by avoiding it. In this way, they think that they are protecting themselves and protecting their children. Ignoring the pain actually deepens it. What is hidden from sight often increases in intensity. Remaining silent about family pain is rarely an effective strategy for healing it. The suffering will surface again at a later time, often expressing in the fears or symptoms of a later generation.
- Traumatic events include: Who died early? Who left? Who was abandoned or isolated or excluded from the family? Who was adopted or who gave a child up for adoption? Who died in childbirth? Who had a stillbirth or an abortion? Who committed suicide? Who committed a crime? Who experienced a significant trauma? Who was forgotten or suffered in war? Who died in or participated in the Holocaust or some other genocide? Who was murdered? Who murdered someone? Who felt responsible for someone’s death or misfortune?
- Part III: Pathways to Reconnection
- Chapter 10: From Insight to Integration
- “A human being is a part of the whole . . . [though] he experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.” - Albert Einstein
- “I have been isolated and alone just like you. I can see that this doesn’t even belong to me. I know this is not what you want for me. And I know it burdens you to see me suffer like this. From now on, I will live my life connected to the people around me. In this way, I’ll honor you.”
- “Mom, please bless me to be happy with my husband, even when you couldn’t be happy with Dad. To honor you and Dad, I will relish my love with my husband so that both of you can see that things go well for me.”
- “Every time I feel anxious, I will feel you smiling at me, supporting me, blessing me to be well. Whenever I feel my breath moving inside me, I will feel you there with me and know that you are happy for me.”
- “Instead of reliving what happened to you, I promise to live my life fully.”
- “I’ll use what happened as a source of strength.”
- “I will honor the life you gave me by doing something good with it.”
- “I will do something meaningful and dedicate it to you.”
- “I will not leave you out of my heart.”
- “I’ll light a candle for you.”
- “I will honor you by living fully.”
- “I’ll live my life in a loving way.”
- “I will make something good come out of this tragedy.”
- When we can just “be with” the feelings that arise in our bodies without reacting unconsciously, we are more likely to stay grounded when inner unrest begins to surge. Insight is often gained when we are willing to tolerate what’s uncomfortable in the quest to understand ourselves.
- Reconciliation is mostly an internal movement. Our relationship with our parents is not dependent on what they do, how they are, or how they respond. It’s about what we do. The change occurs in us.
- Ultimately, when you can breathe deeply enough to know what you’re feeling in your body, you don’t have to leave it.
- Chapter 11: The Core Language of Separation
- “There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother.” - Sarah Josepha Hale
- When the connection with our mother flows freely, good health, money, success, and love can often seem to flow our way.
- When the early bond with our mother is interrupted, however, a dark cloud of fear, scarcity, and distrust can become our default.
- If our partner begins to act like a parent and attempts to satisfy our unmet needs, romance can fly out the window. If our partner does not satisfy our unmet needs, we can feel betrayed or neglected.
- As children, we need our mother’s emotional and energetic presence as much as we need her physical presence. When our mother experiences a traumatic event—such as the loss of health, a pregnancy, a child, a parent, a partner, or a home—her attention can be pulled away from us. We, in turn, experience the trauma of losing her.
- Chapter 12: The Core Language of Relationships
- “The distance from your pain, your grief, your unattended wounds, is the distance from your partner.” - Stephen Levine
- Unconsciously, we’ll repeat family patterns of neediness, mistrust, anger, withdrawal, shutting down, leaving, or being left, and blame our partner for our unhappiness when the true source lies behind us.
- Many of the problems experienced in a relationship do not originate in the relationship itself. They stem from dynamics that existed in our families long before we were even born.
- Questions
1. The Core Complaint: What is your greatest complaint about your partner?
- What we feel we didn’t get from our mother, what remains unresolved in our relationship with her, often sets the stage for what we experience with our partner.
2. The Core Descriptors: What are some adjectives and phrases you would use to describe your mother and your father?
3. The Core Sentence: What is your worst fear? What’s the worst thing that could ever happen to you?
4. The Core Trauma: What tragic events occurred in your family history?
- When a man rejects his father, he unwittingly distances himself from the source of his masculinity. A man who admires and respects his father is generally at ease in his male strength, and is more likely to emulate his father’s traits. In a relationship, that can translate into ease with commitment, responsibility, and stability. The same is also true for women. A woman who loves and respects her mother is generally at ease in her femininity and is more likely to express what she admires about her mother in her relationship.
- The ancient poet Virgil declared, “Love conquers all.” If only our love is great enough, our relationship, no matter how difficult, will surely succeed. Even the Beatles tell us, “Love is all you need.” Yet, with the myriad unconscious loyalties that operate invisibly under the surface of our lives, it might be more apt to say that love—the unconscious love expressed in families—can “conquer” our ability to sustain a loving relationship with our partner.
- “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.” - Rilke
- Twenty-one Invisible Dynamics That Can Affect Relationships
1. You had a difficult relationship with your mother.
- What’s unfinished with your mother is likely to repeat with your partner.
2. You reject, judge, or blame a parent.
- You might project the complaints you have about that parent onto your partner. You might also attract a partner who embodies qualities similar to those of the rejected parent. When you reject a parent, you might balance this rejection by struggling in your relationships. You might leave your partners or experience being left by them. Your relationships might feel empty, or you might opt to stay alone.
- A close bond with the same-sexed parent appears to strengthen our capacity to commit to a partner.
3. You are merged with the feelings of a parent.
- If one parent feels negatively toward the other, it is possible that you will continue these feelings toward your partner. Feelings of discontent toward a partner can be carried intergenerationally.
4. You experienced an interruption in the early bond with your mother.
- With this dynamic, it is likely that you experience some degree of anxiety when you attempt to bond with a partner in an intimate relationship. Often the anxiety increases as the relationship deepens. Unaware that the anxiety stems from a break in the early bond, you might begin to find fault with your partner or create other conflicts that allow you to distance yourself from the closeness. You might also experience yourself as feeling needy, clingy, jealous, or insecure. Or conversely, you appear independent and don’t ask for much in your relationships. Perhaps you avoid relationships altogether.
5. You took care of a parent’s feelings.
- Ideally, parents give and children receive. But for many children with a sad, depressed, anxious, or insecure parent, the focus can be more about giving comfort than about receiving it. In such a dynamic, the child’s experience of getting his needs met can become secondary, and the experience of having access to his gut feelings can be overshadowed by the habitual impulse to give out care rather than take it in. Later in life, this child might give too much to his partner, straining the relationship. Or the opposite can be true. Feeling overwhelmed or burdened by the needs of his partner, he can become resentful or feel emotionally blocked as the relationship evolves.
6. Your parents were unhappy together.
- If your parents struggled or didn’t do well together, it’s possible that you won’t allow yourself to have more than they had. An unconscious loyalty to your parents may prevent you from being any happier than they were, even if you know that happiness is what they truly want for you. In a family where exuberance is limited, children can feel guilty or uncomfortable when they are happy.
7. Your parents didn’t stay together.
- If your parents didn’t stay together, you might unconsciously leave your relationship as well. This can happen when you reach the same age they were when they separated, when you’ve spent the same amount of time in your relationship, or when your child reaches the same age that you were when your parents separated. Or you’ll stay in your relationship, but live emotionally separated.
8. Your parent or grandparent jilted a former partner.
- If your father or grandfather left a former wife or partner who was led to believe that the relationship would lead to marriage, you, as the daughter or granddaughter, might atone for this by remaining alone like the woman. You could feel “not good enough,” like the woman who was not good enough for your father or grandfather.
9. Your mother’s great love broke her heart.
- You might lose your first love, or carry the lovelorn feelings of your mother, or feel imperfect or not good enough (as she did). You might feel that you are never with the partner you want. As the son, you might energetically try to replace the first love and become like a partner to your mother.
10. Your father’s great love broke his heart.
- You might also lose your first love, or carry the lovelorn feelings of your father, or feel imperfect or not good enough (as he did). You might feel that you are never with the partner you want. As the daughter, you might energetically try to replace the first love and become like a partner to your father.
11. Your parent or grandparent remained alone.
- If one of your parents or grandparents stayed alone after being left, or after the death of his or her spouse, you might stay alone as well. If you are in a relationship, you might create conflict or distance so that you too feel alone. In silent allegiance, you unconsciously find a way to share the loneliness.
12. Your parent or grandparent suffered in marriage.
- If, for example, your grandmother was trapped in a loveless marriage, or your grandfather died, drank, gambled, or left, leaving your grandmother alone to raise the children, you, as the granddaughter, could unconsciously associate these experiences with being married. You might either repeat her experience or resist committing to a partner for fear that the same thing could happen to you.
13. Your parent was disparaged or disrespected by the other parent.
- You, as the child, might recreate that parent’s experience by being disrespected by your partner.
14. Your parent died young.
- If a parent died in your childhood, you might physically or emotionally distance yourself from your partner when you reach the same age as the dead parent, when you’ve spent the same amount of time in your relationship, or when your child reaches the same age that you were when your parent died.
15. One of your parents mistreated the other.
- If your father treated your mother poorly, you, as the son, might mistreat your partner similarly so that your father isn’t “the bad one” alone. As the daughter, you might have a partner who mistreats you or with whom you feel distant. It could be difficult for you to have more happiness than your mother.
16. You hurt a former partner.
- If you hurt a former partner terribly, you might unconsciously attempt to balance this hurt by sabotaging your new relationship. The new partner, unconsciously aware that he or she could receive similar treatment, might even keep a little distance from you.
17. You’ve had too many partners.
- If you have had too many partners, you may have eroded your ability to bond in a relationship. Separations can become easier. Relationships can lose their depth.
18. You had an abortion or gave a child up for adoption.
- In your guilt, remorse, or regret, you might not allow yourself much happiness in a relationship.
19. You were your mother’s confidant.
- As a boy, you attempted to satisfy your mother’s unmet needs and supply her with what she felt she couldn’t get from your father. Later on, you might experience difficulty committing to a woman. You might shut down emotionally or physically, fearing that your partner, like your mother, will want or need too much from you. A boy who was his mother’s confidant often creates quick relationships with women. He can even become a womanizer, leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake. The remedy is a closer bond with his father.
20. You were your father’s favorite.
- A girl who is closer to her father than to her mother often feels dissatisfied with the partners she selects. The root of the problem is not the partner; it’s the distance she feels toward her mother. A woman’s relationship with her mother can be an indicator of how fulfilling the relationship will be with her partner.
21. Someone in the family didn’t marry.
- You could be identified with a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or older sibling who never married. Perhaps this person was looked down upon, ridiculed, or perceived as having less than the other family members. Unconsciously aligned, you might also not marry.
- Chapter 13: The Core Language of Success
- Regardless of the story we tell about our parents, how good or bad they were, how hurt we feel by what they did or didn’t do, when we reject them, we can limit our opportunities.
- Regardless of the story we tell about our parents, how good or bad they were, how hurt we feel by what they did or didn’t do, when we reject them, we can limit our opportunities.
- The effects of rejecting a father can be equally limiting. A man, for instance, who rejects his father can experience himself as uncomfortable or self-conscious in the company of other men. He can even find himself hesitant or reluctant to embrace the responsibilities associated with being a father—regardless of whether or not his father was the family provider or the family failure.
- When we distance ourselves from them, we tend to become more like them and often lead lives similar to theirs.
- Chapter 14: Core Language Medicine
- “If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.” - Thich Nhat Hanh
- These are not my feelings. I have merely inherited them from my family.
#UseTwos ✌️