Not all families are ready for family meetings. Family meetings work when a family is ready to problem-solve together. If this is not the case, then family therapy is the best place to start to lead to more self-directed collaboration. …
Tag: healing journey
Family Discussion Barriers
At the first sign of disagreement, uncomfortable issues or emotions, does your family ‘shut down’? Shutting down is often done to protect the individuals and the family system and is often done because the members simply don’t have the skills …
Journaling Prompts for Family Insights
Taking time to understand your family is part of the healing process. As we get to know our parents, for most of us, there are parts that we love and respect and parts that drive us crazy. If you have …
Self-Care as a Cycle Breaker
A cycle breaker in a family is someone who consciously chooses to develop different ways of communicating, interacting, living and thinking to their family of origin. This can start at a very young age, knowing early that you just think …
Do you have a Calling as a Cycle Breaker?
To be a cycle breaker there has to be a certain kind of waking up to the dysfunctional family patterns. This usually happens over a period of time, but it can also happen overnight, leaving you feeling completely disoriented and …
Suggestions for Cycle Breakers Who Feel Shamed
As a cycle breaker, it is important to understand that most of the resistance to you being different and wanting to break away from the family is based in FEAR. The underlying habit for many family systems is to shame …
Feeling Shamed as a Family Cycle Breaker
There are often comments which, when boiled down, ask “why can’t you just be more like us?” When cycle breakers emerge, the resistance is usually overt AND covert. Overt in the things that are said to you, and covert in …
A ‘Cycle Breaker’ is Someone Who …
Who are the CYCLE BREAKERS out there? Generational patterns repeat throughout a family because people tend to parent how they were parented. Being the ‘cycle breaker’ in a family is not an easy role, and it is often not chosen …
Understanding Your Partner’s Love Language
If your partner received little quality time as children, this will be even more triggering for them. It can re-awaken deep feelings of being unloved and uncared for. You might find that their reaction is bigger than you would expect …
Contrasting Love Languages
Acts of service was not a love language I grew up with, so I find when people do things for me, I am grateful, but it doesn’t make me feel loved. It is just not a way I communicate love. …