This blog is written in conjunction with Dr. Les Aria, who is an experienced pain psychologist working in Northern California. He brings a wide range of approaches into successfully treating and solving chronic mental and physical pain.

Being triggered and stressed is so common during the holidays that it is somewhat normalized. Yet hope springs eternal and we keep gravitating back to the same historically chaotic situations. Why do some levels of crises keep happening at Holiday family gatherings? This article is written with all due respect to those of you who are socially isolated, which is devastating and magnified during the Holiday season.

There are many ways to enjoy your family and close friends during this time of year regardless of their behaviors and your stresses. It is supposed to be a season of peace and joy. Understanding the nature of the problem allows solutions.

We acknowledge the many additional stresses around the holidays that have been discussed in many venues and numerous excellent suggestions have been made. However, once you have navigated the obstacles to actually being with your friends or family, it would be reasonable to expect to relax and enjoy them.

Defining a trigger

The basic problem arises from people in close relationships triggering each other. What does being “triggered” mean? We survive by learning from prior experiences what is safe or threatening. This includes your emotional states and consciousness, which are processed in a similar manner as physical threats. Many, if not most, of these mental threats are perceived and are based on cognitive distortions. It is the reason many of us have a baseline state of being “fired up.”

So, anytime you feel anxious or angry, something in the present has been connected to a situation in the past that was perceived as threatening or was dangerous. Your adult brain will still process it in the same manner. You have been triggered. The problem arises from the fact that you are now in the past and not the present. You have lost awareness of the present moment, which is at the core of functional human relationships.

As your earliest and most powerful programming happens with your immediate family, they are the strongest and most consistent triggers. Close relationships are not far behind. The deeper problem is that when you are in this state of threat physiology, the activity of your brain shifts from the neocortex (thinking centers) of your brain to the lower regions (survival) of your brain and you cannot think clearly. It is not possible. So, then your behaviors or those of others may be less than ideal. What can you do? Here are some suggestions.

Dealing with triggers

The first and necessary step is to understand the problem and there are many resources that will help you understand the nature of chronic mental and physical pain. The essence of chronic disease is sustained exposure to your body’s threat chemistry or in other words, being constantly triggered. Here are a few practical suggestions.

Triggers are a whole-body response to a real or perceived threat. Here are 3 behavioral/ physical cues to help you identify that you are being triggered before becoming fully activated by past family triggers.

1. Mood Shifts: Notice when you experience a mood shift. Do not suppress those emotions. Burying emotions alive will lead you to step on them at some point during the holidays–KABOOM!
2. Tension Shifts: Notice when you experience sudden muscle tension in your body. Check your shoulders right now! Left = Anxiety and Right = Anger/suppression of emotions/complaining all day long!
3. Breath Shifts: Notice how often you hold your breath when around certain family members. You know who they are! Are you holding your breath? Are you breathing shallowly? Are you breathing rapidly?

What are the triggers when you are around your family?

1. Criticism is one of the most common triggers.
2. Financial worries from food to travel plans.
3. Feeling pressured to be happy or positive

These are just a few of many triggers–know yours.

*Note: Your physiological states determine your psychological states; vice-versa.

 If you are already feeling stressed or wired, be careful. Your nervous system is “trigger happy” and you’ll not only ruin your experience but create chaos for others.

Practical tips to process triggers

1. Manage expectations. Holidays have a way of making wanting to feel like what Hollywood puts out – this amazing, beautiful scene where we all get along. Not everyone experiences such stuff. Dashed hopes make things worse. Once you understand how to remain calm during any level of chaos, no one can take away your capacity to enjoy yourself.
2. Utilize your Mindbody practices. They are learned skills and include breathwork, meditation, exercising, expressive writing, restful sleep, humming, relaxing music, and mindfulness. Each person has their own set of tools that works best for them. If you haven’t learned to regulate your stress response, please make the effort to do so. They eventually become automatic with practice, and the Holidays are a great opportunity to practice.
3. Avoid all negative conversation–period. No complaining, gossiping, criticism, giving unasked for advice, or discussing your pain or medical care. This is something that is basic to healing and you’ll do the rest of your life. Consider how much time you are spending in this type of activity.
4. “5–3–2” is a strategy to create some “space” in your brain before you take any actions. The numbers represent the words describing each step.
   1. No action in a reaction
   2. Flip the switch
   3. Move on

The details are discussed in this article.

 5. Take time for yourself. This is something we practice and preach about. Set time aside from everyone. Go for a walk before the hoopla starts if you are staying over with your family. Break away from the family during the day or when you need some space to “come back online.”

Summary

Keep your perspective! Remember that you always have choices–once your brain is back “online.” Keep focused on who or what is important to you. How do you wish to show up for the holidays?  Practicing the skills we discussed, especially noticing when you are triggered and doing something about it will help you keep your love, peace, and joy during the holidays.

As always –be kind to yourself. Let the Holidays begin!

The post No One Can Take Away Your Holiday Joy – But You first appeared on Back in Control.

The post No One Can Take Away Your Holiday Joy – But You appeared first on Back in Control.

For some, the holidays are synonymous with a strong sense of familial closeness and love. However, this is not the case with many family gatherings, where relatives trigger each other, and chaos quickly ensues. If this describes your experience with the holidays, then this article is for you.

I’ll never forget one Christmas break during my second year in medical school. I hadn’t been home for two years because of study and work demands. I was excited to see my family. Within five minutes, my mother launched into a fight that had started two years earlier. She picked it up almost to the sentence. I was both dumbfounded and upset. This wasn’t part of my vacation plans.

This isn’t an uncommon occurrence.  You’ve waited all year to be with those who you love, and people aren’t getting along. It goes both ways in that loneliness is also magnified. The medical wards are usually full because many patients have increased problems around drugs and alcohol. It doesn’t make sense, except it does if you understand the mismatch between the conscious and unconscious brain and the nature of triggers. So what happens?  Happy holidays – not

Triggers

Any time you are anxious or angry, you’ve been triggered. Your nervous system has connected a current situation to a similar unpleasant past event. It doesn’t matter if the present or prior event represented a true threat. It just has to be perceived that way and the body will secrete stress hormones in its effort to resolve the problem. The sensation created by these chemicals is anxiety. Anxiety is the result of the reaction, not the cause. When you can’t solve the issue, more hormones are secreted, and you’ll become angry.

The reason why family dynamics can be so volatile, is that most of your reactions are programmed by your parents during the first 12 years of life, especially the first two. It matters little what your parents teach or preach; it’s their behaviors and attitudes that become embedded in your nervous system. If you have come from an abusive family, your reactions to the present will be intense, although the present “danger” might be minimal. It is well-documented in the ACE (adverse childhood experiences) studies that the incidence of chronic pain, anxiety, depression, obesity, heart disease and suicide are higher than the norm. You needed to be hypervigilant as a child and it doesn’t change as you age. You are and will continue to be hyper-reactive out of proportion to the circumstance. All of this is exacerbated in families dealing with chronic pain.

During the Holidays, you are around the sources of your triggers from your parents, siblings, children and other relatives. No wonder they can be problematic. Landmines are everywhere.

How did this happen? I watch parents with babies and young children laugh, hold and play with them. It’s a precious time and they would do anything for them. Yet by five or six years-old, there is often a lot of arguing and fighting between parents and children. Suffering from chronic pain doesn’t help. I don’t have to detail what frequently happens during the teen years. The household can be a battlefield — a war without any hope of an end. I don’t how common this scenario is, but I am seeing it frequently in my practice. I only need to ask a few questions and be observant. Many family situations are intolerable.

Learned behaviors

The problem is that we program our own triggers into our offspring. They watch their parents become upset with them or each other and they learn their own behaviors in response to similar stressors. Then they become the cause of deep reactions in their parents. Why else would you yell at this person who used to be this incredibly wonderful child you brought into this world? But you are the adult and you are now in the same boxing ring as your 12-year-old. It’s your role and responsibility to provide a safe environment where your family can feel safe and nurtured. Only then can your child connect with his or her creativity and thrive.

You also may be critical of them. Really?? Anytime you are critical of someone, you have projected your view of you onto them. Remember that you are the one who taught them these behaviors that are now upsetting to you. It is remarkable the number of friends we have whose parents continue to be incredibly critical of them well into adulthood. The negativity is often intense and occurs in the face of the son or daughter doing the best they can to help and be supportive. The intensity of the verbal barrage is unbelievable to me and seems to worsen with age.

So, you have planted your own landmines. Would you yell at a stranger with the same intensity that you talk to your child or spouse? How do you think you appear to them when you are upset? Is that what you want your children to see?

Now it’s the Christmas season, and these deep triggers are coming back into your world. You have missed your family and want to be with them. What are you going to do? How are you going to handle being triggered, because it is inevitable you will be set off at some level. The two faces of Christmas

Here are a few suggestions, most of which I have learned the hard way.

• Remember the problem with the strong familial triggers and concentrate on enjoying your family. Play may be challenging, but it’s also the reason you want to be with them.
• Don’t give any unasked-for advice. They have survived the year without you and have you ever heard of a child listening to a parent’s criticism at any age?
• Remember that when you are volunteering advice, you are really saying, “You aren’t good enough the way you are.” That is probably what your parents did to you when you were young. It’s also why most of us have the “not good enough” voice in our heads.
• Visualize yourself being angry and what your family is seeing when you’re in that state. Be the person you want others to be.
• If you get upset, quickly leave the room. Nothing is ever solved in a heated argument.
• Be curious and genuinely interested in what your family is up to.
• Don’t discuss your pain, medical care, politics, religion, or complain – about anything. After all, it is the season of joy regardless of your belief system.
• Read Parent Effectiveness Training by Dr. Thomas Gordon. It is a classic and the most influential book that I have ever read on any topic.

I want to re-emphasize the powerful irrational nature of being triggered. It is only you and not them that is responsible for your anger. (I well-know that it still feels like it is him or her that upset you). Own it. It is yours.

You’re the one who created the behavior in your child that is now upsetting you. Own that too! Remember how excited you were when they came into the world. Remember the good times and don’t spend time on past differences. Why? It’s done.

A Cigna insurance study in 2018 demonstrated about 40% of Americans feel socially isolated.(1) During my pain experience, loneliness might have been the one most crushing aspect of my ordeal. It was brutal. Connect with gratitude and remember how lucky you are to have friends and family. If you are someone reading this who is socially isolated, work on finding a way to re-connect with someone or give back. I am aware how terrible a feeling this is, and I’m really sorry. The Holidays do make it worse. But by being aware of the impact, you have a higher chance of dealing with it.

Make a commitment to enjoy your holiday season and if you detonate a landmine, use the situation as an opportunity to practice your own tools of staying connected and centered. Become the source of Holiday cheer!

1. Cigna U.S Loneliness Index (2018).

The post Holiday Landmines – Your Family first appeared on Back in Control.

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I have also witnessed several families re-uniting. Here is one of these stories.

Needed Surgery

Bill was a middle-aged executive who has experienced many stress-related physical symptoms. He had a structural low back problem that required a multiple-level decompression. He had severe pain in both of his legs that completely resolved with the operation.

He initially was not open to any of the ideas of the DOC project, but his pathology was so severe that I proceeded relatively quickly instead of having him go through the rehab prior to surgery (prehab). About a year later all of his pre-op symptoms recurred. I offered him a three level fusion to relieve his leg pain, but I was also suspicious he had triggered his old pain circuits. Although he was initially resistant to the rehab concepts, the magnitude of the recommended operation cause him to reconsider and he felt he had nothing to lose. Surgery was still on the table because his bone spurs were quite impressive.

WHEN A PRIOR PAIN CIRCUITS ARE TRIGGERED YOU CANNOT TELL THEM APART FROM THEM BEING CREATED BY A STRUCTURAL PROBLEM. THE PAIN IS IN EXACTLY THE SAME LOCATION AND HAS THE SAME INTENSITY – OR WORSE.

Within two weeks his pain abated and by six weeks it disappeared. What had fired up his nervous system and pain were problems at work, as well as serious issues with his marriage. A few months later his wife left him. Although he accepted his responsibility for her needing to leave he had a difficult time dealing with it. However, his pain didn’t return and he was becoming more proficient at using his tools to keep his nervous system calmed down. For me, this was all surprising because I had assumed that we would still be performing a surgical procedure.

Waking Up – his wife returned

Over the next couple of years he worked with a pain psychologist, psychiatrist, and with the DOC concepts. I saw him about every 4-6 weeks. Not only did his pain continue to remain minimal, his entire personality transformed from being obsessive and controlling to extremely warm and engaging. (Of course, it was always there) He came off all of his psych meds. One day he came to the office and he was beaming. His wife was coming back. This was the second couple I had seen re-united over a short period of time.

His letter

Dear Dr. Hanscom,

Fantastic to see you. During our meeting today, Sarah e-mailed me her travel plans. She leaves Wisconsin Monday, driving the car I bought her before we wed. Nevertheless, my outlook is “open hands”. (David Burn’s concept) I can be and am happy (enough) on my own with or without Sarah. Or with or without any romantic partner, I stand on my own.

I checked the DOC site for the printed version of Back In Control and I just bought it. As a DOC project participant, I want to share some of my experience.

I’ve nearly eliminated my physical pain and my residual “background” pain from psoriatic arthritis NO LONGER HURTS. This pain no longer gets to my emotions, UNLIKE the princess in The Princess and the Pea. But I still feel exquisitely vulnerable to emotional pain. To me, emotional pain really hurts badly. There’s just no other way to describe it.

But I have made progress. And just as in life my progress is NOT a straight line. I’ve had setbacks followed by advances then a stumble – just like real life. Here is what I credit, first and foremost.

First, without a doubt: Writing and throwing away the paper IMMEDIATELY afterwards. I regard throwing away the paper as equally important as purging the bladder & bowel. Writing and throwing away the paper MUST BE done to avoid systemic toxicity (My analogy is that it is similar to brushing your teeth).

Second: Physical exercise. Three times a week minimum of vigorous “break-a-heavy-sweat” exercise. It also MUST BE done to avoid systemic toxicity.

Third: I read. (For the record, the very first book that I read was: Back in Control.  Were it not for Back In Control by David Hanscom I wouldn’t have been nearly as motivated to read all these other books:

• The Pain Chronicles – Melanie Thernstrom
• Forgive for Good – Fred Luskin, PhD
• The Talent Code – Dan Coyle
• The Traveler’s Gift – Andy Andrews
• Epictetus and The Art of Living – Sharon LeBell
• Full Catastrophic Living – John Kabat-Zinn
• Journey into Love – Kani Comstock
• Demystifying Love – Stephen Levine
• Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
• Awareness – Anthony De Mello
• Thanks – Robert Emmons
• Feeling Good Together – David Burns, MD

Needless to say, I hadn’t read a single one of these books before embarking on the concepts presented in The DOC Journey.

Lastly I’ve got a personal recommendation –  cry. Not like an actor on TV, I mean really cry. And cry hard. You will feel better. It might take 3 hours or 3 days, but you WILL feel better. Show me a man with no cry in him and I’ll show you a severe case of deadly fired up nervous system and denial!

Best Regards,

Bill

P.S.

One item:  The “think positive” myth:

I know it’s just bull but I can clearly describe why…it’s about phonyness… or trying to pretend something bad is actually good? I mean this section on DOC delves into the fallacy of positive thinking:

• “Positive thinking is another way of suppressing negative thinking. This is a tricky concept in that by committing to a process of true forgiveness the results are very positive. You first have to go through the steps (allowing yourself to feel pain) to achieve the positive result.”

Can I convince my dad to stop saying, “think positive son!?” Maybe I’ll let him say his thing and ignore it. I once tried to articulate this point to my dad, but I couldn’t clearly describe the fallacy of the “power of positive thinking”.

My perspective on Bill’s journey

There are numerous points I could emphasize about his transformation, as it has completely enveloped him. I would like to touch on a few.

1 – Do you need your pain?

The first point is that he clearly expressed what I have observed for a long time: Humans consciously and unconsciously will do whatever it takes to avoid emotional pain. That includes experiencing physical pain, even if it is self-inflicted. I feel this is one of major reasons that patients won’t engage in that you have to learn to feel pain in order to move through it.

2 – Anyone can get better

The second is that with persistent engagement in the healing principles most people improve. It’s a matter of time and commitment. He was in as bad a mental and physical state as anyone I have worked with. Now he is pain free and thriving.

3 – The absolute block – Obsessive thought patterns

The third is that one of the core symptoms of NPD is obsessive thought patterns. This is a huge problem in that it also the symptom that blocks treatment. The one variable that predicts success is openness to engagement. In chronic pain, you’re legitimately angry and your mind is going a thousand miles an hour. It interferes with rational thinking. Some of the more common thoughts I hear are:

• “I’m feeling the pain right here. It’s not imaginary.”
• “The doctor is missing something. There has to be a reason for my pain.”
• “I’ve tried everything you’ve suggested, and it hasn’t worked. Why should I try this?”
• “I’m not angry!”

“You don’t believe me”

Then when I tell them that their spine has degeneration that is normal for their age and surgery isn’t indicated, they will often explode with anger. As I am not offering them an operation or a procedure I must not really believe that they are experiencing severe pain. I do believe them, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to convince them to at least learn about the nature of chronic pain. I feel badly, but I have to let go quickly and hope they’ll circle back around again.

It took Bill over a year to be open and a few months to really immerse himself in NPD principles. I don’t know why he decided to engage, and I don’t think he does either. I do know that he is one of many examples that keeps me fired up about moving forward with this project.

The post A Couple Re-united first appeared on Back in Control.

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Chronic pain takes a terrible toll on families. People in pain often have forgotten what it’s like to have fun. They tend to become socially isolated and withdrawn, even within their own home. Much of the conversation centers around pain and medical care. It becomes tedious and frustrating because there is little that can be done to solve the problem. Additionally, it’s common for patients to lash out with their family being the closest target. A term used to describe the anger associated being trapped by pain is “rage”. (1)

Trapped

But now the whole family is also trapped. The scenarios become apparent quickly within the first couple of visits. So, I ask them a simple question, “Do you like your family?” The answer is always, “Of course!” The essence of the problem is that anger has become so normalized within the household that they can’t see effects of their pain on those around them. The core of human relationships is being aware of other’s needs from their perspective. The essence of abuse is lack of awareness and anger obliterates it.

Then I ask, “If your family is so important to you, why would you allow yourself to get so upset with them? Would you yell at a stranger the way you talk to your family?” Of course not. “Then why would you treat your family, who you deeply care about, better than someone you have no connection to?” Protect your family from your pain

Homework

After a brief conversation, I assign some homework. I want them to individually ask each family member what it’s like for him or her when they are exposed to their anger. Then I ask them to consider, “How do you look when you’re angry?”  Why would you want them to see you in that state?” Anger isn’t attractive and you’re no exception.

How do you want your family to feel when they hear your footsteps approaching the front door? Are they excited or are they dreading it? Are they on hold until they see what mood you’re in? What do you want them to feel? Do you enjoy playing with your family? How often to you do it? Can you really play if you aren’t in a good mood? Is your family a haven of safety and joy?

Who’s the adult?

I was taken aback a few years ago while talking to a large muscular patient. It was slightly intimidating just being in the room with him. He was a high-level businessman who had suffered from chronic neck pain for years. I asked him if he ever got upset? He initially said he didn’t and then admitted he did occasionally. That turned out to be a daily occurrence and happened multiple times a day. I asked him, “Who’s the target of your anger?” He replied, “My daughter.” I asked him how old she was, and he said, “Ten.”

I was startled because the focus of anger tends to be the partner. I asked him who was the adult in this scenario, and how do you think she might feel being the focus of his rage. He hadn’t considered that angle, but he couldn’t let go of how much she was upsetting him.

Awareness

The second part of the homework is that I want him or her to practice awareness beginning when they walk out my office door. The assignment is that they are not to give any advice to their partner or children until the next visit. None, unless specifically asked. I also ask them to consider some of following.  “How often do you give unasked-for-advice? Do you realize that you’re actually telling them that they aren’t good enough the way they are? Are you overtly critical? Do you enjoy or appreciate being criticized? How would you react? How do you expect them to react?”

Triggers

It appears that the family is one of the greatest factors in propagating pain and anxiety. One of the most perverse parts of the human condition is that the species that survived did so because they learned to cooperate with other humans. The need for human connection is deep and the deeper the better – except that the triggers that set you off are stronger. So potentially the most safe and secure place in your home is often the most dangerous.

You don’t feel safe because your body has betrayed you and you’re being constantly assaulted by pain. Then it plays out in your home and no one feels safe. Is this what you had in mind when you got together with your partner and were excited about building a future together? What happened? What can you do? You have choices and the first step is becoming aware of the depth of the problem. Healing begins at home

Even if you think your family environment isn’t a problem, I would challenge you to still ask your family the above-mentioned questions. These issues are universal, and you’ll be surprised and sobered at the answers. The good news is that with becoming more aware, the family environment can quickly improve. We were excited by speed and depth of the changes. The whole family feels hope.

This is an essay sent to me by one of my patients on Mother’s Day

Here are a couple of books that I have frequented recommended regarding parenting and improving your relationship with your partner. They have both had a significant and humbling impact on my interactions with my family. Looking back on my experience with pain, it is incredibly frustrating to see how my endless quest to find a cure for my pain interfered with my relationships both in and out of the home.

• Gordon, Thomas. Parent Effectiveness Training. Three Rivers Press, NY, NY, 1970, 1975, 2000.
• Burns, David. Feeling Good Together. Broadway Books, NY, NY, 2008.

“The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words.”

~Rachel Naomi Remen

References

1. Sarno, John. Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection. Warner Books, NY, NY, 1991.

Listen to the Back in Control Radio podcast Do You Like Your Family – Listen

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The initial download to your brain

There are many theories about how an infant and child acquire knowledge.  My thoughts are that your brain is an empty slate that is downloaded from the environment. During your first couple of years of life, you have no say in what is put into your nervous system. Around the time your consciousness emerges around three years of age, you have little awareness or skills to deal with the automatic responses to your environment. The term I learned from the Hoffman Process was “patterns.”  Anytime you are anxious or upset you are in a pattern because something in the present connected to something upsetting from the past. Until you become aware of your patterns programmed in by your family, you are at the mercy of them

These patterns play out as you move out into the world. You either adopt a given pattern or you reject it. The problem is that either way you are a reflection of your parent’s patterns and they are not you. You are not living connected to who you are – “your authentic self.”

Passing on of patterns

If one or both of your parents are disabled you might rebel and become a super-achiever or become disabled yourself. Either way you are not running the show. Your family patterns are. Of course your parents had similar experiences with their parents and so on. Until you become aware of the impact of your family’s programming on your nervous system you cannot live your life on your terms.

Did you graduate from high school with your dream to become disabled??

I am aware that the vast majority of people on disability hate being on it. You are under the control of a person (claims examiner) or system that is depersonalized and unresponsive. In addition to the frustration of being in pain you have also lost control of your life. However, the deep, familiar family patterning of being disabled may be an even stronger force.

Breaking Loose?

Additionally, if you decide to break loose (and it is doable), often some or all of your family will not let you. I used to think that family members would be ecstatic to watch a sibling or offspring become pain free. Many of them are, but many are not. First of all, you are challenging their paradigm of who you are. This is particularly true if you are dependent on that sibling or parent. You are challenging their role as a “caretaker”.  Second, as you get better it calls them out. You are doing and have done it – getting better. What about them? Why are they not pursuing the same path?

Triggers

Another huge problem is that your family is the deepest source of your “negative “triggers”. It was in this environment that your negative patterns were created and it is not possible to be around your family without these being set off on a regular basis. The eventual goal of the somatic work with the DOC project is to “de-engergize” them, but initially you often need to put distance between you and your family. Eventually you will be able to enjoy your family at a much deeper level.

The holidays

I was reminded of this problem in a very profound manner a couple of years ago. I had worked with a severely disabled gentleman who had a marked decrease in pain and improvement in his quality of life as he worked with the DOC project. Every holiday was a disaster as his family overtly reminded him that he was “not normal” nor ever would be. Finally about a year ago he caved in and descended back into his familiar anger patterns. His life is now more miserable than ever.

The crab bucket

I ran across a metaphor I am sharing with you from Wikipedia. Crab fishermen never need to put a lid on the bucket of crabs they have trapped. As soon as one tries to escape several other crabs will grab onto it and pull it back into the bucket.

Why be successful?

There have been multiple surveys showing that if a given person is successful that few others are truly happy for their victories. They become jealous and backbiting. How often are you excited by another person’s success, especially if they are a close friend? Why do we instinctively jump to the thought, “Why not me?” From elementary school on, being different or unique, either in a positive or negative way, is grounds for being bullied. Wouldn’t it be much more enjoyable and interesting to celebrate differences?

Breaking loose from your family and its patterns is one of the biggest obstacles on your road to a fulfilling and pain free life. What is your role in preventing others close to you from being successful?

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