Written by “The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Sometimes our relationships have to get worse before they can get better. Sometimes, in fact, pain in a relationship may mean that we’re doing something right – perhaps for the first time. Many adult children grow up with some abnormal habits and [...]
READ MORE »How to Live
“I learned how to survive, but not how to live.” ~ Gilly A. We adult children spent much of our childhood learning how to get by. Many of us didn’t learn to play as other children play or to observe and describe reality as other children do. We didn’t learn to laugh at happy things [...]
READ MORE »Happiness
“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” ~ Anges Replier There is a curious phenomenon found among many adult children called switching addictions. It may not truly be addictions one is talking about but the dynamics are similar: we become obsessively involved in one [...]
READ MORE »Ignorance…Pain…Truth
“The problem’s not that the truth is harsh but that liberation from ignorance is as painful as being born. Run after truth until your’re breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, a hard one interspersed with drunken moments. ~ Naguib Mahfouz, “Palace of Desire” God [...]
READ MORE »Caretaking
“God help the poor “baby” in a relationship with a nonrecovering caretaker.” ~ Marge T. When we grow up learning we are “good” to the extent that we take care of other people, we go right on believing that everybody’s happiness and success is up to us. We become so responsible that being responsible is [...]
READ MORE »Confusion
“Work and thou wilt bless the day, Ere the toil be done; They that work not, cannot pray, Cannot feel the sun.” ~ John Sullivan Dwight Confusion is often a cop-out. Usually we know very well what needs to be done about our lives and we even know how to do it. As they say, [...]
READ MORE »a moment of truth … a time of decision
“Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide … And the choice goes by forever ‘twixt that darkness and that light.” ~ James Russell Lowell At conventions of recovering adult children, hundreds of healing, growing people come together to celebrate, share their experiences, and renew each other’s strength. Behind every marvelous tale [...]
READ MORE »Change is My Responsibility
“The price of greatness is responsibility.” ~ Winston Churchill Maybe a relative will leave us a lot of money. Maybe someone will have done the ironing by the time we get home from work. Maybe we’ll suddenly decide that we don’t like chocolate anymore. Maybe. Wonderful things do happen by accident once in a while [...]
READ MORE »God moves…
“When I am on the move my God is with me.” ~ Ross B. God is much more a verb than a noun. Verbs are action words. They name an energy, a movement, a happening. Nouns are solid and static, they don’t move. God is more a force than a monument. To think of God [...]
READ MORE »Enabling others
“Enablers are the worst enemies of they very people they love the most.” ~ Carrie R. Enablers are those of us who take the responsibility to protect other people from pain. If someone near us feels down or unhappy, we believe it is our job to make them feel better. Despite our good intentions, our enabling [...]
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