Yet I am suggesting that by becoming curious about how you’re showing up with others now as an adult that is allowing, and even encouraging, the pattern to continue, you just might access the power you need to finally outgrow it.

Also make one or more plans that create possibilities for you to meet new people

It means discovering how to be completely responsible for your own feelings and needs by understanding the lens through which you are interpreting, then responding to whatever’s happening between yourself and others.

Happiness and true freedom come only when we assume full responsibility for who and what we are.

George Bernard Shaw once said that our “…worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them.”

someone who has good boundaries, who speaks up, who asks the right questions, who engages conflict directly, and who holds their own. As a person who listens to and honors their own intuitive knowing, who makes wise choices, who is less defensive, and more discerning of character. Who adequately protects themselves, who listens deeply, and who can

Susan Forward, author of the wonderful book Emotional Blackmail, talks about the “blinding FOG”—Fear, Obligation, and Guilt that characterizes most “toxic tie” relationships. Unbridled fears that we are unworthy, that we will never truly be loved, or that we will be abandoned by someone we desperately need, top the list of anxieties that can entice

one who is actively pursuing the qualities of character that constitute a life of goodness and love.

The single most important thing you can do to break free of your old painful patterns, and begin living your version of happily ever after, is to ferociously challenge these narratives.