The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love

But by hiding your hurt, pain, fears, and insecurity from others, you exist in the world inauthentically.

But just as necessary as your need for attachment is your need for authenticity. To be authentic is to be free to be and to feel; it’s to be fully revealed to yourself and to those you let into your intimate space. Authenticity is at the core of our existence. Without it, an internal death takes place.

But if you can’t look at your origin stories, if you can’t look at your pain and trauma, if you get caught making what you experienced smaller or bigger than what it is, if you get stuck idealizing it, or if you get stuck intellectualizing it away, you run the very high risk of being a bystander in your own life.

As family therapist and author Terry Real says, “Family dysfunction rolls down from generation to generation, like a fire in the woods, taking down everything in its path until one person in one generation has the courage to turn and face the flames. That person brings peace to their ancestors and spares the children that follow.” Will you face the

Here it goes: There is likely much more going on under the surface than the issue you first come into a therapist’s office to discuss. If you’re going to make long-lasting, integrated change, you must understand what’s under the hood.

Your life isn’t out to get you. It’s out to be healed. Your wounds don’t want to harm you; they’re tugging at you because you deserve relief. The journey of reclaiming yourself and taking charge of your own life is a long one, an ongoing process.