Lpc Quotes

Making amends is not only saying the words but also being willing to listen to how your behavior caused another’s pain, and then the really hard part…changing behavior.

The more judgmental a person is the sadder they are.

Reality may not be what you want it to be, but it is the reality you now must face. You can deny this reality and try to wish it away, or you can accept it and not waste any energy on wanting it to be different.

Families living in dysfunction seldom have healthy boundaries. Dysfunctional families have trouble knowing where they stop and others begin.

Controlling others is the cornerstone of dysfunctional families.

Boundaries represent awareness, knowing what the limits are and then respecting those limits.

Our parents were our first gods. If parents are loving, nurturing, and kind, this becomes the child’s definition of the creator. If parents were controlling, angry, and manipulative, then this becomes their definition.

Consider letting go of the barriers between yourself and others, let go of the definition our culture has inflicted upon us and allow the best part of ourselves to connect with the wondrous parts of others. Allow yourself to connect in a deeper and more profound way.

When I learned about the gray existing between the black and white of absolute terms, I began to experience more peace. The more I expanded my gray areas (more than 50 shades), the more peace I experienced in my life.

Since children from dysfunctional families are so good at judging others, they also judge themselves finding themselves unacceptable when compared to others, always assuming they are second best, not enough. This is a painful realization so often they hide behind righteous arrogance.

Children have empty erasable white boards upon which big people write indelibly imprinted messages into their tender subconscious minds.

Teaching a boy to be a man is the primary job of a father.

The key problem I encounter working with wounded, depressed, and unhappy people is a lack of connection…starting from a disconnection from themselves and then with others. This is why love often becomes so distorted and destructive. When people experience a disconnection from themselves, they feel it but do not realize the problem.

The truth is, we tend to train people how we want to be treated. If others know you have wishy-washy boundaries then they are free to walk all over you; the results…you become a doormat. We have actually trained others to do this when we will allow people to wipe their muddy feet on us. After all, we are doormats.

Black and white thinking limits understanding and feedback, two necessary ingredients for successful resolution in creative conflict and successful understanding.

When a boy feels as if no one cares about him, or as if he will never amount to anything, he truly believes it doesn’t matter what he does.

There’s a wound most troubled boys share, which, at its core, comes from the feeling that they don’t have their father’s unconditional love.

Shame is a powerful feeling. There is a tremendous difference between making a mistake and believing you are a mistake...If I don’t see myself as being a mistake then it is I who must take responsibility and I am not ready to accept that.

It is very difficult to develop a proper sense of self-esteem in a dysfunctional family. Having very little self-worth, looking at one’s own character defects becomes so overwhelming there is no room for inward focus. People so afflicted think: “I need to keep you from knowing me. I have already rejected me, but if you knew how flawed I am, you would also reject me…and since this is all I have, I could not stand any more rejection. I am not worthy of someone understanding me so you will not get the chance...so I must judge, reject, attack, and/or find fault with you. I don’t accept me so how can I accept you?

Being judgmental is a form of attack keeping others off balance.

You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving.

It is one thing to know about your dysfunctional habits but quite another to change them.

People who use snark attacks confuse cleverness with cruelty.

The more dysfunctional, the more some family members seek to control the behavior of others.

The more severe the dysfunction you experienced growing up, the more difficult boundaries are for you.

No one escapes some degree of chaos for it is so ever prevalent; it is the human experience. This realization does not mean we can’t improve. It does mean we can accept our state of chaos, lighten up on ourselves, have fun, and work on improving…we are a work in progress. Enjoy the journey.

The greater the pain associated with love, the more likely a person is to be attracted to others who will inflict this pain…for isn’t this what love is? Hurt people tend to hurt other people.

People-pleasers feel they must constantly be performing acts of service to others to gain acceptance. That requires a lot of work, effort, and energy. From the book: Removing Your Shame Label.

Wounded parents often unintentionally inflict pain and suffering on their children and these childhood wounds causes a laundry list of maladaptive behaviors commonly called codependency. These habits restrict people to love-limiting relationships causing much unhappiness and distress.

Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners.

Remember, what you "feel" and what is "real" are often very different.

Boundary violations are deeply experienced.

Others hide from being real by filling the air with words; the more words they throw out, the less actual communication happens and they are left with only an illusion of connection. This is the intimacy they so ardently seek but with these coping skills find so elusive.

Under this aura of perfection he knows how flawed he really is but his intact denial system keeps this awareness suppressed in the far recesses of his mind.

Arrogance is an illusion of superiority one perpetrates upon their self. Some may ultimately find their way through the illusion, but only after many losses.

Teenagers can spot hypocrisy a mile away and here I was telling them how to cope when they witnessed the shambles of my own life and how I was living.

No new venture occurs without mistakes. Dare to learn and grow through your mistakes--this is how mastery occurs!

Often, we will stay in a miserable status quo until the misery finally exceeds the resistance to change. True wisdom is seeing the future: what will happen if change does not happen?

Many of the habits of dysfunctional families use are not from the lack of love but are the result of fear. Knowing the love-limiting habits and behaviors of dysfunctional families is a wonderful beginning to lower the fear, allowing us to be real, allowing us all to learn how to love better.

Acceptance is the most beautiful word in any language; this beautiful concept can only exist when you allow other people to be who they are and do not imprison them with your definition of what is right, proper, correct, or other limiting criteria. Decreasing the black and white in your thinking allows for an expansive area of gray, allowing you to live your life and others to live there life. Acceptance sets us all free! This simple change of thought creates a wonderful space for happiness to thrive.

What are humans meant to do; why are we here? Are we a mutation on the earth destroying its host? Are we a cancer destined to kill what supports us? I think not. So exploring this question is a powerful exercise in meaning; what is the meaning of human existence?

People build defenses around a weakness, not around strength. Where self-esteem is strong, a defense is unnecessary.

When one person attempts to “fix it” for the other person, the connection of acceptance is snapped and the sender and receiver miss an opportunity for understanding.

Everyone needs a place to be honest.

People who are unwilling to talk about deep personal issues do not trust their own emotions.

We violated each other’s boundaries with verbal missiles of anger disguised in the pretense of “just kidding.

If we want to improve, first we have to recognize our own maladaptive coping skills, called codependency, then change.

If you are looking for love under rocks or bringing home water moccasins, you might be confusing love and pain.

The high road is littered with pot shots.

...the state of perfection is an elusive goal; demanding something so obscure as almost unattainable and can become a compulsive, crazy making squirrel-on-a-wheel way of living.

Despite what you might believe right now, your son’s future is bright. You only need the right tools to help him get there.

Friends and family can be the bedrock of our lives, or the jackhammer that cracks the ground on which we stand.

This imbalance causes resentments within the over-responsible and dependency with the irresponsible person and this dynamic becomes the destructive life-pattern not conducive to happy families.

As you embark on this journey, I invite you to remember these words: slow, quiet, gentle. You are already worthy of love and belonging. This is not a journey of worthiness, but a journey of care... Because you must know, dear heart, that you are worthy of care, whether your house is immaculate or a mess.

Battered women who were physically abused as children develop an active coping style as adults, typically with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It is as if she can "just get things right" then the battering will stop. Those who were sexually abused as children tend to be severely depressed and a more passive coping style.

If no one has boundaries…how can there be any transgression?

Sitting on the hot seat of change requires much courage, patience, and persistence.

When you wear a mask, you are not real.

Chaos limits the free-flow of love and becomes a roadblock to what family members want most and sadly, it becomes the normal for the family.

Honoring your word is the fiber from which trust is built.

Change will not successfully happen unless the emotional component is solved.

When someone obtains peace and serenity, this shines a bright spotlight on others’ own unhappiness making their discomfort even more apparent.

Change is threatening to the status quo.

5 Patterns of Strife - Attachment. Resisting. Catastrophizing. Victimizing. Withdrawing.

According to most studies on the subject, boys who grow up without fathers grow up at a disadvantage.

Far too often we allow the hurtful words of others to define us. From the book: Removing Your Shame Label.

They sought the pain they knew so well and called it love.

The strange part about a person’s lack of trust is that it often comes from not trusting themselves.

Asking an angry man to change his ways is like asking a blind man to try harder to see.

Life is a learning experience and this is a very peaceful method of accepting the reality you face…”What will I learn?

We can't fight our sinful nature alone but instead, we must rely on God to assist us. From the book: Removing Your Shame Label.

No matter how dark your situation seems, there are blessings you can find and focus on. God is always faithful. - From the Book: Removing Your Shame Label.

God tells us not to be afraid to show Him our shame. He already knows it exists. What He wants to do it help us remove it. From the Book: Removing Your Shame Label.

When it comes to worry, our problem is we fear an invisible future that a timeless God has seen. Perhaps you should talk to Him about it.

What starts out as an intrusive thought can turn into an overwhelming concept if we "feed" it with more negative thinking. From the book: Removing Your Shame Label.

Healing, it turns out, is a journey. It doesn’t happen all at once.

Gaslighting is a form of psychological and emotional abuse that causes victims to question their reality, judgment, self-perception, and, in extreme circumstances, their sanity.

Being repeatedly corrected, invalidated, or dismissed can drain the joy from self-expression.

Why do we elect to not abide in the teachings of Jesus, when the results offer us a roadmap to an abundant and joyful life?

Beyond the warmth of sunshine and joy, beyond the fun of favorite toys, There lurks a Beast of darkness and gloom, A Beast so large, he can fill up the room.

Winston Churchill once said, "If you 're going through hell, keep going." Awe helps us do just that. Awe is a vehicle that takes us to the other side of the pain and back to what is precious.

With improved coping skills forged through my midlife crisis, I now listen first and do not control, and I allow these now adult children to come to their own conclusions about what they want for their lives.

When this low self-worth is hidden, one can understand why the person becomes hypersensitive to the opinions of others and has a great deal of difficulty accepting criticism no matter how warranted or gently said.

As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.

A cesspool of past wounds has created men who have worked hard to protect themselves from revisiting emotional pain by learning not to feel. In fact, they have done such an excellent job in erecting protective walls they are not fully aware of the depth of their brokenness. But, if they believe their issue starts and ends with their addictive behaviors, they – and their clinicians – are sadly mistaken. -- "Why Men Struggle to Love

Codependency is a learned set of behaviors, thought processes, and habits. When combined together, they fit a very loose definition. All people exhibit these traits to some degree, but some of us allow them to dictate our relationships with others and ourselves.

Life can be a challenge and having tools to remind myself of who and where I am in that world and what is most important is priceless. A.W.E is a simple tool that takes me away from the chaos of our world and reminds me that the experience of being alive is the true value. -Tom

Brain development studies have shown that a traumatized brain is impaired in its ability to focus on language or verbal content. Instead, it tends to focus on processing nonverbal danger cues—body movements, facial expressions, and tone of voice—as it searches for information about danger and threat.

A.W.E. is a doorway to profound presence, spaciousness, ease and peace - a fast track to transcendence. Part of the reason awe doesn't come naturally to some people is that their sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive more often than is necessary. Many of us don't feel safe enough to open up to awe.

Perception Language, like awe, is novel and requires cognitive accommodation - a different way of seeing and making sense of ourselves and the world. Some of the highlights are • Keep the conversation in the present. • Remove blame and praise from every conversation. • Understand that we are the source of our feelings.

A component of the Immigration Act of 1917, it had been reinstated by the Hoover administration in 1930 to discourage immigration at a time when unemployment was soaring. Consular officials possessed great power over who got to come to America because they were the ones who decided which visa applicants could be excluded under the LPC clause. Immigration law also required that applicants provide a police affidavit attesting to their good character, along with duplicate copies of birth certificates and other government records. “It seems quite preposterous,” one Jewish memoirist wrote, “to have to go to your enemy and ask for a character reference.

If you asked a married man what the one issue is with his relationship, a large majority would answer, “We don’t have sex enough.” And herein lay a significant part of the problem with men who struggle to love. They build relationships on the foundation of physical intimacy instead of emotional intimacy. -- "Why Men Struggle to Love

The A.W.E. Method A.W.E stands for Attention, Wait, Exhale and Expand. Attention means Focusing your full and undivided attention on something you value, appreciate or find amazing. Wait means slowing down or pausing. Exhale and Expand amplifies whatever sensations you are experiencing. A.W.E. is a quick and easy intervention that can cultivate awe in the ordinary, at any time and in any place. Cultivating awe for less than a minute a day reduces symptoms of depression and anxiety, improves social connection, decreases loneliness, reduces burnout, lowers stress, increases wellbeing and reduces chronic pain. The capacity to help heal the mind and body is only one of awe's superpowers.

Many people look at their past and bemoan their mistakes. Those errors in judgment, behavior, hurting others, and the wrong decisions may be what consumes them now. It does not have to be that way, for recovering from a traumatic situation is all a matter of how we think about what happened. It is not so much about what happened to us as what we make of the circumstance.

In The Order of Time, physicist and author Carlo Rovelli sums up this dynamic beautifully: "It isn't absence that causes sorrow. It is affection and love. Without affection, without love, such absences would cause us no pain. For this reason, even the pain caused by absence is, in the end, something good and even beautiful, because it feeds on that which gives meaning to life.

As a kid I used to sit on this muscular branch in the old apple tree. And the branch was high enough to make you feel like you were above the earth, but low enough to make you feel that the fall wouldn’t kill you. And it wasn’t until I was adult that I realized that the fear of heights is in reality the fear of the fall. And because that’s the case, we rarely get into the treetops.

REAL people do not have to lie, exaggerate, or brag for they are self-contained in self-understanding and acceptance of themselves. REAL people can make a mistake knowing that even when they do, it is only a mistake and just because the outcome was not to their liking, they know…THEY are not a mistake. REAL have the attitude this is who I am…and I am good enough, right now…just as I am. People who have chosen REAL have already clicked their heals together and returned home.

Due to persistently high elevation of stress hormones, which causes a reduction in the size of the hippocampus, survivors are often less able to put things in context and/or make critical distinctions about what is and what is not threatening in the present. Without this necessary discernment, survivors become more and more impulsive and less and less inhibited. In effect, what survivors are left with is a constantly hyperaroused autonomic nervous system, an inability to distinguish past from present threat.

Consciousness is not some abstract concept. It's our state of mind - our thoughts and feelings at any given moment. The 3LC model (Spacious, Heart, Safety) suggests the state of consciousness we are in will always influence how we perceive a situation, the choices we see for ourselves and our actions. In other words, it affects everything. Three Levels of Consciousness Spacious - AWE - Expansive, Nonverbal, Nontemporal Heart - Appreciation, Gratitude Safety - Reward - Purposeful Proactive Productive - Stuck - Anxiety Anguish Ambivalence - Threat - Fight Flight Freeze

One of the most remarkable aspects of awe is its ability to help us feel more connected to others. Find a place where you can be alone and then use the A.W.E. Method while thinking of a person who has been most dear to you in your life. They may be living or passed away. Take time to create a clear picture of that person, maybe a particular memory or scene that captures their essence. Hold the image in your mind, give it your full attention. Wait the length of a full inhalation or maybe more than one, while you take time to appreciate this person. Imagine looking into their eyes. Consider what they mean to you, what you learned from them or how you grew as a result of knowing them. We can be in the moment while remembering. While you remember and feel, just remember and feel. Then, when you're ready, exhale fully and allow yourself a moment of awe.