David W. Earle

If no one has boundaries_how can there be any transgression?

When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.

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.

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

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.

Being real is being true to you.

We ardently desire to take down our masks and say to the world, __his is who I am_and I am okay._ This is simple_not easy.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Making amends is not only saying the words but also being willing to listen to how your behavior caused another__ pain, and then the really hard part_changing behavior.

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.

My prayer is an attitude of pure gratitude for having the opportunity to experience life on this earth with all its pain, heartache, worry, and turmoil; coupled with this gratitude is the thankfulness for just having the opportunity to have lived. That is fairly easy on good days but difficult when life puts rocks and boulders in the road.

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.

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.