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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.