Taming Family Members is as SImple as Owning Your Power
“Man with no relatives has few problems.” Sidney Toler (as Charlie Chan), Charlie Chan in Panama I don’t know if this quote from the 1940s Charlie Chan series of movies is actually ancient Chinese wisdom or simply Hollywood pop-psychology. But it certainly rings of an eternal truth. No one causes us more headaches than family members do. In fact, most of our problems in this life began with the dysfunctional parenting abilities of our mothers and fathers. Their dysfunction quickly spread to every member of our nuclear families, and was often reinforced by the dysfunctional “wisdom” of our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Yet the one family member who has probably done us the most damage is ourselves. Think about it. When we feel powerless around other members of our families, it’s because we have chosen to continually give our power away to them. We may blame them for victimizing us, but we are the ones who have actually victimized ourselves by not setting proper b...