Always seeking to please others, we were left waiting for our turn at getting our needs met.

Many of us used to think that making important choices was reserved for those who knew what they were doing, but that wasn’t us. We almost fainted at the prospect of trusting our own intuition about what direction we should take in life. We felt we needed the help of others who were obviously more qualified. We had no faith in our ability to be ind

We have honest conversations with our partners and close friends and are not afraid to express opinions. We surround ourselves with people who care about us, people we don’t fear. We have healthy conversations about money and other important issues, and we don’t coerce or manipulate people through shame and guilt. We fill our cup with the freedom o

Today, we nurture ourselves by deciding what we want the universe to send us, because we’re open to the possibility that we can have those things. We allow ourselves to swim around in the scent of promise. We deserve it. We realize that wanting something is not bad; it’s a healthy part of being human. We allow our minds and hearts to wander because

We came to understand that to protect ourselves during childhood, we had to shut down. This didn’t happen for just one event or one day; we had to put a clamp on ourselves for years.

We had no role models for healthy give and take.

ACA literature told us things about ourselves we didn’t know.

Before we came to program, we thought intimacy was that secret word that pertained to sex and making love. We thought it was about taking care of the other person, doing for the other person, and losing ourselves in the other person – because we loved them so much!

But we mistakenly believed there were some benefits also – a sense of belonging, except that we didn’t even know who we were outside of this role.