The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love

As with almost any area we explore, we see the family legacy at play. We reject or fail to support in ourselves and our children what was not supported by our parents, which, in turn, generally wasn’t supported by theirs. We can break this chain by consciously deciding to.

When a child takes on a parent’s burden—whether consciously or unconsciously—he or she misses out on the experience of being given to, and can have difficulty receiving from relationships later in life. A child who takes care of a parent often forges a lifelong pattern of overextension and creates a blueprint for habitually feeling overwhelmed.