How to Recognize and Overcome Dysfunction in Your Family - Tiny Buddha

"A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden." ~Buddha

Your family's perfectly normal, right? After all, every family has problems. That's what I thought too. It's not an accident that I'm in the mental health field helping people fix psychological problems. I had to escape just such a family. And in the process of doing that, I decided to show others how they could become more than the family they came from too.

I assumed the way my family interacted with each other was the way all families interacted. My dad was emotionally volatile, and my mother was emotionally absent. There was anger or nothing in my house growing up. My family was purely functional (task and survival focused), not experiential (sharing the emotions that come along with life experiences). This left me significantly lacking in emotional intelligence and struggling with relationships."

Read at Tiny Buddha