Boundaries

Setting and keeping good boundaries can often be difficult for adult children of alcoholics and those from dysfunctional families. Below, Dr. Henry Cloud weighs in on how boundaries help keep us safe.

Relationship Boundaries




Why Are Boundaries Important?




What's The Difference Between A Boundary And A Defense Mechanism?



Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

The Challenge Of The Past

The very cause of our problems is also the thing that often prevents us from confronting and eventually, overcoming them. This is because confronting our buried emotional past is a scary, painful thing. In fact, as children the act of denying our situation became critical to our very survival. The "amnesia" that protected us as children becomes a huge hindrance to us as adults. As a result we may live life experiencing unexplained symptoms of fear, anger, sadness and depression.

As psychologist Alice Miller puts it, "Children have no choice but suppress their fear and anger, as otherwise they could not sustain their love for their parents, and that love is crucially necessary for their survival. But these emotions, though suppressed, remain stored away in our bodies, and in adulthood they can cause symptoms of varying severity. We may suffer from bouts of depression, attacks of panic fear, or violent reactions towards our children without identifying the true causes of our despair, our fear, or our rage.

We fear those emotions as if they were our worst enemy. The pharmaceutical industry caters for these desires with a whole range of remedies - Viagra against impotence, anti-depressives to fend off the effects of depression, but without understanding the deep-seated causes underlying it."

Why is reexamining our past and getting in touch with the pain such a daunting task?

Miller believes, "Such a perspective would reestablish contact with the most vulnerable and powerless years of our lives, and that is the last thing we want to think about. We have no desire to go through that feeling of desperate impotence all over again. On no account do we want to be reminded of the atmosphere that surrounded us when we were small and were helplessly exposed to the whims and excesses of power-hungry adults... it is precisely by confronting it that we can find the key to understanding our attacks of (apparently) groundless panic, our high blood pressure, our stomach ulcers, our sleepless nights..."

Understanding and cultivating empathy for our own inner child is the path to healing. As long as the needs and feelings of the child are denied, we are condemned to continue living with dysfunction in our lives and relationships. Acknowledging and recognizing our sufferings, rather than denying them, frees us to provide our own personal support and nurturing.

A good therapist that can assist us in this process can be invaluable. Having a willing and compassionate witness to our sufferings is key. Being honest with ourselves and another trusted individual about the past, however difficult, frees us to be true to our own selves. As we progress, it will become easier to feel and recognize our own feelings as well as treat others with the same empathy we now allow ourselves.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Find Your Life Purpose

Why am I here? What is my purpose?

If you find yourself asking these questions, it may be a clue that you are not yet on the right path.

America’s #1 Success Coach, Jack Canfield, Co-author of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series offers to help people find greater success and happiness fulfill their life purpose. "Each person has a life purpose unique to them, and ideally they should find work related to this, as people are happiest doing what they love", he says.

Your life purpose is often related to what you are most passionate about, what brings you joy. Jack offers a simple, free written exercise here: http://www.goldenmotorcyclegang.com/public_html/images/stories/life-purpose-exercise.pdf to help you discover your life purpose.

Canfield believes, "We're always getting information that we're either on course, or off course...when we're doing the thing that we're supposed to do that leads us to our greatest fulfillment...we will experience this sense of expansion rather than contraction, we'll experience joy rather than the lack of it...and energy and aliveness rather than the sense of deadness." He believes in The Secret (the Law of Attraction), explaining that our thoughts and feelings are "broadcast" and people attract others vibrating at the same level.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Videos From ACOAs

Some recent, bravely revealing "shares" from adult children of alcoholics/dysfunctional parents on Youtube. These people chose not to remain anonymous and post these videos for the world to see, in the hopes they can be of help to others.

Thanos




Katie




Phillip






Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children

Letting Go Of The Past

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."
~Carl Jung



Reprinted from: http://www.e-self-help.com/adult-children-in-alcoholics/

The process for letting go of a childhood where a person had one or more alcoholic parents varies from person to person. Some individuals bounce back with a resilience that seems to come from nowhere. Others require professional help getting over the past.

It can be done. Having a childhood with one or more alcoholic parents does not doom you to a lifetime of emotional distance and confusing emotions being triggered at every turn. The goal of realizing all the possible consequences of such a childhood is not to foster a feeling of powerlessness but of hope. It is in the awareness of the underlying mechanisms of dysfunction that it can be undone.

Silence was a large part of the problem for children who grew up in an alcoholic home. Feelings were not expressed. They were covered up by alcohol and then buried in shame and fear. It is in the uncovering and open recognition of these feelings that truths of the past can be spoken.

When these truths are spoken, they lose their power. Their power resides in their silence, in the shame and fear that protect them. Their power can be taken away. A painful past can be healed. Looking at what was wrong with the past helps you to realize what must be done to make the present right.

Check out the Orange County ACA website at: Orange County Adult Children