Families Quotes

“A victim evokes sympathy, right? Victims are not responsible, right? Victims have the moral high ground… someone else is causing the misery, right? Victims can easily justify why they are right. Victims allow themselves to be stuck in the status quo and they excel at seeing the faults in others, ignoring their own re-sponsibility. They love to take others’ inventory of faults and are excellent at blaming. Victims become hypersensitive to real and perceived injustice, where any slight becomes a reason to reject. Victimization is the toxic wind blowing through families, fanning the fires of dysfunction.”
― David W. Earle, Love is Not Enough: Changing Dysfunctional Family Habits

“Controlling others is the cornerstone of dysfunctional families.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“The truth is, we tend to train people how we want to be treated. If others know you have wishy-washy boundaries then they are free to walk all over you; the results…you become a doormat. We have actually trained others to do this when we will allow people to wipe their muddy feet on us. After all, we are doormats.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Our parents were our first gods. If parents are loving, nurturing, and kind, this becomes the child’s definition of the creator. If parents were controlling, angry, and manipulative, then this becomes their definition.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“When I learned about the gray existing between the black and white of absolute terms, I began to experience more peace. The more I expanded my gray areas (more than 50 shades), the more peace I experienced in my life.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“You did not invent these family habits. Your family is like mine, for thousands and thousands of years our families have embraced a dysfunctional lifestyle, passing these habits as gospel on to subsequent generations. This was not done out of malice, spite, or hate, but what they knew best. As ineffective as these habits are, you never stopped to consider another way of loving.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Children have empty erasable white boards upon which big people write indelibly imprinted messages into their tender subconscious minds.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Black and white thinking limits understanding and feedback, two necessary ingredients for successful resolution in creative conflict and successful understanding.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“No one escapes some degree of chaos for it is so ever prevalent; it is the human experience. This realization does not mean we can’t improve. It does mean we can accept our state of chaos, lighten up on ourselves, have fun, and work on improving…we are a work in progress. Enjoy the journey.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“For while they'd stayed close during the absurd years of his sharp rise, having children had knocked it all into a different arrangement. The minute you had children you closed ranks. You didn't plan this in advance, but it happened. Families were like individual, discrete, moated island nations. The little group of citizens on the slab of rock gathered together instinctively, almost defensively, and everyone who was outside the walls--even if you'd once been best friends--was now just that, outsiders. Families had their ways. You took note of how other people raised their kids, even other people you loved, and it seemed all wrong. The culture and practices of one's own family were the only way, for better or worse. Who could say why a family decided to have a certain style, to tell the jokes it did, to put up its particular refrigerator magnets?”
― Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings

“All over the world there were families deciding to care about each other and encourage one another along the paths God had given them.”
― Regina Jennings, Caught in the Middle

“Being judgmental is a form of attack keeping others off balance.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Mature adults gravitate toward new values and understandings, not just rehashing and blind acceptance of past patterns and previous learning. This is an ongoing process and maturity demands lifelong learners.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“The greater the pain associated with love, the more likely a person is to be attracted to others who will inflict this pain…for isn’t this what love is? Hurt people tend to hurt other people.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Being able to say, “No,” is a necessary ingredient in a healthy lifestyle.”
― David W. Earle, Love is Not Enough: Changing Dysfunctional Family Habits

“Try not to be a man of success, but a man of value." - Albert Einstein”
― Kate Larkinson, Little Bird Lost: A Rhyming Picture Story

“People build defenses around a weakness, not around strength. Where self-esteem is strong, a defense is unnecessary.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“People who are unwilling to talk about deep personal issues do not trust their own emotions.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“When one person attempts to “fix it” for the other person, the connection of acceptance is snapped and the sender and receiver miss an opportunity for understanding.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“...the state of perfection is an elusive goal; demanding something so obscure as almost unattainable and can become a compulsive, crazy making squirrel-on-a-wheel way of living.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“The private decisions we make about where we want to raise our families, the agreement we make with other parties, and the amount of work we decide to do, are all choices that have an effect on our personal health, wealth, and happiness.”
― Judge Andrew Napolitano

“Calling a nuclear group with a mom and a pop and their kids a family is like calling a field of bluestem a prairie. It's the rich diversity of grasses and forbs that makes a prairie work, just as it's the rich diversity of parents and children, grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles providing nourishment and support that makes a family work.”
― Faith A. Colburn, Threshold

“As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Honoring your word is the fiber from which trust is built.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“Change will not successfully happen unless the emotional component is solved.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“When you wear a mask, you are not real.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“It was hard not to realize what kind of kid his parents wished they'd had, and when he thought about that kind of kid it was tempting for Paul to want to track, hunt, and eat the little thing.”
― Ben Marcus, Leaving the Sea: Stories

“This is what we desire in intimate relationships but this deep connection is often so frightful that most do not take advantage of the opportunities presented for honesty.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“When you journey inwardly exploring yourself, a sense of personal trust begins.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough

“People pay a dear price when not dealing with the powerful emotions.”
― David W. Earle LPC- Love is Not Enough