The Web address of this
2-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/basics/health.htm
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This is one of over 150 articles focused on healing psychological
wounds,
building
high-nurtur-ance
family relationships, breaking the [wounds + unawareness]
cycle,
and
preventing
divorce. This introduction describes the Web
site's purpose and the best ways to use its resources. Eacharticle
is part of a mosaic of ideas, so the more
you read, the more sense they'll all make. These articles augment, vs.
replace, other
qualified
professional help.
Before continuing, reflect: why are you reading this -
what do you
need?
+ + +
This article proposes 17 basic premises about "healthy" (functional, or
high-nurturance) families and other groups. Read this (a) to clarify what
you believe, and (b) for useful perspective on using this
assessment-worksheet proposing 31 specific
behavioral traits of high-nurturance groups.
The article assumes
you're familiar with these ideas:
the toxic
[wounds + unawareness] cycle that stresses most U.S.
families - slides or
text
This
article
offers...
a group of
basic premises about families (like yours)
which underlie the
12 co-parent Projects in
this educational Web site, and...
a
summary of 30 common traits of
high-nurturance families.
This is one of a dozen
Project-1
worksheetsthat can
help you assess for significant "false self" wounds.
Basic Premises about
Families
With your childhood and present families in mind, see if you
Agree, Disagree, or are (?) ambivalent
or unsure about these ideas:
Premise 1) Families
have existed in every age and culture because they fill some
core
needs
(nurture) better than other human groups.
By judging
the traits on page 2, any family can be ranked somewhere
between very low nurturance to very high nurturance. (A D ?)
From one (very low) to 10 (very high),
how would you rate the "nurturance
level" of the family you grew up in? If you're a parent, how high
would each of your kids rank the nurturance level of her or his childhood
family when s/he is, say, 35? By the end of this article, you'll have a
better idea of how to an-swer these questions.
2) The core purposes of
all types of family are to:
provide an
accessible refugewhere each member can
feel consistently accepted + valued + appreciated + safe
+ useful + supported + encouraged - i.e.loved.
Many families also...
conceive and/or
nurture children - i.e. provide for their
wholistic health and growth, and work patiently to prepare minor kids to
become healthy, self-sufficient, productive adults, and
re-sponsible parents and citizens.
(A D
?)
Can you think of any other reasons families exist?
3)The wholistic health of a person or a
family is their current blend of emotional +
spiritual
+ mental + physical healths. Typically,family members make subjective
judgments about their per-sonal and family
wholistic health whichmore objective
observers may dispute.
(A
D ?)
4) The
adult leader/s of any family is/are responsible for
how nurturing their home and family is over time. The
nurturance level of their physical family directly mirrors
(a) the nurturance level and har-mony of the adult's
inner family
of personality subselves, and (b) how well they know some
core topics .
(A
D ?)
5)Average
children raised in a low-nurturance home and environment
automatically survive by de-veloping a protective
false self and up to five psychological wounds. Without informed help and a
higher-nurturance environment, such kids grow up to continue
the [wounds + unawareness]
cycle
- they...
unconsciously choose wounded partners
and often divorce one or more times,
justify
neglecting
their own health and longevity, and...
evolve a
low-nurturance home for any kids they conceive despite
vows not to.
(A D
?)
Premise 6)A
common false-self wound is reality distortion, soco-parents whose true Self is
dis-abled
don't see themselves as significantly wounded or
their family as being "low nurturance." (denial). Other
significantly wounded people
may say "Sure, I have some wounds - everyone does," but they
min-imize or ignore what that
means.
(A
D ?)
7) Family leaders can learn how to
assess
and
reduce
their false-self wounds and raise their inner
and outer families' nurturance levels at anytime.
(A
D ?)
8)
High-nurturance families have specific traits (page
2)
that lower-nurturance families don't.
(A D
?)
help
courting partners make three informed
choices
and...
protect
themselves and their descendents and society from the
ancestral
cycle
of low childhood nurturance
(neglect) psychological
wounding
low
nurturance
divorce.
(A D ?)
11)The
nurturance-levels of your past and present families
powerfully affect your
wholistic health,
achievements, priorities, and relationships. You have
many choices about assessing and improving your current
levels. A useful way to begin is to study
Project 1
and use these
12
assessment
tools. Then decide if you want to act. People ruled by false
selves often aren't motivated to do this unless they
"hit bottom."
(A D ?)
12) Family leaders who provide many of the
traits on page 2 in their homes usually gotthem consistently
from their early caregivers at home, school, and
church. Wholistic health and family nur-turance seems to
reproduce naturally, and vice versa:
low childhood
nurturanceand related psycho-logical wounds
pass down
the generations, until identified and intentionally
healed. (A D ?)
Do you have dependent
children and/or grandchildren?
13) Versions of the traits below appear in any
high-nurturanceorganization, like schools, teams, committees,
churches, communities, governments, and businesses. Members
of such groups display characteristic behaviors like
these. People whose
inner families
(personalities)
have high-nurturance levels tend to join or found
high-nurturance social environments, and vice versa. (A
D ?)
14)
Families and other groups with "too few" of the factors
above are called
dysfunctional be-cause they don’t fill members' current primary
needs (nurture) very well.
Most U.S. families and schools appear to be moderately to
very dysfunctional. It's our current cultural norm,
so few people are concer-ned enough to work toward raising
public awareness and
revising state and federal laws to improve this. (A D
?)
Premise 15)Key questions about
any family (like yours) are:
How wholistically-nurturing
was or is it (very low to very high) for all members -
i.e. how many of these 33
nurturing traits
have been consistently present?, and...
What
emotional and spiritual
effects
has this had on each family member? (A D
?)
16) Kids who consistently get enoughof the
30 nurturancesat home, school, and church (a
subjective judgment) usually mature into what may be called
Grown Nurtured
Children, or GNCs.Adults who were
unintentionallydeprived in early childhood of too
many of these traits, too often, may be called Grown Wounded Children
or GWCs.
Each of your family adults falls (subjectively)
somewhere on a line between "major GNC" and "ma-jor GWC."
This has implications
personal,
marital, and family harmony or stress. (A D ?)
17) After professionally researching
divorcing-family and stepfamily dynamics and "human nature"
since 1979, I
believe that most
divorcing adults are significantly-wounded
GWCs. They're usually in self-protective (false self)
denial
of their wounds and the immediate and tragic long-term
impactsof their wounds. Few family adults,
human-service
professionals,
or legislators seem to (want to) know this. Many are wounded
themselves and in protective denial. (A D
?)
Premise 18) Typical
unrecovering
GWCs and their kids exhibit clear personal traits and group
behaviors. These traits, and
characteristics of their childhood
family and their ancestral
family trees, provide four ways to
assess for significant false-self dominance.Honest assessmentpromotes
ac-cepting and reducing (vs. curing)
false-self wounding, This can...
reduce the first of five
epidemic marital
hazards, and...
break the unseen generational
bequest of significant wounds and unaware-ness. (A
D ?)
+ + +
These 18 premises
underlie all
12 co-parent Projects
(safeguards) in this
nonprofit stress-preven-tion Website and related
guidebooks.
Note that the
Project-1 guidebook
Who's
Really Running Your Life? (Xlibris, 2002, 2nd
edition) integrates key Project-1 Web articles, and focuses on
understanding and identifying false-self wounds and practical
options for reducing them over time.
With all this in mind, meditate on these
thoughts from and about your
child/ren.
Then pause and
reflect - why did you read this article? Did you get what you
needed? If not, what
do you need now?
Next...
Get
undistracted, adopt the open mind of a student, and use
these premises and these 30 high-nurturance family traits to rate
the nurturance level of someone's family - like yours
If you feel
your family was or is "low nurturance,"
assess yourself and other family
adults and kids for sig-nificant false-self wounds.
If other members are significantly wounded, see
this for options.
If you're wounded, consider committing to high-priority
wound reduction to gain benefits like
these
and guard your descendents.
Review these
options for helping
others learn about and break the [wounds + unawareness]
cycle, and see if you're inspired to do that -
starting with your own family.
The Web address of this
2-page article is
http://sfhelp.org/basics/health.htm
Basic Premises about
Families
psychological
wounding