Even though we know better, we have a tendency to continue to look to our families of origin for the specific expressions of love we never felt from them when we were children. When it doesn’t happen there, it spills over into our adult relationships. In the back of our minds, we know family members can’t give us what they never experienced themselves, but the yearning still exists. We know we are supposed to find fulfillment from the inside out, but when we’ve tried a dozen approaches and nothing has quite done it, we wonder if we can ever be loved the way we want to be loved. Many years ago, one of my elders shared with me the secret to unlocking that dilemma. You see, there are ways to meet those unmet emotional needs… and ways not to. |