A Different Kind of Valentine

February is the month of Valentines, when our thoughts turn to love. Usually we give Valentines gifts and affection to romantic partners. This month I would like to shift our focus to expressions of love to our family, in particular our parents.

Our relationships with parents, children, siblings, and spouses can be very complex puzzles of love and frustration — we can’t live with them and can’t live without them. We often have long-held patterns and painful feelings related to our sense of worth...

Being happy is an attitude to life that is less determined by outside circumstances and more by inner qualities. A person’s character and mind is stable when their inner family is in harmony. As a metaphysician would put it: ‘It’s the same on the inside as the outside.’

When I was seven years old, my father’s father died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. His death rippled through the family, particularly affecting my grandmother and his sons. As a child I was shielded from much of this impact, and before this moment I had never...

Successive generations’ healthy disregard of the previous generation’s tastes, habits and customs is a necessary ingredient of human progress.

If we don’t see ourselves as worthwhile contributors to society and we don’t approach our aging with dignity and respect for ourselves, how can we expect them to see us that way? As we age, our families become helpful and supportive, or neglectful and critical...

In a 2002 study involving nearly 2,500 children, researchers found that daughters’ relationships with their fathers were more damaged than sons’.

Parent issues are some of the worst and most longstanding issues we can have. When children do not have what they need, they spend the rest of their lives trying to change that. After they become adults, their attempts to find those missing pieces can create...

It is human to despair, and it is human to worry. But when either of these realities, or both at once, becomes the predom­inant coloration of family life, then you must contend both with your sad and anxious family members and with your own “sympathetic” sadness and anxiety.

Birth Order Personalities develop as coping strategies each one of us used as children to make ourselves feel okay in our particular positions in the family.

My mother never worked outside the home, and at that time many women were not encouraged to do so. She had the same limited expectations for her daughter, but she never took into consideration that we were different people and that my spirit screamed for more...

Whether your mother lives in her own home, with you, in a facility, or a long distance from you, there are many things you can do to make Mothers' Day a special day for her. * Plan to spend loving, compassionate, quality time with her. * Engage her in discussions about her past and where she is now in this stage of her life...

We frequently feel cut off from our clan of origin at some given moment during our work on the self. In discovering our true nature, we will also discover at what point the family ignored and neglected us. When undergoing the abuse, we feel like an orphan, yet the fruit and the tree are still joined by bonds of obvious or underlying love.

In a world where negativity seeps into every corner of our lives and whatever is gross, weird, or shocking is considered hip and appropriate for children, we must find ways to create a home environment that promotes positive thinking and joyful attitudes. Create a fortress of beauty, hope, and peace where we can...

People who have reached age 65 and still have living parents are more likely to suffer depressive symptoms than their peers whose parents have died, a new study suggests.

Twins tend to live longer than people who aren’t twins, and identical twins live even longer, according to a new study.

The longer your parents live, the more likely you are to live longer and have a healthy heart. These are the results of our latest study of nearly 200,000 volunteers.

Most women who face economic abuse do not see it as family violence. But the Victorian Royal Commission on Family Violence connected the two.

Being a kindergartner today is very different from being a kindergartner 20 years ago. In fact it is more like first grade.

The intimate connection we have with family gets embed­ded within our very being long before we can utter a word. Much of this initial wiring occurs in the right hemisphere of our brain in the first ten to twenty-four months of life. That’s when our brain begins to develop an emotional and social program.

Is he or she the one? You know… the one to introduce to my parents, the one to move in with, the one to start a family with, the one to marry? At some point in every dating relationship, you ask yourself some version of these questions.

From whomever or wherever we come, our present is, in good part, made up of the stories of our past. These stories can be thought of as the twigs and string and odd detritus that holds our families together, and in each of these stories, at least one of these “unpredictable personalities” wants to take wing and fly.

Love works when we envision anyone bathed in it and project it to them. It works even for those whom we rightfully expect should love us, we assume love us, and of whom we can list 5,328 reasons showing how they haven’t. Love is what forgiveness is about. These words apply, most of all, to our parents. Are you rebelling already, saying, “No way! Not in a million light-years!”?

Many people dread family get-togethers even if they really do love each other. We see this happening often – maybe you’ve even had this experience yourself and wonder why it’s so difficult. You really do love these people after all.

At first glance, Victoria Police’s suggestion this week that health professionals report domestic violence to authorities, as they do for child abuse, sounds like a great idea. The suggestion was made in its submission to the state’s Royal Commission into Family Violence.

Three days before her 95^th birthday, my mother transitioned out of her body while she was sleeping. Right at the time of her death, I had a dream about my mother, after not dreaming about her in years. In the dream, my mother was walking across a street...

Our first experience with touch is our mother's loving caress in our home. Within our family we learn how, when and where to touch. Yet natural touch among family members is an often neglected means of communication...

A father’s relationship with his daughter is the most important relationship that she will have in her life. It is, in my opinion, the basis and template for all the relationships that she will have with all the men in her life. Teachers, coaches, boyfriends, bosses, fathers-in-law, sons, and grandsons...

Of course, your ancestors can and do leave behavioral and attitudinal legacies that help you actualize your innate potentials. Mingled with ancestral legacies we discover blessings as well as curses. You can take a major step toward maturing when you can see and accept both the good and the bad in other...

I was sexually abused - for 8 years. By my brother. There it is, out in in the open for everyone to know. No lies, no stories, just the truth and me. I am tired of secrets and hush hushes behind the door. It happens, and no one wants to talk to about it. Can you imagine the furor that would have been caused if I had come forward and said, as the daughter of a protestant minister, that I was being sexually abused by my own brother.

Your life journey began with your parents or primary caregivers, and your childhood experience of gifts, hurts, and disappointments: these became the very foundation of your ideas about love and pain.

People have told me many stories of difficult mother-daughter relationships that healed through caregiving. Their stories have given me the gift of healing. Forgiveness, compassion, acceptance, and love grow through empathy for and understanding of the experiences of others...

The family unit is a complex mixture of personalities who come together to learn, heal, and love. It is the first place we begin our Earthly journey. Family is instrumental in helping us fulfill our soul's purpose by helping us learn karmic lessons and providing an environment in which we can develop our gifts and talents.

by John Payne. The family blueprint that you inherited was chosen by you because it provided you with opportunities to develop in the areas you had previously selected. Perhaps you wanted to develop the art of forgiveness, understanding, compassion, determination, courage, or any number of...

John Bradshaw underscores the importance of family connection. He emphasizes acceptance and "loving your own crooked family with your own crooked heart." Just as Mormons celebrate Mondays as Family at Home Night, we can rethink some of our commitments and create time for what's truly important.