Are your family issues holding you back?

Here’s how to tell.

Ahhh…. family…

We don’t have a choice what family we are born into or brought up in. A lot of us get out as soon as we can to make our own way, live life on our independent terms with our own ideas and values.

That usually works great! You get to choose your own family (friends and other special people in your life!), you get to have control over your environment, your boundaries and how you feel - without the rules and bad vibes from anyone else.

It works great. Until it doesn’t. Some of us may be held back by our family relationships and not even know it.

If we don’t know - we can’t grow.

Here are the questions I ask in my therapy sessions when clients are confused about what could possibly be holding them back when they feel like everything is kind of.. well.. fine.

But we want more than fine - don’t we?

Grab a pen and paper (or just ponder them in your head, or better yet - chat them through with someone you trust) and see what comes up when you answer these questions:

• How would you rate your relationships right now?

  • Romantic, family, friends, colleagues etc.

  • Rate them out of 10 (10 being most connected, fun, fulfilling, 0 being worst)

• Are there common patterns in your feelings, thoughts and behaviours in these relationships?

  • Eg. Feeling “needy”, insecure, like you don’t “belong”, hyperindependent - “I don’t need anyone”, supported/loved, anxious, frequent arguments about similar things

• Can you see or feel any similarities in those patterns to past/present relationships with your family?

  • Eg. Feeling lonely in friendships like nobody cares/Felt similar with my siblings

• And here’s the one to begin the healing…

  • HOW DO YOU WANT THOSE CURRENT RELATIONSHIPS TO BE DIFFERENT?

When we can see the pattern AND identify how we want to be/feel/act instead - that’s when we can get to work!

The healing and change process could look like:

• Reflecting and processing your family upbringing (in therapy, on your own, with people you trust)

• Emotional regulation skills (operating from triggered programming vs. learning to react now as an adult)

• Increasing your self worth (it is not defined by how your family treated you)

• Putting boundaries in

  We can do this through journalling, creative therapy, talking with trusted people in your life (such as a good therapist), responding not reacting.

If this connected to you and you feel there may be some family stuff holding you back - working through this when you’re young is the best time.
It will set you up for long term fulfilment like a working compass - directing you to feeling free, know where you’re going and have the tools to get there, instead of feeling lost and confused and stuck from old family programming.

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Ellie Rose
Psychotherapy and counselling

Sydney, Australia |. Available online

Counselling for youth mental health and family issues.

Working through fam stuff to be free and move on is something i’m all too familiar with - i’ve been there.
That’s what motivated me to do my study to become a therapist and help young people move through the same things I went through.

Getting you to where you want to be is my bread and butter, so let’s get started!