A flow chart or diagram of a person’s family of origin and extended family — usually three generations although people often invest more time and energy and “go back” another two or three generations. 

There are many symbols and distinctive markings people use and each practitioner usually develops his or her own style. 

A GENOGRAM is PREDICTIVE but not DETERMINATIVE. 

Getting required information from your family may be a challenge and an exercise in healing in itself. 

Creating a Genogram is an on-going exercise and it will change as a family changes with births, deaths, marriages, adoptions and divorces. 

People can and do “defy” the predictions that reveal themselves (addictions, unwanted patterns, cut-offs, fusions) in a Genogram but are unlikely to do so without a committed plan toward greater individual health.

Calm or chaos in one generation is likely to “flow through” the system.

“Horse and carriage” drives within you: deny either at your own peril…

A is for Autonomy: a powerful instinctual longing within you. It’s the desire to be self-directed and separate. It is the “you” who wants to be free of all responsibilities. It is the “you” that fears absorption; the “you” who wants to let your hair blow in the wind, feel the sun on your back and go! It’s the lone-ranger and pioneer spirit within you. This desire is God-breathed, God-inspired and a necessary part of your growth. This need can be met, not by irresponsibly severing ties, but through regularly finding time to be alone.

I is for Intimacy: a powerful instinctual longing within you. It is the desire to nest. It is the “you” who wants to belong, be known, to be part of a family. It is the “you” who fears abandonment and longs for a shared journey. This is the part of you that longs for the sounds, symbols and reality of a shared life. This desire is God-breathed, God-inspired and a necessary part of your survival and growth. This need is met through regularly spending time in a loving family or community.

A with I = Emotional Health 

A without I = Selfish Avoidance 

I without A = Selfish Indulgence

I’m in South Africa for a brief visit and I’m enjoying your gorgeous country. 

Resilience and friendliness and hope within the hearts of the people I’ve met apparently far exceeds the surrounding community and national stressors.

I’m frequently reminded in casual conversations that America — I live in the USA — is widely idealized by South Africans. “North America” includes the USA, Mexico, and Canada.

Load-shedding* is obviously a challenge to all South Africans.

I’m amazed at how people appear to adjust to it, embrace it, arrange their lives and programmes around it and simply go on. 

Given such a necessity in the USA there’d be outrage and people would take to the streets and refuse to accommodate the inconvenience. 

They’d feel picked on and singled and express it without reserve.

The USA is generally highly efficient. Things work.  Attention is usually somewhat immediate when things don’t — but, we are far from a perfect nation. 

Selfishness abounds. 

Entitlement persists. 

Political turmoil is rampant and is often hate driven. 

Crime is a significant problem and many inner city areas are veritable war zones.

Yes, you’ll hear of South African immigrants in the USA who brag about leaving their houses unlocked and have no home security system and so forth, but, they have joined the privileged.  

Lots of areas of our country are deeply troubled and we could do with a lot more of your friendly and humble attitude all round.

* Power (electrical) shedding — electricity shuts down for up to 4 hours a day in stages across the nation. There’s an app that informs the population when power will be off and reconnected in your area. This means traffic lights are off and some malls and banks have to shut downSome establishments have installed generators and so they are unaffected by load shedding.

Caring for another, a neighbor, a friend, during an illness or while grieving a loss is an art.

Caring too much — overdoing caring — damages both the recipient of the “care” and he or she who offers it.

Caring offhandedly or indifferently is no care at all.

Then, it’s a tricky business trying to care for one who needs no care or thinks he or she needs no care.

Striking a balance of caring for another without compromising oneself is a delicate art form.

But, it’s possible.

It can be learned and practiced and perfected. Then, when errors are made, the errors can teach valuable lessons so they are unlikely to be repeated.

Among the first errors is the belief that caring for another is easy, requires little or no thought, training, or preparation. Another is agreeing or deciding too quickly.

Long term care for another, costs. It’s an enormous investment of time and love and commitment requiring that other facets of the carer’s life will require reassessment. Long term care for one will mean others in the carer’s broader circle of relationships will also require readjustments.

Self-care comes first or the “care” offered will probably begin well but spiral down to acts of begrudged favors and feel both for the carer and recipient like a really bad marriage.

Anger, hatred, the desire for revenge, are strong emotions but are often the just and appropriate feelings of many who have been wronged.

Just, and appropriate, as they may well be, they are destructive to the host.

A person who enduringly hosts such emotions without a means to address them will be stewed in bitterness and even ill health. No matter how sadly and well earned, these emotions will, bit by bitter bit, destroy the host.

If you are craving revenge for yourself or others, if hatred wells within you, if you have outbursts of rage where the intensity of your rage blinds you and distances you from reason, please, seek counseling.

Seek a wise guide to lead you out of your multiple traps. A wise counselor will be able to assist you to tabulate your grievances, asses your degree (if any) of responsibility for the feelings you face, and devise with you a plan to negotiate your way to a free, or at least a free-er, future,

No one benefits when continuing to live under the demands of revenge, hatred and anger, all of which will prove to be rather exacting and demanding and unrelenting task masters.

Say “please” and “thank you” and “well done” and “nice to see you” and look people in the eyes when you say these golden words. Make this a practice and you’ll be a one-in-a-million kind of person and others will consider you extraordinary. Not only that, your lens with which you see the world will shift to see beauty and kindness where you previously may have missed or ignored it.

Evaluate and solidify your core values and then perhaps decide you will return to no one evil for evil or unkindness for unkindness.  Rather you will respond to selfishness and deceit and indifference with engagement and generosity and offer goodness. This will make you extraordinary and enhance your days and bring you unadulterated and lasting peace. 

Decide who and what you are —- this will take extended alone time and a pencil and a few sheets of lined paper — and then slowly begin to declare who and what you are by living out your values. This act — always unfinished — will make you extraordinaryily self-assured and you will become a rock of confidence both to yourself and those seeking stability and guidance.

Do your part to make the mountains you face become molehills 

• One day at a time, the Twelve Step mantra is really helpful. Not everything you face has to be faced today. 
• Learning to “hold onto yourself” is a skill really worth developing and will reap huge benefits. 
• Gaining some distance to improve perspective is always helpful.
• Listen more than you speak. When you listen for what people are really saying rather than what you hope they are saying. Our hopes can distort what others are trying to tell us. 
• How people treat any one person is how they can treat everyone. Watch out for those who treat others poorly. You may be, you probably are, next in line. 
• We see the world and others not as the world is and as others are but as we are. The lens you use is always in your pocket. 
• The best thing you can do for the people you most love is to take care of yourself. If you do not, no one else will. 
• Watch how people behave rather than listen to what they say. If the two don’t seem to match each other it is a signal that you ought to be aware.
• Plan tough meetings in great detail. Flying by the seat of your pants will result in others taking you to the cleaners.