Systemic Patterns Archives - Judy Wilkins-Smith

July 15, 2025July 13, 2025

Break Free From Your Family System: What Is Holding You Back?

You Have a Platform. What Will You Build?

Very few of us realize that every single one of us has a platform and a brand. And our platform is our family system! All that it brings and everything that constitutes our family history is our foundation and, in essence, our brand. Now, what we choose to add to the system and that brand remains to be seen.

Unfortunately, instead of mindfully crafting a cohesive brand, we often come across as an inarticulate jumble of limitations, awkwardness, fears, and self-sabotage. We’re not taught as kids to think about building a brand on the family platform we were given. Most the time many of us try to escape our family influence rather than build on it!

But those who use their given platform/family system and its dynamics and push beyond the boundaries of that system, develop an appetite for life. They are the ones who often become the greats. They realize that looking at what they have, and seeing how it can get them to what they want, and what they have to do or change to get there will get them to their goals. In other words, they choose to develop their brand—they don’t try to start from scratch. Which is actually impossible anyway.

I work with a lot of highly successful individuals and companies. When I ask them how they became so successful, without fail they tell me, they bet on themselves. In systemic terms, they take what they’ve been given but they don’t default to the limiting emotional DNA and mindsets of their ancestors on that genetic platform. Instead, they formulate the thoughts, feelings, and actions that will elevate them so that they can consciously build their brand and advance in the direction of their dreams. Most importantly, they don’t give up.

Build Excitement

Building a brand means that you have to pay attention to your life. It doesn’t just happen. You choose how you would like to be perceived, what you would like to achieve, and what your superpower or value-add is going to be. And then you work at it and don’t stop.

Unfortunately, often we overlook our obvious superpowers. Things like kindness, optimism, helpfulness, going the extra mile, are all value-adds. They may not seem like much, but often these are the kind of character traits that get people to the top. Nobody wants to hire a Bossy Chops or a Sad Sally, and nobody wants to work for one. Being that way not only stunts opportunities, it stunts growth.

I have a client who has a lot of reasons to be sad and anxious—really good reasons. As a result, this client (in the past!) just did not shine. In fact, she came across as basically invisible and flat.

During a session, she mentioned that nobody wanted to be around her much, and that she often felt left out. When we explored her family system we discovered both sets of grandparents had had to hide for several years from the Nazis in Germany in WWII. No wonder she was good at being invisible!

Unsurprisingly, she cheered up when she realized she had someone else to blame for her reticent behavior. (This is a common reaction that often gives us a reason to form an unconscious loyalty to those behavioral predecessors and follow their path. You might say blaming someone else gives us a reason to give up.) So, I asked her at what point would she take responsibility for building her brand and way of being in the world. She was astonished to find out that she actually had a choice. After all, if the whole family was like that, what choice did she have? Which is another common misperception.

At any point in your life, you are free to choose a different direction and go beyond your family system with all of its limitations, locks, keys, clues, fates, and gifts. But you have to know it’s possible and what to focus on. In this client’s case, despite two generations of family members that had been quiet, invisible, sad and depressed, we looked beyond the obvious family traits. My client actually had a wicked sense of humor, which was a great start. And, as we rummaged through her family’s other characteristics, we found a lot of things to build on, like caring, a love for animals, and the ability to form lasting relationships. And then we found the system’s superpower! And it was stubbornness—which, at first, could be seen as a negative. But upon examination, we realized my client had already reframed that family trait in the higher terms of grit and determination. She had already been taking what she’d been given and was building her brand!

Inspired, she acknowledged that she would keep going on projects long after others would give up. Which was why, as a paralegal, she was usually handed the most difficult cases at work.

Over a number of weeks, she was able to reframe many other apparent family limitations into helpful opportunities. Within months her brand had shifted from “invisible” to “indispensable.” Within six months, not only was she no longer being overlooked, she was offered the position as head of her own department. Associates were even requesting transfers to work for her! My client’s career was no longer a slog, but instead, an adventure.

While we don’t get to choose our platform, (what we start with) we do get to choose our brand.

I am not saying that it is always easy. Some of us come from completely dreadful circumstances, and it is difficult to imagine something better. But, if we take the time to ask ourselves, “What is my brand, and how do I want it to be?” we may just surprise ourselves. I often tell people we have to show up to grow up. And, that includes showing up for ourselves.

Lego Exercise

A simple exercise is to take a Lego base. This would represent your family system. Now take some Lego blocks and a dry erase pen. If you don’t have Legos, different color Post-it notes on a flat table top surface will do just as well. Write down all the positive characteristics that you have on the side of each yellow Lego brick. You can decide what size each one is, depending on how much weight you give them. Now take red Lego bricks and write down all the limiting characteristics you have on those. Take time to build a structure that represents you with the yellow and red bricks.

Now, take white bricks and write down good reframe words for each red brick. For example, stubborn could turn to grit, and “troublemaker” could transform into “out of the box thinker.” Place each white brick next to its red counterpart. This will require some rebuilding.

Finally, take blue bricks and write down characteristics you would like to develop. Look at the structure in front of you and see where each of those bricks belongs.

This is a fun yet mindful exercise you can use to design your brand on top of the platform called your family system. You have a ready-made platform, but YOU are the designer of what comes after.

A Systemic Expert & Executive Coach, Judy Wilkins-Smith assists high-performance individuals, Fortune 500 executives, and legacy families to end limiting cycles and reframe apparent challenges into lasting breakthroughs and peak performance by guiding them through and beyond hidden Emotional DNA patterns. Her books Decoding Your Emotional Blueprint and The Hidden Power in Your DNA are two exciting guides on your journey to purpose.

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July 1, 2025June 27, 2025

Stopping Limiting Family Patterns & Social Patterns

The Game of Life Is a Series of Opening and Closing Doors

We’ve been working on stopping limiting family patterns and negative patterns within our family system for a long time. Sometimes the change happens, and there are other times that it doesn’t. So, let’s talk about the times it doesn’t work and the reasons and consequences of that, especially as they affect family members and family relationships across different family type structures, whether they involve a married couple, single-parent families, or one-parent families.

If we think of patterns as being housed behind different doors, it’s logical to imagine that some of those doors open onto awareness and opportunity and other doors open onto attitudes, thoughts, and actions that don’t serve us or our family structure. Obviously, the doors we want to open are the doors that give us opportunities and growth. The doors that take us back to destructive family pattern behavior that want to rest because they’ve served their purpose are supposed to remain closed.

When a door closes, seriously, leave it closed! Quit trying to open the darn thing again!

When a pattern is done, allow it to be done. Yes, behind each pattern is a generation of previous generations that needed that pattern. It’s a little bit like having an emotional DNA library that connects us to our family history. You can borrow an old pattern for reference, but just like a library book, you don’t want that book to become the only book you ever read in your life. It is there to teach and inform and then be released to benefit future generations.

This is true whether you’re a biological parent, adoptive parent, or single parent working to create better well-being for your children.

Take “Brenda” for example. She always must have two of everything in her pantry. The minute one bag of flour or jar of tomato sauce gets used another is purchased to replace it. Now, this might sound like sensible planning, but when you ask Brenda why she does this, her answer reveals family dynamics that are less than healthy. “I could run out of food and starve to death,” she says, eyes wide and serious, showing the emotional distress that drives her behavior.

When asked “Who starved to death in your family?” she tears up and recalls her great-grandmother who made sure her children did not go hungry during the Great Depression—a period from the first half of the 20th century that affected many american families and created lasting generational patterns—by not eating enough herself. And she died. “Mother and grandma taught me to always always always have two of everything on the shelves,” she says nervously, revealing how family roles get passed down through generations.

This type of experience was common in american life during that era, affecting married-couple families and creating patterns that persist even today stands as evidence of how trauma impacts family life.

Of course, both Brenda’s mother and grandmother suffer from high levels of anxiety and negative emotions. Which is not surprising if you watched your mother starve herself to death as a kid during what could be considered a financial hardship of epic proportions. And her grandmother vowed that would never happen again in her family unit. Her anxiety and her promise got passed down, and now Brenda carries the anxiety and the burden of a promise that is not hers to keep, affecting her sense of identity and adult lives.

These patterns affect many african american families, native americans, and other ethnic group communities who experienced similar hardships, creating lasting impacts on family arrangements across generations.

Despite this, Brenda dreams of owning a new pantry. In fact, she has a scrapbook full of pictures of the most elegant pantries you could imagine. And the style she admires the most is sophisticated and somewhat minimalist. A new pantry was part of the incentive that encouraged Brenda to move out of the family patterns of behavior, and she was at the point of relaxing the pattern’s hold enough to actually have one constructed. And the thought excited her.

The door on the old pattern was closing! This desire for change is common among young adults who seek to break free from limiting patterns, regardless of their family type or whether they come from married-couple families or grew up with a single parent.

But the day the carpenters were supposed to start renovating her pantry, the reality of an emptier, more functional pantry overwhelmed her with anxiety. After all, somebody could die. So, Brenda, even knowing it was just a relationship patterns issue playing out through her, chose to stay loyal to the family and the fear and cancelled the construction project. In her mind it was selfish to want something so contrary to the need for safety that her mother and grandmother had instilled in her.

She even feared that if she indulged her selfish whim that she might call another great depression into being. A neat, uncluttered pantry wasn’t worth that! This type of decision-making shows how deeply ingrained patterns affect our view of marriage, committed relationship choices, and overall family life, often preventing us from achieving the better well-being we seek.

Holding Pattern

If you think this sounds crazy, think again. Every single one of us has patterns that we carry around that do not serve us and no longer make sense, affecting our sense of self and family composition. “George” is another example. He was the CEO of a very large company who would come home every day, rest for an hour, and then sprint off to his second job.

Now, working two jobs may be the unfortunate situation for a lot of people, especially parents of young children in nonfamily households or those in single-parent families, but not the wealthy CEO of a big company who had already established successful career paths and likely had a college education that provided him opportunities.

When I asked him to share his thinking on having a second job, he blurted out that one needed to work very hard and not take things for granted in order to make sure the nuclear family stayed safe. When I pointed out that he had plenty of money, investments, and two homes, he burst into tears saying, “My immigrant father and grandfather worked two to three jobs at a time to get the family on its feet. If they had to work so hard, how dare I come home after one job at the end of the day?” This response showed how personality traits and family dynamics from previous generations still controlled his behavior.

His doctor, his wife, and even his father and grandfather, who were both still alive, were all telling him to slow down before he burned-out and become ill. As we talked, he became aware that the original pattern of extremely hard work was no longer working for anyone in his family structure. He “got it.” And when he did, he quit the unneeded second job and took his whole family, including his father and grandfather, on a much-needed vacation, providing the emotional support they all needed.

This breakthrough often requires family therapy to help individuals recognize how patterns from previous eras no longer serve modern family life, especially as divorce rates and changing family arrangements create new challenges for today’s families.

BUT, like Brenda, here’s what happens when you walk back through those doors to the old patterns. As soon as he brought work and family relationships into balance, he began to get invited to sit on corporate boards. That might have been fine, except that the old pattern of work, work, work snatched him back into the systemic trance. And, before he knew it, he was back at the doctor’s office receiving yet another very stern warning to slow down, showing how destructive family pattern behavior can persist even when we know better.

This cycle affects people across all backgrounds and demonstrates how ethnic differences in family expectations can create similar pressures, whether in traditional American family structures or among people of different races who share common immigrant experiences.

The loyalty to the old pattern was making him ill and affecting his parents’ emotional well-being. And this time it took an equally stern warning from his father and grandfather to “stop or else,” for it to finally sink in. This situation illustrates how modern families face unique challenges that didn’t exist in World War II era families, where survival often depended on extreme work patterns that are no longer necessary in contemporary American life.

Investigation

I invite you to write down a list of patterns you keep going back to and ask yourself the following questions, considering how they affect your family members and intimate relationships, whether you’re in your first marriage, a committed relationship, or exploring new marriages after previous short-term relationships:

What or who am I being loyal to holding onto this pattern?
What is the fear driving the pattern, and how does it affect my expectations of romantic love or ideal of romantic love?
Where have I seen a loved one struggle and how have I perpetuated that struggle within our family system?
What promise did I make as a child that I would do (or not do) “X,” and how does this impact my view of marriage or passionate romantic love?
What is this costing me and my family unit in terms of better well-being?
Where have I opened a closed door?
Who was I being loyal to when I did that, and how does it affect future generations and the cultural importance of marriage in our family?

It takes a great deal of courage to walk through a new door and embrace a new pattern that might seem contradictory to the original, especially when it challenges established family roles and generational patterns that have shaped our sense of identity. But life demands growth. Systems need it, and you are the one called to make the change happen. Family systems or social systems, systems in general are begging for us to let closed doors stay closed so that new doors may open, allowing family members to develop healthier relationship patterns and break free from negative patterns that no longer serve them.

This is particularly important in today’s world where we see higher rates of divorce, changing proportion of families that include same-sex marriages, interracial marriages, and diverse family arrangements that require new approaches to creating lifelong marriage and security of marriage bonds.

Systems don’t mind if we take a quick peek to learn from the past and understand our family history. But history is there to educate us, not to trap us in destructive family pattern cycles. The future has its own place and is asking us to see it and go for it. For it is only when we have the courage to open new doors that great advances in humanity occur, benefiting not just our immediate nuclear family, but future generations who will inherit the family structure and family dynamics we create today.

Whether we examine families at the median age of years of age when major life transitions occur, or consider how american marriages end and begin anew, the important ideal remains the same: creating healthier patterns that serve both current and future generations across all family type structures in our diverse american family landscape.

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June 15, 2025June 27, 2025

Strengths and Weaknesses Assessment – Your Opportunity for Growth

Strengths and Weaknesses Assessment - Your Opportunity for Growth

Summoning Strengths from Perceived Weaknesses - Your Strengths & Weaknesses Assessment

A lot of my work with clients, whether in their professional life or personal life, seems to revolve around strengths and opportunities. Or, to put it more plainly, strengths and weaknesses. Why do I equate weaknesses with opportunities? Well, keep reading!

Unlike traditional strengths assessments or psychometric tests, my approach goes deeper than surface-level test results.

Although we tend to be quick to identify our weaknesses and reluctant to celebrate our strengths, throughout our lives, we are always aware of both. Which means we’re really good at seeing how bad we are. And, because we’re taught from an early age that this is being humble, we think it’s a good thing and accept it.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth! Unfortunately, when it comes to seeing how good we are, when it comes to seeing and acknowledging our personal strengths and natural talents, we can actually be quite blind. Many people focus on weaknesses assessment without recognizing their unique qualities.

When I work with clients, I ask them to write down all their strengths on one side of a piece of paper and all their weaknesses on the other side. This simple strengths and weaknesses assessment process is often more revealing than traditional personality tests or strengths assessment tools. It’s a great way to uncover hidden layers of their own unique strengths that typical free tests might miss. Then I go through each attribute, beginning with their strengths. Then I ask them a series of questions about each one.

Who told you you had this strength?
What did they tell you, and what did you believe?
How old were you?
Was there an event attached to this?
How has this affected your life?
Do you use it to enrich your life?
Do you use it to enrich the lives of others?
Do you overuse it?
Who else in your family has a similar strength?

Sometimes I have to half drag the information out of them. Why? Because they’ve been taught that talking about and celebrating their own strengths and key strengths is arrogant, and that doing so is somehow damaging. This affects their work life and ability to contribute effectively as team members.

Only after we’ve covered their strengths do I move on to their perceived limiting traits. And let me tell you, here people sing like canaries! Most are pretty sure that solving their limiting characteristics will bring about much needed transformation, and that they will finally be “fixed.” And, they’re right, but not for the reasons they think. Because while some of their limiting characteristics may have their origins in their family system, the “fix” they’re looking for begins with them.

Then, I ask them the following questions about their areas of improvement. This assessment method provides valuable insights in different contexts:

Who told you you had this weakness?
What did they tell you, and what did you believe?
How old were you?
Was there an event attached to this?
How has this affected your life?
How much pain has this caused you?
Do you use it to shut yourself out of opportunities?
Do you use it as an escape clause?
Do you overuse it?
Has it robbed you of your resilience?
What else has it robbed you of?
Who else in your family has a similar weakness?
Does that weakness really belong to you?

When I ask them, “Who made your strengths and weaknesses a reality?” Eventually, they recognize that they are the ones who have agreed to their limitations. Predictably, they’re a little more reluctant to realize that they are also the ones who have co-created their strengths.

Emotional Imprinting

When we hear things from people in authority and accept those things, they become our new reality. These external factors, coupled with intense emotion (shame, guilt, humiliation, anger, etc.) create what we’re shown or told as an emotional imprint that epigenetically influences our lives and those who come after us.

The magic happens when I ask a client which one of their so-called weaknesses is itching to become a strength, if only it is given a chance. This strengths-based approach to personal development often reveals unrealized strengths and areas of strength that they never recognized.

For example, I have a client who was told very young that she was terrible at math. She didn’t like how it felt, especially when the cool kids laughed at her in class. She desperately wanted to belong, and so, quite without prompting, she began to tell herself how good she was at math. She started going to her math teacher and asking for one-on-one assistance. The teacher was only too willing to give her extra attention! But the key to her improvement was herself. She was so determined to succeed and belong that she even started doing extra math homework on her own.

In other words, she bet on herself, and that is priceless.

Within six months, her perception of herself had shifted, and within a year, her math grades were top-notch. The cool kids stopped taunting her and were asking her for help instead.

When I asked her what she had learned during this shift, she was very clear. “Nobody tells me who I am,” she said, “and I don’t ever quit once I’ve decided to do something.” And guess what? Today, that client is a very successful accountant! Who knows where she would have ended up if she had not decided to turn a weakness into a strength!

We Have the Key

The thing is, this is possible for all of us. We all have the keys to transformation at our disposal. We just have to believe in ourselves and create an action plan for positive change. This powerful tool of self-awareness can lead to better outcomes in both our daily lives and professional goals.

Often, I have clients go back to the triggering event behind a weakness and begin to reframe it. This honest self-reflection provides valuable insights in different ways. For example, sticking with “math issues,” I have another client, “Jack,” who was always a straight A student in school. But in the 9th grade, his father was going through a severe mental health crisis, and he and his mother had to flee the house.

In a heightened state of survival, there was no time to think about math or do math homework. And the next math test in school, he got a “D.” Trying to be a “good kid,” he made no excuses for himself and didn’t ask for help. Rather than blaming his circumstances and his dad’s issues as the source of the problem, he blamed himself. After that triggering event, he told himself he was no good at math.

Now, thoughts are the mechanism of the brain, and emotions are the mechanism of the body. When they are aligned, this alliance creates strong perceptions that we perceive as the truth. Notice the important ingredients: heightened emotion, triggering event, reactive thoughts, feelings, and actions creating a faulty thought pattern with a strong enough emotional force to be interpreted as the truth.

Also, notice that this pattern was never consciously deactivated or debriefed, and so the faulty perception continued on through the years, affecting both his professional development and personal growth.

Once I stepped him through the questions above, Jack saw the assumptions he’d made and saw how he’d kneecapped himself. And he shifted. Because once a client sees what’s happened and changes their thoughts, feelings, and actions around a perceived weakness and begins to see a new potential, the whole game changes. This first step toward reaching their full potential is often the most transformative.

Bottom line, a weakness is simply a strength that hasn’t been activated yet, or a potential strength that was deactivated by some event. And they can be activated and reactivated by you. You have the power to change and become your best self.

Is this a lot of work? Yes, it is. But so is maintaining your so-called weaknesses. Which kind of work would you rather do? The best way forward is to start with a better understanding of yourself and take that crucial step toward transformation. The power is in knowing that you can!

Access your free chapter of Decoding Your Emotional Blueprint

June 1, 2025June 9, 2025

Discover How to Find Your Superpower and Shine

We often think of superpowers as belonging to superstars. What we fail to realize is superstars were people just like us until one day they woke up and saw something in themselves that they wanted to take to the world. And this self-belief encouraged them to form a future vision of what they could accomplish and reach their full potential. And for many of those people, that vision and journey arrived at a later age in life. So take heart!

Not everybody knows they have a superpower. And yet we all do. It’s usually a characteristic that we take for granted, our unique strengths that become second nature to us. You know, like everybody says, you are kind, or have a great sense of humor, or are always so calm in the middle of a storm. Well, all those things are their own superpowers.

Unfortunately, a lot of people aren’t taught to recognize such character traits as important, let alone as a superpower. As a result, those individual strengths of ours can’t show up for us and take us all the places we want to go. And yet such qualities add tremendous value to others in the world around us. Kindness, humor, calm in a storm—those traits can be huge assets in the context of your work. Certainly, they make us better friends, lovers, and partners!

Maybe you’ve had such a superpower for years. Maybe your natural gift is an extension of your family system. Perhaps everyone in your family is service-oriented… in politics, medicine, law, construction, and you’re wired that way too. Or maybe you’ve recognized something about yourself recently, your crazy ability to put the right people together to get things done. Or maybe you’ve recognized that you just see straight to the core issue of everything, and you choose to cultivate that talent further. No matter how it shows up, when you truly invest in your innate abilities, you get to shine and create meaningful work.

Consciously investing in your own strengths will take you as far as you want to go. “But what if I don’t know what my superpower is?” you ask. Great! Glad you asked!

Let’s look at places where you might find your superpower.

Superpower Locations

Look at where you feel comfortable, happy, and capable. And excited! This is often where your greatest strength emerges.
Notice your default behavior in times of stress or times of excellence. These moments reveal your extraordinary abilities
Significant events as a child (Perhaps a parent became incapacitated, and you had to take over, developing your leadership role early.)
Illnesses (Severe illnesses tend to mature children very quickly and make them resilient, often creating a strong ability to handle challenges.)
Things your parents told you about yourself. (You’re smart, funny, athletic.) Look for the common thread in their observations.
Things your teachers told you about you (You’re smart, helpful, socially adept.) These insights often point to your unique superpowers
Things you’ve told yourself about yourself. No! Not the bad stuff! The good stuff! (I’m resilient. I’m patient. I’m flexible.) This creative thinking about your own qualities matters.
Choices you’ve made about yourself. (I will be reliable. I will be forgiving.)
Decisions you made about others (I can’t trust anyone else to take care of me. There are smart people out there, I’m going to learn from them.)
Big dreams (I’m going to become a doctor/millionaire/best mother/most famous …)
Any callings (Any deep interests.)
Sufferings/sacrifices (Doing without, putting in extra time at sport, pushing yourself at something.) These experiences often build the foundation for making a positive difference
Promises (“Dear God, if you … I will ….”)
Secrets (I will keep your secret and keep you safe, even at my cost.)
Successes (In school, at work, at home, in sports, in talents, in finance, in relationships)
Failures (family, finances, marriage, loss of a job)

In every one of the categories listed above, you have a chance to discover your superpower(s). And then you get to maximize and run with what shows up for you (and in you). But if you don’t pay attention, what happens is just what happens, and opportunity passes you by. For example, you’re good at computers and you’re good at programming and you LOVE gaming. You hear about modding (modifying other people’s game programs online) and feel a thrill of excitement rise inside. I can do that!! You think. But then you forget about it and stick with your regular programming job at a tech firm because the money’s good and you know the routine. That’s you not paying attention.

At home, are you the one in charge, the great support, the comforter, the sensible one, the one who brings joy? At work, are you the dependable one, the decision maker, the gatekeeper, the entrepreneur, the life of the party? All of these are skills. Once you invest in them, they become superpowers. But you have to BELIEVE in that part of you first!

Sturdy Companions

I’ll repeat. Desire and self-belief form the foundation and are the loyal companions of all superpowers. Self-belief does not allow for trash-talking or deviation from your desired path. And if that does happen, self-belief is what gets you back on track. Desire helps you to lock onto purpose and stick with a dream until its final outcome. Desire and self-belief are two of the most important things to cultivate in order for a superpower to flourish.

Your superpower is also your rocket fuel. And when you tie it to a purpose, you can go far. For example, if your superpower is vision, you just see the what and wherefore in situations and what people should be doing to maximize outcomes for themselves. Tie that to a purpose to help people while simultaneously making a good living, and you’re on your way to developing a great consulting business. Your superpower and your purpose will pull you past excuses and reasons for staying stuck. But you have to ACTIVATE them and follow through.

Stephen Hawking gave humanity some of the most incredible insights into the universe, and yet, for a considerable part of his life, he was wheelchair bound and could not even use his voice. That did not deter his superpower, which was imagination and thinking outside the box. And it didn’t derail his purpose, which was sharing what he saw. Therein lies the key. He committed to growing that superpower and that purpose every day. And the excitement that generated vaulted him beyond the most incredible limitations. He showed up, even when his body was completely incapacitated, which is a characteristic of a superpower. We show up for it over and over until it becomes the norm.

Not everyone is a Stephen Hawking. But that doesn’t matter. You’re YOU. And you have gifts that you can turn into superpowers. And that is called actualizing your human potential, one thought, one feeling, and one action at a time. The minute you truly say “YES!” to a desire and purpose and hook it up to those qualities that make you uniquely you, your thoughts, feelings, and actions change. And when you stick to it, it all locks into place head, heart, gut … whole body. Truly.

Most people stop just short of finally activating their superpower. They turn around at the threshold, lacking the belief that they have it or that it’s meaningful enough. So, quit being so darned scared that you don’t have a superpower and know that it is part of your Emotional DNA. Everybody has one or more. We humans are, however, extremely skittish about owning it. Our biggest fear is that we will actually succeed and have to show up and work hard and take responsibility for our superpower and its effects. And yet it’s our greatest joy.

PRO TIP:

Use elevated emotions. Gratitude, joy, love, curiosity, and excitement are some of the strongest emotions you can use to get you through resistance and all the way to where you want to be. They don’t allow you to quit.
Commit to driving strategies such as always showing up, asking questions, relentlessness, acknowledging successes, embracing belief in positive outcomes, and resilience.
Move out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to try something new.
Always ask yourself: What more can I do to grow my superpower?
Avoid trash-talking, self-doubt, tiredness, and giving up. They are the enemies of superpowers.
Avoid lower emotions such as anger, hatred, despair, apathy, sadness, and hopelessness.

Remember: Your superpower must inspire and excite you. That is the quality of a superpower. And its power is revealed as people around you acknowledge it in their conversations with you. Pay attention. Activate your potential and finally see the incredible being that you are and the amazing things you can accomplish with your superpower!

Access your free chapter of Decoding Your Emotional Blueprint

May 15, 2025June 2, 2025

How to Unlock the Law of Manifestation and Attraction

Inner Demons, Angels and Manifestation

Let’s talk about the Law of Manifestation. It’s always a hot topic. Everybody thinks they can do it, and the fact is, they’re right. The problem is, given our systemic roots, we tend to be really, really good at manifesting negative thoughts and things we don’t want rather than the angels and what we do want!

The thing about the Law of Manifestation is that it simply requires alignment of head, heart, and gut—something we humans are not very good at when it comes to what we want. I always describe it as being like baby Merlin with an untrained wand. Magic things happen in fits and starts, but he’s not quite sure how to get consistent results with the doggone thing.

Similarly, the rest of us humans are able to summon up anger, sadness, disappointment, regret, guilt, self-blame and negative self-talk at a snap of our fingers. But we seem to be unable to use our magic to do the same for the great things we want in life. And the question is, “Why”?

Well, think about it. How many consistently good experiences do we have in our daily life that train us to expect good things to consistently come? The answer for most of us is “not so many.” And a lot of people seem to be completely at peace with that. After all, our family system and our social system tell us not everybody gets to be rich, famous, or happy. They tell us only a few lucky souls get to hit the jackpot, usually quite by accident. And the result of this kind of thinking is, as I said, like baby Merlin running amuck with his subconscious mind, unable to manifest his dream life through powerful tools like vision boards.

The Competition Queen

But there are the uncommon exceptions to the rule. Helen Hadsell was known as the American Competition Queen because she won just about every competition she entered. She even won a house which was showcased at the 1964–65 New York World’s Fair. She was so consistent in her winning she eventually ended up lecturing and holding workshops on positive thoughts.

How did she do it? Well, Helen said she was always fully prepared to win and expected to win. It never crossed her mind that she wouldn’t. When most people entered a contest, they filled out the form, stuck a stamp on it, dropped it in the mailbox and then forgot about it. When she entered the competition to win that house, she entered the competition, then sat down and drew up the plans for its design. On the day the winner was to be announced, she sat by her phone and waited for the call. And she wasn’t disappointed.

Helen understood something at a very deep level. When your thoughts, feelings, and inspired action are aligned, there is no disagreement in your being on any level. You are not doubting. You are not unconsciously hitting the brakes. You’re full-on sure you’re going to win. Helen had trained her head, heart, and gut to be in a state of agreement around whatever competition she entered. Instead of forgetting about it, or harboring limiting beliefs, she would use creative visualization to think about the prize, how it would feel to have it, and what she would do with it. She maintained a positive mindset and stayed in the present moment, free from negative energy that could sabotage her success. Her approach represents one of the best ways to achieve financial abundance in your own life. In other words, the runway for that prize was clear all the way from takeoff to coming back down into her hands to land, demonstrating the powerful tool of aligned intention.

The Doubt Demon

Now, I’m sure I can hear you saying that you’ve tried positive statements before. But I’m also 100 percent sure that the little voices of doubt crept in there somewhere. After all, doubt is a global meta pattern we’re all subject to. And yet, you know how to manifest. You do it all the time when you want something small. You want it. That’s it. You don’t worry or doubt about it. You simply want it and you go get it.

This is you fully present, anticipating your ‘prize’ and getting it. And you do that many times per day in your everyday life. From something as simple as what you want on your toast to where you want to go shopping for a new coat. You might be on a budget, but you are going to get what you are after.

Helen simply chose to want really big things instead of really little things. She tuned out the pesky multi-generational voices saying “You can’t,” and focused on what she wanted and what would bring her and those around her fulfilment and joy. Her approach is one of the most effective manifestation techniques for achieving your best life. And her method was simple. She called it the SPEC Method: Select, Project, Expect, Collect – these actionable steps represent the first step toward creating your ideal life. That simple. And please take note: There isn’t a “D” for doubt, or “F” for fear or “FP” for family patterns in that formula. She didn’t invite her negative feelings or negative experiences into the picture. Instead, she maintained a positive state of mind and positive energy, which played a vital role in her success.

A Simple Exercise

Grab a spiral gratitude journal or an empty notebook.
Write down your deepest desires on the first line and pay attention. Can you hear all of those voices instantly telling you that you can’t have it? And why?

Welcome to the world of your systems. Now let’s break through that noise and get more of what you want – this is a great way to shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset:

Looking at what you want, explain to yourself why this is a good thing for your mental well-being.
Every time you hear a dissenting voice, write what it says on a separate page. (You are going to become really good at spotting systemic language that doesn’t serve you.)
Assign the excuse an owner. For example, “You can’t have that, it’s too expensive.” – Dad.
Go back to what you want and write down all the reasons why what you want is a good thing. Assign that an owner too. For example, “I want you to have this because I couldn’t.” – Mom.
Keep writing down all the reasons for having it and assign them owners.

When you reach reason that has no owner other than you, you have just hit a pure desire. It belongs to only you. It is part of your path. When all the little demons and the voices of others who harbored them are silent and you are looking at what belongs to only you, listen for the whispers of the angels. The ones encouraging you to go towards your desire.

Now that you’ve chosen what you purely want, it’s time to just imagine it. And please, don’t strain your brain on this! So many people think they have to go after what they want with gritted teeth and a furrowed brow. Not true! This is just more programming. Effort and strain do not equal manifestation. Effort often means you are fighting an ancestral battle.

With all the resistant noise out of the way, simply relax into imagining, enjoying, and expecting what’s to come. Know that you’ve aligned your head, heart, and gut, and wait for the result.

I recently watched a program with 1,000 contestants who eventually got whittled down to one winner. It was fascinating to watch the faces and body language of the participants. You could clearly see who was going to win and who was going to lose ahead of time. Their ancestry and the little voices that accompanied them were clearly in evidence, taking down the contestants one by one.

The final winner was the one who had the clearest, most detailed vision and purpose. When the host asked the winner what he would do with the money, there wasn’t even a flicker of a pause. He could articulate it quickly and clearly. When asked how he could be so calm, he said he’d been preparing for this for a long time, and knew the final prize was his.

Your manifesting breakthroughs are no different. Stay true to your choices and vision and do not allow little demons or dissenting voices to come through. Align head, heart, and gut with the prize you want. When you take full responsibility for who you are and all that you want, then it can be yours.

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April 15, 2025April 28, 2025

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs – Who Taught You to Pretend You Were Small?

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs - Who Taught You to Pretend You Were Small?

I have a very well-known client who is a top producer in Hollywood, bringing out some of the biggest movies and interacting with some of the world’s top stars. I asked her one day why she was behind the camera, not in front of an audience. It was just a casual question, but her answer and reaction revealed deep-seated negative self-talk and self-limiting beliefs. She turned bright red and said “You won’t catch me dead in front of a camera or on stage!”

Now, I’d only asked her about being in front of a camera, but I’m used to listening carefully to what people say and how they say it. Her emotional reaction was extreme given the casualness of the question. And I noted the addition of the word “stage”- a potential blind spot in her comfort zone.

So, I asked her what had happened to her when she was on a stage, and how old was she at the time? She was shocked at my insight, but went on to tell me that when she was young age of eight, she had loved everything to do with the stage and entertainment. She attended a large school with a robust fine arts program, and at one point got together with a group of students and presented them with a play that she had written. She cast all of the children into the different roles, and took on the starring role herself.

They presented the play to the whole school. (She described it as “One of the greatest adventures of my life to date.” Which was a pretty huge statement!) Giddy with excitement at the good reception they received, she danced over to the teacher who was in charge of the program. Expecting to be praised for her extra work and initiative, she was floored by the teacher’s response: “Nobody likes show-offs, you should be ashamed. And you weren’t that good anyway.” This turning point created negative experiences that became the biggest obstacle to her personal growth as a performer.

This story illustrates how past experiences can shape our inner voice and create mental roadblocks that limit our full potential. What might have been this producer’s career path had that teacher chosen to nurture rather than criticize? How often do our own negative beliefs stem from similar moments in our life experiences?

The message sank deep and became part of a profile of shame. She never set foot on stage again, and it took her much time to become a movie producer. Her emotional well-being was so compromised that she would experience high anxiety anytime a director asked her to stand-in for a quick sound or camera check, causing tears and anxiety throughout production of her first two movies. This fear of failure had transformed into invisible barriers affecting her professional development.

I asked if she felt up to gently going back to revisit that moment – the first step toward healing these core beliefs. And I encouraged her to stop the process anytime it felt overwhelming. Setting up a constellation, I asked her to place a representative for her younger self, as well as one for the teacher, and for entertainment in general. There wasn’t much to do after that. She immediately got up from her chair and rushed over to the stand-in for her eight-year-old self and burst into tears.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” she sobbed. Then she looked at me. “Everybody told me how good I was, but somehow that teacher’s words struck hardest, and I couldn’t get on stage after that. Even now, I find myself asking directors and actors if I’m too much or not good enough. And they’re usually shocked by my question. But now I can see, looking at my eight-year-old self, how impactful it was listening to the wrong voice. And how sad it all is.” This moment of recognition was the beginning of challenging limiting beliefs that had been operating in her subconscious mind for decades.

Pay Attention

As a systemic facilitator, I cannot tell you how many times people share similar stories. One line from a teacher or a family member is enough to send a child down rabbit holes of negative thoughts their entire lives. Words have weight. Our ears don’t always hear what is in our best life interests. The thoughts we create as a reaction to those words become self-fulfilling prophecy, either negatively or positively. Our gut reacts. Things happen. And before we know it, we become what we have chosen to pay attention to, creating long-term patterns that require conscious effort to change.

But how can an eight-year-old child ward off a negative comment by a teacher? The answer is straightforward: Teach your children not to allow anyone to make them small. Teach them that if somebody says or does something and it feels bad to them, and their bodies feel angry or sad, that they need to express their feelings. Sit with them. Validate their feelings and then tell them that other people’s opinions are not necessarily the absolute truth. Teach them that if something unkind is said, the owner of those words is talking about themselves. They should not and MUST not take those unhelpful thoughts into their bodies because they may be creating a lifetime of limitation. Perhaps they will even be repeating generations of limitation. Instead, help them develop empowering beliefs that will serve as defense mechanisms against such harmful messages.

What about you?

Every single one of you has been embarrassed, shamed, blamed, belittled, shocked, and guilted in a way that has changed your life. You may not have realized it, but every circumstance in which you find yourself feeling small came from some words or opinion or event that caused you to stop and feel bad about yourself. These experiences often become the most common limiting beliefs that affect your mental health and create negative self-perceptions. Now, you have a choice. You can hold onto those old beliefs, or you can go all the way back to where it began and coach your small, impressionable self into a whole new understanding.

Who told you that you were too small, too big, too whatever, and why? The answers to such simple questions can challenge limiting beliefs, create real change, and ignite profound growth. Think back, and then ask yourself:

What would you say to that younger self?
What would you like to say to the person that told you those wrong things about yourself?
What do you want to tell your future self?

This may sound like a simple practice, but it is literally an exercise that can undo the limiting “spell” that you helped to cast onto yourself. By recognizing your subconscious boundaries and becoming your own cheerleader, you are also setting up your future self for success.

I asked the client I was just talking about to do this exercise. After she apologized to her younger self, she told her younger self, “You were really, really good in that play,” Then she turned around and told her future self, “I’m coming for the camera.” We put a representative into the constellation for the camera, and she told it, “I have loved you all my life, but I was too ashamed to stand in front of you. I can’t wait to do that. I am really, really coming for you.”

Today, she is doing exactly that. She untangled what had been created and started heading towards what she really wanted. As a side note, it should not surprise anyone to find out that in her family her mother had also been shamed. On top of that, her grandmother had been told that “Girls should not show off.” So, her own experience was part of an ongoing family system pattern.

Systems are elegant. While the trauma is long gone, the body does not forget. The stories are always there, waiting to be discovered, given their place, and added to—turning tragedy to triumph. But few of us think to go back to where it all began.

And as far as the future is concerned. Next time somebody makes a pronouncement about you … is dismissive, angry and condemning, always realize that this is about them. Do not make it about you. Instead ask yourself internally, is “Oh yeah? Says who?” And then work out how to move beyond it. Shake off those chains! They didn’t belong to you in the first place.

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December 15, 2024February 14, 2025

Respecting Other People’s Opinions – America’s Path Forward

Respecting Other People's Opinions - America's Path Forward

In the wake of the 2024 election, US citizens find themselves navigating an all-too-familiar landscape of polarized different beliefs and ideologies, triggering upset, blame, resentment, and fear. Partisanship and deep-rooted divisions have only grown over recent years, and many Americans long for pathways to unity and progress.

Moving forward, America has an opportunity to redefine itself. But moving forward requires a new approach that doesn’t just try to mend divides at the surface level. It requires an approach that addresses the deep, often unseen dynamics driving our political and cultural rifts.

How do we get into the creative space of making a difference in a way that bodes well for all mankind? How can we keep an open mind and respect different people and their differing opinion in an effective way? How can we start looking for the common good and the common ground?

Life is going to be a whole lot easier for all of us when we all start doing this. But in the meantime, we’ve got to do the work of coming together. The following are some thoughts about how to do that.

I Win, You Lose

It happens every four years here in the United States: “Ha ha! I win! You lose!” It’s time to stop playing this game because as long as we have, “I win. You lose,” somebody is going to be happy and excited, somebody else is going to be afraid and angry. Multiply that by hundreds of millions of “somebodies” and we have the situation we have today with a woefully divided nation.

The solution, of course, is for 1) those who “win” to stop gloating, and 2) those who lose to cease playing victim, and 3) for both sides to come together and ask the question, “How do we all win?” What policies can be enacted to create more unity? What can we do to take care of each other?

Of course, to do this and start shaping our lives in a much more responsible way, we have to make some perceptual shifts. And one of the most important shifts we can make is to realize how deeply programmed we all are to want to belong. Belong to a family. Belong to a community. Belong to a group of people. Belong to a party. Belong to a common belief system, an ideal, a nation. It’s all the same thing.

Stop Taking Sides

If we want to belong to one of the greatest countries on earth, let’s also all be Americans. Democracy demands debate, not fights.

The trick is to stop narrowing our view about where we belong. At the most fundamental and yet universal level, we all belong to the same species called Homo sapiens, living on the same planet called Earth. In this system, everybody has a right to belong.

This is one of the foundational principles of Systemic Work and Constellations. Every single person in the system called “humanity” belongs. And that includes the good, the bad, the indifferent, the educated, the uneducated, the rich, the poor, the up, down, and sideways. Everyone counts because everyone brings information into the human system, information that is needed for everyone in the system, and the system itself, to thrive and evolve.

Our humanity is our common ground. From there, if we each take a breath and we take a moment and we start with simple, easy things like kindness to others, thoughtfulness, and consideration, we’re actually going to find that the seismic earthquakes caused by taking sides against one another start to subside. Choosing to shape your life in a really good, human and humane way, you start the ball rolling on the positive changes we need to see happening in our country right now.

Consider Your Reactions

There’s a world of difference between being creative and being reactive. When we’re in creation mode, we’re excited and positive and affecting others in a positive way. We’re open to suggestions, collaboration, and other ideas, including others’ opinions. When we’re in reaction, yelling, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” we’re in fight or flight mode. And then we pick a side to fight against and out goes belonging.

The brain secretes adrenalin and noradrenalin. Non-essential body systems like digestion slow to a crawl. Heart rate increases, and before you know it, you’re sweating in full-on panic, unable to think clearly, unable to easily accept suggestions, and unable to collaborate. And the sky isn’t actually even falling! Being reactive doesn’t serve anyone in the long run.

But how are we going to move from being reactive to being creative instead? Well, here are some thoughts:

When you hear something or see something that’s not to your liking, breathe!
Take the time to take stock of the situation before you get all revved up.
Consider your words before they come out of your mouth. Is what you’re about to say really true? Is it coming from your heart? Or is it against something or someone?
Instead of letting your words come out from a boiling pit, consider how you want things to land.
Consider the other person’s opinions. How will your words affect them and shape their sense of belonging?
How do you want your life to look? How do you want to shape it? How do you want to belong to the human system? What is your contribution? If we want to change the world today, it starts with changing our attitudes toward each other right here, right now.

A final powerful thought here has to do with assumptions. Assumptions start wars. Don’t just assume positive intent—check your assumptions. Every single one of them. With clarity comes insight. With insight comes peace. With peace comes freedom.

People often tell me doing this is really hard work. Well, it’s just as hard to keep being upset, miserable, and angry as it is to start putting the work into a life that you really want. Seriously. Decide on the life you want to live, and every time something prompts you to fight and go against someone or something, ask yourself: “Does that get me closer to the life I want to live and the life I want for my children? Or further away?”

Make Positive, Life-Shaping Choices

If you decide and choose that you’re going to go for a positive, life-affirming existence, that’s amazing. You’re going to make a difference. You’re going to be kind. You’re going to be happy. And when you’re happy and it’s fun and you’re really excited, you find that life suddenly becomes a whole lot nicer.

Some of your friends and family, with different backgrounds and professional experiences, are going to want to know what the heck you’re doing and maybe even join you. Before you know it, your life and the lives of others have changed for the better. Now you’re making that global difference.

Connection, Communication, and Respect

Are you communicating with yourself and others in a respectful way? In a way that lands and encourages? Or in a way that divides and tears down?

The first step is really important. If you are angry or unkind to yourself, chances are that will spill over into your interactions with others. I have executives who think that effective communication is, “Hey, stupid, get it together or you’re fired,” which generally doesn’t get a really good response. So, consider how you communicate with others. When somebody is confused or lost, ask, “Can I help you? Can I show you?”

When a new situation arises, instead of trying to control, try being invitational. Try inviting in new ideas and thoughtful conversations. And always consider your words by asking yourself, “How do I get this to land in a way that people can hear it and feel what I’m saying?”

How do we all go for the win? The answer—even in tense, contentious situations—is communication with respect. Meaning I understand that the other person or persons I’m talking with have a part in my world. They belong and have equal weight and importance as me. When we understand that, we’re able to talk to each other, and not only find common ground, but ideas and answers that are outside the realm of opposing views.

Without respect, nothing positive happens. You don’t grow, your family and community don’t grow, our nation doesn’t grow, and the world doesn’t grow.

And by respect I don’t mean having to be in agreement. Respect means I understand the other person has a different point of view and different perspectives. And I give that different point of view a place to land and be. And when I can give it a place, it means I’ve given a little and the other has done the same. We’ve both given a little, which makes both parties feel good, included, seen, and in some way honored and validated.

If we are looking to be a nation that can show the rest of the world a way to thrive, then no matter how tense the situation, it begins with respect. That’s what we’re looking for. That’s the fertile ground we need to stand on to be able to move forward into a better world.

At the end of a tough year facing the uncertainty of the next four years, we all have the opportunity to make a difference—kindly, happily, and with understanding. The next greatest era in American history begins with you.

December 1, 2024February 14, 2025

How to Break Generational Cycles Through Language

Sometimes it’s hard not to think that life is “doing it to us,” and that some people are lucky and others are not. As a generational cycle breaker, understanding the effects of generational trauma is the first place to start. When family members continually struggle with certain issues like lack of education, dysfunctional ways of relating, addiction, failure in careers, or an inability to create financial success, they’re often caught in vicious cycles that seem impossible to break.

What’s actually going on is more complex than a simple curse – it’s intergenerational trauma manifesting through family patterns that affect the nervous system in profound ways. These negative cycles often stem from childhood trauma that wasn’t properly addressed in previous generations, creating a lasting impact that reverberates through time.

Sometimes the repeating pattern in your family of origin is based upon an initial traumatic experiences that occurred in the family. It is then passed down to the rest of the family, complete with the accompanying emotional disturbances. Working with a trauma-informed therapist or attending support groups can be part of the process of understanding these generational patterns.

For example, I had a gentleman client come to me who fearfully reported he was sure he was going to lose a leg before he was 55 and become an amputee. This would seem to be a wildly unlikely possibility—a case of an irrational phobia showing up out of nowhere. But diving into his family history through family therapy, I learned that every oldest male in his family system for seven generations had lost their right leg one way or another.

It had started with a great-great-something-grandfather losing his leg while on a whaling ship in the Pacific Ocean. His son lost a leg in a logging accident somewhere up in the Pacific Northwest. Then his son lost his right leg after getting shot in a hunting accident and the wound turned gangrenous. Yet another ancestor lost a leg in World War I. The stories went on and on. Cursed, right?

No! Truth is, once my client understood that he was dealing with an inheritance of Emotional DNA—in this case a hardened belief in the family “curse”—once he was able to obtain a broader view of his family’s system dynamics which led to insights and shifts that enabled him to change his thinking that losing a leg was inevitable, he shifted what had seemed like a curse. Once he grasped that the pattern showing up was not fated and didn’t belong to him unless he held onto it and made it so, he was able to change his thinking and rewire his brain and body. And he is still walking around on two legs to this day.

Self-Talk and Limiting Conversations

No matter what pattern you’ve inherited from your own parents, you can take that inheritance and work with it in a way that enhances your life and the lives of those around you. Through trauma-informed care, many family members are discovering new patterns and new things they never thought possible. In other words, everything boils down to the act and art of shaping your life the way you want it.

Life is a series of choices. And one of the most obvious ways we do or don’t shape our lives is how we choose our inner self-talk and our outer conversations. Except, of course, that our internal and external-talk often isn’t just ours either! Many times, that inner conversation about how stupid we are, how unattractive we are, or what a failure we are started a long time ago with an event that created those thoughts and language in an ancestor long gone—thoughts and language that still govern us today.

Great-grandfather said, “Money is the root of all evil,” and to this day the whole family struggles with and fears money and doesn’t understand why. Or perhaps there was an early event in your life that started those kinds of thoughts rolling. It really doesn’t matter. The question is, “Do I want to continue to buy into my limiting thoughts and identities and pass them down to future generations? Or do I want to be the change agent in my family and learn the art of shaping my own life?”

Systemic Language

Words mold our reality on an individual, community, and also global level, creating war and peace, castes and creeds, hope and despair, joy and sorrow. As a generational cycle-breaker, you have the power to transform these inherited patterns. An entire system of thought and action can be dismantled in one short sentence. “The war is over.” Or “Your disease is gone.” Or “You have the right to vote.” One word, “Guilty,” can end a life.

Examine how unhappy, unsuccessful people talk, and you hear excuses and words and sentences of doom over and over again. “I knew I couldn’t do it. Everything I touch turns to ___. There’s just no winning. It isn’t my fault. Etcetera.” Like my client, who believed he was cursed, we curse ourselves. Instead of lighting a fire of inspiration that sets us free, we constantly feed the flames that make ourselves feel all sorts of negative emotions. And sentences of doom aren’t just the typical self-derogatory examples like those just listed. Any systemic sentence that drags you down and keeps you stuck is a sentence of doom because it dooms you to more of the same.

“Patience is a virtue” until it isn’t. “No pain, no gain” might get you through that business startup and those seemingly endless 18-hour days. But once the business is up and running and successful, if you keep running the same line, all you’re going to get is an apparently successful life accompanied by continued suffering. The good news is that words and sentences of doom can also serve as our liberators because they contain the seeds for identifying and stopping limiting patterns in their tracks once we see them and acknowledge them.

I had a highly successful female client who loved that “no pain no gain” quote from Jane Fonda the “workout queen” of the 1970s, and used it all the time. She came to me wondering why, despite all her money and accomplishments, she never seemed to be able to relax and enjoy life. As it turned out, there were other self-punishing patterns she’d picked up from her family. But it was the moment when she caught herself unconsciously using that phrase in defense of her work ethic that she “got it.”

“No pain no gain” was like a torch shining a light on the foundation of her whole life. She used that key inner and outer phrase as a touchstone and way to examine her whole life and see where she was imprisoning herself and then set herself free.

Exercise

Until we see and face a limiting systemic sentence straight on, it becomes a sentence of doom and a not-so-silent saboteur. Seeing it and acknowledging its existence is unbelievably powerful, because it is a declaration of what is. It identifies the truth of what’s going on and calls it by name, allowing investigation into how it has been created, how it is running your life, and how it can be disentangled and transformed.

If you are serious about shaping your own life, take the time to sit down and examine your life. Write down where you’re stuck, sad, and/or hurting. Also identify what you would like to have and experience in your life that you don’t have. This is a process of discovering “what is.”

In light of these insights, examine your thoughts and how you speak
Are there systemic “sentences of doom” running in your brain? Ideas, words, fears you can identify that might be triggering and/or supporting your stuckness and problem?

Once you’ve identified your limiting language, it’s then time to discover “what’s possible.” In order to turn this pattern you’ve established around, you want to create language that is stronger than the limiting language you’ve been using. This is called developing the language of resolution, or creating sentences of resolution. For example, my Jane Fonda fan client above helped resolved her “No pain, no gain” addiction by adopting the sentence “No pain, no strain.”

Write down your words or “sentences of doom.”
What words or sentences come to mind as powerful antidotes?

For example, if you have a firm belief “I’ll never get ahead,” or “The cards are stacked against me,” sentences of resolution for you might be something like: “I know how to make this happen! And if not, I can figure it out!” And “The cards are stacked in my favor.”

Write down your sentences of resolution.
Put them where you can see them.
Practice saying them at every opportunity until they become your new language habit.

Welcome to the art of shaping your life through language!

November 15, 2024February 14, 2025

How to Change Your Thinking Patterns and Create Happiness

What will you be giving thanks for next year?

Bert Hellinger, the founder of Systemic Work & Constellations, once said, “It takes courage to live a happy life.” And the guy truly wasn’t kidding. What he didn’t say, however, is that developing that courage is worth it! But how do we start to change our thinking patterns to create a more fulfilling life?

The First Step to Change

Courageous people tend to lead happy and fulfilling lives. They also tend to treat life like an adventure … sometimes even like a business adventure! In the process, like all good business strategists, they often sit down and dream about how they would like things to be in a year’s time—or maybe two or three years down the road.

Taking the first step toward changing thinking patterns, such as replacing negative self-talk with positive affirmations, can be transformative

Have you ever done this? Spent quality time sincerely contemplating what it is you desire to create and have in your future? If you haven’t, I cannot stress enough how important this is.

This is not just wishful thinking. It’s about identifying and cognitively restructuring your thought process, which can shift negative feelings into a positive mindset, helping you create new thought patterns.

With each positive statement you make, you build what you want, thought by careful thought, positive thought by positive thought, action by action.

Happy Holidays

The holidays are a particularly fertile and festive time of year to engage in practices that cultivate a positive outlook. At about this time each year, I always take time out to envision what I will be thankful for this time next year.

By imagining a desired future and engaging with it emotionally, I’m not just thinking—I’m rewiring my brain to break out of common cognitive distortions and replace negative thinking patterns with positive ways of thinking.

In so doing, I am not just imagining what I want. I am forward creating a future I really desire, drawing on a rich harvest of tools from systemic work, constellations, neuroscience, epigenetics, and the vast potential of human experience.

The fun thing is, when I build “future nows” in my mind in 3D, I get more excited about my life. I am more engaged and committed to the journey. After all, imagining and going after something I really want feels a whole lot less like work and more like play. And it’s even more satisfying knowing that by doing this process—imagining my future while feeling the emotions I will feel in the future when this dream comes to fruition.

I am literally rewiring my brain for success, making the desired outcome all the more certain. As I pointed out in my last blog, when we visualize a desired future and engage with it emotionally, our brain starts to treat the dream as if it’s already happening. And then, no surprise, it happens!

Rewiring the brain

This ability to rewire our thinking patterns and behaviors allows us to cultivate resilience and positivity, both of which help us bring what we want into focus and into being.

Another thing that helps shift habits and old brain patterns is gratitude. By this time next year, you want to be grateful for the mental, emotional, and physical shifts you’ve made and the results those shifts have generated.

Habits of gratitude, mindfulness, and positive thinking integrated into daily life yield mega results. But you have to embrace those new habits with genuine enthusiasm which can juice you up and get you over the finish line.

Regular practices like meditation, journaling, visioning—whatever exercises you decide to do will then reshape your brain, making gratitude a natural response rather than a forced exercise.

Daily Gratitude

I remember the days when I used to internally grumble about “having to be grateful” as an effective practice to getting what I want. Now I am more inclined to feel ripped off if I haven’t had that daily dose of gratitude.

Developing a daily gratitude practice for what I have received and what I will receive in the future has truly changed my life. It has fostered a deep appreciation for the small joys of daily life, and it has made life easier when the going gets tough.

Like so many other people around the world, in the last three years my family and I have experienced some category 5 hurricane level life traumas. Through it all, we remembered the importance of gratitude.

And yes, some days it was gratitude for simple things—like having a strong cup of coffee to help get going in the morning. Or having an operational cell phone to keep in touch with family members when it was all hitting the fan.

Another thing that helped get us through is what I and my family now call the “Puppies and Kittens Practice.”

This particular exercise came from my daughter one day when we’d just experienced some setbacks. We were sitting at the kitchen table, facing some tough decisions, when she suddenly said: “Mom, can we just talk puppies and kittens for a while?” In other words, could we just talk about the light stuff—the fun stuff—for a while.

I mean, who doesn’t enjoy watching cat or dog videos on YouTube? “Puppies and kittens” is now a thing in our home when the going gets rough. And then there is a moment of gratitude just for experiencing the brief relief. This is how we give our brains a break and how we train ourselves to be resilient in even the worst situations.

Mindfulness

Epigenetics teaches us that the events we experience, both positive and negative events, and our reactions to them can influence gene expression. This means that the choices we make today can impact not only our health but also the wellbeing of future generations.

But it takes mindfulness techniques and presence in the moment to remember to pay attention to our emotions and thoughts during stressful times. Negative self-talk or unhelpful thoughts can sometimes arise, and it takes consistent effort to maintain a positive mindset instead of falling into common cognitive distortions.

I remember being overwhelmed by what was coming at me. At one point, I very much wanted to scream and run away from it all. And then, thankfully, I remembered, “Wait a minute! This is a life-shaping event. Pay attention!”

I stopped in the hallway and said to myself: “Judy! Remember, your thoughts, feelings, decisions, and actions right now are shaping your future and your family’s future.”

Instead of staying in that panicked, reactive state, I took a few deep breaths and then mindfully chose how I wanted to feel, think, and act in that specific situation. This choice to replace negative emotions with rational thoughts and positive ways of thinking helped me actively shift my emotions and thoughts.

And you know what? I got through it. Better than that, I got through it surprisingly easily.

Ever since then, I often remind myself of this mindfulness practice. Yes, I realize this takes time and discipline, but do you want to reactively sit in the same place, facing the same issues again this time next year? I sure don’t!

And guess what? Remembering to practice mindfulness and shifting your thoughts and emotions in the moment is yet another thing to be grateful for! You can be grateful you remembered, grateful you used a powerful tool, and grateful you followed through and made the needed shifts.

See how this all works together?

By prioritizing mindful thinking, feeling, and emotional well-being, you will have contributed to a healthier genetic expression. Instead of activating fear hormones that can harm mental health, you will be activating joy and fulfillment hormones, which are health generators.

And then you get to appreciate and be thankful for the vibrant energy and resilience you’ve cultivated, which not only benefits you but also positively influences those around you, such as family members and friends you care for and love.

Embracing Human Potential

Human potential is vast, and recognizing your own potential can be transformative. It’s not about having everything now but about taking the first step to overcome negative self-talk and open up to positive ways of thinking. By shifting your thought process and creating new thought patterns, you begin to move past negative thinking patterns that limit you and instead embrace positive changes in all areas that matter to you.

Next year, I’ll celebrate the progress I’ve made in pursuing my passions and dreams. Through setting intentions, using positive affirmations, and practicing mindfulness techniques, I’ll discover new skills and interests.

The confidence gained from leaving my comfort zone and challenging common cognitive distortions will be a source of immense gratitude. I’ll look back on a year where negative emotions and unhelpful thoughts were transformed into positive contributions to my life, enabling me to explore uncharted territories of my potential.

By this time next year, I will be thankful for the positive influences in my relationships, the positive mindset shifts, and the good things I’ve cultivated through consistent effort in my daily life.

Each of these positive experiences will be reminders of the power of intention, the benefits of positive self-talk, and the beauty of living with courage and purpose.

These goals are what I’m dreaming of and striving toward this year. How about you?

We are either our own prison keepers or our own liberators. Let me take you on a journey into courage and truth-telling at my special Disney World event: From Fear to Freedom, November 1-4. It will be an adventure! For more information please check click here.

November 1, 2024February 14, 2025

How to Change the Past: Creating Future Memories

Be Thankful for What You Are About to Receive

“Future memories” may seem like a paradox, but they refer to something profoundly powerful: the act of creating a vision of the future that is so vivid, we experience it as though it were happening right now. This is not merely daydreaming, it’s a purposeful and fruitful practice grounded in systemic work, family constellations, neuroscience, and epigenetics.

How to Change the Past

As you know, many of our present challenges often stem from unresolved issues within our family system, passed down through generations—what I call inherited Emotional DNA patterns. However, just as these inherited influences shape us, we can consciously reshape them. Epigenetics show us that our genes are not our fate but can indeed be molded to become a great destiny. By acknowledging and resolving inherited influences, we create space for new possibilities in our lives. Addressing Emotional DNA patterns not only releases us from the past—it opens us up by freeing us to imagine a future unburdened by past limitations.

Once we acknowledge old patterns and know what we want to experience instead, we can then apply the knowledge gained from neuroscience to create a whole new reality for ourselves. Because the human brain doesn’t distinguish between real events and vividly imagined ones (both can leave a strong imprint on our neural pathways, as well as influence our inherited epigenetic patterns), by passionately imagining a new future in the present moment, we break free from old patterns and create space for new potentials.

By rehearsing the experiences and things we want to have in our future, we rewire our brains, change old limiting patterns, and bring what we desire into reality. This kind of future visualization is, of course, a common practice amongst successful athletes and performers. When not physically practicing, they mentally go over their every move, seeing themselves experiencing what they wish to bring into reality—setting that world record or performing that concerto note perfect for their audience. Not only do they imagine these things, they get deeply emotionally involved with the fantasy. They feel the exhilaration of the win. They feel the pride surging through their chests as the audience rises to its feet in a standing ovation for their performance.

Because the brain is incredibly plastic with the ability to rewire itself in response to our thoughts and experiences, we thus actively set that future into motion. When we repeatedly visualize a desired future while emotionally engaging with it—feeling the experience—our brain starts to treat it as if it’s already happening. Through vivid imagination and elevated emotional connection, we effectively train our brain to experience the future now. Each time we picture and emotionally experience this future, we strengthen the neural circuits associated with it, making it feel more real and more achievable. Our brain, in turn, becomes aligned with creating that reality.

Attitude of Gratitude

When we envision a future filled with success, love, or fulfillment and engage with that vision emotionally, we send a powerful signal to our head, heart, and gut, our family systems, the Universe, and our subconscious mind that we are ready to receive those experiences. In other words, we are fully aligned.

Another thing that plays a critical role in this process is gratitude. When we give thanks for a future outcome as though it’s already occurred, we also prime our brain to believe it’s real. Gratitude reinforces positive neural pathways, helping to bring that envisioned future into clearer focus, fostering a state of focus, readiness and expectation that greatly improves the odds of those future outcomes manifesting.

Of course, gratitude also has remarkable effects on our emotional and biological well-being. Practicing gratitude lowers stress levels, improves mental health, and influence gene expression. By cultivating gratitude for our future memories that we are creating, we enhance our ability to manifest those outcomes both psychologically and biologically. Being thankful for what you are about to receive creates a field state of coherence which is critical to manifestation. By vividly experiencing the future in the present, you are laying the foundation for a reality that is both intentional and deeply aligned with your highest potential.

Steps to Creating Your Future Now

As we enter the holiday season, I highly recommend that you seriously consider what you want to change in your life. What do you want to experience? More fulfilling work? More quality relationships? More time for yourself? More money? A new home? A special vacation? As we approach the end of the year, this is the perfect time to set new dreams into motion and take action to learn how to change the past. In the next week, be sure to set aside time for yourself to:

Take stock of your life
What limiting patterns are you aware of? What’s holding you back from the life you want to live?
Are there family patterns involved? Are others in your family dealing with the same or similar issues?
Recognize that epigenetic patterns of the past do NOT determine your future. YOU are in charge of your life. No one and no thing else.
Thank old limiting patterns—they once had a purpose for being there in your family and in your life. Your simple desire to move on makes you the change-maker.
Make a list of the experiences/situations/people/material things you want to bring into your life next year.
Make sure you are emotionally engaged and deeply passionate about these desires/dreams.
Take time every day to imagine yourself being and having what you most desire. Some of the most fertile times to do this is right before sleep and just as you are waking up in the morning. Take advantage of those more meditative, receptive alpha-wave states.
Get passionate! Feel yourself doing, being, having your dream. Get into it!
Be thankful for what you are about to receive.

And remember, the holidays are a special time. The “vibe” for the next few weeks is magical. Use it. Ride the energy waves of possibility, gratitude and new beginnings!