Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you arrive at the silence of yourself and listen to it.

― Richard Brautigan

I am an introvert. There are no if’s and’s or but’s about this. I enjoy social interaction, I enjoy being “in relationship to”. I am even… Read full post »

“Love could be fractured and serve different purposes, and that intense love could be divided, between people just as easily as between moments of time.â€Â 
― Luke Davies

I have been thinking a fair bit about the preoccupation we have with relationships and how our attention can be captu… Read full post »

“I believe in the magic of books. I believe that during certain periods in our lives we are drawn to particular books–whether it’s strolling down the aisles of a bookshop with no idea whatsoever of what it is that we want to read and suddenly finding the most perfect,

… Read full post »

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all

… Read full post »

I recognize that many people are estranged from more than one person, and this issue of loving/liking/not loving may be different for each. It’s difficult to reflect that directly in a poll, but if you would like to comment to that, I’d be interested to… Read full post »

Fear. It creates anger and selfishness. They sit together, supporting each other, as inseparable as red, orange and yellow on the spectrum. 

- Seth Godin

Fear can be an ever present hum for many of us who are working with estrangement issues. We may have been hurt, in fact, we surely have… Read full post »

 In a violent and threatening world we are readier to fear ‘others’. We mistrust more, and polarize more fiercely into our groups in pursuit of the protection afforded to social animals by tribal unity and cohesion. A Mean World is a more divided world, less able to achieve compromise and… Read full post »

“Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructi… Read full post »

“You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gunâ€Â 
― Fiona Apple

I’ve been sifting through comments and emails about codependency, triggers, reaction and detachment and realized I haven’t really provided any definition to explain what I mean when I use the word ” trigge… Read full post »

The unflinching light of mindful awareness reveals the extent to which we are tossed along in the stream of past conditioning and habit. The moment we decide to stop and look at what is going on (like a swimmer suddenly changing course to swim upstream instead of downstream), we find ourselves… Read full post »

“You have the ability to choose your reactions.â€Â 
― Steve Maraboli

One of the things about people who are codependent and who are estranged from their families is we tend to be pretty reactionary around our relationship ” stuff” .

Lot’s of times we justify and rationa… Read full post »

“Furthermore, worrying about people and problems doesn’t help. It doesn’t solve problems, it doesn’t help other people, and it doesn’t help us. It is wasted energy.â€
― Melody Beattie

There comes a time in all family estrangement discussion, where we have to talk… Read full post »

“You could see she was a girl who made too much of things like every instant was a streetcar rattling past she needed to catch and was in terror that she might miss”.

-  Joyce Carol Oates

Sometimes when we take stock of our lives everything feels urgent. Suddenly every… Read full post »

“The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.â€Â 
― Virginia Woolf

We’ve had a bit of a challenging visitor here at E-Stranged of late. He doesn’t seem to understand what people here might be thinking or feeling … doesn’t seem to understand the colle… Read full post »

“I believe the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness … “

- The Dalai Lama

and yet …

“We all live in a happy ending culture, rather than a what is culture.

… When it comes to difficult emotions like anger, grief or fear .. what is, is.â€
… Read full post »

“You cannot trade the courage needed to live every moment for immunity from life’s sorrows. We may say we know this but ours is the culture of the deal-making mind. From infancy, we have breathed in the belief that there is always a deal to be made, a bargain to be

… Read full post »

“I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts but they need constant attention & one day I decided I had better things to do. â€Â 
― Brian Andreas

What are you thinking about right now? Where is your attention? Scope out a little bit more …… Read full post »

“You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles.â€Â 
― C. JoyBell C.

I have already spoken about some of the reasons/beliefs that we hold that prevent… Read full post »

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

- Arthur Ashe

It’s a strange thing how so many of us stay tangled up in situations and relationships that leave us feeling depleted, sad, angry, powerless and convinced that we will be stuck there forever.  We needn’t be.

I… Read full post »

During the years before we had children, the one thing we heard over and over again – I guess you’d say, as the ultimate persuasion for us to have them was, ” Yes children are a huge responsibility, but its all worth it when you know the rewards of having raised… Read full post »

“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is finalâ€Â 
― Rainer Maria Rilke

Of all the lessons that family estrangement has taught me, the need and ability to “let go” is one of the most important and the one I have struggled with in man… Read full post »

“In the end, though, maybe we must all give up trying to pay back the people in this world who sustain our lives. In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long… Read full post »

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

- Japanese proverb

I don’t often write about my personal life on this blog, but I am going to make a bit of a departure here today. In part because I have been away for over a week which is unlike me – and… Read full post »

“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.â€Â 
― Aesop

I begin this post by saying that I genuinely believe that we don’t do ourselves a lot of favours when we devote time and… Read full post »

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