Slay Westbrook Susanne

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What Is Respect?

Respect is a lot of things. It is an attitude, an action, and a way of life. It is showing appreciation for what is good in people, a positive response to living with ourselves and others. It is not hurtful, mean, cruel or destructive in any way. It is building up, rather than tearing down.
Write down three words you think best describes respect for you.

We all make decisions we later regret. For many of us, myself included, this happens much more frequently than we like to admit. In fact, I think we generally waste a lot of valuable time and effort NOT admitting our accepting our mistakes. Our culture supports, defends, even molds this behavior by holding up in our face, through media, advertising, etc., the concept that mistakes are bad, that indeed, idealistic perfection exists, and we can all have it if we all look just like the emaciated models, buy the right car, have the right job and friends, live in the right neighborhood. Most of us know that this is myth and marketing deception, but we get ourselves wrapped up in it to some degree anyway.

The family unit is in many ways simple and basic, and yet sometimes very complicated and difficult to understand. In the next few weeks Im going to talk about some of these complexities and try to untangle some of the confusion that often bring people into my office.
So what is a family anyway? Parents and kids, right? What about grandparents, aunts uncles, cousins, in-laws, step-parents and children, half brothers and sisters and friends of the family youve always called aunt and uncle, but arent really? And what about your adoptive family vs. the family members you never met?