Dr. James Hollis

Flash forward 20 years when they're 40 and their marriage just dissolved or the relationship has hardships of one kind or another, they're much more likely to be able to, A, have enough ego strength to bear looking at oneself.

Secondly, there's enough life experience to reflect upon.

Because this kind of work takes courage in the first place.

I have to be able to bear to look at myself and see what's there, which won't always be pretty.

And secondly, it's humbling.

Because this is not about feeling great.

It's about being called to accountability, which is a whole different matter.

To be an adult is not just to have a big body.

It's to know that I'm accountable for what's spilling into the world through me.

Jung said once in one of those telling statements that haunts me in a constructive way, he said, the greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parent.

So where I'm stuck as a person, my children will be stuck, or they'll be spending their life trying to get unstuck, you see.

So the best thing I can do for them is to model for them a life lived with as much courage as I can mobilize and as much integrity as I can manage.

And in doing that, it not only models, it gives permission to them.

One of the things I've found for many people is they don't really feel permission to

to feel what they feel, desire what they desire, go out and fight for what matters to them.

Because life, we learn early, is conditional.

You will be acceptable in this family, you will perhaps be loved, you'll be rewarded, or you'll be punished if you meet these conditions.

And if you don't meet the conditions, a lot of people put conditions on their children, you know?

A lot of people are still living through their children.

If you forgive the joke here, there's an old joke about Jewish mothers.