Family Systems Quotes & Sayings

All humans at some time experience injustice, assault, disqualification, invasion and betrayal. No person is completely shielded. We need not trace our family trees very far back or study for long what life was like for our forbears to uncover humanity's abusiveness. The inherited scars of our multigenerational families exist in our family systems as we know them today. The abuse of the past often exists as the shame of today, and the shame is perpetuated through our patterns of interaction. — Merle A. Fossum

Chloe Honum's brilliant first book The Tulip-Flame traces an identity forming within radically divergent but interlocking systems: a family traumatized by the mother's suicide, a failed relationship, the practice of ballet, a garden-each strict, exacting. And with 'a crow's sky-knowing mind,' Honum in every case transfigures emotion by way of elegant language and formal restraint. Chloe Honum is 'one astounding flame' of a poet, and I predict a long-lasting one. — Claudia Emerson

Throughout the world, the family is increasingly under attack. If families fail, many of our political, economic, and social systems will also fail. — Russell M. Nelson

All relationship systems become anxious. People put together and inevitably anxiety will arise. Anxiety can be infectious. We can give it to others or catch it from them. What precisely triggers anxiety is unique to each system. Common Activators are significant changes and losses. They upset the stable patterns and balance of the system. — Peter L. Steinke

I've spent my life comparing myself to everyone around me. I've made it an art form. I've developed detailed systems to calculate where I stand, based on GPA, body mass index, fashion, popularity, family income, etc. Based on this criteria, I have always fared somewhere in the safe middle. — Amy Reed

Each time we go through a major life change (getting married or divorced, moving, having a family, switching careers, starting a new business, going back to school), we experience a breakdown of our organizational systems. It's inevitable-we are dealing with a new set of realities-and it takes time to process the information and to actually see what there is to organize. — Julie Morgenstern

It isn't a matter of wanting it or not," Malcolm said, eyes closed. He spoke slowly, through the drugs. "It's a matter of what you think you can accomplish. When the hunter goes out in the rain forest to seek food for his family, does he expect to control nature? No. He imagines that nature is beyond him. Beyond his understanding. Beyond his control. Maybe he prays to nature, to the fertility of the forest that provides for him. He prays because he knows he doesn't control it. He's at the mercy of it. "But you decide you won't be at the mercy of nature. You decide you'll control nature, and from that moment on you're in deep trouble, because you can't do it. Yet you have made systems that require you to do it. And you can't do it - and you never have - and you never will. Don't confuse things. You can make a boat, but you can't make the ocean. You can make an airplane, but you can't make the air. Your powers are much less than your dreams of reason would have you believe. — Michael Crichton

My family and I took visits to each and every school and listened to each coaching staff. I felt the most comfortable with and really excited about playing at SC. Being close to home in one of the best offensive systems is paying off now as I'm making the jump to the pros. — Mark Sanchez

The overall goal [of counseling] is to help family members become 'systems experts' who could know [their] family system so well that the family could readjust itself without the help of an expert. — Murray Bowen

The people in Iraq lived essentially good lives. They had brilliant health and education systems. Saddam actually created an incredible infrastructure in a very difficult country, but they were a Mafia family. If you said anything against that regime or that family you would be killed instantly. — Dominic Cooper

Most countries in Africa have the capacity to be great agricultural producers, but they do only subsistence production. So a family will produce for themselves and nothing more. Why? Because of the systems: The markets are not there to go beyond. — Nicolas Berggruen

On the surface, we are all different. We ascribe to a variety of belief systems, attain our identity from various stories, get our customs from diverse cultures, and so on. And, rightly or wrongly, we generally define ourselves by these differences - there is no denying that. However, when we look beneath the surface, we discover certain universal elements. — Gudjon Bergmann

[Redacted] took the tape home and played same and found that it consisted largely of parodies that were highly inflammatory and derogatory toward the Armed Services of the United States, U.S. defense systems and the FBI," a bureau agent wrote on the complaint form, in which he characterized the case as "sedition." The VA official, whose name is redacted, "became highly incensed" after listening to the tape recording, and his "feelings of revulsion were shared by his family and some neighbors who also heard the tape." "[Redacted] advised that he is holding the tape at his home ... and had told his wife that he was going to have the FBI come by and listen to it," the agent wrote. "[Redacted] stated that he wanted his identity concealed, however he was advised that if it was necessary to follow through on the matter, this might not be possible to do." — Anonymous

I think what everyone can do is start creating spaces and forums, talk to peers, friends and family, and start deconstructing these things we take for granted, unpack these old systems, in order to understand ourselves more deeply, to understand why we do the things we do and how our privileges affect other people's lack of privilege. — Antony Hegarty

The only [child welfare] systems that succeed emphasize family preservation. — Richard Wexler

From heat and protons, to hearts, central nervous systems, minds and cluster bombs, this is Creation's single compulsion, its one and only passion; a relentless, arguably reckless passage from a state of ancestral simplicity to contemporary complexity, where complexity - and the specialisation it affords - parents a wretched and forever diversifying family of more devoted fears and faithful anxieties, more pervasive ailments and skilful parasites, more virulent toxins, more capable diseases, and more affectionate expressions of pain, ruin, psychosis and loss. In the simplest possible statement: Creation is a vast entanglement apparatus - a complexity machine - whose single-minded mindless state of employment is geared entirely towards a greater potency and efficiency in the delivery and experience of misery and confusion, not harmony and peaceful accord. — John Zande

We are still in various kinds of patriarchal systems. The very definition of patriarchy is that men control women as the means of reproduction, so the idea that a woman's main role is to have children often means society wants more workers, more soldiers. The idea that how many children we have should be controlled by the family, the church, the nation - by anyone but women themselves - is still very deep and very strong. — Gloria Steinem

I have a great support system and I know how to prioritize everything. I strive to keep God in every aspect of my life so that's important, because some days, it requires you to have a great deal of strength. Then, my family is second and it's in that specific order. I look around and I see how everything falls into place once you know which comes first. — Heather Headley

Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important - it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not - but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone. — Nick Harkaway

Imbalanced systems,whether internal or external, will tend to polarize. — Richard C. Schwartz

The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. — Eckhart Tolle

'The Talk-Funny Girl' opens with a glum picture of a desperately poor rural New England family. Poverty has so brutalized the family that the ordinary laws and rules governing humanity have eroded, turning systems of behavior upside down. — Carolyn See

In contrast, EMDR, as well as the treatments discussed in subsequent chapters - internal family systems, yoga, neurofeedback, psychomotor therapy, and theater - focus not only on regulating the intense memories activated by trauma but also on restoring a sense of agency, engagement, and commitment through ownership of body and mind. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

General Systems Theory, a related modern concept [to holism], says that each variable in any system interacts with the other variables so thoroughly that cause and effect cannot be separated. A simple variable can be both cause and effect. Reality will not be still. And it cannot be taken apart! You cannot understand a cell, a rat, a brain structure, a family, a culture if you isolate it from its context. Relationship is everything. — Marilyn Ferguson

Deeply embedded in conservative and liberal politics are different models of the family. Conservatism, as we shall see, is based on a Strict Father model, while liberalism is centered around a Nurturant Parent model. These two models of the family give rise to different moral systems and different discourse forms, that is, different choices of words and different modes of reasoning. Once — George Lakoff

When we're dealing with money in relationships, when we're dealing with money in our personal lives, when we're dealing with money in our families, the flow of money in a family represents the value system under which that family operates. — Dave Ramsey

In order to break free from the chains that bind, one must take whatever action they can to disconnect internally from the larger systems of oppression, of which the family unit is merely a microcosm. — Sil Lai Abrams

But I could see how awful and scary it was for my family to see me in my khaki uniform and get a tiny taste of what I was experiencing, surrounded by guards, strangers, and powerful systems of control. I felt terrible for exposing them to this world. Every week I needed to renew my promises to my mother and Larry that I was going to make it, that I was okay. I felt more guilt and shame witnessing their worry than when I stood in front of the judge - and it had been terrible standing in that courtroom. — Piper Kerman

I try to surround myself with a good support system. Whether that's other creators or my family or my friends, or even my viewers, who encourage me just as much as I might encourage them and they're just as much a part of my life as they let me be a part of theirs. — Tyler Oakley

Church and family are both primary influences designed by God for a purpose and when they work together, they are orange. Both are systems comprised of imperfect people - that's why God desires to use them as a platform to tell his story of restoration and redemption to the world. — Reggie Joiner

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land, back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world, back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for, back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time
back home to the escapes of Time and Memory. — Thomas Wolfe

During the crash and burn, I began to burn from cranial crown to flat sole, for meaning and understanding. Every concept, psychological perceptions with hardened pathways, everything that registered as inherited from the communal was starting to dissolve into meaninglessness. The foundational tenets, the pre-established belief systems, instilled sustenance systems tended by both family and extended communal began to dissolve, first as trivial, and then as untenable to my being without validation from me. If my life was worth anything, I choose to live the best life for me.
So I entered what I call The Blank State. — Dew Platt

I don't have family members calling me and saying, "Is this rumor about you in the newspaper true?," because they know it's all bullshit. I already have that support system, and it's actually been really helpful. My parents have been in the entertainment business for so long that they really know what not to do. — Eve Hewson

My family achieved success not in spite of, but because of the American system of taxation. After all, without reliable and safe roads there'd have been no Disneyland; without high functioning legal systems and a well regulated business environment there would have been no copyright protection for Mickey Mouse. — Abigail Disney

PERFECTIONISM Perfectionism is a family system rule and a core culprit in creating toxic shame. We see it also in both the religious and cultural systems. Perfectionism denies healthy shame. It does so by assuming we can be perfect. Such an assumption denies our human finitude because it denies the fact that we are essentially limited. Perfectionism denies that we will often make mistakes — John Bradshaw

The urge to find the real facts is destructive only to people or systems (friendships, family dynamics, political dynasties) that are based on lies. The truth can scare you half to death, but it's never as destructive as deception. — Martha N. Beck

Onions, along with leeks, garlic, shallots and scallions, make up the allium family of vegetables, which can have beneficial effects on the cardiovascular and immune systems, as well as possible anti-diabetic and anti-cancer effects. — Joel Fuhrman

Anxious systems also fail to get a clear view of things. Embedded in their dread, they lose a sense of proportion. They have little awareness of what is happening and how it is being mutually maintained. Emotionally cramps the broader view. — Peter L. Steinke