Ending habits of self-protection and beginning fresh responses to new relationships in your life

You’ve been courageous and started counselling, deciding that you are sick of the same old destructive patterns keeping you from caring, lasting relationships. Just when you thought the problem was with your ex, counselling starts to unearth troubling truths about your childhood relationships with your parents and, possibly, siblings. You start to see that some of these patterns of defensiveness and loss of trust started back then. The old wounds become fresh again. You hate it, but you know it’ll lead to transformation, to ending habits of self-protection and beginning fresh responses to new relationships in your life, based on your present experience rather than the past. Stick with it, have courage, and you’ll emerge ready to love again.