The Secrets of Successful Families. Артем Толоконин

However, such cases can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

      The Author: In fact, there are much more of them. I have been observing these examples in my own practice for more than 10 years. Probably now is the time for me to share these cases!

      The Reader: To give good examples?

      The Author: Yes, such examples are a kind of source to which one can turn, find answers to their questions if they are experiencing difficulties in family life and realize what can be done about it. Find out the ostents and laws of love. Not see the norm where it is not there. Not comfort oneself with myths. Modern marriage is a partnership marriage, but the partnership must be reliable and strong.

      A balanced marriage is a family created by two psychologically mature and self-reliant people. Two free individuals love each other with unconditional love and become even freer thanks to their partnership. They never feel cramped or sad together.

      If a marriage is based on dependence, such as, “I can’t live without you, you must…“, that’s it, the marriage is heading for a break-up. When you simply love and enjoy it, you do everything on your part to develop this feeling, make money, and engage in self-realization. This gives rise to a mutual movement towards each other and creates a balanced environment. If all this happens consciously, then you have an amazing feeling of happiness, peace, confidence, and harmony.

      However, family relationships do not emerge spontaneously and do not die away unexpectedly. It is an area of responsibility of both spouses. This isn’t about any specific abilities or any gift of being a husband or a wife. I treat family relationship evolution as a deep-laid spiritual process available to anyone. All the prejudices that people surround themselves with, like “this is prohibited,” “this is impossible,” are their personal limitations imposed on themselves. If you are the master of your life, if you claim to be called a Homo sapiens, and most importantly, if you want your life to bring you joy and pleasure and not look like a series of sad days similar to each other – then you can solve any problems.

      Observe, realize, and work!

The Story of Us (directed by Rob Reiner), 1999

      Between the parting of the spouses, the decision they made to divorce and the divorce itself, there is a border area when you can work out the situation, sort it out and understand whether you should divorce after you have worked on yourself and on the family as a whole.

      Ben and Katie find themselves in a situation like this. They have been married for 15 years. Every attempt to get closer made by one or the other spouse turns into a fight. Only when the characters find a nerve to give up finger-pointing at all, they finally start enjoying their life as a couple. The parting and preparation for a divorce turn out to be a good time to realize that none of them owes anything to each other. The solution is to love your partner the way he or she is.

      Part 1

      My method of solving domestic issues of any complexity

      How do you define if there are certain issues in your family? It’s as simple as that! Do you feel lonely? Are you tired? Do you hurry home after work? Do you make plans for the future? Do you feel good at home? How well do you sleep? Do you often fall ill?

      If you are in no hurry to get home, if you think about the future with a sad heart, if the person close to you annoys you and you understand that you annoy them, and even feel unwell, these are signs of family issues.

      But first, you need to ask yourself where do these issues come from? Why did they occur exactly in my family? Why is it happening exactly in my life? How do I make things right? These questions need to be answered as soon as possible.

      It is often difficult to determine all by yourself where the roots of the problems are. You can seek advice from a specialist or be guided by a book from which you will learn what love is, what stages it goes through, how childhood traumas and family standards of previous generations affect gender behavior in your family. So, after you understand how to work with it, how to get rid of the destructive scenario of your family life, you will want to become the master of your life and be able to decide and establish the quality of family relationship all by yourself!

      A person most likely will come to a conclusion: why should I break up family relationship if I can save it? There is no need to look for any reasons or extrinsic stimuli for love to awaken. Actually, a person can love and be loved 24/7, but only if they choose so for themselves.

      This is what my approach is about: you need to teach a person to love, and then, as a rule, they won’t have to destroy anything. It’ll just become another sphere of activity which can become a wonderful work and even a lifework. As a company that needs to be developed: today five people are employed there, tomorrow it may be twenty-five of them, it is the growth and expansion of the company that makes business stronger.

      You have to invest in family relationship just as in business. Not only money and other material resources but also feelings, time, attention, and love. These investments will bring you great delight as you can get even more attention and love in return. This thrill goes along with you if you do it consciously, if it is your choice.

      If a person is prone to the influence of a negative family scenario (usually unconsciously), they believe that their minimum contribution to the family is normal. They say over and over again that the situation cannot be changed for the better. “I cannot mend my ways; I am the way I am!” It’s self-deception. This is just an immature view, a “couldn’t care less” attitude not only to one’s own fate but for the fate of future generations because this scenario is destructive!

      When it is inherited, children will begin to implement it too. Sooner or later, in the flow of their love – mind you, everyone wants to love! – there is the same dam arising just as it was with their parents. Family perceptions of previous generations will still emerge. Therefore, the spouses who admit that their relationship is not open to change, who do not invest in it, simply pass their problems on to future generations this way.

      While we are children, adults educate us and show us how to behave, how to treat ourselves and the world, how to build family relationships. Then, having absorbed the emotional atmosphere of our childhood, we grow up and leave our parents’ family to create our own. Parents and kindred program the child’s future gender behavior and form the so-called family scenario. Since it is laid down in early childhood, then, as a rule, an adult does not fully realize it. That is, the question of love or its absence in one particular family is actually much more important! If a person has reached maturity, if he or she has a desire to solve their family issues and not just go their separate ways, transform their relationship, then he or she starts working with them. This is the beginning, the starting point opening the way to a better tomorrow!

      Everything can be remedied. Everyone has a chance to change their lives and relationships by changing themselves. A professional can help understand what exactly is going on in the family, what it is caused by, and teach how to transform internal contradictions into understanding and partnership. He or she can help learn to love here and now, no strings attached, that is, to reveal a mature feeling of love.

      However, to make a person follow the path of their spiritual development, their own intention is needed above all.

      Then all the nightmares that have been tormenting them so much simply leave their life. Everyone stumbles, everyone makes mistakes, there is nothing wrong with that. By correcting them, a person gains experience, follows a way that neither they nor their descendants will then have to go through again. Later on, life will be setting new tasks – usually in the sphere of business and creativity.

      It is an established fact that family people live longer. A person experiences the greatest stress at home but not at work – after all, we are most open-hearted and defenseless at home. Thus, a person’s anxiety and depression will never go away until their family background changes. When harmony is restored in the family, family life ceases to be a cause of distress and turns into a source of resources and support. Happiness and love start flowing as if from a cornucopia.

      This is my method! I don’t advocate for ruining anything. Even in the most difficult