Thaw - Freedom from Frozen Feelings

THAW - Freedom from Frozen Feelings is a book about the emotional wounds of abandonment, shame, and contempt created by growing up in a less-than-nurturing family. If you experience abandonment issues, emotional flooding, toxic shame, a pattern of dysfunctional relationships, or you help people who do, THAW - Freedom from Frozen Feelings is a "must have." The book outlines the wounding process, how those emotional wounds show up in various personal and interpersonal problems in adulthood, and introduces the reader to specific methods for healing these wounds. An innovative, easy to understand, integrated model of addiction, codependency, enabling relationships, Adult/Child Syndrome and other manifestations of emotional abandonment is presented. Many of Don's clients have said things like the model "just went right to my core...it was like a light suddenly came on!" Moderate to severe cases of emotional abandonment comes from situations in which the child does not fully or consistently get their emotional dependency needs met. THAW - Freedom from Frozen Feelings outlines these needs and the impact they have on our lives, emotional states, and relationships later in life.Children who get their dependency needs met fully, on a regular basis, will thrive, flourish, and grow at a healthy pace. Let's use the analogy of an emotional gas tank; if our needs are met fully we feel full, complete, satisfied, content, happy, etc. If we don't get our needs met at all we feel a great emptiness inside. I have heard this emptiness described in many ways; a black hole, a void, a vacuum, an ache, a longing, etc. Perhaps we get our needs met halfway; we feel half-full but something is missing and we still feel an ache. No amount of medicine, counseling, prayer, or positive thinking can overcome this pain. It must first be acknowledged, brought to the surface, and tended to, just like any other wound - or it will fester and grow. Thaw - Freedom from Frozen Feelings will take the reader on just such a journey of healing. It goes right to the roots of the problem and brings it to the surface of awareness so we can begin tending the wounds. The wounding process may be subtle as there may be few overt signs of family dysfunction or abuse. For instance, it may be that one or both parents are able to give reasonable amounts time, attention and direction but are unable to express affection. The words "I love you" may rarely be heard, if at all. A lack of hugs, kisses, and other forms of emotional warmth leave a child to wonder how they measure up in the eyes of their parents. It makes matters even worse when the child lives in a shame-based family system. In such families the children get messages of disapproval through constant criticism rather than messages of approval and warmth. A shame-based family system is characterized by the parent's use of shame to provide direction. The intentions may be good, but telling a child "you'll never amount to anything" does not produce good self-esteem. When parents do not meet the needs of their children, it is not usually because the parents don't love them. Wounded people wound people and parents cannot demonstrate much more than they have been given. Our parents were raised by their parents, who were raised by their parents, who were raised by their parents, and so on. These patterns of wounding are transferred from one generation down to the next - until someone stops the cycle and heals the pain. So, it is not usually a question of whether our parents loved us, or even if they did the best they could for us. Many people get stuck on this truth and end up saying, "So why go back and dig all that up? They did the best they could and that is that. You can't change the past." To those people, I say this book will show you why it is important to "dig all that up" and introduce specific measures to heal the pain and replace abandonment issues with healthy, enriching relationships!