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Growing Intentional Families Together Blog

Read our blog to find out the latest on adoption.

Intentionality, Conflict Resolution and Prioritizing Relationships

by | May 12, 2019

All relationships experience conflict. Healthy relationships are characterized not by the absence of conflict, but by the effort expended in addressing conflict, repairing emotional injuries, rebuilding broken trust, and cultivating an ongoing commitment to one another. Pasting a happy face over unresolved conflict allows emotional wounds to fester and ultimately destroys both connection and trust. Equally damaging, are expectations that rely on the other person’s ability to read our minds, to intuitively know what we need and want. It takes courage to speak up and say, “You hurt me,” especially if we admit this not in the passion of anger but rather, with a clear head and a willingness to expose our vulnerability. Sharing this message requires courage and reveals an emotional investment in the relationship. Sharing the truth and hearing the truth requires both persons to be emotionally vulnerable.

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Adoptee’s Birthdays Blend Laughter and Tears, Joy and Sadness

by | Apr 23, 2019

For many adopted children, birthdays can be overwhelming as it awakens powerful & conflicting emotions. Their birthday is inextricably linked with the primal loss of their first mother & extended biological family. I suspect that many kids do not even understand why they feel so conflicted on their birthday nor do they understand what might drive them to create chaos and turmoil in the midst of all the celebrations…Just as assuredly as a puff of breath extinguishes the candles on a birthday cake, adoption snuffed out one version of life for all of us and replaced it with the one which we have lived for several decades. Perhaps we will never know if this was “best.” At this point in time, it is simply what is and we have made peace with that fact even as we all understand the profound “cost” of that reality.

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