When you come from a dysfunctional family where addiction has played a dominant role, your "blueprint" is to avoid conflict. The blueprints manifest themselves in the denials of your feelings. You avoid seeking help from others since you don't trust others to meet your needs. You have, therefore, taught yourself to be strong and manage everything by yourself.

Feelings are our most helpful link to our relationship with ourselves. By suppressing your feelings, you miss out on the possibility of understanding yourself. What you can feel, you can heal.

Another negative aspect of avoiding conflict and seeking others' improvement, you place your happiness in the hands of others. Therefore, you must learn to love and appreciate yourself, regardless of others' opinions.

Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality. – Les Brown 

Tell yourself that you can

The words you say to yourself define your reality. Every day, value yourself and tell yourself how awesome you are. Your positive affirmations will keep you going towards your goals in life regardless of the obstacles you encounter. 

The primary reason why people are not happy is that they don't believe they can have a happy life. The lack of belief won't allow them to take action. If they take action, they won't have persistence, and the result will be low. 

Their minds will tell them, "I told you so," which confirms their negative belief from the beginning. 

Allow yourself to deserve good. 

If you focus on the negative things around you all the time, there will be no room for the positive things to enter your mind. It is an art to be able to observe all the beautiful things around you. The next time you are in the forest, sit down by the nearest tree and embrace everything. 

Perhaps you see an ant trail where hundreds of ants work as a team and bring building blocks or food to their anthill. When you look up, you might see a blue sky and some cotton shaped clouds. You look at the clouds, and your imagination tells you that one of them looks like a dragon.

When we were children, the summers appeared to last forever. The reason was that children are masters of living in the present. You can train your ability to reclaim that skill, and I promise that you will feel alive.

We don't let good be a part of our lives because our subconscious mind won't allow it. We unconsciously believe that we don't deserve it. With that belief, your actions will prevent you from achieving it. You perhaps sabotage your relationships because you think you are not worthy of love. 

You must love yourself first for others to be able to love you. Look yourself in the mirror every morning and say that you are lovable. Look the person in the eyes and say, "I love you." 

It might seem a bit awkward initially, but I promise you a difference will occur in your life after a while. Have faith, and don't stop. 

Use humor

Humor is a useful tool to release stress and not to take everything so seriously. Stress is, by the way, another word for fear. 

Humor increases your creativity. To laugh at oneself is a skill that helps you to move forward after a failure. Instead of seeing it as a failure, you will see it as a learning experience. 

There are other benefits of laughter and improving your immune system, burning calories, relaxing your body, protecting the heart, etc.

In essence, humor will improve your life.

Meditate

Allow yourself the benefits of meditation. You will be amazed by how effective your mind can be if you incorporated the process of meditation into your daily life. With training, you will be able to still your mind and focus on nothing. Thereby your subconscious mind will be able to rest. If you focus on a specific topic, there will be no distractions, and your mind will work in your favor. 

After repeating day after day you will start noticing that you are taking action in the direction that you want. If you want something in life, you have to see it in your mind first. 

You can't remove your negative thoughts. The more you think of not having your negative thoughts, the more you reinforce them. 

Instead, fill your mind with the things you want to see in your life, and there will be less room for your negative thought to expand.

Ask for help if you need it. 

People often take pride in doing things by themselves. Many are afraid of not being good enough if they ask for a helping hand. 

You are still a strong person even though you ask for help. Why waste hours and hours of your time trying to solve something you aren't good at. It is the result that counts, and how you proceed depend on the actual situation. 

Everyone isn't perfect in the beginning. Asking for help or paying others for their knowledge will, on the contrary, get you leverage and take you to your result much faster.

Make it a daily practice to say that you love yourself and that you are lovable. 

Connect with your inner child and reach out a hand from the adult you and say to the child that it will be okay. Inside every one of us is a child that needs comfort, especially if you come from a dysfunctional family.

I wish you all the best.

Your friend 

Thomas