“For the first time in many years, Lisa had entered into a season of singleness. She had a history of dating the wrong guys, one after another. With the perspective allowed by her pause from dating, Lisa realized that the people she dated were nothing like the man she had always dreamed of marrying. She had a tendency to settle, living in the hope of what she wanted the relationship to become rather than seeing it for what it was. When I met Lisa, she was ready to make some discoveries about herself. She was sick and tired of doing things the same old way and was ready for a transformation. And she was willing to do the work that this required. After I took some time to understand Lisa’s life and her past, it became clear to me that many of the patterns that were holding her back stemmed from things she learned in her family of origin. The dynamics of Lisa’s relationship with her parents and of her parents’ relationship with each other had set the stage for her future relationships in a way that she never could have imagined.”