Did you know there may be five important relationships that carry invisible strings keeping you from finding passion in your life or moving ahead professionally? They are your parents, siblings, husband/partner, best friend, and your boss.

1. Your Parents:  You may be carrying old baggage from your mother and/or father.  Did they send you the message you were not to be successful?  Did you hear from them that you were “a klutz,” “lazy,” or some other label that defined how you have come to see yourself?  Even if they are long deceased, you may still be carrying these messages about yourself.
   
2. Your Siblings:  Ghosts from your childhood relationships with your younger or older siblings can still influence how you see yourself. The images of how they saw you back then can become frozen in time, so you continue to see them and yourself through that old lens.  For more details about these ghosts and frozen images, see my cd and my sibling page.
   
3. Your husband/partner:  The support, or lack of support, from the important man in your life can have a major influence on your being free to explore the most you can be.  If he is not supportive, you may feel disloyal by going ahead with plans that could make you soar – leaving him behind.  Usually this is not a conscious decision.  But, too often, women lose their desires for personal or professional growth if that he is discouraging.
   
4. Your Best Friend:  Again, the issue of loyalty comes into play if your best friend is not ready to grow. You may feel you’d be leaving her behind; you may feel bad talking about exciting aspects of your life if she is depressed.  And, what is most unfortunately, these feelings may be unconscious, so you may be holding yourself back – without even knowing it.
   
5. Your Boss:  Ok, even if your boss is a dingbat (or you fill in the best word here), can you allow yourself to fly?   Perhaps you will have to change jobs, but often you can work around the boss – once you realize what is holding you back.

Too often, the most dangerous hindrances to professional growth and finding your passion are unconscious.  We tend to just blame ourselves, not pushing to find out what is holding up back.  To hear more about this, see the interview I did with NABBW (National Association of Baby Boomer Women, on Finding Your Passions.