discover they have little to give each other once the children are
grown, and perhaps sooner.
Once I (PL) had a client, Oliver, whose younger sister, Martha, had
died after a long, debilitating childhood illness. The illness caused
Martha to be almost completely helpless for several years before her
death. She received constant parental attention, way more than he. It
is hard to imagine the devastating impact of the loss of a child. Al-
though it must stand out as the most severe tragedy, these people did
not handle it well. After Martha’s death, the parents’ strongest bond
continued to be to their deceased daughter. Family holidays were
marked with parental comments such as “If only Martha could see
this.” Her birthday was celebrated each year as if she were still there.
These family bonds affected Oliver. He had made repeated at-
tempts at starting businesses, but always got into difficulties that re-
quired his parents to rescue him. Ironically, he had just enough
temporary successes to maintain his parents’ willingness to help
him out.
After some intense discussion about his personal history, we
concluded that his inherited purpose was to compete with his sister
for his parents’ attention by being helpless as she was. When he saw
that his sister had unintentionally given her life to get their atten-
tion, he realized that getting their attention was a game he couldn’t
and didn’t want to win. He forgave himself and his parents, de-
clared his true purpose in life, started a flower business, and broke
the pattern of needing to be rescued.
BOUNDARIES
Boundaries have a lot to do with manners. They can be compared
to little islands of respect surrounding each person. The specifics of
boundaries vary somewhat according to culture. Generally, we
don’t touch people unless invited to, we don’t ask them about their
personal life when we first meet them, and we expect similar cour-
tesies. Respect for boundaries is a cultural expectation.
From my (PL) consulting experience, I’ve learned boundaries
have the biggest effect when they are violated. Childhood sexual
abuse is the most grievous boundary violation I have encoun-
tered. There is a built-in genetic expectation that fully grown
members of any species will care for (or at least not harm) the
younger members of the species. This expectation probably became
part of the genetic makeup sometime after life evolved beyond the
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