Though we sometimes talk about how the roles of mother, spouse, or working woman affect our lives, we rarely talk about how the role of daughter has affected our self-esteem and perspective on life. Yet the role of daughter (or son) affects our understanding of who we are from day one of our existence, and has profound effects on how we perceive ourselves, our lives, and the world.

The Box of Daughter: Healing the Authentic Self offers a close-up view into a daughter's life experience, and provides a road map to recovery from dysfunctional family dynamics for both men and women. Read more about The Box of Daughter.

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The Box of Daughter can help you:

• Understand your dysfunctional family’s dynamics on a deeper level
• Feel validated in your experience of growing up, knowing that you’re not alone
• Understand why you might have experienced difficulty coping in life
• Learn to unearth and express your feelings and develop your authentic self
• Stretch your “envelope” to become aware of better ways of living
• Develop more self-confidence as you understand how your childhood affected your self-esteem
• Begin to recover from a dysfunctional childhood

The Box of Daughter will help you unearth your authentic self and begin to rebuild your self-esteem.

Winner of both the 2012 New England Book Festival and Reader's Favorite Book Awards, The Box of Daughter is an eloquent, compassionate portrayal of the author’s triumph over a lifetime of emotional abuse. The Box of Daughter exposes the bullying and abuse that can occur behind closed doors in a "perfect" family, and describes the author's seven years of caregiving for her abusive parents and her quest to rediscover her authentic self after their deaths.

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How The Box of Daughter Began

Three months after my father died, I attended a bereavement group offered by an affiliate of the hospice program that cared for my father in the last months of his life. The group centered around writing and sharing short pieces related to the grief process that all of us shared, and as I discovered that others had experienced similar difficulties in their families of origin, I began writing more short pieces related to my dysfunctional family and my experience of emotional abuse.

I also found it extremely cathartic to write about my fifty years of living in the box of daughter. Putting the words and experiences on paper helped me clarify my truth and clear myself of the fear, sadness, and anger related to my past. Spilling my thoughts and feelings in whatever way they wanted to come out helped me to come to terms with the trauma of emotional abuse in childhood and to heal my grief at what I had lost.

Within a few months, I had written so many short pieces that I began seeing them as part of a book, a record of my truth which I hoped would help others who had dysfunctional families to face their own truths and begin to release their pain and sadness.

I am grateful to whatever divine force led me to write this book, and I offer it as a healing gift for others. Finally facing my truth and releasing old feelings helped me to heal myself from the past and move forward into a much more authentic, productive, and fulfilling life.

If you had a difficult childhood, a dysfunctional family of origin, or any other situation that's made you feel as if you're living in a box, you'll find validation for your feelings and suggestions for recovery in The Box of Daughter. Recovery from the past is absolutely possible.