Your family is your first and most influential bond. What you learn from them colors the way you see yourself and world. As a child, your physical helplessness makes you dependent on people closest to you for survival. Too often those relationships are destructive instead of supportive. The family you join already has tendencies: patterns, beliefs, and attitudes which they expect you to share. Going along gets you what you need, so you adapt to fit in. But when you ignore your instincts, you don't feel right. You create opposite of what you intend.

The good news is you don't have to be a victim of your upbringing. Although patterns learned in your family can crush your self-esteem, confuse you, and wreck your relationships, distortion of your natural instincts can be reversed. Your problems can show you what you don't want and inspire you to go after what you'd rather have, so you can set yourself free to become person you want to be and create life you dream of.

You make peace with past by treating difficult situations, thoughts, and feelings as opportunities to unravel knots in your heart and mind that keep you from realizing your dreams. You create a new future by drawing on your innate wisdom to help you overcome obstacles and achieve your goals. When you do your best, you tap into a power that's been within you all along, in even worst circumstances, even when you weren't aware of it.

No matter what happens, trust that what you go through will enlighten you. Don't be discouraged. The most important thing is dedication to trying new things and learning from your experience. Change doesn't happen overnight—it comes little by little, more and more, deepening your ability to love, create, and make a difference personally and in society.

So how do you go about doing this? Here are ten ways to spark change in your life and relationships: 

1. SET A NEW COURSE Finding your own preferences

Your new course is first an internal one, which paves way for external changes. If you're not satisfied with your life as it is, start by imagining that it can get better. What happens in your life is largely up to you, so make it a priority to figure out how to create what you want. Take time every day to think about what you want. Be willing to try new things. Pay close attention to ideas and feelings that light you up. Courage is accepting reality as it is and working with it to create what you want. Allow yourself to feel excited about your possibilities. What you dedicate yourself to, you can create.

2. TRUST YOUR INTUITION Tapping into your inner wisdom

When you hear "little voice of wisdom" inside, listen. Within you is a guidance system that makes itself known through your ideas and emotions. Trust it. Life can be confusing, and some people do try to manipulate you in devious ways. If something doesn't feel right, it may mean that it's not for you. Wonder about why not, and what you'd like instead. Give yourself benefit of doubt. Your instinct leads you to where you need to go at perfect moment for best results. Stand your ground. Believe in yourself in face of criticism. No one else can tell you what you need or want. Have good intentions. Don't second-guess yourself. Do what you think is best at moment.

3. LOOK FOR A SILVER LINING Developing a positive attitude

Spirit underlies everything. You are part of universal creative energy. You didn't come here to prove your worth or to find a problem and fix it. You came to express your talents and abilities, to realize your dreams. What you experience depends on how you look at it. How you interpret things plays a large part in shaping your behavior and how others treat you. Search for positive. Focusing on negative dulls your energy and ability to cope. No matter how bad a situation seems, find something in it to appreciate. Ask yourself, what good could come from this? What can I learn here? The answers you get show you what to do next. You already have inside you resources to make peace with past and create a new future. You just have to learn how to use them.

4. TAKE A STEP BACK Separating motivation from unconscious patterns

Be on lookout for destructive habitual patterns. Noticing is first step to breaking them. Don't fight them, just observe your thoughts and feelings. The deeper you go, more you unravel stuck places in your heart and mind. Bring spirit into process by inviting metaphysical help in any form that works for you. Be influenced by others' opinions only if they inspire you. Criticism may be only an automatic response based in critic's own fears. You don't have to convince anyone of your right to have your life as you want it.

And “today’s world” may mean to you that office you work in that’s so hopelessly understaffed and disorganized, or your inept boss, or terrorism, starvation and violence in world, your personal inadequacies for facing your personal challenges, lack of help around house, your hyper 2 year old twin boys, spending your days reeling among emotional states of your teenagers, your midlife-crisis spouse, and your aging mother, or any of above.

I was reminded of this dilemma when I was cornered other morning by a young woman who needed to get in my face about fact that her husband had gotten in her face that morning about “idiocy” of watching Prince Charles thing when there were more important things going on in world.

By end of his tirade he had listed terrorism, cancer, national budget crisis, and legal system as things more worthy of our attention that were, at same time, hopelessly screwed up. By end of his tirade, her husband’s “pessimistic attitude” had been added to list, as having “ruined” her day. And, had I allowed it, I could’ve added to list that her retelling of war story had “ruined” mine.

Let’s face it: it’s easier to be cynical. It’s also more realistic to be cynical.

If you’re kind of person who has a need to be right, betting that work project will be screwed up, that marriage will never last, and that Bush will make another decision that will fail to make world perfect are surer bets than opposite.

And so, if you’re negative and pessimistic, you’ll more often be right. But look at what else you’ll get: you’ll attract to yourself people who feel same way and will join you in a negative downward spiral; you’ll be quick to blame anything but yourself, leaving yourself feeling hopeless and helpless as well as angry; you’ll waste a lot of time belaboring obvious; and you’ll also stress yourself and your immune system.

Negative thinking leads to negative emotions which bring on physiological reactions which can damage your health in short-term and in long-term. Being optimistic doesn’t mean not being realistic.

It means making choices that influence outcomes, because they can also be self-fulfilling. If you’re sure your secretary is going to fail you again, she will. We are all influenced by energy around us, and who can function when someone is hovering around them who thinks she or he is “an idiot”? Also, if you’re determined she will fail you, you must make that happen to defend your ego, and so what else can you think when it’s over? She failed you.

Realism would say – if you truly hired wrong person, don’t be a victim. Take care of problem.

If you hired a person who, like everyone else, has good days and bad, works in an imperfect system, has to try and read your mind and accommodate to your admittedly difficult disposition at times, and is over-worked, don’t play victim – look at system and see what you can do to make things work better, assuming (optimistically) that this is possible, i.e., things will never be perfect, but they can generally be improved upon, and YOU are one to do it.

You could start, in that instance, with your own attitude and expectations.

In fact, if you want to make world a better place, start with your secretary’s “world.” Get it?

Pragmatically speaking – that is, if you want to function in real world – an optimistic view works better. It gives you energy to make things happen, because it gives you positive emotional energy.