Principalities and Powers, Family Legacies and Change

   What is it exactly that we encounter in families that is passed down from generation to generation about the nature of reality, the world, people and just about everything else?  Are these simply innocent family beliefs, customs, cultural mores or something else?  If they are something else, what are the implications in helping families to grow and change?
   We all know that ethnic and cultural customs are passed down from the Germans, the Swedes, the Norwegians, the French, from Native Americans and the list goes on.  Clearly, family recipes, holiday customs, family traditions, customs and the like are easy to spot and are seen as simply cultural and family patterns.  Knowing these customs can assist a helper attempting to assist a family to grow and change.
   At the same time, we also know that there are other patterns that appear to stand outside of the above explanation. Things like what closeness means, who initiates it and how, what are accepted ways to show frustration or anger and what the family boundaries are between the adults and the children.  When we enter into these universal patterns, culture and ethnicity have a partial influence.  An example would be how the French show anger versus the Swedish. Perhaps even more clear would be how the Irish show anger versus someone from the Polynesian Islands.  We all know that there would be a difference as we have all witnessed situati ...