the 7 entanglements that kill your success ---- by dana garrison

© Dana Garrison 2009 • All Rights Reserved www.DanaGarrison.com • [email protected]

Seven Entanglements that Kill Your Success

One of the greatest gifts that come with learning about Family Entanglements is that all those things that you’ve been blaming yourself for may not be your fault. Maybe you’ve blamed yourself for not being smart enough, good enough, or experienced enough. Well the problem may have nothing to do with you, or your talents or efforts. Many of your problems may be rooted in Family Entanglements that are affecting your ability to be, do, or have what you want in your life. An Entanglement is a problematic pattern around money, business/career, relationships or health that gets passed down, or inherited, from your family. This is often the Core Cause to many of the problems that don’t want to seem to budge. Thousands of Family Entanglement Work participants have found the solution to their problems through this work. When most people have a problem in their life that they want to change, for instance, a problem around money or business, they often notice the symptom of their problem and try to work on that, instead of trying to working on the cause. For example, a client of mine was struggling with making more money in his business. He looked at the symptom—not having enough money or customers, and he began to work on that. He hired people to do social media marketing and he took business and financial courses. And none of it really helped. This is because he was spending all his time and money on the symptom—not having enough customers or income. He wasn’t working on the Core Cause, which is what was causing the problem in the first place—his Money and Success Entanglement. How Entanglements Start: Before you read about the Seven Entanglements below, it’s useful to know how Entanglement Patterns are passed down through the generations. When something tragic or traumatic happens to a family member within the context of money, business/career, relationships or health, it creates an Originating Incident. An Originating Incident can cause an Entanglement Pattern to form in your family system. How Entanglements Work: An Entanglement Pattern can last for about seven generations. The Entanglement only hits about 25-30 people before it fades out, and it can skip people—it doesn’t necessarily hit 25-30 in a row. However, the closer you are to the generation where the Originating Incident happened, the more likely you are to get entangled with it, and the bigger the Entanglement can be. This work is most concerned about your blood relatives, although there are times that someone can get


entangled with their adopted family’s history, and in some rare cases, their partner’s. And you don’t have to have met your relative, or even know about them or their stories in order to get entangled with their problems. The information about the past problems in your family has been passed down from generation to generation through each family member’s subconscious. Thus all the information is already stored in your subconscious. Research also points to latent recessive genes and epigenomes as carriers of this information. Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene activity that are caused by environmental stressors. Epigenomes sit above your genes and tell a agene to turn on or off, or to be expressed loudly or quietly. Epigenomes may also be carriers of this information. Look for the Signs: If you don’t know much or don’t know anything about your family history, another useful way to trace Entanglements is to look for Signs and Symptoms of Entanglements in your own life. There are common Entanglement Effects for each of the different Entanglements, and we can look for the Signs and Symptoms of those in your life.

Seven Entanglements That Kill Your Success

Okay, now that you have this foundation in Entanglements, let’s explore Seven Entanglements that Kill Your Success. These Entanglements can affect success in all arenas of life, although this report focuses heavily on success with business, career, and finances. Below, you will see the Seven Entanglement Patterns by name. You will also see a list of Originating Incidences for each Entanglement Pattern. Take a moment to think about your own family system and see if you know if there are any Originating Incidences. You may want to do a little research as well, since Entanglements can stem from seven generations back. Remember, we are usually concerned with your blood relatives only, although if you were adopted, we may need to look at your adopted family as well. You will also see a list of Signs and Symptoms. Many of us don’t have all of the information from seven generations back in our family. If you were adopted, you may not have access to much family history or other pertinent information at all. Looking for the Signs and Symptoms of Entanglements is a way around that. You can discover some of your Entanglements without knowing all the stories in your family just by checking to see if you have any Signs and Symptoms. Keep in mind that these lists are not exhaustive, but it’s definitely enough to get you started.


1. No Permission for Success: This Entanglement stems from someone within the last seven generations either losing or never achieving success. You would be surprised how many of people’s problems with success are rooted in a Family Entanglement. It only takes one person, amidst a family of successful people, to start this pattern. Originating Incidences include if someone: • Didn’t succeed in their career or business. • Tried multiple businesses or jobs and could never really get successful. • Had some success and then lost it, due to something like the Great Depression, or a business

partner back-stabbing them, bad decisions, or “bad luck” etc. • Other than a relative committed a crime against your relative’s business, like arson, stealing,

or embezzlement, that caused the business suffer or to go under. For whatever reason, when someone else in the last seven generations didn’t attain success or lost their success, it can cause an Entanglement Pattern for the seven generations that follow. Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms: • Trouble starting a business. • Trouble growing a business, increasing profits, or getting more customers. • Trouble getting yourself or your business noticed or seen in the market place. Maybe you’ve

tried some advertising and not much seems to pan out or get you many new customers. • Sales conversations aren’t working well and you are not getting as many new customers as

you would like. • Trouble with sales conversations, marketing, or advertising.

This one’s a no-brainer. If there is a No Permission For Success Pattern, this will clearly affect your business and your income. 2. No Permission for Financial Abundance: Originating Incidences include if someone: • Lost a lot of money—due to bad business or investing decisions. • Gambled away their family’s money.


• Had a lot money taken or stolen. • Lost the farm, or the family home. • Something tragic happened and someone in your family system had to live in poverty. This

can also stem from wars and political unrest, being a refugee, etc. • Didn’t get their inheritance.

Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms:

• A high water mark for money—you can’t seem to make and/or keep more than a certain amount of money.

• Something always happens and money has to be spent to fix it—car problems, doctors bills, fees, traffic tickets, etc.

• Somehow, the money gets lost, for example, investments go bad, the stock market tanks right before you are ready to cash out, etc.

• You just can’t seem to make more than a certain amount of money per month/year. • A tendency to lend out money or give it away. A tendency to try to help people by giving

them money (whether you have extra or not). • Money lent does not get paid back. • A desire to gamble a lot, or gambling away a lot of money. • A tendency toward being a spender/spending a lot: buying things, or experiences like

dining out, travel, etc. 3. No Permission for Connection: This entanglement can happen when someone in your family tree closed off their heart, often because something or someone broke their heart. Originating Incidences include if someone:

• Lost a love (due to illness, death, or other circumstances). • Couldn’t marry their love (due to cultural differences, race, arranged marriage, moving

apart, and other life circumstances). • Put walls up around their heart (due to feeling betrayed by someone, being abused,

affairs, etc.). • Had parents who divorced, or were at odds with each other, and one of the children

stepped up and acted like a partner to one of the parents (providing emotional support for the parent, becoming the man of the house, taking care of the parent perhaps by doing the cooking and cleaning and tending to their needs the way a partner normally might).


Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms: • Trouble networking and making good business connections, finding Joint Ventures or good

business partners, etc. • Trouble experiencing intimacy—maybe true intimacy feels uncomfortable, scary, or too

vulnerable. • Attracting partners who have trouble with intimacy—which guarantees you won’t experience

intimacy. The subconscious projects this outward: attracting people who have trouble with intimacy, so that you won’t experience intimacy.

• Workaholic or Overwhelm Pattern: Somehow you don’t seem to have time to spend with family or friends—you end up working all the time, or feeling overwhelmed all the time, and find that you are always busy. But working all the time or being busy all the time is one way that this pattern manifests—you simply don’t have the time for connecting with people very often.

• Alone or Lonely: You might find that you are often alone, and you might feel kind of lonely (and you may have told yourself that you like it this way, which may just be a coping mechanism for dealing with something you have been stuck with. You also may be so used to it, you don’t even bother thinking it could be any different.).

• Working Alone: You may end up in a career that has you often working alone. • Trouble in Relationships: You don’t date as much as you’d like, or you can’t seem to find or

maintain a good relationship, or any relationship at all. The secret to success is understanding yourself, understanding people, and being able to connect and communicate. The secret to sales and negotiation, conflict resolution, and managing a team is also the same. When it comes your business—if you are not able to fully connect with others, you will struggle, if not fail. Business and financial success is largely about connection—with your boss, co-workers, team, customers, etc. This No Permission for Connection Pattern also deeply affects your friendships and relationships, and your ability to have connected and happy relationships. It also impacts your ability to find love, and to find your “soul mate(s).” 4. Victim/Perpetrator: The origins of this Entanglement stem from an Originating Incident where someone perpetrated a crime or act of violence against someone else. You may have a perpetrator or a victim in your family tree, and this can start the Victim/Perpetrator Pattern in your lineage. What this means for you is that you, or others in your family may identify with the victims or the perpetrators, or


both. Originating Incidences include if someone in your family was:

• Harmed in some physical way, murdered, raped, or experienced sexual abuse, domestic violence, etc.

• A victim of a crime. • A perpetrator of harm: murder, manslaughter, rape, sexual abuse, domestic violence, etc. • Backstabbed or blackmailed, around money, business, relationships, or health. • Institutionalized or imprisoned.

Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms: Victim Entanglement:

• Witnessing abuse or being abused as a child. • Being bullied at school. • Experiencing incest, molestation, or rape. • Experiencing car accidents, being the victim of crimes, lawsuits, etc. • Attracting a lot of fights and attacks at work or in your personal life. • In relationships that are emotionally, mentally, or physically abusive. You may find that

you keep ending up in these kinds of relationships even when you try hard to avoid them. • Mental Health: Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Low Self Esteem. • Autoimmune disorder—MS, Lupus, and the like. Your body is the perpetrator and the

victim at the same time. Perpetrator Entanglement:

• You might find that you have a temper, and that you anger easily, sometimes for reasons

that even puzzle you, after the fact. • You may find yourself feeling hostile toward others or just towards life in general, for

some reason. • You may also be plagued with stress and tension, and you often feel on the edge. • You may find that others in your life have told you that you are mean, rude, harsh, or

hurtful, and maybe you didn’t mean to be. • You might notice you have a taste for revenge; when someone has wronged you, you

want to get back at them. • Others might have called you manipulative, vindictive, or vengeful. • You might find yourself saying things that people feel hurt by, or hitting or harming


others. No matter which form of Victim/Perpetrator Entanglement you find yourself in, it can harm your business and career success. As a victim, you can’t get very far. You may have too much holding you back. And as a perpetrator, you may have trouble making connections and developing lasting business relationships, you may end up burning bridges, or getting a bad reputation without fully understanding why. You may find that your relationships are strained because of your feelings of anger, hostility, or stress. 5. Pull Towards Death: This kind of entanglement is one of the biggest sinkers to your success—for your life and your business. Originating Incidences include if someone in your family:

• Died young—under the age of 25. • Had parents who died with children age 15 or younger in their care. • Had a stillborn, crib death, miscarriage, or abortion. • Accidentally killed a civilian or someone on their own side in a war. • Was involved in genocide, colonized another country or people, or was somehow

involved in concentration camps (maybe it’s part of your country’s history, or a family member lived by one, worked at one, or was put in one).

• Was a victim of war, genocide, concentration camps, etc. • Has killed someone, by accident or on purpose. (This incident can happen more than

seven generations back, and still have an effect on you). This sometimes also includes if a family member killed someone during a war. These types of stories can sometimes be hidden, and become family secrets that you don’t know about. In that case, look below to the signs and symptoms that you may exhibit.*

• Was murdered.* * If someone in your family killed someone or was murdered, you may pick up both the Splitting Pattern and the Pull Towards Death Pattern. Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms:

• A Dim Life: Not living fully in some areas of your life - things just not going well—for example, not having success in career, great friendships or romantic relationships, or not having robust health. Life can feel a bit dim. Life can feel like a struggle. And it can seem


overwhelming, and things may feel difficult much of the time. • Health Issues: You may experience health problems, disease, including diseases that

doctors can label and define, and also health issues that doctors can’t seem to define, figure out, or make sense of.

• Substances: Alcoholism or frequent drinking, and drug addiction or frequent use of drugs. (This is part of what is called a slow suicide in this work).

• Mental Health Issues: Depression or Dysthymia (low-grade depression). Someone in your family was institutionalized.

• Fear of Heights: This can sometimes be caused by the unconscious desire to throw oneself over the edge; therefore the body develops a fear of heights due to the Pull Towards Death Pattern.

• Dark Imaginings: A common one is wondering what it would be like/wanting to turn the wheel hard while you are driving fast/driving on a mountain road. May also occur as other dark or even gruesome thoughts that pass by the mind.

• Suicide/Death as an Answer: Even if you are not really suicidal or depressed, with a Pull Towards Death Pattern, sometimes you just have the random thought: This could all be solved or better if I were dead/died. It’s the thought to stop existing.

• Emotional Pain and Frustration: You may find yourself feeling: anxious, angry, frustrated, lonely, tired, resentful, upset, sad or depressed.

• Attracted to sad, gruesome, war, or horror films/TV shows. It’s not a given that just because you like these, that you have a Pull Towards Death, but it is something to look at as part of the whole. It’s one of the signs.

• Struggle: Living a life of struggle or suffering—many negative or “bad” things happening. Life just feels difficult. You can’t get a leg up, no matter how hard you try. This is subconsciously “keeping one foot in the grave.”

It’s pretty clear how a Pull Towards Death can affect your business and your money. This Entanglement can be a heavy one to carry. The main effect of this Entanglement is that it prevents you from living a full and robust life. Living with Signs and Symptoms such as these can hold you back in just about any arena of your life. 6. Splitting Patterns: Splitting Patterns show up when there have been family members that left their home country, when people from different nationalities that were once at war/at odds with each get together and have a child, and when there has been a murder, just to name a few. It can cause later generations to feel oddly split and torn internally, or feel like they don’t have roots, or a stable life. It can make a person feel like they don’t belong or don’t fit in, or have a place. It can make one feel like an outsider. Originating Incidences include if someone:


• Left their home country. If the family member left because of: war, famine/hunger, political issues, being on the run, being kicked out, money or family problems, being a refugee, etc., it might result in even more of an Entanglement issue.

• Had a child with someone with a different ethnicity or nationality, and those ethnicities or nationalities have had a history of being at odds with each other, fighting each other, or harming the other, such as genocide, or colonization.

• Has killed someone, by accident or on purpose. They may have killed someone during a war. These stories can sometimes be hidden, and become family secrets you don’t know about. In that case, look below to the signs that you may exhibit, to see if there might be a splitting pattern in your family system.*

• If someone in your family was murdered.* * If someone in your family killed someone or was murdered, you may pick up both the Splitting Pattern and the Pull Towards Death Pattern.

Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms:

• Mental Health Issues: Bi-Polar/Manic Depression, Schizophrenia, Multiple Personality Disorder. Was anyone institutionalized?

• Torn: Trouble making decisions. Not knowing what you want. Not feeling a lot of passion or desire. Often feeling torn when it comes to making choices.

• Unrooted: Not feeling as though you have a home, or not feeling like you have roots. Not being able to take root and settle down somewhere. Trouble feeling grounded.

• Split Loyalties: Feeling torn between one’s parents, or siding with one parent over the other (for anyone in the generations).

* A Special Case: Murder Even though murder has been included in the above patterns of Pull Towards Death and Splitting, it deserves some added clarity. When I’m speaking to groups and I talk about the effects of Murder Patterns, so much pain and turmoil in a family suddenly becomes clear and has an explanation. I’m including Murder Patterns, so that if you have a Murder Entanglement in your family system, some of the Entanglement Symptoms that are passed down through generations may finally make sense. Originating Incidences include if someone in your family:

• Has killed someone, by accident or on purpose. This sometimes also includes if they killed anyone during a war. These stories can sometimes be hidden, and become family


secrets you don’t know about. In that case, look below to the signs that you may exhibit, to see if there might be a splitting pattern in your family system.*

• If someone in your family was murdered.* Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms: Symptoms include what is listed under a Pull Towards Death, but I wanted to relist some here, and also add to that list:

• Mental Health Issues: Depression, Dysthymia (low-grade depression) Schizophrenia, Borderline Personality Disorder, Anti-Social Personality Disorder (Psychopath). Was anyone institutionalized?

• Suicidality: Suicidal thoughts/tendencies or actual suicide. • Substance Use: Alcoholism or frequent drinking. Drug addiction, or frequent use of

drugs. • Struggle: Living a life of struggle or suffering—many negative or bad things happening,

or life just feels difficult and like a struggle. Can’t get a leg up. • Guilt: Feeling guilty often (you might think your feelings of guilt are about matters in

your own life, but in reality, you may be attracting and creating things to feel guilty about due to the Entanglement. The same can be said for anyone in your family system who feels guilt often.).

• Autoimmune disorders - like MS, Lupus, etc. Note: With very tragic or gruesome deaths, such as deaths that involved torture, the Entanglement Symptoms generations later can be very severe. Sometimes, the entanglement symptoms from these murders feel as though one is being haunted (strange, I know, but people have reported feeling haunted, including some of the classic symptoms of being haunted such as hearing or seeing things, or being harmed by spirit. And regardless if you believe in spirits or ghosts, the haunting symptoms are very real to the person experiencing them.). Feeling haunted or feeling as though you live in a haunted house is often tied to a murder or many murders in your family history that were gruesome or involved torture. Family Disentanglement work has been reported to help. 7. Exclusion, Ignored, and Forgotten Patterns: If someone in your family was excluded, kicked out, ignored, or forgotten (no one talks about them much), then you may have an Exclusion Pattern in your system. You, and future generations may end up exhibiting problems similar to the person(s) who were forgotten or excluded.


Originating Incidences include if someone: • Was kicked out or disowned. • Left the family, moved away to get far away from family, or stopped talking to others. • Was ignored for some reason, or if someone stopped talking to someone else. • Was forgotten—people just didn’t talk about that person much. • Was kept a secret (for example—a child of a secret love affair). • Was institutionalized and no one talks about them.

Whether or not you know of any of these Originating Incidences in your family, check to see if you or anyone in your family system has any of the following symptoms: Signs and Symptoms: • In life or social situations, you may feel a bit ignored, left out, out of place. • You may feel like you don’t belong. • You can’t seem to find a group or groups that feel like “your people,” that really feel like

“home” to you. • You don’t feel like you have a place you can call home, or roots somewhere. Ungrounded. • You or your business don’t seem to get much recognition—you get overlooked. • Your business has trouble getting noticed. It doesn’t get as many clients as it could or should.

If you or your business get overlooked and forgotten, and go unnoticed, you will not be able to grow it. The danger with this pattern is not getting promoted at work, not moving up in your career, or not being able to grow your business or company. You either get stuck and can’t get going, or you plateau. It also disrupts your ability to find love. Resolving Family Entanglements: Once people learn about Family Entanglements, they often want to know how they can resolve them. I’ve included this section to answer some of those questions. There are a couple dozen Originating Incidences that can cause Entanglements. I created a Family Entanglement Questionnaire that helps to root them out, plus their Signs and Symptoms. In this process, I ask what topics, issues, or problems you would like to work on. What problems or patterns do you want to resolve? Once I know the topics you want to work on, I use answers from the Questionnaire to find Originating Incidences as well as Signs and Symptoms of Entanglements. I can then locate the causes of the problems, and do Disentanglement Work to release and resolve the Entanglements.


I have developed a Deepened Method to this work that combines many of the ChangeWork modalities that I have studied over the last 15 years. Clients report that they experience changes from this work that no other work has been able to achieve. (Many have been stuck with and trying to solve their problems through many different channels for 10 years or more.) This work has also done the same for me. I encountered sudden strange health issues in my life in my early 20’s that prevented my business from growing. I tried many solutions for about a decade before I found this work. (Feel free to ask me to share my story sometime). This work was able to resolve things for me that nothing else was able to touch, and my business took off. That’s why I love sharing it. This work is dear to my heart and never ceases to impress me or amaze me. I’ve truly seen nothing like it. If you are curious about getting to your Core Causes, and resolving your Entanglement Patterns, feel free to email or call me. I can send you the questionnaire, help you uncover and resolve your Entanglements, and answer any questions you might have. Warmly, Dana Garrison, MFEP, MNLP International Business Coach and Trainer Family Entanglement Master Practitioner and Trainer Master Neuro Linguistic Programmer Email: [email protected] Business Phone: (415) 320-8010 www.danagarrison.com 2370 Market St. Ste. 289 San Francisco, CA 94114

the 7 entanglements that kill your success ---- by dana garrison

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