CARSTAIRS - Carstairs author Dan Woodard’s first book, Let’s Break the Rules, is scheduled to be released on Dec. 10.
Co-written with Three Hills’ Dr. Dan Reinhardt, the non-fiction work explores rules that damage interpersonal and family relationships, he said in an interview.
“Basically it’s how to recognize the rules that were unspoken and unwritten, and not so much how to cope but how to recover and have healthy relationships, personal and family relationships,” said Woodard, 65.
“My parents divorced in their 39th year of marriage, so I’ve had a front-row seat to watch that happen and I’ve sort of been a student of my parents all my life. I’ve sort of been writing this book in the back of my mind for decades and finally some things triggered earlier this year and COVID came so I had time to do this book.”
The book is Bible-based, although he says it is “not for Christians specifically but it would be very relevant to Christian and non-Christians. The filter we are writing is through scripture.”
The book includes numerous personal stories from Woodard’s life, he said.
“Although there was no alcohol in my home of origin, I was raised with six unspoken rules common to adult children of alcoholics,” he said.
“From boyhood to early in my marriage, I felt the rules don’t talk, don’t feel, don’t trust, don’t think, don’t choose, and don’t change were always hanging in the air.”
In the book he describes how he has learned to “carry on conversations, how to management emotions, how to build trust and to trust, express his own opinions, make decisions, and how to develop a dynamic learning cycle.”
Woodard is a professional life coach and workshop trainer with Action Canada.
For more, see letsbreaktherules.ca.
