We inherit our entire emotional foundation—how we see the world, navigate relationships, and manage ourselves—from our family. But many of us receive faulty internal wiring, and that becomes the blueprint we live by, often without realizing it. Dysfunctional families rarely promote emotional maturity, self-awareness, or healthy boundaries. In fact, they often sabotage them. In these families, children are rarely taught—and often not even allowed—to become their own person. Instead, they learn to suppress their needs and manage others’ emotions, even at the cost of their identity.

Too many smart, capable adults live with anxiety, guilt, shame, and people-pleasing, or find themselves stuck in toxic patterns—not because they’re broken, but because they were never allowed to become themselves. The solution is a process called Self-Differentiation: separating who you truly are from the family programming that shaped you, and becoming your real self, even if others disagree, resist, or never change.

In his transformative first book, THE ROAD TO SELF, counselor, therapist, and coach Jerry Wise offers his popular methodology to self-differentiate and find freedom and peace. He answers questions at the heart of living and healing: How do we become authentic? How do we separate from others and resist the imprinting that we
have come to see as “normal” in our lives? How can we break from bonds of the past to truly live in the present and the future? How do we discover our true selves? And while the process of self-differentiation is not easy, when we shift our thinking, feeling, and seeing as Wise promises, we are empowered and ready to finally live.

 

Jerry Wise is a beloved teacher, therapist, and leading expert in emotional healing and family systems. He has built a dedicated audience of nearly 225,000 YouTube subscribers, and his email newsletter reaches 22,000 engaged readers. Over his 40-year career, he has personally coached and counseled thousands of individuals worldwide. He recently gave his first major podcast interview with Lewis Howes, and that has now garnered over 317,000 views on YouTube, with several clips reaching over 1 million views across Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.