Most people endure at least one traumatic event in their lifetimes. Some have many. If you work in a high stress environment, like a hospital mental health care, the police force, or an incarceration facility, an overloaded nervous system could happen on a daily...
Do you have friends or frenemies? Some of us hold on to unfulfilling relationships because it’s better than being alone. Or maybe it’s just habit, but did you know that this isn’t healthy? A long term study found that people who are involved in...
We can be so conditioned to focus on what’s wrong, growing, and fixing things that we forget to acknowledge what’s right. So let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on what’s right with your life. When we do this simple, little practice, we...
Leaving any relationship is not easy. When the relationship has been abusive, there are special emotional considerations that don’t come with your run-of-the-mill breakup. Here are some things you need to know before leaving an abusive relationship that may make...
If you grew up in a chaotic environment, you may not know what it fees like to be safe. How do you cultivate something when you don’t know what it is? It’s like trying to describe chocolate to someone who has never smelled or tasted it. Nothing else comes...
Shame happens when we perceive we have done something wrong and someone else witnesses it. Instead of seeing the behavior is wrong, we believe that we are wrong, bad, defective, unworthy, or don’t deserve love. Unlike guilt, shame requires a witness to exist....
Sometimes I get clients who are really nice people, they seem honest, and really want to feel better, but they just don’t budge. Almost always the underlying reason is toxic shame. They have a deep belief that they are bad, and they don’t deserve to feel...
I’ve never had any client come into my office saying, “I suffer from toxic shame.” In fact, a lot of people don’t know what it is or that it’s a problem. They think of it as something “normal” or “not a big deal.”...
The overwhelming theme for me this week is to pay attention to my expectations. What we expect has so much to do with how we think and feel. Expectations take us out of the Now. When that happens, we can’t enjoy or respond to what is here. So, we end up not living our...
In my previous post, I said that one way to reduce relationship friction is to take responsibility for what’s yours. This is a part of having great boundaries and being effective. But what does this look like exactly? “Taking responsibility” means...
