We all experience stress, a feeling of being pressured or overwhelmed, from time to time. Sometimes feeling stressed only lasts a few minutes or hours — and either the stressor is relieved, or we successfully use our coping strategies to reduce our feelings of overwhelm. And there are other times when we’re under a […]
Summer is upon us — and if you’re lucky, your schedule will lighten up a bit and allow you to enjoy a few long weekends away from work or some quiet evenings on the porch relaxing with a good book. Summer is always a great time to catch up on some reading. I’m a […]
Moms, you deserve to reclaim Mother’s Day and make it a day that truly makes you happy. Mother’s Day is often filled with angst and guilt and conflict. Mothers are particularly good at taking care of everyone else, wanting to please people, keep the peace, and simply putting themselves last. And some Moms have […]
What are boundaries? All relationships need boundaries. A boundary is an imaginary line that separates me from you. They separate your physical space, your feelings, needs, and responsibilities from others. Your boundaries also tell other how they can treat you – what’s acceptable and what isn’t. without boundaries, people may take advantage of you because […]
Life can be hard. We all screw up sometimes. We get frustrated and lose our temper. We regret things said or left unsaid. Our children struggle with learning disabilities or anxiety or any number of things. We hurt deep inside about harm caused to us as children. Our loved ones die. We get laid-off […]
Coping with Loneliness: How to Reconnect with Yourself and Others Is loneliness becoming more pervasive? I’m not sure, but sometimes it seems that way. We’re all so busy that it can be hard to make time to socialize and prioritize face-to-face relationship building time. Many of us don’t have a sense of community or […]
Why do you feel unworthy? So many of us feel unworthy. We feel like we’re not good enough, like we don’t fit in, and like we don’t matter. We’re overly self-critical, fixating on our flaws and failures. We think we need to be perfect and successful in order to have value. For years we’ve […]
Before anybody else can love you, you have to love yourself You’ve heard this many times before. But what does it mean to love yourself? And how do you actually love yourself? For various reasons, many of us find it easier to love others than to love ourselves. Sometimes we’re truly quite awful to […]
Codependency is often misunderstood. It’s not just a label to slap on the spouse of every alcoholic. It encompasses a wide-range of behavior and thought patterns that cause people distress to varying degrees. I hope this article will help clear up some of the misconceptions about codependency and help you to understand codependency better. […]
Are you self-critical? It’s easy to fall into a pattern of self-criticism. Often, we don’t even realize that we’re speaking to ourselves with harsh criticisms that we’d never use towards others. Self-criticism becomes hardwired into your brain Self-criticism is like a bad habit – the more we do it, the more it gets […]