Thoughts from a Therapist

Helpful tips on How to Expand your Personal and Relational Wellness

Tag: boundaries

  • Anxiety, Codependence, and What It Actually Means to Try in a Relationship

    Anxiety, Codependence, and What It Actually Means to Try in a Relationship

    Anxiety and codependence often shape how we try in relationships. This piece explores the difference between effort that builds connection and effort that quietly erodes it.

  • Double Binds in Co-Parenting After Divorce

    Double Binds in Co-Parenting After Divorce

    The parenting plan is essential post-divorce, as it navigates the emotional conflicts partners face regarding time with their child. It provides a pre-negotiated structure, allowing both parties to recognize their legitimate feelings while preventing endless disputes. By adhering to the plan, empathy and structure coexist, promoting psychological stability for all involved.

  • Emotional and Social Intelligence as a Living Balance | A Map for When You Want to Grow

    Emotional and Social Intelligence as a Living Balance | A Map for When You Want to Grow

    This content discusses the importance of emotional and social intelligence for personal growth, emphasizing the need for balance in various capacities such as self-awareness, mindfulness, and empathy. It highlights how understanding these dynamics can facilitate psychological development, adaptability to life’s changes, and foster meaningful connections while avoiding extremes.

  • When Compassion Silences Self-Worth

    When Compassion Silences Self-Worth

    The content emphasizes the importance of balancing compassion for others with self-advocacy. Uncontrolled compassion can lead to self-abandonment and resentment, undermining true empathy. Healthy empathy incorporates self-care, allowing individuals to express their worth without guilt. Ultimately, mutual respect and fairness foster deeper, more reciprocal relationships.

  • Adversity and Advocacy: When Suffering Stops Building Strength

    Adversity and Advocacy: When Suffering Stops Building Strength

    The piece discusses the balance between teaching patience and empowerment in the face of adversity. While challenges can foster growth, excessive or nonsensical adversity can be harmful, leading to confusion and loss of confidence. It’s crucial for parents to discern when to advocate for empowerment instead of promoting endurance.

  • Codependence and the Quiet Agreement Not to Grow

    Codependence and the Quiet Agreement Not to Grow

    The content explores how comfort can create a codependent environment that stifles personal growth. It highlights that prioritizing stability often leads to enabling behaviors, preventing accountability, and reinforcing stagnation. True love involves embracing discomfort for growth and supporting each other in evolving, rather than retreating into familiar patterns that limit potential.

  • Curiosity Without Judgment: Understanding the Adaptive Logic of Our Behavior

    Curiosity Without Judgment: Understanding the Adaptive Logic of Our Behavior

    The article explores the importance of distinguishing between judgmental and curious forms of questioning when reflecting on our behaviors. It emphasizes that understanding the underlying intentions behind our actions, often shaped by past adaptations, allows for personal growth. By fostering curiosity without judgment, we can integrate our past experiences into a healthier present.

  • Setting realistic expectations and living within those realistic expectations…

    Quick summary: When you desire a change or when you desire a certain set outcome, it is helpful to offer acceptance to your limitations so as to live with realistic expectations. To attain a sense of self which is congruent with our most basic intention is can be helpful to allow certain boundaries and guidelines…

  • Stating your internal feelings – acknowledge for acceptance – resistance is suffering

    Quick summary – are you crazy if you intentionally talk to yourself? What about all the unintentional talking (thoughts that your have automatically) in your head that happens all day? I do not remember where I learned the habit of acknowledging my emotions to myself, but I just started the practice up again… and it…