Tag: Communication

For years I often heard people say that you have to go through grief and pain, you can’t go around it, you can’t go above it, you have to go through it. For years I didn’t understand what that meant. We live in an incredibly emotionally avoidant culture which then leads to chronic mental emotional health struggles, high addiction and disconnection from self and others among other symptoms. 

In order to move through grief or pain a person must create a safe space for emotions to build. Like a wave on a beach, emotions need to be able to build and crash safely on the shore before they can recede out and become calm again. Instead of allowing the natural flow, we often dam up the water as high as we can to keep it from crashing, but then when it inevitably breaks the dam, and the lifetime of suppressed emotions can come cascading and flooding ...

The idea of boundaries is one that has been talked about so much in the past few years, many of us throw around the term in our daily conversations. If you need a refresher, a common definition of boundaries is: “guidelines, rules, or limits that a person creates to identify for themselves what are reasonable, safe, and permissible ways for other people to behave around them and how they will respond when someone steps outside those limits.”  

I often discuss the topic of boundaries with clients, yet it is still something that I struggle with navigating in my personal life. I could use this space to share education on the different types of boundaries and the possible impacts of setting boundaries, but instead I’d like to share something that has been meaningful to me. A few years ago I heard a quote by Glennon Doyle that said, “every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your dut ...

I was talking with my daughter recently and she shared with me that she is teaching my granddaughter about setting and respecting physical space limits.  My daughter didn’t use those specific words, but it is essentially what she was referring to.  It reminded me of the importance of setting clear boundaries with others and the important responsibility of keeping and respecting boundaries of others and of ourselves.  It is good to recognize that we all have limitations and recognizing that and putting healthy boundaries up helps us to thrive.

My granddaughter is learning about a physical boundary, but there are other areas we may want to consider when thinking of boundaries.  Areas that I have learned to value and protect with boundaries include financial, time, energy, and emotional boundaries.  These can change as our circumstances change, but it is good to know what boundary I need or want to be in place for the c ...