Tough question: When we are feeling let down by someone, ask yourself this question, ‘do they have the capacity to show up for me in the way I need?’ If the answer is ‘no’, they can’t show up for me …
How to Support a Cycle Breaker
These are all from YOU—every one of them. When I asked in my stories what you would like to have heard instead of your friends and family’s shaming, the response was overwhelming. When I added the responses to stories a …
Living on Autopilot
We have a choice to live life on autopilot or to live life ‘awake’, but to be awake, we have to do things differently. Not everything all at once, but we need to learn to bring more awareness into our …
Why do you Avoid Being Assertive?
There are many reasons people avoid being assertive. I find the two biggest reasons are: ‘The other person will be upset’ (conflict avoidance) and ‘I have no idea how to do it’. Let’s take ‘The other person will be …
When we have ‘too much empathy, it is usually a boundary issue, not an empathy issue’. It is the result of a high level of emotional enmeshment.
I hear a lot of people in my clinic feel that they are too empathetic. They can feel the other person’s discomfort or pain and just want it to go away. This is the result of a high level of …
How to Support Yourself as a ‘Cycle Breaker’
A cycle breaker in a family is someone who consciously chooses to develop different ways of communicating, interacting, living and thinking to their family of origin. This can start at a very young age, knowing early that you just think …
How Cycle Breakers Are Shamed in their family
Being a cycle breaker is often exhausting because it takes energy to stand up and do something different from what has always been done in the family. You might notice ‘looks’ being passed between members or eye-rolling as you express …
What is Reparenting?
Wherever you are in your healing journey, reparenting is part of it. When we have been raised by adults who didn’t know how to regulate their nervous system, who did not have the skills to role model healthy boundaries or …
Meeting the Inner Child
Meeting and working with your inner child is one of the things we will be doing in my upcoming course, Relationship Cycle Breaker, which launches in a few weeks. If you are interested in working on this with me, click …
10 Signs You Have A Father Wound
Much of the literature in mental health and psychology has focused on the mother and the mother’s attachment. But what about our fathers? As children, we need a healthy father figure. It doesn’t have to be a biological father, it …