Tag: love

Ready to set boundaries?

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Feel uncomfortable.

We’ll be talking about boundaries for the next couple weeks, so we can get ready for the upcoming holidays with family members!

Sometimes people mix up setting boundaries with trying to control others. We do not create boundaries for other people. We create boundaries to take care of and protect ourselves. 

Boundaries are not:

  • Ways to control or manipulate other people
  • Things you think other people should be doing (e.g. “I want my partner to clean the bathroom,” “I want my friend to call me back when I call her,” “I want my kid to clean her room.”)

We need to recognize when to use and talk about boundaries. This means having a clear sense of what and where our boundaries are. When we don’t have clear boundaries, people don’t know if they’re violating them or not. 

When there is a clear boundary violation, such as someone speaking to us in a demeaning way or someone doing something in our home that’s not allowed, we have the boundary conversation.

The conversation includes making a clear request along with stating a clear consequence. The consequence is something that WE will do, an action or behavior that WE will take. 

Here’s an example of a clear boundary: “If you smoke a cigarette in my house, I am going to ask you to leave my house. We don’t allow smoking here. This is what I will do if you smoke.”

It’s important to remember that the person we’re making the request of can continue to do whatever they would like to do. Human beings can smoke cigarettes if they want. It’s not a boundary violation until they come into our home or our car or our space. 

Notice that when we make the request, “If you continue to do that, then I will…” the consequence is the behavior that WE will take. It’s not, “You need to stop smoking or else.” We’re making the request and then explaining what we will do as the consequence of not following that request.

OK, so why don’t we set boundaries? Because sometimes it’s difficult and uncomfortable to make these requests and establish consequences with the people in our lives. 

Sometimes it’s so uncomfortable for us that we avoid making the requests. Or if we do make the requests, we don’t actually follow through on the consequences. Because that’s uncomfortable too–doing what we say we’ll do when someone violates a boundary means potentially risking our relationship with that person or facing their disapproval.

But then what happens when we don’t make these requests or when we don’t follow through on the consequences? People continue to violate our boundaries. 

And we get upset and build up resentments. Usually we’re the only ones feeling this way, because the people who continue to violate our boundaries don’t think there are any consequences for doing so. 

There’s a lot more to say about boundaries–more next week!

Your turn: Are you recognizing why you might not be setting boundaries that would benefit your life? What would you have to believe in order to make the requests and follow through on the consequences? How can you practice saying what you want to say instead of avoiding setting boundaries with people?

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

When you beat yourself up

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Stop it.

How does our sense of self-compassion motivate us differently than our self-judgment?

Most of us are used to judging or punishing ourselves into action. This might sound like: 

“I’m so disgusting, I need to workout extra hard today.” 

“I’m such a loser, I have to figure out how to make more money.” 

“I’m so inadequate, I need to find a partner.” 

“I’m a mess, I have to get this right.”

Whatever it is, we think mean things about ourselves in order to “motivate” us to do what we think we need to do in order to feel better about ourselves. “If I stop beating myself up, if I accept myself the way I am, I’ll get complacent and lazy, and never change.”

We think we need to beat ourselves up in order to take helpful actions. We might be in a rush to get “over there” because we think that’s when we’ll feel better about ourselves. Beating ourselves up may have gotten us results in the past, but at what cost to the relationship with ourselves? 

When we have a self-judging narrative, everything we do can feel punishing:

  • Instead of seeing a healthy plate of food that will nourish our body, we see a restrictive, limited diet
  • Instead of doing a workout and celebrating what our body can do, we see it as a way to burn calories and whip ourselves into shape–sometimes even as a penalty for “not eating right”
  • Instead of staying happy in a new relationship, we find ways to prove that we’re not worthy of happiness
  • Instead of becoming aware of how we talk to ourselves, we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up!

Kindness, love, and respect for ourselves doesn’t start when we hit a certain goal of ours. 

In fact, when we do hit that goal without doing the work of self-compassion and acceptance, the reward will likely be temporary and we might still not like ourselves the way we thought we would when we finally get “over there” by hitting that goal. It’s because achieving goals doesn’t create our feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings. 

Kindness, love, and respect for ourselves can start right now, exactly as we are. 

Decide that that’s possible. 

When we have compassion and acceptance for ourselves exactly as we are at this time, we can start making the changes we want to see in our lives from a place of care, love, and patience. It’s about our relationship with ourselves. So that in the long-run, we are where we want to be with ourselves and in our lives, loving and accepting ourselves along the way. No matter what.

Your turn: Are you open to feeling accepting of yourself as you are? If not, what’s getting in the way? What are some of the self-judging thoughts you’re aware of? What are some self-compassionate thoughts you can have about yourself instead? What would happen today if you found some self-compassion for yourself in a situation where you usually beat yourself up?

Feeling challenged by finding more self-compassionate thoughts? Book an exploratory session here to build your self-compassion practice.

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

Run Away, Run

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

“we will drive until the moon balloons
to just past perfect for a night like this”

– From “God and When My Mother Passes” by Denise Benavides

In silver armor we step on the gas
pedal through universes,
for the special occasion when soul mates
with soul, entwining, finding
crevices to fill, the emptiness
so long suffered through.

The tarnished I/us that was, the polished me/we now who will be, future more perfect than past.

For a night like this the moon fulfills dreams,
moon beams lift us up to black sky beyond
stars blanketing an abyss,
millions and billions, we surpass them
all, shine brighter in each other’s arms where we fit,
no longer dry husks, empty, but supple bladders, full
to swollen, balloons are our red hearts
drifting side by side, red to bursting as fluids
mingle, life created, cell by cell, multiplying
like our prospects, our hopes and joys, despair
subsides, a submarine of loneliness sinks to the bottom of the sea,
like blood that is more leaden than water.

The ocean knows and carries us
across miles towards our new life together,
the one we almost ran from once,
too scared to fail, to hurt again
always again,
to be destroyed and damaged as so many times before
we set eyes on each other.

This night, we shed our silver armor, expose
our luminous love-woven skin, and speed in
to battle our debts together, settle into each other’s losses.

Start with…

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Written on July 18, 2016

Even after all this, I still believe–at least, I feel like–I have all the time in the world.

This feeling comes from the freedom of being untethered, floating around like a balloon and going in whatever direction the wind takes me. No ties, no binds, no man, no children, the freedom in that is expansive. Yet feeling lost and lonely within that expanse becomes easy…

Inflates to a sort of nothingness where feeling alone, like being single will never end, no end in sight, reverberates and repeats, creating a hall of mirrors where you’re looking at yourself standing alone, all around you, you’re standing alone to infinity. And beyond.

The silence fills your ears, stuffs them with cotton and you’re under water in your aloneness. Your aloneness echoes all around you, the sound of nothing deafens you and you continue your stance, alone. In solitude, the silence thunders.

The twitters of birds outside your window become snatches of the only conversation you overhear, the gossip between people who have hung out too long or often with each other so that all they can talk about is other people’s lives. The cars passing by, their tires’ friction against the asphalt are whispers to you, muttered under one’s breath, that you just couldn’t catch.

Then suddenly–finally?–you are not alone any longer. You are part of a twosome. Bliss fills every moment for you, for a while, but the bliss eventually recedes and you are left with real life. Mundane, real life as part of a twosome. Problems to solve as part of a twosome, boredom to overcome, fights to resolve, conflicts, compromises, sometimes even sacrifice. And don’t say it: resentment. Deep despair as part of a twosome.

With whom are you willing to struggle? With whom are you willing to fight and make up? With whom are you willing to cry, to be ugly, to be fat, to deteriorate, to be at your worst, to be scared, to fail? To love and support and carry to safety.

To be with someone else means all this and worse–if it is at all worth it.

We have a dream of our soulmate and everything is perfect. But we wake up before real life appears because it’s the easier thing to do. Leave when it is perfect. That’s fear, cowardice. Stay even when it gets hard because you want it to get better. That’s love. Wanting to work through a challenge. That’s love. When you stop wanting to work, that’s no longer love. That’s giving up.

Wanting to stay is the most important thing. Feeling that it’s worth it to stay despite the cruelness of life. But both people must feel this way, not just one. One won’t work.

Sometimes staying isn’t glamorous or perfect, but it has to be right for both people. And love must still be present. Don’t leave because you feel too vulnerable. Leave if it’s not the right fit, though.

But to want to be in a relationship you have to embrace the ugliness of relationships. The mundane aspects along with the beautiful, blissful pieces. You have to be ready to fight and still want to be on the same team with each other.

When we think about love and relationships, we usually don’t think about the mundane aspects of them. We think about the excitement and electricity of those first pulsating feelings throbbing through the heat of our bodies when we are near the object of our desire.

We don’t think about the eventual laundry we’ll do together, the dishes, the cleaning, cooking, changing the sheets every three weeks. And maybe we shouldn’t think about all that right away, and rightfully so. But as mature adults, we must consider all of this, keep it in mind, maybe even imagine ourselves doing those things with the object of our current desire or infatuation.

This is mostly a reminder for myself and for anyone who has been told that maybe they’re “too picky.”

Where is home for you?

~ The Healing Modalities ~ Leave a comment

Written on May 19, 2016

Writing prompt: Where is home for you?
From Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg

My home is in the arms of someone who loves me, my co-creator in life, holding me in a backwards hug, with my back pressed against his chest, his arms tight around me, his mouth by my ear, speaking softly to me as his breath moves the little wisps of my hair so that they tickle my temple.

I feel so secure there. I feel safe. The one place where you must absolutely feel safe is Home. He is my home, so wherever he is, I am home.

He is my home, so wherever he is, I am home.

He makes a home with me, or maybe I make a home with him. There’s a difference between the two and the difference is in how we work with each other to do this, who settles into whom more, flowing into every little crevice available to fill, sealing the fissures of each other’s hearts where they have been ruptured by previous heartbreaks, cracks in the soul (if a soul can have cracks?) where dreams have failed or were lost, where poor decisions have been made, where you have been lost yourself and now you are found, your feet on solid ground beneath you because of him who grounds you, places you, at home. In your home of him.

It’s ironic that he with whom you find home has broken down your walls. He wrecked something destitute, dark, drafty, cracked, and falling over in order to give you something stronger, solid, whole, warm, bright, and full.

My home is tucked inside the chambers of his heart.

This is where home is for me. My home is tucked inside the chambers of his heart.