Have you ever heard your therapist use the term enmeshment or refer to two people in a relationship as entangled? If so, I am here to talk about how to support you in learning about how to stand in your power against enmeshment. Enmeshment is a bond that impacts one’s ability to experience autonomy and creates a complex and skewed sense of intimacy. Enmeshment can make it difficult to develop a strong sense of self. It can also lead to blurred boundaries, where roles and expectations are mixed up and there becomes an over-reliance on another person.
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Whenever someone says, “I have a surprise for you”, my first thought is usually, “Is it good or bad?”. We tend to want to put things into categories to make them more manageable. Putting something into a category may help us feel more prepared and less likely to be blindsided by something unpleasant. But putting things into black and white categories can also have drawbacks. We may find ourselves frequently categorizing people and things as bad and feeling anxious or exhausted by all the bad stuff we encounter.
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“I just don't want to feel as much.”
“I don't want to be as easily upset by things.”
“I just want things to roll off my back.”
If you’ve ever experienced emotional overwhelm, flooding, or intense sadness or anger in response to something someone said or did, you might have experienced reactivity. These experiences can be a lot and they can make us worry that we are a lot. Because of the automatic nature of reactivity, it can feel as though change is impossible, but there is absolutely hope and things we can do to improve our coping skills.
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