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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Have I mentioned that I hate small talk? I can handle about 30 seconds of it, and then . . . I’m boooored. The meaningless banter makes me wish I was at home reading a good book. But, give me some depth, catch my interest on a topic, go beyond the ordinary chatter, and I’m hooked. I love stories SO much. I could listen for hours as a story unfolds. Yes, it’s one of the reasons I became a therapist, and it’s one of the gifts of therapy—we very quickly move past the shallow small talk and dig into what’s real and what matters. As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), this stirs my soul. I come alive with such deep and meaningful conversations.
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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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For many individuals diagnosed or undiagnosed with ADHD, they often grew up saturated in the word “lazy”. Anytime they were unable to accomplish a task or a goal this word was bandied about and stated with absolute certainty. The problem is that “lazy” implies an intention – when you are being lazy, you are actively choosing not to do something.
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There can be so much anxiety when interacting with medical professionals. We wait weeks, maybe even months for an appointment, and the second we get in the room it can feel like all the air has left the space, and we might feel ourselves shrinking and pulling in. The second they start to speak it can feel like all our well grounded points and concerns were a house of cards and we have trouble asserting ourselves due to nerves or anxiety. For many this ends in deferring to the authority of the professional in the room, even if we don’t agree. When we leave we might be left feeling unheard, dissatisfied and sometimes even gaslit.
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Something that many of us hear, but may not have been modeled is how to hold our inner power and set healthy boundaries. Standing in your power and setting healthy boundaries is essential for maintaining your well-being and cultivating healthy relationships. You might ask yourself– What does it look like to stand in your power? Standing in your power means confidently and authentically expressing yourself while taking control of your life and decisions. It involves embracing your inner strength, values, and self-worth. Now this sounds great in theory, but it isn't something that happens over night and needs conscientious practice, self awareness, and validation. I would be remiss to not address that there are various cultural, societal, and systemic oppressions that are created to take our power away. And while that may be true–
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At times in life we are all faced with uncomfortable realizations about ourselves and how we actually come across to other people. Realizing you might be a bit of a Goldilocks is one of those realizations. Most of us have heard the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and the origin stems from that story. A “Goldilocks” tends to complain and quickly dismisses any input or attempts at support, immediately justifies reasons as to why something won’t work, and often feels that nobody understands. This can be incredibly frustrating for the people we interact with, and can take an emotional toll on them after a while. So what can we do if we realize we have entered a Goldilocks phase?
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Sometimes it can seem like teens completely tune out (or want nothing to do with) adults, especially authority figures, even more so--their parents. This can leave parents feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. “He’s not getting his homework done, but how am I supposed to get him on the right track when he won’t listen to me?!” “She seems irritable and agitated a lot these days, but when I ask what’s wrong, she rolls her eyes or grumbles, ‘nothing.’ How do I get through to her?”
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Most of us have heard the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and most of us have a Goldilocks in our own lives whether that is at home, at work, or amongst our friends and acquaintances. This is the person that constantly complains and is never satisfied with any advice, direction or attempts at supporting them. They often quickly dismiss any input and immediately have a reason as to why that won’t work and will say that you just don’t understand. Interacting with a Goldilocks can be incredibly frustrating especially since it can feel like we are hearing the same complaints on repeat, and they tend not to act on what we consider to be grounded and reasonable advice and solutions.
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The idea that we can and should control everything isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Having control may be presented as "empowering” but it also sends the message that we’re failures if we can’t control something. For example, self-help programs that claim you can improve your relationships through being more assertive may be well-intentioned but unless they're saying "being more assertive may improve your relationships with certain people", they might be inadvertently feeding into the idea that you're responsible for the way others behave toward you. Others’ behavior is not something we can control yet we’re sometimes led to believe we can make others treat us better and that it's our fault when they treat us poorly.
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Since I started working with HSPs, I’ve come to notice similar themes emerge around challenges they face due to ongoing stigma for being highly sensitive. Those challenges include: negative core beliefs, wishing others were more aware of the trait, and working through the constant battle of having to conform to a world that tends to value extroversion and sometimes devalues sensitivity. I also think it is important to highlight the gifts of being an HSP and what role you may be playing in an HSP’s life.
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In this blog post, I hope to give some insight into how the topic of divorce can be worked through in a therapeutic setting. Clients often seek therapy during a variety of stages in the process. Some folks are in the middle of a messy and complicated divorce and looking for a safe space to unpack their frustrations with the legal process. Others are thinking about initiating a separation, and worry about how to approach a soft landing feels daunting and horrifying, especially if there are kids, pets or major assets to sort through. Some arrive when all the paperwork has been finalized and the dust is now unsettlingly settled, and the question of starting anew feels overwhelming.
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We all know that relationships between teens and their parents, guardians, or any authority figure can be trying. The ways adolescents’ brains are changing and developing (more so than at any other time except ages 0-5) and the ways their identities are forming can naturally put them at odds with parents and authority figures. They’re beginning to think abstractly, question why, and challenge what they don’t agree with. This doesn’t make setting and holding rules and boundaries easy for any adult.
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In theory, saying the simple word of NO is a piece of cake, two-year-olds do it all the time. However, many of us struggle with refusing a request and end up saying yes while quietly wishing we could just say no. There are many reasons that saying no can feel uncomfortable or difficult: we may worry about upsetting or offending someone, we might feel guilty, we might also feel as though we are being selfish.
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For this article I will focus on a topic that for many parents can be exciting, turbulent, and sometimes sad and conflicting. While we know that the goal of raising children is to prepare them for adulthood, this transition can feel like a mixed bag at times. Even if your child is living at home after graduation, there is often a shift in tone, routine, and expectations that can be stressful for all involved.
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