I love when people are first beginning to learn how to set boundaries. There is a moment that they sometimes find discouraging, but which I know is the signal that they're doing a great job. That moment is when they come up to me and say, "Hey, you know what? I did all that stuff that you told me...

A key idea about forgiveness that too many people get wrong is this: forgiveness addresses the past. If the issue is ongoing, it's not the past. You forgive people for something that they did in the past, not for something that they are doing in the present.

Sometimes people ask us to forgive...

Let's start with some hopeful news. Depression is treatable. It is one of the areas of mental health about which we know the most, and have made the most progress in providing effective care. So, if you or someone you know is dealing with depression, you can feel reassured that real help is...

There is a problem that comes up when you need to say "no" to someone you care about, and it can come up on our side of the fence, or it can come up on their side. The problem occurs when people make an inflexible association between love and the word "yes."

People that do this wind up feeling...

Setting aside the possibility that you are in an unsafe situation, such as with a person who is abusive in some way, the only way that a person can control us is if we give them control over us. We don't always mean to, but usually, we hand that power over to someone else, and then they use it to...

The word transparency can mean a lot of things in a relationship, but we're going to talk about a specific distinction that is important when thinking about boundaries and transparency. That is: the difference between personal information and secrets.

There is a phrase I love that you tend to...

Our relationships are the most powerful in our lives, for good and for bad. Our best relationships fuel us. They help us to grow and to be our best selves, they connect us with our purpose, and they connect us with other safe people. They bring us closer to our values, and to God. Unsafe people...

The founder and chairman of the board of a company reached out to me, saying, “I need some help. Can we get together and talk?” His company’s new CEO had great understanding, motive and other qualities of trust, but one important one was missing: the ability needed in the...

Anger has the capacity to either destroy a relationship or save one. How can one emotion be so destructive and yet have the potential to save a relationship? It all depends on how that anger is used.

Anger functions as a signal to let us know about our current state of being. All emotions are...

Misplaced trust happens in the heart, mind and soul like infection happens in the body. And when we’ve been sickened or infected by mistrust, we do NOT want to go through it again. But there are lessons we can learn about ourselves that will make us more immune to mistrust in the future.

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Natural consequences are an essential aspect of the human experience, and a key part of healthy boundaries. They refer to the outcomes that naturally occur as a result of our actions or decisions. For example, if we decide to skip a meal, the natural consequence may be feeling hungry later on.

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Unsafe people cover a wide range of possible behaviors and relationships. On the one end there are those individuals who, whether intentionally or not, have a tendency to thwart our efforts to become the best version of ourselves that we can possibly be. They get us off track by distracting us,...