I would like for you to feel solidly in control of your life. You cannot control other people, but you can get in control of yourself. You have to be able to make the choices you need in order to make your life work, belong to you, and integrate around the things important to you. That may require y...
Sometimes rules get a bad rap. Please don’t get defensive about the idea of having rules in your life. I would like you to understand something. If you knew me well, you would know that I am not a very “rulesy” person. I know those kinds of people are usually not the ones I like to hang around. So, ...
Have you ever heard yourself say, “Whatever possessed me to say yes to this in the first place? Why didn’t I just say no?” Or, after making a deal, have you ever thought, “Why didn’t I ask for ______?” If you have, that is pretty normal or at least common. However, if it happens often, it is also a ...
What do you think of when you think of the word “structure”? For some people, it is their worst nightmare. “I do not want to be in an overly structured environment,” they instantly think–and probably for good reason. Everyone has had some experience where rules, policies, and other structures virtua...
Confronting a parent or guardian or whoever raised us is probably the most complex of all face-to-face boundaries. You are now an adult, but you have a long history of being your parent’s child. You have been under their care, authority, training, and nurturing. You have been corrected and confronte...
If you have a resistant person in your life, the number one stance you will need to adopt to learn how to deal with them is this: stop being surprised that they do not welcome the truth. Nothing can happen until you acept the reality that, for whatever reason, they avoid confrontation. Many people w...
Think for a moment about this question: IS anyone in your life doing something you would like him or her to quit doing? It is probably easy to think of someone who does something that bothers you. In fact, given enough time, you could think of more than one person. For most people, there are several...
Sorry is not good enough. If someone has wronged you and they are asking for, or you want to extend them, a second chance, then something has to be different. True repentance can be seen in the real “fruit,” or results, it produces.
If you “go back,” make sure that you are going forward.
That wa...
Research shows over and over again that the change-process happens best and most successfully with the help of other people. There are all sorts of scientific reasons for this, from the way the brain works to our biochemistry, but the bottom line is what we get from other people is essential to chan...
Successful people realize that just because someone is unhappy with them does not require that they give up their purpose, fold their cards, or change. They realize that making some people unhappy is just part of the deal, and they keep going. When we accept that every decision divides, we quit tryi...
Deception damages a relationship. The act of lying is much more damaging than the things that are being lied about, because lying undermines the knowing of one another and the connection itself. The point at which deception enters is the point at which relatedness ends. As someone once told me about...
Many of you have tried again and again to connect with safe people, only to find pain and failure. And now you’ve simply given up. You’ve given up the attempt and the search. It’s just not worth it anymore. As a client of mine explained, “I really can survive on my own. It’s much less messy than tak...
