Peace Comes When You Stop Carrying What Isn’t Yours
I wrote a post last month about sorting out what’s yours and what isn’t. This one’s about what happens after the sorting. That’s the part nobody tells you and it’s…
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Replacing Control With Boundaries
There is a difference between what a “control” is and what a “boundary” is. A control is a rule you make for somebody else. A boundary is a rule you…
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Control in Relationships: When Helping Turns Into Managing
Helping is good. I want to start there, because this post is going to make some of you uncomfortable and I don’t want it misread as an argument for indifference….
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You Can’t Control Other People, Even When You Love Them
You can’t control other people. Even when you love them. Especially when you love them, actually, because love is the thing that makes us think we should be able to….
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Releasing What Was Never Yours to Carry
There’s a certain kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix. You get eight hours and wake up heavy. You take the vacation and come back the same. You keep thinking…
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Boundaries Without Guilt: Why a Screen Door Is Still a Door
I had a client tell me once that she felt like a hallway. Everybody walked through her to get somewhere else. However, nobody stopped to see what was on the…
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Building a Life That Doesn’t Require Survival Mode
Here is a pattern I see all the time, and it breaks my heart a little every time I see it. Somebody does real healing work. Therapy, tools, tears, the…
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Fawn Mode: When You Lose Yourself to Keep the Peace
I asked her what she wanted, and I meant it as a small question. What do you want to see change in your marriage, your week, your life? She laughed…
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The Trauma of Loving Somebody Through Addiction
You can read a driveway like scripture when you love an addict. Which way the tires crunch the gravel, how long the truck sits before the door opens, what the…
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Trauma Responses Are Survival Skills, Not Flaws
“What is wrong with me?” A grown man asked me that in my office, ashamed to his shoes, after describing how he goes completely blank when his wife raises her…
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Boundaries With Rescuing
Helping is beautiful. Rescuing is different. Helping supports someone while still letting them carry their own responsibility. Rescuing picks up responsibility that was never yours to hold. Helping says, “I…
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Boundaries With Other People’s Opinions
Everyone has an opinion. About your choices, your parenting, your marriage, your healing, your grief, your faith, your boundaries, your work, and whatever you’re planning to do next. Some of…
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Boundaries With Emotional Dumping
There’s a difference between someone sharing their heart and someone unloading everything onto you without asking first. Healthy sharing leaves room for both people. Emotional dumping doesn’t. It can look…
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Boundaries With Family Expectations
Family expectations can be heavy. Sometimes they’re spoken clearly. Sometimes nobody says them out loud, but everyone in the house still knows they’re there: Show up.Keep quiet.Do not talk about…
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When Your Yes Is Really Fear
Not every yes is honest. Sometimes yes means “I want to,” or “this matters to me,” or “I have the capacity.” But sometimes yes means “I am scared to say…
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When Silence Becomes a Boundary
There are times when speaking up matters, when truth needs to be said clearly, and when staying quiet would just be avoidance or people-pleasing wearing a polite face. But there…
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Love Does Not Require Self-Abandonment
Love does not require self-abandonment. That sentence may be hard to believe if you’ve spent most of your life proving your love by how much you can endure. The disrespect,…
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You Can Be Kind and Still Say No
Saying no does not make you unkind. It may feel that way at first, especially if you’re used to being the one who says yes, adjusts, helps, fixes, rescues, and…
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Boundaries With People You Love
Setting boundaries with strangers is one thing. Setting boundaries with people you love is another thing entirely. It feels different when the person on the other side of the boundary…
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The Guilt That Comes After You Set a Boundary
Sometimes the hardest part of setting a boundary is not the boundary itself. It’s the guilt that shows up afterward. You finally say no, speak up, step back, stop answering…