The One Person You’re Always With Relationships require trust. Think about the people in your life that you trust the most. Why do you trust them? Usually it’s because of a combination of things. People who we view as trustworthy show up for us, they keep their word and they support us. These people make us feel safe, and they are consistent in our lives. Now, let’s turn that mirror on ourselves. Ask yourself: Do you offer yourself that same level of trust? Do you show up for yourself, rain or shine? Are you dedicated to your personal growth and happiness? The longest relationship you will ever have is the…
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Introduction: The Moment You Realize You’ve Changed Have you ever looked in the mirror and realized you don’t recognize yourself – not because you’re lost, but because you’ve grown? Transformation can happen in all kinds of ways. A lot of the time, it happens quietly and slowly, and then one day you realize the transformation has already taken place. Before anyone else notices that the way you think has changed, that you’re more in touch with your values, more aligned with your boundaries, or that your relationship with yourself has shifted, you feel all of that happening. And eventually, the outside starts reflecting the inside. Before I started my healing…
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When You Ask Everyone Else What to Do Have you ever asked so many people for advice that you ended up feeling further away from the answer than when you started? When I was growing up, I doubted myself quite a bit. Whenever it came to making a decision, or feeling at peace with a decision I had made – I would become anxious and fearful. Rather than taking a moment to pause and tune in with myself, I would immediately ask those around me for their opinion. I wanted to get validation for my actions from external sources, thinking maybe they knew something (about my situation) or that I…
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We all want to be accepted by the group, included, and made to feel like we matter. It’s part of our evolution; at one point not being accepted by the group meant you lost safety and would likely get eaten by something. Now, the consequences aren’t so dire, but we still want to be accepted. It seems like sometimes there’s almost an unspoken idea that the more liked you are, the more value you have. For those of us who learned to attune to others early, or learned connection through caretaking, being liked by the group may feel specifically important. We may expect approval as a necessity. Check out Stop…
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I’ve talked to a lot of people who would consider themselves ‘people-pleasers’. If you can relate, you might already know that it’s exhausting, lonely and never ending. People-pleasing is deeper than the desire for attention or approval, the desire to people-please is a message that there are parts of you that need to heal. For many of us, constantly tending to other people’s emotions, and keeping tabs on how they feel is a deeply ingrained survival mechanism. We learned this early on in life to stay safe, feel enough, or avoid rejection. More often than not, this pattern stems all the way back to childhood experiences of trauma and emotional…
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The Moment You Realize You’re Waiting I overheard a conversation recently where two people were talking about someone, and referred to them as a “pick me girl.” They were talking about someone who seemingly goes out of their way to get attention and clearly makes her presence known. For some of us, people like that can be a little much, but I was curious to understand further. It got me thinking about the term “pick me girl.” To say someone is that type of person, we are essentially saying they are someone who raises their hand enthusiastically in hopes of being chosen – hence the term “pick me.” Why would…
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Authenticity Requires Consistency After Recognizing what feels off, Exploring the facts with curiosity, telling yourself the Truth, Understanding your patterns and needs, and Reclaiming the narrative of your own story – this is what comes next: you move forward differently. You make decisions from alignment instead of fear. That’s what it means to Navigate your life authentically. In the last step of the RETURN Method, we are free to move forward in our lives and live from a place of authenticity. That sounds exciting and rewarding, but what exactly does it mean to Navigate Your Life Authentically? What is it actually like? Most people value authenticity in theory but struggle…
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The Story You’ve Been Told vs. the Story You Choose Everyone tells themselves a story about their own lives. We all carry around a story of who we are and how we got that way. A lot of those stories were written when we were little, oftentimes during moments that felt bad and made us feel like we weren’t enough. Being bullied when you’re in middle school may have taught you that you needed to prove yourself, that you needed to maintain a certain image in order to have value. You may have created this narrative around an isolated, yet ongoing, event that happened and had nothing to do with…
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The Myth That Closure Comes From Resolution I think many of us are taught in some form or another that closure comes when we get justice. We’re taught that after there’s a resolution, an understanding, a conversation, or some type of acknowledgment – that’s when closure happens. That would be the justice version of closure that’s nice and complete. This version has a clear beginning and end point, and it happens when an injustice is later addressed. In real life, however, we don’t always get remedies. People oftentimes don’t acknowledge what they did, and at some point you realize you’re responsible for your own peace. Finding resolution doesn’t always arrive…
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The Myth of Closure When someone hurts us, we want an explanation. We want them to tell us why they did it, or how they feel. Sometimes, after an event, we get stuck trying to figure it out. We might spend hours ruminating, replaying conversations, and trying to pinpoint exactly the moment that things ‘went wrong’. It can feel like life is happening to us, rather than for us. What I’ve noticed is that the closure we’re looking for, that answer, that magic moment when everything suddenly becomes okay – it’s something you create for yourself. Closure is something you choose; closure is a boundary. You can want closure about…
