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If you know me at all, you know I love a planner. I love pens. I love paper. I love washi tape and stickers! I love making a list and crossing things off. I love mentally planning as well as physically planning. So of course- I have a Christmas Planner! Christmas is my FAVORITE time of year, with fall being a very close second. Holidays can be awesome, but they can also be overwhelming. They can drain the bank account and drain the energy bank as well.
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Have you ever found yourself at an event, dinner, movie, party, etc and thought "why am I here? I had / have no desire to be here."? Have you ever been sweating in the 1 million degree summer heat doing some random and laborious task asking yourself WHY or HOW you signed up for this? Ever felt like you've wasted hours (or even an entire weekend) doing something that did not align with your goals or soul? THAT feeling is most often the result of people-pleasing and failure to set clear boundaries. Boundaries are tricky. They're difficult to set in the beginning but become rote after lots of practice. They require forethought and communication. Licensed counselors are often EXPERTS at explaining and helping you set boundaries, so please find a good local counselor if you identify this as an area of potential growth for yourself. One word of caution, however: once you get GOOD at setting boundaries, you will never look back. Tell your best friends and loved ones to say goodbye to the Doormat You and hello to the Assertive You. 🥰 In addition to the lists below (which are both excellent references), I want to give you my tips and insights around setting boundaries.
How many events have you attended that you DID NOT want to attend? How much self-care have you missed out on in your efforts to make OTHERS happy? How much TIME have you wasted doing things you had no desire to do? People-pleasing usually originates from old emotional wounds. Someone somewhere told you or showed you that you weren't good enough AS YOU ARE, so you started "performing" in ways to please those same people that hurt you. Those habits of pleasing others can bleed over into your romantic relationships, work friendships, family dynamics, and regular friendships. When we people-please, we ignore our own boundaries. Until we do THE WORK (counseling usually), we people-pleasers usually don't even know what boundaries in relationships look like or feel like. Since I'm a list-maker, let's look at some strategies to STOP pleasing once and for all!
Let's go into each strategy in a little more detail:
Being a people pleaser is exhausting. It's like running a marathon every day but never receiving a medal, no cheering crowd, just you. It's the unnoticed HARD work for others' gain. So yeah, it's not even like a marathon, because at least in a marathon your body might reap some of the benefits. Use the strategies listed above to start changing your people-pleasing behavior. Comment below if you can relate to this or especially if you have "overcome" some of your people-pleasing tendencies. Here's to Healthy Boundaries and More NO's in Your Life! Godspeed. Isn't it crazy how people who were once part of your daily existence can just fade away? We can literally spend 40+ hours per week with another human (lots of humans in most cases) for YEARS or DECADES and with one twist of fate, all of that shared time and history can seem to float away. Forgotten? Surely not. Out of sight, out of mind? In this fast paced world, probably. No bandwidth to maintain a "long-distance" relationship when that relationship partner no longer parks in your shared parking lot? Maybe. I am not sure though. Family members can live out of town or out of state and we keep up with them, don't we? Or do we? Do we actually put the effort in to maintain relationships these days? Is all of our time spent "liking" and "commenting" on strangers from across the globe? I'm the first to admit I spend more time singing duets with random strangers on Smule than I do communicating with my out-of-state family members. Does that mean I don't care about my extended family? One could argue that our online friends are more organic than say, those we happen to share DNA or an office with... I can see that point. But, what about shared history? The office mate and the DNA-sharer have way more memories with me than the Randoms I have something-in-common-with online. But is it quantity of memories or quality? Just because we both attended a work cookout or a family wedding- does that mean more than shared interests and values with someone who doesn't "have to" spend time with us? Ever had someone in your life for just a season? The season ended for whatever reason: timing, location, circumstance. You and the other person knew it was a season, so you felt some closure. If you ever see that person again, awesome, what a pleasant surprise. If you don't, no worries, all is well. Perhaps we should all view each relationship we have as seasonal. Temporary. An at-will partnership. It can end at any time. That way when our phone doesn't ding or our mailbox remains empty, we are not disappointed. We will know and understand that these are just the ways of 2022. No one attaches. Nothing sticks. After all, there are millions of other shiny dots on the palm-sized demon calling each of our names. Faces we may never see in person. Voices we may never hear in real-time. Skin we may never touch. Meals we may never share. But let us not forget, those "relationships" end too! Accounts are hacked or closed. Real Life occasionally happens to our online friends as well and they may not be available to us. I guess I just get sad when I think about today's world for my kids. How do they know what's real and what's not when it comes to friendship (or even family)? There used to be something to be said for shared zip codes and shared uniforms. Quantity of memories somehow added up to some quality of memories. Now it's all a game of chance. Some people stick with us and most don't. Loyalty? Loyalty seems to happen more for brands than it does for us as individuals. And these are the rambling thoughts of a Midlife GenX woman raising sons ranging from pre-puberty to engaged. I want my kids to call and check on me when I am old. I want them to have friends that would come help them in the middle of the night. And today's ways of noncommittal BS (even amongst us grown folk) have me worried. What are we modeling for these kids? One day at a time. Godspeed. Friends, Family, and Coworkers can all form extremely close bonds. Statistics show that we spend more hours at work with coworkers than with our own family members. If we are lucky, we find certain individuals that vibe with us. We may share common interests or common talents. We may have a similar sense of humor or taste in music. It's kismet and it's beautiful when that happens. But years pass. Life marches on and with that comes love, loss, and change. Some of us grow and some of us remain stagnant. Some minds open and some minds close. I'm sure you have felt it. You're having lunch with someone from one of those 3 groups (family, friend, or coworker), and you run out of things to say. Your common interests and similar values seem further apart. In the worst cases, this person sitting across from you is your spouse or partner. Perhaps you are the one who is growing or perhaps you are the one stuck in your ways. Invariably, one of you is going to be growing in a different direction than the other person. Just because you grow in different directions doesn't mean you have to grow apart. It can mean that, however, if you are not careful. Having worked in healthcare for decades, I have learned how important it is to meet people where they are. If you love someone, you can meet them where they are without expecting or pushing them to change. My oldest, bestest friend once commented "it takes all kinds." It wasn't a grand statement or momentous event when those words tumbled out of her mouth. I must have said something judgy, and she course-corrected me. How lovely would it be if we embraced each day and each relationship with that same framework? I cannot recall the moment in which she said those words, but I have never forgotten them. IT TAKES ALL KINDS. How boring and monotonous would life be if we were all the same? As polarized as our country has been of late, imagine us all agreeing on everything? Where would the passion lie? What would spark change? What would we learn? So today, as I begin another day of onboarding for my new day job,
I sit with a smile on my face and love in my heart. I have learned the most from those that challenged me. I have grown the most being surrounded by those that questioned me. I have loved the most by offering compassion and empathy to those that may not even like me. The next time you catch yourself thinking "we are just too different. I've changed (or she's / he's changed)." Pause. Take a deep breath. Silently name all the reasons you loved them initially and why you still care for them today. Who are you to say you are too different? What can you learn from them? What can they teach you about yourself? It takes all kinds. Godspeed. 💜💚💜 We all have basic human needs as individuals. Most of us would agree that we need food, sleep, and water and some agree we need love and friendship. I would venture to guess that beyond those basic needs, many people are sleep-walking through life without ever giving pause to what THEY or WE actually need from each other. Lots of therapy has helped me realize that other people in my life don't automatically KNOW what I need or expect from them. I must let them know what I need. I have also come to realize that no ONE person in my life could possibly fill or meet all of my needs. It is humanly impossible to meet all the needs of another human by oneself. It truly does take a village. Once we have identified our needs, we can start to look at the players on our team and realize who is filling which need in our life. Some fill multiple needs. Others fill one need or don't fill a need at all, but instead may be causing stress or toxicity. Perhaps "trimming the fat" is in order when it comes to our circle of loved ones. I have also learned that not all of us are CAPABLE or WILLING to meet certain needs of others, and that too can be a painful process of acceptance and growth. So, let's roll up our sleeves and look closely at the basic human needs of each person roaming around this earth. Let us make a list of the members of our circle and try to identify who fills which need(s). There are several reasons this is important:
This is real adulting. Grown up stuff. Hard stuff. Deep stuff. So get ready. photo credit: childhoodtraumarecovery.com Let us look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs from a current-day real-life perspective and add the context of relationships and connection to those needs:
I don't have many patients that walk into my office and tell me they have needs. Instead, they tell me they are sad. They are withdrawing from friends or family. They can't sleep. They don't feel good. The have mood swings or anger outbursts. They are no longer excited about life. Medication cannot "fix" some of these painful circumstances we are all facing in our lives. An SSRI (most commonly used class of anti-depressants) cannot make your spouse SEE you or try to meet your needs. It cannot heal decade-old wounds from your narcissistic mother. It cannot jump into your best friend's mind and tell her that she is hurting you with her words or actions. Nor can it walk into your adult child's house and announce that YOU are a person, too, and that you need love and respect. So many of these issues have been around so long in your life that you don't know where to begin to address them. I encourage you to seek counseling if and when you can. A good therapist really can change your life. In the meantime, write down YOUR needs. List what needs are being met and which are not being met. Jot down WHO is helping to meet those needs and make a mental note of who you really can count on in which needs department. Use your resources - your people - when you are in crisis. Learn to NOT go to the ones who have not or cannot meet certain needs so that you avoid further hurt and disappointment. And consider having a conversation with your loved one if the opportunity ever arises and the setting and timing are conducive to growth. We cannot read minds, and we are all flawed. This relationship and self-evaluation work isn't easy, but it is worth it. Godspeed. There are so many reasons a person should change jobs. I am going to discuss ALL the reasons a person should change jobs, and then I will discuss the specific reasons that I changed jobs after 15 years with a company. You should probably change jobs if:
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