Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical Boundaries: In the book Boundaries, Dr. Townshed and Cloud remind us there are physical boundaries, mental boundaries, and emotional boundaries. PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES “Physical boundaries help us decide who can touch us, how they can touch us and under what circumstances.” We have learned we begin and end at the tip of…
What are boundaries? I hated that word when I first came into recovery work. I just couldn’t visualize it. It helped me when someone suggested I start to think of physical boundaries such as fences, and property lines. This helped create a visual for me for emotional boundaries to become a little clearer. (I believe…
When people enter Wholeness/Recovery work, they often only have a “hammer” and a “screwdriver” in their toolbox. And because of that, every problem looks like a nail or a screw. They don’t realize all the other OPTIONS and CHOICES available to them. We would never expect a carpenter to build a house with just a…
IDENTIFY FEELINGS FEELINGS The majority of the time, when people start recovery work, they aren’t aware of their feelings. They often feel either anger or numbness. Or good. But good is not a feeling. Others come because they are worried and struggling with obsessive thoughts. The obsession is almost always over something they are powerless…
WARNING: ABOUT INTROSPECTION/RUMINATING The first topic we will discuss is feelings; however, one crucial thing to mention before discussing feelings is ruminating or becoming overly introspective. We do NOT want to become overly introspective. This leads to the black hole. It often sounds like. “I’m bad, stupid, unworthy, dumb. Things are never going to change….
As discussed in the last article, there is a universal phenomenon: our brains are pre-wired with a negative thought process. Everyone struggles with self-doubt, insecurity, or personal criticism. The good news is we are not stuck with what we were born with, and we can learn to rewire our brains at any age! Did you…
If I’m putting my happiness on hold, what am I waiting for? Oftentimes it’s because I want guarantees! I want to know everything is going to work out the way I want it to before trusting and taking courageous action. When I stop and look at my thought process, I see a recurring pattern in…