Being in a healthy relationship truly taught me there is no such thing as "that's just the way I am". When you genuinely love someone you work on those toxic traits, you learn to communicate, you actively listen to each others thoughts and feelings – you grow and heal together.
My husband went to register our twins at their new middle school today. The counselor hesitantly asked “Is…Mom…in the picture? Because moms usually do this.”
MOM IS BUSY LEARNING HOW TO BE A DOCTOR AND THEY ARE JUST AS MUCH HIS CHILDREN, OMG WHAT YEAR IS THIS??
What if it’s no one’s fault.
What if no one is to blame.
What if everyone involved was doing the best they could.
And you just focused on being kind to yourself while you heal.
A true apology involves:
1. An acknowledgment of pain caused
2. How behavior will change in the future
3. Listening fully to how you’ve impacted someone
Have you gotten a true apology?
We repeat our normal.
When you grow up with fighting and dysfunction as your normal— of course you’ll end up toxic relationships.
You seek the rejection, the conflict, and the confrontation because it feels like love.
You expect the stress hormones.
Give yourself patience as you settle into the “boredom” of safe relationships.
Crying is healing.
And look how many people are shameful and apologize for it.
Crying is how the body get back into a parasympathetic state.
We really need to stop saying: “don’t cry.”
There's a multi generational Asian family in our n'hood. They live in 6 houses on the street
There's about 20 kids among them
You'll see one grandma pick kids + cousins up at the bus
Another w all of them at the pool
You never see this w the avg American family
I want that
It can result from: childhood emotional neglect, emotionally immature parent figures, unstable or chaotic environments, witnessing parent figures dysfunctional marriage, being parentified (role reversal where the child becomes the parent) etc.
There's a stage in our healing when we start to see our parents as wounded humans who make mistakes, rather than all knowing beings. This is the beginning of creating life on our own terms, rather than living our lives for parental approval. It's our freedom.
Narcissism comes from a lack of emotional development in childhood. If you look at narcissistic behaviors, they’re ego centric and emotionally immature— they mirror the developmental period from age 3-7. Many people don’t mature beyond this.
What did I not do because of fear?
“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca
Fear distorts reality—this question forces you to confront it.
Deconstruct the fears:
• What was the downside?
• What was the upside?
Goal: Get closer to your fears in 2023.