Distress Tolerance Skills for Healthier Relationships

If you identify as a person with an insecure (i.e. anxious, avoidant, or fearful) attachment style and have decided to begin your healing journey, you’re going to encounter some challenging emotions. Change is never easy, even when it’s positive, and it’s normal to feel overwhelmed, defeated, or just plan uncomfortable as you heal your attachmentContinue reading “Distress Tolerance Skills for Healthier Relationships”

The people-pleaser’s guide to speaking up.

A lot of the clients I work with have been taught not to “rock the boat” in relationships, meaning they’ve received and currently implement some version(s) of the following instructions: Don’t rock the boat by setting boundaries, because people will think your’e selfish. Don’t rock the boat by asking for what you want, you’ll onlyContinue reading “The people-pleaser’s guide to speaking up.”

4 tools for healing anxious attachment

Imagine no longer chasing (or even wanting to chase) relationships with people who cannot love you in the ways you need. If you have an anxious attachment style, you are likely no stranger to the pain of unfulfilling, disappointing, drama-filled relationships. An insecure attachment style can predispose us to unhealthy relationship dynamics, but the goodContinue reading “4 tools for healing anxious attachment”

The Exploding Doormat: Coping With Anger from People-Pleasing

“Exploding doormat” is a term I originally learned from someone who was working the twelve steps in Al-Anon. It refers to an individual (i.e. “doormat”) who has habitually bent over backwards, placed their needs last, given into people-pleasing tendencies for far too long…and “exploded” (i.e. become openly enraged and/or acted out) as a result. ExplodingContinue reading “The Exploding Doormat: Coping With Anger from People-Pleasing”

10 ways to cope with college rejection

It’s almost April and we all know what that means: thousands of young people across America are hearing back from the colleges they applied to months earlier. This was a record year for college applications (global pandemic, anyone?) and while many college applicants will receive acceptance letters, even more will rejection letters. Being told “no”Continue reading “10 ways to cope with college rejection”