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time to show respect – honor other’s boundaries
❓What is disrespect?
Yeah, another tricky question, I know.
The easy answer is that it is the opposite ↔️of respect. I.e. what should be respected is not.
🍭We often think of respect as something to be given to somebody. Respecting our parents, teachers, leaders, and bosses.
💜Parents, you should treat your children with respect, too! 💜
And there is more, such as respecting nature, for example, by not polluting it.
💜But even respecting others has multiple facets. Because respect does not only means speaking to them in an appropriate manner and not looking down on them.
The term respect is also related to boundaries – something I have talked a lot about. Such as the importance of setting healthy boundaries and the art of maintaining them.
💜And how respect comes in?
When others are to respect our boundaries. ⚠️Unfortunately, many times the proper word is “should”. Because they fail to do so.
And what kind of boundaries are there in personal relationships?
Well, there are plentiful of them. 💜
The most obvious is physical boundaries.
💜Don’t hug somebody if they don’t want it.
💜Respect different cultures by showing their way of greeting, such as bowing your head instead of shaking hands.
But there is a less obvious one, we fall short of many times.
And it is time.⏰
❤️The most precious resource of a person.
❤️A strictly limited one.
❤️Especially since no one knows how much they have left. So be mindful of that.
And respect it.
Here is my hand.
being brave can be frightening
💜 The idea of being brave and courageous can be frightening. 💙 Why?
💛 Not only because we have to deal with the other person’s response, especially when we are about to say no to someone for the first time. We also need to face and conquer our inner uncertainty. 😱 Because we might feel we do not have the right to say no. 😱
🌜 It might seem like a war on two fronts. 🌛
💥 We not only don’t know how they will react, but we also don’t know how we will respond to their reactions. 🔥
⛄️ Although we can replay the situation a hundred times in our head – which, if we do it right, can eventually help a little – we don’t know how it will turn out until we do it. 💦
✔️ The first time may not be perfect. It probably won’t be. But we dared! 👍
we were brave
While next time, it will be a little easier – at least it won’t be the first time – so we can focus more on the how. What we say, how we say it, what emotions struck us inside and how we can manage those. 🌗
🌝 And over time, with practice, it gets easier. We will get used to different reactions and build up our own toolbox of responses. ☔️
❄️ We will also learn to manage our inner fear of standing up for ourselves. 🌞
💜Believe me or not, it’s scary to stand up for ourselves. Especially when we were taught never to complain, just accept what is and move on. 💛
❤️You know what?
❤️It’s worth it being brave. Because in the end, you learn how to find the ground to ensure that you have a truly free choice. ⁉️
🤗Are you keen to get there?
Here is my hand.
self-care is not egoism
Self-care is not egoism, even if it seems to be. ⁉️
Self-care is a balance between egoism and altruism. 🌞
From an altruist’s point of view, however, both fall into the same category.
❓Why?
Because for an altruist, self-care means not always caring for others. And this is true. What altruists probably do not realize is that not looking after themselves means trading long-term services to others for short-term ones.
‼️We cannot give from what we do not have. Therefore, caring for ourselves – while looking after others, perhaps a little less – is not egoism. It is the way that allows us to serve others for longer, in better physical, emotional, and mental health.
So, focusing on others a little less enables us to focus on them for longer. Therefore,
our self-care means short-term pain and long-term gain for those we serve. 🌞
😥Painful thought? I think it is. It was painful for me too.
I fought it for a long time. But eventually, I had to give in to the logic of self-care.
😱 Does self-care sound scary? Selfish? Disgusting? Does it feel like you’re going against your value of “serving only others until your last breath”?
I have a question for you.
❓Can you serve more if that last breath comes later in life?
Would you consider that thought?
🤗Let’s discuss it and find your way to your own personalized self-care plan!
Here is my hand.
toxicity is toxic – and is painful
Toxic workplace
Have you ever worked in a toxic workplace? I have.
Interestingly, the problem wasn’t with my colleagues or boss. It was another department with whom we shared the office. It was their culture that made me sick. The tone of the language around me 8 hours a day made me physically unwell: it was too contradictory to my values. Each day I was dragging myself to work with a knot in my stomach, feeling nauseous, hoping one day somehow it would turn better.
Then I realised I couldn’t change them. And I didn’t want to give up my values.
It has become my shortest job.
Toxic positivity
There is no healing without seeing and acknowledging the bad stuff.
Therefore, seeing only the positive means denying the truth. It is hurtful.
However, I would be careful to call out someone’s toxic positivity.
They might be using it to soothe their own pain. I have been there. I had times in my life when clinging to looking at the “bright side of life” was the key to my emotional survival. It wasn’t others telling me, but I was telling myself.
Read more here: emotional abuse impacts our physical health
Here is my hand.
emotional abuse impacts our physical health
Emotional abuse impacts our physical health
“There’s a problem we must talk about.” and I was about to collapse. I couldn’t imagine what I could have done wrong.
Childhood patterns emerged from my subconscious.
Leaving a toxic person, unless we’re well-grounded inside, is far from easy. However, there are occasions when it is simply impossible. For example, when that abusive, toxic person is our parent.
The extra problem with it is that as children, we cannot recognise and connect the dots. Also, how we handle the emotional abuse when we grow into it is shaped by what we see from others. At least, this is my observation. I wasn’t lucky. My “role model” who showed me how to handle emotional abuse was a fully submissive one. Therefore, I had a pattern of giving in to the abuser to follow. While inside, I felt it wasn’t all right at all. I knew something was off but couldn’t understand it. And I was unable to handle the controversy – how the heck to I dare to question both my parents -, and the abuse itself.
My body was honest. Now I can see. Stomach aches and nausea every morning when I had to go to school. The feeling of inadequacy, that whatever I do, I cannot be good enough. I cannot be good enough, neither for them nor anyone else. Nausea still sometimes knocks on my door when I find myself in similar thinking and emotional patterns.
My body was honest. My mind was rationalising, “they are my parent and always (must be) right”. Then there were others, those who said “it’s just simply how they are” and “this is how they show their love”. And of course, there was barely anyone who believed how they indeed acted and behaved behind closed doors. It was unimaginable for those who only see their “nice face”, never the rage, the belittling and deliberately hurtful words.
My body was honest. Three times I was signed up for appendicitis surgery. I was presenting all the symptoms but having perfect blood results. Thanks to all the doctors how did not make the surgery. However, I was still rationalising: “I must be too sensitive, unable to handle stress”, blaming myself for not handling it all well.
It wasn’t my fault. Now I know. Abuse is never ok.
My body was honest. And still, it is. After a long healing journey, now I am mostly able to handle stress without switching into fight/flight/freeze mode. Mostly.
Last Thursday I was told, “There’s a problem we must talk about.” I thought I would collapse then and there in severe humiliation and immediately started questioning myself and him what I had done wrong? The instincts from my childhood kicked in. Which shows I am not as ok as I would like to be. Especially that he was joking, just like he had done many previous times. I still got scared that day.
My body was honest last Thursday.
Listen to your body!
Emotional abuse impacts our physical health.
Here is my hand.
Family relationships
Relationships within a family is a tricky thing.
Especially if it’s loaded with parenting.
For a first look, it seems to be pretty easy: an equal partnership between the spouses (“co-workers”) and parents guiding their children (kind of “leader – subordinate”).
However, as time passes by, children are growing, both types of relationships need to adjust to changes occurring.
First of all, we all change over time, at least a bit. So, our partner likely needs to adjust to us, just as we need to change to fit them. Also, the challenges as a team of co-workers in parenting we face, well, let’s say, might get more unpredictable as our children grow into their teenage years. It means that our usual problem-solving methods might not work anymore, i.e. we need to change.
Secondly, as our children grow, we try to give them more choices to make and through this, they can learn to make decisions and bear consequences.
We must never forget,
the day will come when they leave to have their own life, even their own family.
We cannot stay forever beside them and make all the decisions for them like when they were toddlers. We should not even think of that. The best we can do is to nurture them up to be responsible adults. And then let them go. Although they are forever in our hearts, only temporary guests in our home. Even if temporary, in this case, means two decades 😊.
Thirdly, our relationship with our parents is changing. First, we left their home. Whether they let us go or still cling to us, we need to find our place. Having a spouse likely challenges the connection with our parents. Now there is another person in our lives we listen to. Some parents can get pretty upset about losing control over their children’s lives. Then, when our children are born, our parents become grandparents. And it can open up another Pandora’s box over parenting (ours vs theirs and who knows it better), boundaries (they’re first and foremost are OUR children, and, by the way, our parents’ grandchildren), and a lot of other unexpected issues. Not every grandparent is an angel. Unfortunately, some would love to control our family.
Drawing that firm line in the sand can be a real emotional struggle for us. Those couples who stick together in it, I believe, are more likely to succeed. And it is another challenge to their relationship as a couple.
How does your “co-worker team in parenting” cope with it?
Here is my hand.
#lifecoaching #change #family #relationships #parenting #boundaries #life-coach-andrea
Self-sabotage – i.e. why do you doubt yourself?
Have you ever found yourself doubting yourself and acting against your own interest?
When is it 100% clear what you should, need, MUST do, yet you just simply cannot make the decision?
Is there a recurring pattern to these situations?
I would like to introduce “self-sabotage”.
A usual excuse we use, even to ourselves, – and yes, we believe it – is the “I’ll wait to see how it unfolds”.
Yes, there are times when waiting is the right thing to do. But it must be a DECISION to wait.
Including a deadline when we will RECONSIDER our primary decision to wait.
Without a deadline it is PROCRASTINATION.
Sounds like a very valid excuse, isn’t it? And we can get annoyed if people around us – those who really love us and put OUR INTEREST first – dare to share their concerns about our indecisiveness. They point to the fact that our “let’s see how it unfolds” is not a decision, it is self-sabotage. We lie to ourselves. Their feedback is like a smack in our face.
Well, it is time to face it: most of us do it. I do it.
You know what?
Give a deadline to yourself!
Make a decision WHEN you will act and WHAT you will do if the issue does not solve itself.
Yes, the “WHAT” must be decided now.
THEN the pressure of making the decision will be enough.
Here is my hand.
What is love then?
Here we pondered about what love is not.
It is time to look into the deep and dig out a few possible answers for the question:
What is love?
Love is a DECISION. To love someone even if they don’t deserve it. Despite their actions. While keeping healthy BOUNDARIES.
Love is ACTION. To go that extra mile for them. It must be a FREE choice. Free from ANY influence – outer or even inner!
Love is an APPROACH. How we turn to someone. How we see them. Whose interest do we take into consideration: ours or theirs? Can we act selflessly, even to the point of suffering disadvantage?
Love is LISTENING. The ability to shut up and let the other talk.
Love is CARING. Even if we disagree with their choices.
Love is HONESTY. Sharing our thoughts, our doubts, our questions. Yes, we can share our concerns about the consequences of their choices.
LOVE is PRESENCE. So when they fall, we stand beside them so they can lean on us while pulling themselves up. Because they know: even if we sometimes get frustrated with their decisions, indecisiveness, procrastination, seeing them slowly ruining themselves through these decisions, we are still on their side.
What is love?
If their world falls apart, we will still be there for them.
Here is my hand.
What is (not) Love?
“What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me Don’t hurt me no more” (some of you might remember the song from the 1990s).
So, what IS love?
Well, let’s make a firm line in the sand – what it is not.
Love IS NOT a feeling. Yes, when we are “in love” we do have some physical symptoms. Physical. Physiological. Symptoms.
Love IS NOT the lack of healthy boundaries. We can love someone and still be able to say no.
Love IS NOT saying YES all the time. But what prevents us from when saying NO would be the best choice at that time?
Whose interest do we put first? And do we do it voluntarily or do we feel coerced into saying yes – even when we indeed want to say no. We just simply can’t.
Love IS NOT allowing the person who has been exploiting us continue to do so because we feel unable to put up some boundaries in the situation. This is the very opposite to love. It is not loving them, it is self-loathing – ourselves.
Here is my hand.
A dog will never turn into bacon – i.e. who am I indeed?
Not long ago I faced the big question: who am I?
You might wonder why. So, here is a short story.
The last few years created a huge shift in me. Moving across the globe with my family and adjusting to the new norms and language not only brought hidden skills to the surface, but also shaped me significantly.
The robust diploma course in coaching was a painful eye-opener: I had a picture of myself, what I was like, and it turned out to be utterly false. I spent hours contemplating “what’s wrong; why does the test say I am introverted when I have always been an extrovert?”
A dog will never turn into bacon, it cannot be real!
Then it clicked…
Who am I indeed?
I am not changing into something new but turning back to who I was meant to be. I have been taking off the uncomfortable, protective garments. Shields, swords, axes, and breastplates which have shaped my thinking and behaviour were there to provide a more controllable, seemingly safer environment. Seeing everyone and everything as a threat had been eating up my energy, turning my focus away from inner growth and creating a false reality: that if I can control everything, I will be safe.
And now, leaving these behind one by one, the real me is coming forth.
Who am I? I am me.
The dog is not turning into bacon.
The bacon-shaped dog is turning back into being a dog.
(I used the word-by-word English translation of the Hungarian saying “Kutyából nem lesz szalonna” because I believe the English saying “Once a thief, always a thief” does not accurately portray the message I wanted to convey with this story.)
Here is my hand.
