Think Strong

Be proud of this! You know that her action says more about her than you. Instead of overreacting, you are able to respect the message of your anger, which is telling you that you need protective boundaries, or space, to make a decision based on your own value system, rather than your mother's issues. Your anger also alerts you to your own sense of value, telling you that you deserve respect. In response, maybe you tell your mother that you'd love to come for dinner--as long as your partner can also. Or maybe you propose that your mother come to your house, where you, she, and your significant other can celebrate together. Rigid, permeable, or gaping emotional boundaries will muddle your feelings and thinking, however. Instead of allowing yourself to feel angry about Mom's prohibition, you will most likely have one of the three fear-based reactions locked in by damaged boundaries: freezing, fighting, or fleeing. Perhaps you tell yourself you have no right to feel anger toward anyone, especially your mom, so you freeze, telling yourself you'll go along with Mom's request in order to keep the peace. You could justify your cop out by thinking your significant other shouldn't have a place at her holiday dinner table, because cooking for one more person would be a burden, or holidays are a time for just family, no outsiders, or just Well, Mom always knows best. Maybe you'll mumble some excuse to your significant other, pretending to be sick during the holidays so you can sneak off to your mother's. We can consider why these things ended up in landfill in the first place, and use these lessons to inform our future purchasing decisions so we choose better next time. There is a whole spectrum of choices and opportunities for our stuff. As we begin to identify items we no longer need, keep in mind these ideas and ask the question: What would really be the best outcome for these things? When it comes to making changes to our lives, it can be tempting to just dive right in and `do stuff'. However, to give ourselves the best chance of success there's a little mental preparation we can embrace before we leap into action: thinking about why we want to make those changes. Our values are like our guiding force. They are often subconscious and are shaped by our life experiences, our education, cultural and societal norms, and the money we have at our disposal. These values determine the goals we set, the attitudes we have and the behaviour we display. Advertisements tap in to what we value, and then activate these values to persuade us to buy products.

They show us happy, healthy people who have loving families and friends and beautiful, well-behaved children - people who live in stylish (and clutter-free) homes, have stress-free lives and spend time outdoors. You are worthy of love and adoration and respect! If she doesn't set them, she cannot then be surprised when people disrespect her - she gave them no indication they couldn't. She sees a break-up for what it is. If your self-worth is low, it's easy to slip into a mindset where you view someone breaking up with you as confirmation that you're undeserving of love, or destined to be single forever, or terrible at pashing. But break-ups, generally speaking, are not personal. That sounds stupid, but it's true. It's usually the dumper's stuff, or because the relationship was not working, and it needed to end so that each party could move on. It's not a direct attack on your personality. Patsy understands that if a relationship expires, there was incompatibility, or external factors, or the fact Patsy nibbles on bacon in bed at midnight. Each heartbreak is a gift, a lesson, a vital stepping stone to growth . Your own guilt will subsequently cause you to blow up at your partner at some point. At an energetic level, this explosion dumps the anger you should have directed at your mother onto your loved one. On the other hand, maybe you'll fight and tell your mother you'll never to speak to her again. This knee-jerk reaction is an unhealthy substitute for feeling and explaining your own feelings and needs. The other typical response is to flee. It's time to article that ticket to Cancun and leave both your significant other and mother behind, right? Reacting in fear, instead of feeling and then making a decision, only increases our agitation and renews our energetic boundaries' injuries. These reactions don't serve anyone, including you. What Compromises Our Emotional Energetic Boundaries?

What damages our emotional boundaries? In this way the advertiser implies that their product will make our lives like this too - we can resolve our insecurities through shopping. We buy the product, but the reality doesn't match. Deep down we know that new crockery or better shampoo won't make us happier, more loved or less stressed, yet we are bombarded with these ideas all the time, and it is easy to succumb to them. Once the thrill of the purchase has faded, however, nothing has changed. Our insecurities and worries remain. There is another way. Rather than relying on adverts to tell us what's best for us, and what will make us happy, we can get clear on our values and make conscious choices based on what we know is important to us. You might have an idea that you want to declutter, or to simplify, but perhaps you haven't yet considered your why. Now is the time to delve deeper and explore what this really means for you. Getting clear on what we're doing and exactly why we are doing it is the first step towards making change that lasts. And in the case it IS personal and Patsy's habits or lifestyle were cited as the reason for ending the relationship, she is okay with this. Patsy knows she is loveable: the fact this person was not right for her is not proof otherwise. It's just a partner who is no longer a partner. She offers what she wants in return. Patsy invites the qualities she wants to receive in her relationships by example. If she wants a fun, joyful relationship, she lives a spontaneous, positive life. If she wants an affectionate, tender relationship, she gives her partner those things first. If she wants to be reassured and thanked and heard, then she remembers to listen, and be appreciative, and open about her love. If she wants more adventure and travel and excitement, she buys her partner a suitcase and a ticket to Norway.

The point: people respond to the way they're treated. The main causes are having our feelings discounted, absorbing others' feelings, and holding immature beliefs. These situations can leave us with rigid emotional energetics, the type that make us feel alone in the world and out of touch with ourselves; Discounted feelings means that our feelings aren't being counted or noticed, by others or ourselves, when they should be. This experience, especially if it's chronic, leaves us feeling like we don't count and as if we have no value. Most of the time, we can write off someone's disregard for our feelings, with no permanent damage to our hearts or emotional energy boundaries. If a bank teller doesn't smile at us, we can assume she's having a bad day or is just impolite. Whatever is keeping a smile from her face is not about us. But some disregard creates wounds that go deeper and last longer. It's hard to value our feelings or ourselves if others, especially our loved ones, don't. Consistent cruelty, ridicule, shaming, blaming, guilting, or neglect also force our energetic boundaries to respond. At the beginning of trying anything new we can be all hyped up, full of excitement and raring to go, but as soon as we hit a stumbling block, or come up against a challenge that's a little harder than we expected, it's easy to fall off the wagon. We need to know what we're trying to achieve, to know in our heart that it is the right thing to do and to know why we're doing it. That will give us the motivation to get back up, dust ourselves off and try again. What is it that you really value? Let's dive into the deep stuff. What do you love to do, and how do you want to spend your time? We get more joy from life when we spend our free time doing what we love and being more present with people we love. If you sometimes spend your free time doing one thing while your head is somewhere else, or you feel overwhelmed with chores and tasks and to-do lists, think about how decluttering and simplifying might give you the space you need. Ask yourself the following questions - and be honest.

Where are my favourite places? Having the confidence to know what you need and want, and to get the ball rolling, means your partner will appreciate your cues, and respond accordingly, and everything will just be champagne and cupcakes, probably. She trusts herself and her decisions. She knows that if someone says, `I'm not looking for a relationship right now,' that's exactly what they mean. She knows that if they say, `I AM looking for a relationship now! If her gut flares up when they start being shifty or shady or micro-ghosting, she pays heed, and has no issue raising the issue or, if need be, pulling the pin. Patsy is not a slave to relationships or romantic love. She opts in because she wants to, not 'cos she has to. She takes responsibility and is accountable. If things go down the shitter in a relationship, Patsy doesn't just blame and point fingers, then emerge from the ashes as a shimmering, perfect human incapable of flaws or mistakes. She takes the time to ask what she contributed, how she could have done things differently, and what she can take and learn from the termination of the relationship. They might turn into thick walls to protect us or permeable membranes to hide our injured feelings. Or they might not be able to keep up with repairing the huge, gaping holes caused by incoming negativity simply because that negativity never stops battering them. Our emotional energetic boundaries become damaged if we spend too much time around people who don't and won't deal with their own feelings. Sometimes others deny their own feelings, leaving us to pick up and experience those emotions so they don't have to. Worse, some individuals energetically jam their emotions into us, penetrating our energetic boundaries and leaving us overwhelmed and confused. I often see emotional energy body damage play out between men and women in a primary relationship. Most frequently, the man's feelings were never validated or counted when he was growing up. As a result, he felt hurt or sad. But showing that hurt or sadness isn't seen as a masculine thing to do;