Posts Tagged: relationships

Communicating Boundaries (without losing your cool)

Posted September 17th, 2018 | Michelle Hollomon

As I write this, I’m on a plane next to a mother with a baby. This baby is trying to type on my keyboard with her sippy cup. And it reminds me that boundaries are hard…. Really hard…. To set.
What should I do? Should I say something to the mother? I don’t think she is aware. Should I let it go and just use my delete button? Should I close my lap top and call it quits?

Boundaries are hard. Whether we are on a plane with strangers and their children, or in a long term committed relationship, synchronizing everyone’s needs and desires seems an impossible task.

Why we don’t set them: We usually will have reasons why we don’t set boundaries in the front end of a relationship:

We don’t want to seem selfish, uncaring or high maintenance.
We don’t want to imposition others.
We hope the situation will get better, so we say nothing.
We were taught that our needs weren’t as important as other’s.
We are afraid of potentially negative or awkward interactions.

Can you relate to any of these reasons? You may find yourself right now, regretting or rehearsing one of these boundary-less situations that didn’t turn out well. I’ve been there. Avoiding boundaries may seem like the “peaceable way of least resistance.” However, being boundary-less can sabotage what could be a great relationship.

Here are some tips that I’ve learned and now practice to help relationships navigate healthy boundaries.

Communicating a Boundary

Communicate the value of the relationship. When a boundary has been crossed, unintentionally or not, the relationship can feel stretched, stressed or burdened. It is like different ingredients in a pot with the burner on. Things are going to bubble with enough heat. It’s important to say things like, “Our time together is important to me,” and “I really value our friendship,” and “your happiness is just as important as mine.” These statements help both parties to keep the main thing the main thing. They help us remember that we love each other and that we want what is best for both.
Review your feelings and needs. Depending on your personality, you may be more practiced than others at sharing your feelings and needs with others. For those of you who have difficulty tolerating disagreement or discomfort of confrontation, you may avoid sharing your feelings. Here are some options of what to say, “When you tell me how to drive, I feel stressed,” and “I need support when I’m offering child raising ideas,” and “When you go grocery shopping, I need specific things too.” Stating your thoughts, needs and feelings is an exercise in self-respect. When you respect yourself and your boundaries, you are teaching others how to respect you as well. Communicating boundaries with people who value you usually goes much better than anticipated.
Communicate a couple of solutions. After you have got your courage up to ask for what you need, (whew, you did it! Good job!) then you can brainstorm some ideas that will be beneficial for both parties. Maybe it can even be an opportunity for increased understanding and closeness. If you come in to the conversation with a couple of solutions, it may communicate to the other person just how committed you are to making the relationship work.

TIPS FOR SUCCESS

Don’t wait until you’re mad to set your boundary. Has this happened to you? Yeah, me too. Luckily, I’ve learned the importance of setting the boundary early on in the relationship so that expectations are set for all parties.
What if you already are mad? You may need to apologize for losing it, for snapping, for saying things you shouldn’t have. After you apologize, and seek to make a mends with the person, you may want to ask for a boundary to be set. I can imagine a conversation could sound like this, “I’m sorry for over-reacting and the things I said. I let my anger get the best of me. Would it be ok if we figured out a different solution for _________________. The way it is now really isn’t working for me.”
Remember to keep an “Us Together” attitude instead of a “me vs. them” attitude. Togetherness, mutually understanding and partnership is the goal if at all possible.
Caveat: if the other person is indifferent, unable, or unwilling to work together toward a solution, then togetherness and closeness is not an option. Most of the time, people are able to work toward some level of agreement and mutual respect. But on occasion, some won’t. It’s ok to stop trying in these cases.

Communicating boundaries is not easy. Doing it often and early actually gives the relationship opportunity to self-correct. It is a means toward togetherness, not away from it. What feels awkward and uncomfortable in the beginning, can produce wonderful results in the long run. Greater safety, shared experiences, and tighter bonds can be the result of boundaries handled well.

Need additional help? If you’re in the Seattle area, there is a great workshop I’d like you to know about. The name of this two day conference is “Is Childhood Trauma Intruding into Your Relationships?” Discover the Fullness of Joy You Are Create to Experience with keynote speakers, Dr. Bill & Pamela Ronzheimer, Marriage Reconstruction Ministries. I’ll be there too! Click Here for more information.

Six Simple Ways to Improve Self-Confidence

Posted April 12th, 2018 | Michelle Hollomon

Insecurities and self esteem issues can cause a lot of problems in life. You may over extend yourself, say yes when you need to say no, or talk yourself out of goals and dreams. The good news is that Self Esteem is not fixed and inflexible- it can change and improve. With the right people, practice and positivity, you can change that pesky sense of self-doubt once and for all. Whether you’ve suffered with low self esteem you’re entire life, or you’ve recently gone through something hard and you’ve lost your confidence, you can make simple changes that will improve how you feel about yourself.

Why do I struggle with Self Esteem Issues More than Other People?

The development of self esteem over the course of a life time can be complex. A combination of personality type, nurturing experiences, peer influence and skills attainment affect a person’s self esteem. My blog post last week addressed this in detail and is worth the read if you want to understand the development of self esteem better. Once you discover where your Self Esteem may have gotten delayed or off course, you most likely be ready to start practicing ways to improve.

People who struggle with self esteem rarely count that at their only problem. They usually complain that their self esteem affects their performance at work, their confidence as a parent, who they chose as a spouse, and how satisfying their friendship are. If you feel negatively about yourself, your relationships, career and meaning in life will also suffer. Improving your own sense of self worth is an essential task in life to experience significance and happiness. Here are Six Simple Steps to Improve your Self Esteem and start feeling better!

How to Improve Self Esteem

Get free of toxic people: Toxic people are those who are so self-absorbed and/or empty that they use up your energy, your good-natured generosity, or your positivity in exchange for their negativity, criticism, gossip or control. Their dysfunctional behavior patterns do more to bring you down, than up. It is impossible to heal or improve your self-esteem when you’re too close to the poison of toxic, self-centered and vampiric people.
Nurture Positive Relationships: It may be impossible to eradicate toxic people from your life entirely, but maintaining other uplifting relationships is an essential task to improving self-esteem. Once you untangle yourself from negative people, it’s time to find healthier people who will add to your sense of self instead of take away from it. You may find these people while you volunteer in non-profit organizations, or participate in book clubs, writing groups, neighborhood or exercise meet-ups. Many churches have recognized the need for community, and have structured means to connect to support that need.
Self Esteem Exercises: Whether you’re good at bargain hunting, decorating, painting, programming, hosting, training dogs, or hiking, to improve your self-esteem, you’ll need to practice the things you’re good at, and start adopting a few things that you’re not. In the context of doing something you’re good at, add something that you’re not so good at, like surfing, cooking, or art, and start learning. Learning and perfecting a new skill is highly gratifying and confidence boosting. It may require taking a class, going to a workshop, and getting certified at something you’re interested in. Many people who are healing from a broken relationship, will “re-tool” for a fresh start. Maybe they acquire a Pilates certification, or go back to school to change careers, or join a writing critique group. Learning and becoming competent at a new skill energizes all the right areas of brain and soul, and will help boost positivity and hopefulness.
Change the Brain: Negative and critical thinking plague the person with a struggling self-esteem. But the good news is that even an old brain can learn new tricks. The brain likes to streamline and go into auto pilot. It doesn’t like to work hard, so it tries to go the easy way. So if your brain has a habit of thinking overly critical thoughts about yourself or others, or if it jumps to negative conclusions, worst case scenarios, or self-ruin, it can change with the right intervention. If your brain is in auto-pilot-negativity mode, it’s time to take back the controls and train it to respond in a new and better way. Stopping old cognitive patterns and replacing them with more helpful and effective thoughts will re-train the brain to streamline in a more positive way. The more you exercise these new patterns, the more automatic they become.
Trauma Work: Self esteem development can get arrested, detained and imprisoned by traumatic events. Trauma can not only stunt healthy growth, it can also make a person distrusting, hyper-vigilant, and over-reactive. Treating the effects of trauma with proven trauma therapy like EMDR, LifeSpan Integration or Bio Feedback can release the imprisoned energy from the trauma memories and reset it to neutral. Finding a counselor or psychologist who have experience and training treating trauma is a great first step.
Embrace Spirituality: There are many faith persuasions, and each person must decide for themselves about their belief system. I have found a few things that are helpful here. Though some refer to God as a Higher Power or the Universe, I like to see God as not only my benevolent Higher Power, but also someone I can talk with when needing rescue. Sometimes we are unable to muster strength, confidence or faith enough to do the hard things required of us in life. It’s those times that faith in a personal God can add to our sense of connection to Someone and something far greater than ourselves. In that spiritual connection, our sense of feeling loved, seen and cared for rejuvenates our esteem and confidence.

Improving the way you think about yourself and the way you interact with the world around you is a key element in growth, healing and influence. As you feel better about yourself, you will attract healthy people and positive outcomes. Your perspective will change, as well as your self-respect. Next week, we will talk about how to build your self esteem after a toxic relationship. See you then!

Improve Your Self Confidence: Key Ingredients to Healthy Self Esteem

Posted April 5th, 2018 | Michelle Hollomon

Do you ever wish you could be more confident, more self assured? Do you with that you didn’t doubt yourself, your abilities, your value, or your place in the world? We all know that healthy self-esteem is important to healthy relationships and happiness, but if you struggle with self-confidence, you may not know how to improve it.

This, and the next two posts will address:

How Healthy Self Esteem is encouraged in children, and the key ingredients we all need for healthy psychological development.
How to Improve an injured sense of self through routine psychological exercises.
How to Recover your self-confidence after a toxic relationship.

Let’s start by asking yourself these questions:

Do you…

Feel less talented, attractive, intelligent, successful than most people?
Compare yourself to others often, wondering how you rank?
Beat yourself up after simple mistakes, oversites, or embarrassing moments?
Talk to yourself like you’re the worst person on earth?
Struggle with toxic shame and guilt?
Feel responsible for other people’s happiness?
Rehearse to ad nauseam self-criticisms?

If you answered yes to these questions, you may have a wounded sense of self, or in other words, a poor self-esteem.

Understanding Self Esteem

Self Esteem is developed in children over a period of time by way of three factors: 1) Positive regard and affirmation from family of origin, 2) Attainment of Skills and Competencies, and 3) Acceptance by Peers. That’s the short answer, but there is actually a lot that goes in to building one’s self-esteem. Here’s the deets.

1) Positive Regard and Family Affirmation: Esteem deposits drop into a child’s core self through consistent affirmation, guidance, love and discipline from parents. Parents and care-givers don’t have to be perfect, they just need to be good enough- guiding, loving, listening, correcting and encouraging their children. However, if the environment is over bearing, coddling, overly critical, emotionally unsafe or unpredictable, the child could develop some serious ego wounds. If, for example, a mother rarely lets her son do hard things for himself, he will likely grow up believing he is incapable of overcoming challenges. On the other hand, if a father is overly critical of a child who works hard, the child will grow to feel like her best is never good enough. One caveat here: there are some adults who grew up in a loving and supportive home and who developed a positive self-esteem, however during adulthood, encountered something so negative, traumatic or abusive, that over time, their self esteem was injured. People in toxic work, marriage or cult environments who start out confident and self-assured, can be so afflicted by persistent, deliberate psychological abuse that the self-esteem injury can take years to heal.

2) Attainment of Skills and Competencies: Just as important to building self-esteem, is consistent mastery of developmental tasks. As the child grows in emotional self-regulation, physical maturation, and attainment of new skills, he/she will be confident to try new things. As the child experiments with music, sports, building things, drama, art, animals, etc, the child will discover natural talents and gain in proficiencies. When a child feels he is good at something, his self-esteem rises. If a child is not encouraged or allowed to become competent in his interests, or is steered toward something he is not good at or interested in, his self-esteem will struggle.

3) Acceptance by Peers: By ages 10, 11, and 12 the voice of the peer group begins to speak louder than the parents. Children who are generally accepted by their peers will glean self-esteem through the adolescent years from the feedback they are getting from their peers. If they feel excluded, like they don’t fit in, or in the worst case, bullied, then their self esteem can take a big hit. Many teens who didn’t succeed socially, will do so in young adulthood, thereby repairing the damage to their self-esteem. If not, a child could grow up feeling socially inadequate, anxious in social situations, and generally undesirable.

If you are well past your 20s you may think the Self Esteem Ship has sailed, and that if you didn’t develop a healthy self-esteem when you were younger, it’s too late for you. The great news, is that it’s not too late. You can work on your self-esteem at any stage in life and achieve the confidence you need to set boundaries, to resolve conflict, to achieve deeper intimacy, and pursue big goals.

With the right people, practice and positivity, you can change that pesky sense of self-doubt once and for all. Now that we’ve talked about what goes into the development of healthy self- confidence, we are ready to learn the basics of IMPROVING self-confidence. Next week, I will be offering 6 Simple Ways to Improve Self Confidence. Talk to you next week!

Communication and the Power of Your Response

Posted December 6th, 2017 | Michelle Hollomon

You’ve probably discovered that there is a difference between “reacting” and “responding.” I’m raising two teenagers right now, and when they say or do something I don’t like, I am keenly aware of the difference between my “reaction” versus my “response.”

confused me

A reaction, for me, is a quick retort, a sarcastic remark, a childish eye-roll, or a critical statement. Responding, however, is different. Responding is thoughtful, appropriate, peace-making, and effective.

If you’ve been to a session with me, you’ll know that I often talk about the fight/flight/freeze mechanisms in the limbic system. If the limbic system in the brain, senses a stimulus as provocative, potentially dangerous or threatening, it will send out signals to fight, flight, or freeze. If a person is triggered by a stimuls, word, or action in anyway, that fight/flight/freeze reflex can be very intense.

The stress response activated by the limbic system is a great way to survive a real life attack, but not so good of a way to maintain healthy relationships.

Sometimes an over-active stress response can start arguments, shut down meaningful conversation or escalate fights- the very things that derail relationships. Would you like to Respond with Wisdom instead of Over-react from fear or anger? Me too. Let’s explore what happens when we react instead of respond.

48129872 - closeup sad young woman with worried stressed face expression and brain melting into lines question marks. obsessive compulsive, adhd, anxiety disorders

Reacting

When people react to a stimulus, they are often in a state of fear, anger or pain. Maybe the stimuls was hurtful or scary or mean, and the natutal reaction was one of survival only. Maybe your reaction was equally hurtuful or scary or mean. The thing about Survival Reactions is that they…

come quickly and automatically
not well thought out
meant for survival, not relating
can be interpreted by others as an attack (fight) or uncaring (flight, freeze)

If you experience fear, anger or pain, it’s likely that you will react (and sometimes over-react) with fight/flight/freeze behaviors. But what if your reactions are causing more problems? What if your reaction to stimulus (someone’s words or behaviors) is actually adding to the problem, instead of helping it?

Responding

Responses are different than reactions. When people respond to a situation, instead of react, they are more likely to have their emotions under control. People who respond wisely to a situation take the time to…

consider all the options
consider other points of view
be thoughtful and deliberate

Sounds great, right? But how? One of my counseling professors used to say, “It’s not what you do that matters. It’s what you do AFTER, that matters.” I think he is right. Although you are unable to go back in time for a redo, you are able to analyze what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. For right now, maybe you’re only job is to notice how your Survival Reactions are making things worse instead of better.

48488978 - closeup excited woman with many ideas light bulbs above head looking up pointing finger up isolated on gray wall background. eureka creativity concept

Things to work on this week:

Determine to observe and learn from the unhealthy dynamics in your communication.
Apologize for your part by saying, “I’m sorry that I sometimes I say things without thinking. I am sorry I hurt you. I am working on that, and want to do better.”
Harness the power of a well thought out response by taking your time, talking to a friend first, praying, writing it down.

Next week, I will provide some exercises that will help you discover ways to take back your control over your reactions, and help you respond with wisdom.

How to Have That Difficult Conversation

Posted January 13th, 2017 | Michelle Hollomon

Are you avoiding a difficult conversation? Maybe you are afraid of an explosive reaction, or of being minimized or turned down. It is normal to have disagreements and hurt feelings in close relationships. Even the strongest relationships must address painful issues. Difficult subject matter like hurt feelings, broken promises, or dishonest dealings have the potential to ruin a relationship. But skillful communication can help a couple face the difficulty together.

friends-walking

Today, I want to give you a little gift of communication. I want you to have the SECRET WEAPON to trans-formative conflict resolution so that all your relationships, whether at home, work or school, benefit.

When you have to set a boundary, challenge a behavior, or get more information in the relationship, you may stress about how to do it with the least amount of discomfort to both parties. If you are in a strong and mutually respectful relationship, this tips and skills may be hard, but doable with practice.

The truth hurts. The honest truth, when presented with love and respect should hurt, but never harm. Like a flue shot that stings and leaves your arm sore for a day. The shot hurts, but is protecting you from something much more painful and giving you a gift of immunity.
Wait until you’re ready. Especially if you think the conversation could turn volatile. Take some time to think, journal, pray and research your topic. Pay attention to how you feel, and what you need.
Find a Good Place and Time. Think about the venue that would make you most comfortable and provide you the most support. Maybe you want to have it over coffee in a public café. Maybe you want to have it with a third party present, or in a private office away from others. Maybe you want to have it when the kids are at grandma’s house. The place and time doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.
Think about your own contribution. It’s good to take a look at your role in the situation and see how you contributed to the break down in communication or unhealthy dynamic. Be able to verbalize that in a way that honors both of you.

When you are ready to have your difficult conversation, the following formula is the gold standard.

When you say/do A___, I feel B___. I want you to do C instead.

For example, Jessica wants to tell Byron how hard it is for her to listen to him yell at the kids.

Example: Jessica can say, “Byron, I want to tell you that I’m sorry for not being as proactive as I could be with the kids. Sometimes I let them run too wild for too long, and then they get really crazy in the house. That’s my part, and I am working on being more proactive. I also have something I want to talk to you about. I feel frightened for the kids when you yell at them the way you do. I am scared that you are hurting their hearts with what you say. I am scared that your anger is doing real harm to them. I want you to talk to someone about your anger.”

couple in storm

In a strong relationship, Byron would respond, “Thanks for recognizing your responsibility and not laying into me. I am frustrated when I come home and the kids are acting like circus clowns. But I don’t have to yell at them the way I do. I actually feel really bad when I lose my temper with them. I see the way they look when I yell, and I don’t want to hurt them. Would you go to a parenting class with me, so we can get on the same page with the kids?”

This interaction may seem impossible in your situation. Maybe you can see your difficult conversation explode in your face. Maybe you feel like too many past hurtful words have put a wedge between you and your partner. However, if both parties are amenable to personal change and growth, thoughtful communication is a great first step toward healing.

swingset

What if it doesn’t work?

These tips are designed to help couples avoid the pitfalls of defensiveness, sarcasm, and shifting blame during their difficult conversations. So, if after trying these tips and skills you find yourself wounded because the conversation turned hostile, you may need additional help. Relationships with a power imbalance or untreated anger or anxiety take a lot more intervention than “good communication” can do by itself. In fact, even the most expert communication cannot heal the wound of relationship abuse, or emotional sickness. Toxicity in relationships must be addressed with skilled therapeutic intervention.