boundaries in relationships Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Dealing with Textxiety

AHA Publisher — Wed, 01 May 2024 05:00:43 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #566) and blog, I talk about how to manage texting anxiety (yes, it’s a thing!). I am sure you have had the experience where you see a text come through and your heart just sinks into your stomach.Texting anxiety is so real that it even has its own coined term, “textxiety“! Some people may worry that their messages will be misinterpreted or taken out of context. In fact, many people feel a sense of unease, worry, and stress when texting. Although this may sound strange, it is important to remember that texting is another form of communication—it makes sense that it could cause someone to feel a sense of anxiety. Some people may worry that their messages will be misinterpreted or taken out of context. They are concerned that the recipient will not understand the intended tone or meaning of their messages. For others, texting can create a sense of urgency; someone may feel pressured to respond immediately, which can lead to anxiety, especially when they are unable to reply promptly. In other cases, someone may obsessively review and revise their messages before sending them, fearing that any wording or phrasing could be problematic. This can add a lot of stress to a conversation. And some people may find texting stressful as they are not able to read the nonverbal cues that they rely on in face-to-face interactions. In other cases, someone may obsessively review and revise their messages before sending them.. If you are someone who battles with texting anxiety, I recommend using the Neurocycle mind management method I have developed and studied over the past three decades, which I discuss in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess and my app Neurocycle. It has 5 steps: Steps 1-3: gather, reflect and write down how you feel when a text comes in. Try to analyze why texting gives you anxiety. Take into account your emotions, behaviors, bodily sensations, and perspective when you receive a text. Sit with these feelings and write them down to help organize your thinking and bring clarity to the situation. Use who/what /when/where/why questions to find the pattern behind your reactions. Step 4: recheck. Once you feel like you understand the meaning behind your anxiety better, try to come up with solutions to alleviate the stress you feel when texting. This will take you to: Step 5: the active reach. This is a thought or action you need to practice daily to help you reconceptualize what you worked through in the previous step. What are you going to do each day to give yourself the time and mental space needed to deal with what is bothering you and turn this situation into something constructive? Here are some examples: Establish clear boundaries for when and how often you engage in texting. It’s okay to take breaks from your phone! Send a text to someone that you will reply to later when you get the chance in order to alleviate the stress that comes with feeling bad about not replying. Take a moment to think before responding, especially if the conversation is emotionally charged. Avoid rushing to reply when you’re upset or anxious! If certain individuals consistently cause text anxiety, consider blocking or muting their messages temporarily. This can provide relief and time for you to regroup. Be kind to yourself and recognize that it’s normal to make mistakes or experience anxiety in communication and texting is a form of communication just like any other! Remind yourself of this. If you can, put your phone on “Do Not Disturb” mode when you are working or at night when you are sleeping. Tell people that you do not answer texts during certain hours. Categorize your texts with colors and pictures, so that you know what to read first and what to leave until you feel better prepared. If a text is causing you a lot of anxiety, perhaps get someone else to read it first. Before opening a text, prepare yourself with breathing exercises or movement like yoga stretches to ground you. The key thing to remember that text anxiety is a pretty common experience. It is not something to be ashamed of! It’s okay to seek help or employ strategies to alleviate it. By incorporating these practices into your digital communication routine, you can make texting a less stressful and more enjoyable means of connecting with others. For more on texting anxiety, listen to my podcast (episode #566). Podcast Highlights 3:20 Text anxiety is a real thing! 5:30, 8:44 Signs that you may be experiencing text anxiety 13:00, 19:33 How to manage text anxiety This podcast and blog are for educational purposes only and are not intended as medical advice. We always encourage each person to make the decision that seems best for their situation with the guidance of a medical professional. To read the original article click here.

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Identifying, Setting & Enforcing Boundaries with Friends

AHA Publisher — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 07:00:23 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #368) and blog, I am going to talk about boundaries in friendships, and why it is okay to be honest and ask a friend for space. It is always okay to ask for space in a relationship. Boundaries are an important part of a healthy bond, as I discussed in a recent podcast and blog. We all have our own unique needs for “space”, and we need to be able to communicate where we are and what we need to our loved ones, including our friends. We need to remember that we are “experts” on how we feel and the context of our lives at any given moment. If being around a certain person or group of people is affecting how you are processing life, you need to be able to ask for space. This doesn’t necessarily mean the person is “bad”; it could just be that their presence is not what you need in a particular moment or stage of your life. Our nonconscious mind (which many scientists consider the most intelligent part of the human psyche), as well as the brain and body, can sense our unease before we are consciously aware of how we feel about a situation or person, and send us warning signals like anxiety or a stomachache, which tells us to pay attention because something is affecting our internal homeostasis—our sense of wellbeing. These warning signals, which originate from our psychoneurobiology (the mind-body-brain connection), include: emotions (such as unease, guilt and confusion when we are around someone) behaviors (like withdrawing, overcompensating, or apologizing frequently around a person) bodily sensations (for example, an adrenalin rush, a gut ache or muscle tension if we know we are going to meet a friend we actually don’t want to be around at the moment) perspective (when we think things like “what’s wrong with me?!” or “am I a bad person?”) Ignoring these signals can result in imbalanced energy across the two hemispheres of the brain, called alpha and beta asymmetry, as well as a drop in dopamine. As a result, we can lose a lot of our insight and perspective, which is a red light that we need to put up some boundaries to manage our own mental and physical health. But communicating your needs can be really hard, especially if you are asking for space but do not want to end a relationship. I don’t recommend using the words “I need space” or “I am putting up boundaries because I cannot be around you right now”, as this may hurt the other person or result in a negative response that will block their ability to process and understand what you are asking. Here are some examples of things you can say in person, via phone, text or email, or in a letter: 1. “Hey! Sorry, but I am going to have to take a mental health rain check right now. I don’t have the capacity to devote energy to our friendship at the moment. I won’t be able tune into your needs in the way a friend should right now. Thanks so much for understanding!” This way of talking focuses on what I call the “emotional oxygen mask”. We cannot truly be there for a friend if we are not able support ourselves and our needs. Like the oxygen mask in an airplane, we must put our mask on first before we can truly help others. 2. “Hey! I just want to say I do value you and our friendship, but I just can’t be there for you at the moment because I am focusing on sorting some major issues in my own life. [Here you can go into as much detail as you feel comfortable with and can add things like career, business, school, family members et cetera]”. Saying something like this gives the other person context to the boundary you are putting up, which is important if what you are asking for is space. It will help them understand where you are and what you need, rather than just reacting to what you are saying. 3. If your friend sends you a long response and wants to deal with the issue immediately, or if they respond negatively, you could say something like: “Thank you for your response – I really appreciate it. I don’t know how to reply at the moment, and hope you understand I need some time to process what you have said.” Remember, you don’t have to respond to anything after this! If your friend is angry at you, remind yourself that they too may need some time to process what you said, and that is perfectly okay. If they are truly your friend, they will eventually understand that you need space, and will be more willing to wait for when you are ready, since they know who you are and your character. To read the original article click here.

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What to Do When People Don’t Accept Your Boundaries

AHA Publisher — Fri, 03 Sep 2021 07:00:51 +0000

Dr. Caroline Leaf – In this podcast (episode #312) and blog, I am going to talk about how to respond in a healthy way when people don’t respond well to you taking ownership of your mental health and life. Recently I put up this post on social media:“You were never hard to love. You were just getting harder to manipulate & control. You were getting better at honoring your boundaries”. Based on the great responses and questions, I decided this is something that needs to be discussed in a podcast! As you start to heal and prioritize your mental health, you may notice people reacting negatively as you change. There are many reasons for this, which I am going to go through, but before I do, I want to emphasize that you were never hard to love. You are phenomenal. And I am not saying that to make you feel all warm inside; I am saying it as a scientist and researcher. Your psychoneurobiology (mind, brain and body) is wired for love, which is amazing! There is something you can do that no one else can do, which is also incredible! Besides the different structures of your brain, you have about 200 specializations across the different parts of your brain that are aligned in a unique and wonderful way, making you you. Just wow! All this means that your brain is inherently specialized. The cerebral cortex has 200 structures, each with specialized circuits. Everything that you process as you go through life is more efficient when done with a specialized circuit, which is how the brain works. Yes, there is a limit to how many areas there are and how many circuits within those areas exist, because the human skull is limited to a certain size. Yet we all have our own unique 200 areas, or what I call our “perfect you”, which gives us a unique way of perceiving and being in the world—I call this the “wise mind” in all of us. When all this specialization between individuals comes together, we can enhance each other’s existence using our “wise minds”, which is essentially what it means to be part of a community! But, of course, life happens, and adverse circumstances can mess with this beautiful specialization, temporarily blocking our wise mind. The brain is always changing in response to the mind, and this can go in both a negative and positive direction, which is known as the plastic paradox. When we go through hard times, we are messy because our minds get messy—this is part of what it means to be human. However, when we are messy, this can impact those around us, upsetting the natural balance that we, as humans, seek out. Consequently, the people around us may try to restore this balance, and this can potentially make things messier. It is important to note that healing can be very messy, and that seeing loved ones in pain is messy. When this happens, our perspectives can become very dominant to help us survive and cope, which, in turn, makes it difficult to see anything except our own point of view. When this happens, it often feels like the person in your life is trying to control or manipulate you, or is getting frustrated with or resentful of you. They just cannot understand why you are not taking their advice, why you are taking so long to heal or why you aren’t doing it their way. As I said, it can become very messy! But there is hope. When this happens, the situation can be repaired, and all parties involved can grow from this, if they can work through it individually and as a community, which involves a lot of mind management! But how? Here are some tips to handle this kind of situation: 1. Remind yourself that they don’t really understand what you are going through, and you are not responsible for how they choose to react. Most of the time, when someone in your life is acting in the “messy” way described above, it is because they don’t know how to deal with how you are changing. They don’t understand your experience because they are not an expert on your experience—only you are. Indeed, even you won’t fully understand what you are struggling with at times as you go through the stages of healing (which often get worse before they get better). This means you will do and say things you don’t really mean to do or say during your journey, especially if you are triggered. In this case, it’s important to identify those triggers so that you can work on them. And, when you are ready, you can let your loved ones know that this is your mess, your healing, and it will look different at different stages, and that you need to do this for you. You may also have to say to this person (or people) that if they are uncomfortable with this, for the sake of your healing and the relationship, that some distance may be required. Remind yourself that these kind of boundaries are more for you than for them, and that you are not responsible for how they choose to react to you and your needs. 2. Remember that you are entitled to your own space. Sometimes someone may feel they are losing their power over you when you start to heal, which can also lead to a very messy situation. Certain people with narcissistic tendencies may not like losing control over you because of their own traumas, toxic experiences and pain. Some people may be angry that you are changing because of certain cultural or religious mindsets. People like this tend to flip things around and blame you in an obscure and confusing way—they try make you feel bad about what you need to do to heal. When this happens, the key is to recognize this and, as mentioned above, put some major boundaries in place to protect yourself. You can start doing this by visualizing yourself in a suit of armor when you are around them, and creating space and distance between you and them till you feel strong enough to deflect their “darts”. If they try to make you feel guilty for doing this, or “love bomb” you to manipulate you, just see this as more evidence that you need to maintain your boundaries; you are entitled to your own space and have the right to seek out your own healing and peace. 3. Remind yourself, and them, that you are not helpless. Some people may react negatively to your healing journey because they see you as helpless. They feel that their plan, not yours, is the thing that is going to carry you through this challenge/issue/time. They don’t believe that you have it in you to heal yourself. But you should never be treated as helpless, regardless of what may or may not have happened in your past or in your relationships. We all need help and support at times, but you should be supported in way that empowers you to find your own healing—you should be allowed to walk your own journey. In fact, your wise mind becomes activated when people support you with unconditional love, not when people tell you what they think you should be doing. If you find yourself being boxed in by other people’s expectations, it’s important to show and say that even though you are battling, you aren’t helpless, and with your 200 unique brain specializations and circuitry, what works for them will not necessarily work for you. At the end of the day, you need to work out what boundaries you need to heal. As I mentioned above, this is not to keep people out; rather, boundaries are about protecting yourself while you work through your own stuff. This may look like asking the person in question to just listen to you when you need support, or it may mean creating some distance from them as you learn how to embrace, process and reconceptualize your pain. Or you could choose to keep things neutral and light, just seeing this person when you need a mental and emotional break. There is no one way to “do” boundaries. 4. Be careful of “fixers”. There are also people that are always trying to fix things for others, which is often a sign that their own trauma response needs healing; they are trying to fix you to avoid facing their own pain. In this case, blind compliance with no boundaries will only make things worse. If you can see this happening, tell the person directly, but as kindly as possible, that they can’t fix themselves by trying to fix you. It may end the relationship or put it on pause for a time, but it’s important you are not being used as an avoidance technique by someone else—this will only cause more mental pain for everyone involved. Trying to fix someone can also come from a sense of helplessness. When a person sees someone they love in so much pain, it can be heartbreaking. They may want to try to absorb the pain and make it go away, and can end up saying and/or doing too much, until they reach a tipping point and make things worse. In this case, it’s important to calmly tell this person that you understand what they are trying to do, and that you appreciate their concern, but a better way to help you is to wait until you ask them for support instead of offering advice or help so freely all the time. This often happens in a parent-child relationship, especially as the child grows up and enters adulthood. Yet allowing our children, no matter what age they are, to be free to make a mess and accept mental “messiness” as a part of life is incredibly important, as it helps them learn how to manage their mental health and grow as a person. If you find yourself in this kind of situation, just let your parent or guardian know this: “What has happened is a mess, but it is my mess. I need to experience this without judgement. I need to embrace, process and reconceptualize what has happened. I am thankful for your love and support, and I appreciate the fact that I know you will be there for me no matter what, like I am there for you, because we are on the same side. But you cannot fix this for me.” If things are really challenging, I highly recommend family therapy as well, which creates a safe environment, which allows everyone involved to discuss how they feel and what their intentions are. 5. Change the narrative! We need to change the narrative surrounding mental health. We need to accept the fact that it’s okay to be a mess, and we need to level the playing field; no-one is exempt from battling with their mind! At the same time, we need to empower people and let them know that there is hope. As I discuss in detail in my book Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, through developing self-regulation, we can tune in to our wise minds and find a way forward—we can gain a sense of peace amidst the chaos. Indeed, you can start doing this today! Just take some time out of your day (even if this is just a few minutes!) and tune into yourself…tap into your wise mind. Embrace your worth, and acknowledge your own desire to heal. Say to yourself, “I see you”. To read the original article click here.

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