Category: Friendship
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Sincere vs. Empty Apologies: Impact on Healing and Hurt
Some apologies promote healing and forgiveness. Other apologies are self-serving, insincere, empty, and promote anger, resentment, and further hurt. Empty apologies that don’t name the wrongs committed do not promote healing and forgiveness. “I’m sorry you feel bad about what I did,” ” I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” or “I’m sorry you feel that…
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Politeness Without Integrity: The Trap of Passive Aggression
Politeness is not a replacement for integrity. Would you excuse a robber for stealing your purse because he thanked you while stealing it? Passive-aggressive people say please and thank you while mistreating you. Recognizing when someone pairs polite manners with selfish or subtle aggressive behavior is essential for one’s emotional and physical self-protection in relationships.…
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Forgiveness: A Personal Choice for Healing or Protection
Forgiving is a complicated process. For some, it’s a necessary step to achieve emotional healing. For others, attempting forgiveness is emotionally damaging. Whatever the degree of the abuse, neglect, or betrayal one has suffered, whether to forgive or not is a personal decision. Forgiving what has happened to you is not saying “I forgive you”…
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Overcoming Fear to Build Healthy, Open Relationships
Feelings and beliefs that are based on fear create distance and conflict in relationships. Understanding why we are afraid to talk openly and how to overcome those fears is essential to establishing a healthy relationship. Restricted communication in relationships is as influential on intimacy as what partnrrs express to each other. It can be anxiety-producing…
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Effective Listening Requires Hearing Feelings and Intentions
Effective listening involves more than just hearing words being spoken. It means hearing feelings, intentions, and content. It means wanting to understand what is being said and being able to respond appropriately and accurately. Effective communication involves both talking and listening in a way that makes our thoughts, feelings, wants, needs, and opinions conveyed clearly…
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Why Avoiding Conflict Harms Intimacy and Connection
Couples who avoid conflict experience impaired intimacy, build resentments, and become disconnected from each other. Conflict leads to the experience of heightened emotions, which facilitates motivation to communicate and resolve problems. Engaging honestly and passionately about feelings, wants, needs, and ideas leads to conflict resolution. At the moment, deciding to let an issue go unaddressed…
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Understanding and Overcoming the Triggers of Social Anxiety
Social anxiety can be paralyzing. Some people suffer from social anxieties due to childhood trauma, low self-esteem, or peer pressure. Social situations can trigger fears of rejection, humiliation, and stress. Shyness also causes anxiety by triggering comparison to others and fear of failure at succeeding at social expectations. Physical symptoms like shaking, sweating, becoming speechless,…
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Set Limits to Reduce Holiday Stress and Enjoy the Season
Holiday stress may feel like an unavoidable force that you have no control over. However, that is false. Setting boundaries, knowing your emotional, physical, and financial limits can result in a calmer and ultimately more enjoyable holiday season. One of the saddest parts of the joyous holiday season is many people become so busy and…
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How to Cope with Missing Someone After a Relationship Ends
What does missing someone feel like? What does it say about the attachment you had when you miss someone? How to stop missing a friend, family member, or lover if the relationship is over? Missing someone indicates you experienced an emotional attachment that had deep significance for you. We miss people with whom we built…
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When Communication Fails, Trust and Love Are Tested
When communication breaks down, so does trust. When someone you’ve been close to shuts down or completely breaks off communication, it is tempting to decide you no longer care about them and that they are unworthy of your trust and love. Then, unexpectedly, they will do or say something that opens you up to re-engage…