Moving Forward

Over the last decade, I have been working on healing myself spiritually and recently experienced a breakthrough. During my recovery journey, I have learned to deal with my unconscious pain from past traumas and family of origin and generational issues. For me, this has been a process that has taken a lot of time, with a focus on dealing with my needs first before helping others. I had to learn this as my family of origin tends to be very self-sacrificing and as a result cycles of abuse are a generational issue. This type of cycle is actually very common I have learned. I have learned to recognize toxic environments, abuse, advocate for my needs in a calm and professional way, and to detach when the other party chooses to continue toxic patterns.  Boundaries Attract Your Tribe:   When you use boundaries, you will attract the right people and teach people how to treat you. These are both internal and external boundaries.  Take Time to Improve the Relationship with Yourself:...

I am continuing to work on myself and considering life goals and progress over the last year. This last year, I have been reminded on the importance of learning to value yourself. It takes time to work on yourself. After two years of counseling and completing many life goals and accomplishments, I find that I sometimes still struggle and feel overwhelmed as a single parent. I have learned the importance of life purpose, focus, to not react, the importance of boundaries, and have identified behaviors that I deserve in relationships with other people. I made a list of personality traits in August and this has helped me keep myself in check. Many friends and family would say the following to me. Learn to love yourself. How do you do this? I still struggle at times but feel my family is making great gains. Be positive and live a life of purpose.  Give to others without people knowing.  Faith in God will carry you through. You are a light and are protected.  Take action...

Do any of you have problems with setting boundaries? My brother introduced me to the book Boundaries last year as I was facing three large life changes in the course of a month. Through counseling, I identified last year that I lacked the ability to set boundaries and as a result was surrounded by individuals who took my contributions, intelligence, and love for granted. I remember during the Spring of 2014 being introduced to the concepts of boundaries by my counselor and brother and realized that I failed to set boundaries. I had a fear of being alone and was surrounded by toxic circumstances. I don't claim to be an expert in this field. I often fail at training people who "love me" to treat me appropriately.  Sometimes I still fail at this and settle sometimes. I realize that I have a hard time setting boundaries out of fear of abandonment. I have not lived in truth in decades. I am writing this to help me process everything and hope that my experiences help so...