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May 16

Trying to live up to everyone’s expectations is like trying to cup the ocean in your hands. And yet so many of us do this to ourselves and then wonder why we feel so lost, anxious, low and resentful. Making ourselves jump through hoops for other people’s shoulds takes a toll on our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual well-being as well as the health and of our intimate relationships. When we allow ourselves to create healthy boundaries, to be more honest versions of ourselves, we accept that disappointing others by not always being able to meet their shoulds is a natural and healthy part of life.

#baggagereclaim #healthyboundaries #selfcaretips #listentoyourself #recoveringpeoplepleaser #peoplepleaser #recoveringperfectionist ...

Apr 13

It’s easy to look at certain things we be and do and put it down to us not being good or worthy enough. The truth is, though, we only accept too little, put up with too much, expect too much of ourselves or others, or fear being our real selves, because of our emotional baggage. That’s the old stories, feelings and judgements we carry about our experiences, not the truth of who we are.

So the next time you see yourself accepting crumbs and sub-par relationships and situations, remember that it’s about what you’ve been through, not an indictment of who you are as a person.
#baggagereclaim #peoplepleasing #recoveringpeoplepleaser #healthyboundaries #emotionalbaggage ...

Mar 18

This time sixteen years ago, I was waiting outside the WH Smith at Victoria Station to go on our first date. Thanks to Southern Rail, Em was late. 😆 A few weeks earlier, we’d caught eyes at a board games night. I wondered who the cute guy in the Freddy Kreuger-style jumper was 🤣 in between playing a gangsta game of Monopoly. In typical fashion, I made a wisecrack right at the end of the night, which led to our mutual friend introducing us. On our way home, my friend got a text from him asking who her “cute friend” was and for my number.

Within minutes of our first date, we were bantering, and sixteen years on, we’re still having the craic and making each other belly laugh. My biggest supporter, who hasn’t ever for a second questioned what I do, even when I told him on our second date that I “write a blog thing, but don’t go reading it behind my back!” (and he didn’t), he’s believed in me even when I’ve doubted myself and encouraged me to keep going. And he still remains my favourite person on the planet… even though we can’t agree on the thermostat 🤣🤣🤣 Cheers to us @emmonlemmy ...

Mar 9

When people are shady with us, it’s easy to get sucked into trying to prove that they’re wrong or make them see the light and make amends. It’s in our quest to stop them from being ‘right’ or ‘winning’ that we can lose ourselves and do things that we later dislike ourselves for. We come out of our integrity.

So even though we might grit our teeth a little at first😬😆, we need to operate from a place of being more us—our values and boundaries—as we will choose what’s in our highest interest, not our ego or even the other person’s agenda.

#baggagereclaim #peoplepleaser #recoveringpeoplepleaser #healthyboundaries #boundaries ...

Feb 24

Sometimes we expect too much of ourselves as if we’re supposed to know everything and never ever eff up. But we discover who we are by discovering who we’re not. Our wisdom about what is true and right for us, our self-awareness and self-knowledge, it's the gift of discernment from those times we didn't and couldn't know as much as we do now. So we need to thank our younger self for helping us be who we are now.

#recoveringperfectionist #recoveringpeoplepleaser #healthyboundaries #boundaries #selfcare #selflove #selfcriticism #baggagereclaim ...

Jan 11

Man, so many of us, even when we don’t want to and it’s against our nature, subscribe to the rat race. We push, compare, climb ladders, tick boxes, chase validation, try to please everyone and be perfect… and feel exhausted. Living isn’t the thing we get to do after we get to where we think we’re supposed to; it’s what we need to allow ourselves to do now. Breathe. Come back to base. Remember who you really are.

#healthyboundaries #burnout #selfcare #baggagereclaim #thejoyofsayingno #listentoyourself ...

Dec 20

One of my daughters has the Rona at the moment. If it was this time last year or the first couple of months of the year, I think it would have tipped me over the edge. But 2021 was the year that I really faced my relationship with anxiety. Seeing my daughter struggle with the pandemic since the onset and noticing my own hypervigilance brought me face to face with how anxiety had been so interwoven in my life that it just became a standard feeling, a driver underpinning my people-pleasing, perfectionism and over-responsibility. I went to therapy this year (on Zoom, of course 😆), which just so wasn’t done in my Jamaican-Irish-English upbringing, and it helped me go deeper in being kind to myself, including all of my younger selves.

Sometimes life and it’s big-ass stressors shows you aspects of yourself that make you very uncomfortable but that are ultimately liberating. We talk a lot about self-care and all the things we can do (or buy) to love ourselves, but it’s often the small acts of giving ourselves a patient, compassionate ear, of giving ourselves space, of allowing ourselves to speak up or receive help, that go a long way.

And I share a bit more on surprising myself by going to therapy in episode 247 of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions which is available on all podcast players. Link in bio.

#baggagereclaim #recoveringpeoplepleaser #peoplepleaser #healthyboundaries #anxietyawareness ...

Dec 1

No one is *that* special that you can overlook their mistreatment of you. Doesn’t matter if they’re ‘hot’, super intelligent, very popular, go to church, the sex makes fireworks shoot out of you, they have money, they have their ‘good points’ or ‘good times’, or whatever. Not👏🏾that👏🏾special👏🏾 that they get a free pass on treating you with love, care, trust and respect and sharing in a *mutual* relationship.

#healthyboundaries #recoveringpeoplepleaser #peoplepleasing #healthyrelationships #baggagereclaim ...

Oct 28

Our boundaries are an expression of our self-esteem. The more willing we are to have and create healthy boundaries is the more intimacy we experience because we’re honest about who we are, what we like, what matters to us, and what we need, want, expect, feel and think. If we want to give and receive love, care, trust and respect and enjoy intimate relationships, we must have boundaries. Knowing where we end and others begin is the gateway to intimacy.

#healthyboundaries #healthyrelationships #baggagereclaim #recoveringpeoplepleaser #thejoyofsayingno ...

Oct 14

Set yourself free.

#peoplepleasing #recoveringpeoplepleaser #baggagereclaim #healthyboundaries #thejoyofsayingno ...

Sep 28

When I talk to people about why they’re afraid of having boundaries, time and again, especially when it’s about work, they’re afraid of burning bridges. 🔥 Just like all the stuff we hold onto in our homes ‘just in case we might need it one day’, we believe that not having boundaries means we’ll have more opportunities. Yes, but it will be for bullshit and assholery! It will be for burnout and ill health.

Avoiding healthy boundaries keeps you strapped, *connected to* unhealthy situations and people who want to exploit you being willing to exploit yourself. So burn that proverbial bridge. Build better boundaries for yourself instead so that you don’t destroy your inner peace and you can align with the people, things and situations that allow for love, care, trust and respect.

#baggagereclaim #burnoutprevention #healthyboundaries #recoveringpeoplepleaser #thejoyofsayingno ...

Sep 14

You’re not ‘letting someone down’ by not being able to exploit yourself or allowing others to do it to you. Same for recognising your limits and acknowledging the impact of stress-related illness, burnout and any other impacts on your bandwidth and wellbeing. Disappointment is a vital component in helping people to adjust unrealistic and quite frankly, exploitative expectations that prevent healthy boundaries.

Be careful of being so over-responsible that you worry more about the people who’ll be ‘let down’ by you stopping yourself from drowning than you are by drowning itself.

#baggagereclaim #healthyboundaries #boundaries #peoplepleaser #recoveringpeoplepleaser #recoveringperfectionist #peoplepleasing #codependentnomore #burnout #burnoutrecovery #selfcarefirst #selfcarequotes #exhaustion #exploited ...

Sep 9

Someone who’s going to be ‘scared off’ by boundaries is somebody who never intended on having a mutual, honest, intimate relationship. They are uncomfortable with receiving ‘no’ and you having limits (and would exploit you saying yes for the wrong reasons). They’re not comfortable with truly getting to know *you*. So let them be scared because boundaries filter in the people, opportunities and things that allow you to be more of who you are, not less of it.

#boundaries #emotionalbaggage #baggagereclaim #healthyboundaries #shadypeople #thejoyofsayingno #codependentnomore #relationshipadvice #trustyourself #recoveringpeoplepleaser #peoplepleaser #peoplepleasing ...

Sep 8

Do you know who winds up experiencing burnout? Over-responsible people. The more you say yes when you really need or want to say no is the less bandwidth you have. Keep doing this and you’ll experience burnout due to missing signs from your body about your needs while taking responsibility for things that aren’t actually your responsibility. Take care of you.

#baggagereclaim #burnoutprevention #peoplepleaser #recoveringpeoplepleaser #peoplepleasing #recoveringperfectionist #healthyboundaries #overresponsible #thejoyofsayingno #listentoyourbody #listentoyourself #workboundaries #overgiving #codependentnomore ...

Jul 28

I turned 44 today and I’m pinching myself in disbelief that I’m definitely not a teenager any more 🤣

I took this photo earlier today while out at lunch with my family. Within a couple of hours, my mother was having a go at me. Some things just don’t feckin change, and yet, I’m ok. Thankfully I’m boundaried enough to say no to smoking the crack pipe of making sense out of nonsense!

And I share this because I know I’m not alone in struggling with family. It is possible, though, to recognise that things are not OK with certain people *and also* still be OK with *yourself*. There’s liberation in saying “We are not OK” because then you can choose boundaries instead of gaslighting yourself into making things ‘OK’ with them by compromising yourself. You accept who they are and know what you’re dealing with.

This time last year, I’d signed a contract with my literary agents on the eve of my 43rd birthday. I didn’t know what lay ahead, and I had to work through a lot of stuff along the way and really own and back myself. Last night, the contract for my book deal came through. A lot can change in a year. Hell, a lot changes in life. You don’t have to be defined by your childhood or trauma, and you are allowed to evolve. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. ...

Jul 22

The thing about trying to be what we think others want is that when things don’t work out, we feel even *more* rejected. It’s like ‘Jaysus, they don’t even want the fake me that did everything they wanted, so what chance does the real me stand?!’

It’s disappointing, frustrating and painful when we put a lot of effort into something and things still don’t go the way we want, but at the end of the day, the main source of our suffering is our self-abandonment.

Don’t reject you to win over people.

#baggagereclaim #emotionalbaggage #rejection #abandonmentissues #selfabandonment #codependentnomore #peoplepleaser #boundaries #peoplepleasing #recoveringpeoplepleaser ...

Jul 15

Every time someone tells me that they haven’t had the necessary boundary because the person “means well”, I fear for them. We find it hard enough with shady folk, especially the ones who keep telling us that it’s for our “own good” or a sign of how much they care about or love us.

When we’ve decided that someone is “nice” and “well-meaning”, we will often opt to suffer it out as we don’t want to hurt their feelings, or appear ungrateful or pee on their parade.

But we don’t need to decide whether or not we can have boundaries based on whether someone ‘deserves’ it, as if to suggest that boundaries are only for bad people or those we’ve decided can ‘handle it’. Our boundaries are based on who we are—our needs, desires, values, expectations, not on other people’s seeming intentions or whims.

When you hear yourself rationalise that someone “means well”, halt. What are you denying about the situation? Where are you ignoring yourself? What are you avoiding saying or doing?

#recoveringpeoplepleaser #peoplepleaser #peoplepleasernomore #peoplepleasing #boundaries #thejoyofsayingno #boundaries #healthyboundaries #healthyboundariesforkindpeople #baggagereclaim #healthyrelationships #listentoyourself #listentoyourgut ...

Jul 12

This is a forever vibe, but I’m particularly feeling it today. One of the best things you can do instead of trying to get a PhD in other people’s BS is accept that some people don’t make sense, that being around them or trying to apply your way of life to them involves too much mental gymnastics and self-gaslighting.

The more you try to make sense of out of nonsense is the more you mess with your head. Protect your emotional, mental, physical and spiritual wellbeing.

#baggagereclaim #mentalhealthmatters #gaslighting #emotionalintelligence #healthyboundaries #notetoself📝 #selfcaretip #listentoyourself #gaslightingawareness ...

Jul 10

Learning to listen to your gut allows you to become a safe person for yourself. And it will take practice deciphering your gut from fear.

#baggagereclaim #trustyourintuition #trustyourgut #listentoyourself #listentoyourbody #yourbodyisntwrong #emotionalintelligence #innercritic #healthyboundaries #selfcare #recoveringpeoplepleaser #recoveringperfectionist #peoplepleaser #peoplepleasing #notetoself📝 ...

Jun 29