Happiness & Self-Esteem
- Looking In, Not Out: Unpacking the True Essence of Self-Esteem
- Embracing Emotional Evolution: How Relationships Unlock Healing and Intimacy
- Breaking Free of the Hammer of Self-Criticism
- Relationships Propel Self-Discovery and Healing
- The Truth About No: Receiving “No” Doesn’t Mean You’ve Done Something Wrong
- How to Get Out of Something You’ve Already Agreed To
- Podcast Ep. 274: Listen to a Chapter from The Joy of Saying No
- Problematic and Non-Apologies: Why We’re Still Upset Despite Receiving An Apology
- Life Lessons: How to Identify What You Need to Learn to Move On
- Taking Things Personally: What Is It, and How Do We Stop?
- If You’re Still Figuring Out Boundaries, Self-Care, *Life*, Welcome to the Club
- The Truth Is, No One Needs You to Be Problemless and Always Happy
- Feeling Our Feelings Is the Path to Increasing Emotional Intelligence
- Overcommitting and our fear of missing out or being labelled antisocial
- Giving 100 Percent Effort All The Time is a Boundary and Bandwidth Issue
- We Don’t Need the Perfect Reaction to Our Upset but a Pause Helps
- We Don’t Have to Judge Our Own or Other People’s Confidence Levels So Much
- Feeling conflicted when a friend attempts to reconnect after a fallout and distancing
- Distinguishing Intuition From Fear Builds Self-Trust and Confidence
- How to Find the Right Therapist (While Having Healthy Boundaries)
- Spending time outdoors and in nature is a meditative act
- We experience anxiety for ‘no reason’ when we rationalise, minimise and ignore ourselves
- There might be more conditions to our unconditional love than we realise
- Airing our dirty laundry? Or being more open about gaslighting and mistreatment?
- Why Some People Call You “Needy” Even When It’s the First Time You’re Speaking Up
- 9 Survival Tips for Anxious and Stressed Out Introverts at Work
- Our stress and anxiety can help us recognise our lack of self-care
- Healthy Work Boundaries Stop You From Taking Challenges Too Personally
- Anxiety won’t disappear entirely, but we also don’t need so much certainty
- Do people change after saying they’re not ready for (or don’t want) commitment?
- ‘Prepping’ for hurt and loss cuts us off from intimacy and connection
- Cautious Carol and why I practice patience and humour with my inner critic
- Love Isn’t a Reward for Being a Good Person, and We Don’t Like This
- My 9 Favourite Career and Business Books for People Pleasers, Perfectionists and Overthinkers
- You’re not needy, impatient or pushy for wanting more than an unfulfilling relationship
- Perfectionism and the unnecessary pressure we put on our self-work to pay off
- Being Called “Too Sensitive” Is a Code Red Alert to Listen to Yourself
- Time to return to work or make friends with our ex, or is our inner critic talking??
- It’s a bad deal if you have to compromise yourself
- Feeling frustrated and resentful about a loved one not taking our advice
- Using sex to create relationship expectations and entitlement
- Feeling Bad About Feeling Good
- Checking your sense of entitlement stops you from busting boundaries
- It helps a great deal when we do things because we want to
- Compromising your integrity causes you to feel unsafe
- The self-abandonment of compartmentalising other people’s shady behaviour isn’t worth it
- We’re Much Happier, Intimate and Connected When We Give From a Place of Trust
- You’re seeking the feeling, not the thing
- You might feel bad after standing up for yourself, but you’ve done a good thing
- Asking For Help Isn’t Reserved for Struggles and Emergencies
- Learning to care less about what people think
- People Pleasing is Like Creating Debt and Then Expecting Others to Pay It Off
- Feedback from our expectations and choices helps us to better meet our needs
- Self-esteem means acknowledging all of you, not just your supposed shortcomings
- Stop shaming you for having needs
- These “good qualities” you cling to, why aren’t you benefiting from them?
- Are you out of alignment with your values and needs?
- What if you’re not inviting misfortune upon yourself?
- About giving the benefit of the doubt
- Feeling like someone took the better version of you when they left
- What if your only resolution this year was loving yourself more?
- Knowing if things are different ‘this time’
- The Belief That You’re Not “Good Enough” Is a Reasoning Habit
- Tired of your self-criticism? Invest in a self-esteem jar
- Are you in a casual relationship with your values?
- Character is who you are even when no one is watching.
- Are they doubts, or are you trying to be a fortune-teller?
- Without disappointment, boundaries aren’t possible
- Needs and wants are not about being worthy and deserving
- We don’t need to give away power to be, do and have what we want
- Permission granted to feel how you feel
- Not Accepting Crumbs Is the Gift of Self-Love
- It’s OK to receive – you don’t always have to be the giver
- Why It’s Time To Stop Hiding Your Needs
- Begin With The End In Mind
- Getting Truthful About Your Intentions
- ‘After everything I’ve done for you!’ – If You Feel Bad While Or After You Give, It’s Not Giving
- 48 Ideas For Increasing Emotional Availability & Breaking Harmful Relationship Patterns
- Bench-Pressing Life: Why Grief Is Making Me Possible
- The Pop-Up Relationship: The Temporary Romance That Expires & Never Develops
- Whose Moral Compass Are You?: The Conscience Wingman
- Expecting Too Much of Yourself? Read This
- Why Do Some of Us Find Birthdays & Big Occasions So Difficult?
- You’ve Made More Progress Than You Think
- You Can Be Happier, But Not If You Force It
- Change Has To Be About Becoming More of Who You Are
- Advice Wednesday: Why Do I Have A Pattern of Valuing People Who Don’t Value Me?
- Your Plan Isn’t The Plan
- Advice Wednesday: Should I Let My Ex Know About My BPD Diagnosis?
- The Vicious Cycle of Undervaluing Yourself
- If You’re Going To Be Afraid of ‘Settling’, Be Afraid of Settling For Pattern
- Stop Minimising You (You have needs too!)
- Advice Wednesday #2: How Do I Stop Letting My Gossiping Co-Workers Destroy My Inner Peace?
- Are you making you ‘special’ by being mean about you?
- “How could this happen to someone like me?” Erm, because you’re human!
- Ceasing To Engage Doesn’t Mean That You’re a ‘Loser’; It’s Another Way of Standing Up For Yourself
- Take The Hint of Someone’s Disrespectful Behaviour & Stop Being So ‘Nice’ About It
- Podcast Ep. 11: Confronting Issues vs Confrontation?
- Letting People In On Our Struggles Is How We Show Compassion For Us
- Shifting from blame to taking responsibility for you
- Forget this hinting malarkey. I’m going all the way.
- Are you trying to 419 me? Use your self-esteem operating system to filter out BS & shadiness
- Knowing the Line Between Putting You First and Being “Selfish”
- I’m still standing. You’re still standing. We’re still standing.
- We Must Stop Reinforcing Shame: It’s Okay for Us to Like and Love Ourselves
- Stop letting fear of uncertainty hijack your happiness
- Other People’s Behaviour: Why do you want it to be about you?
- Take the focus off them and bring it back to you
- Are you comfortable with your status quo?
- ‘I Can Change Him/Her’ syndrome: Don’t tie your worth to trying to control the uncontrollable
- Are you sabotaging yourself by not allowing you to be happy?
- Are you inadvertently dimming your light? When you have a pattern of being afraid of outshining
- Stop giving you a hard time for not having had the perfect or ‘right’ reaction
- Happy Birthday To Me: 37 Thoughts On Relationships, Self-Esteem & Life
- Sometimes the self-compassionate thing to do is to count your stresses so that you gain perspective
- Be careful of basing your self-esteem on the speed and content of text replies
- On being the ‘bigger’ person: Why it’s time to stop engaging – choose how you want to respond
- How I self-soothed my way out of a comparison binge
- Lessons from a short-lived comparison binge
- Do we really need to explain why someone’s actions bothered us? Yes, sometimes….even if it’s just to ourselves
- Being you is better than changing to appease someone who is threatened by differences
- Loneliness happens when we stop expressing how we feel and lose emotional connections (The importance of self-care and safe people)
- Why do we want to be liked by people who we dislike?
- There’s no point in following the ‘trend’ if you don’t end up liking or knowing you
- A dating hiatus is a healthy, empowering break, not a prison sentence!
- Have you been affected by The 12 Weeks of Self-Esteem Torment?
- Sometimes we forgive prematurely and then feel bad that we’re not able to let go of the situation
- On Being A Pleaser: You don’t have to keep acting as if life is imposed on you
- Don’t write off the year if it doesn’t start how you pictured it
- Happy New Year (and of course a few words)
- Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
- Criticism: Sometimes we’re so busy focusing on the negative feelings that we forget to question whether it’s true
- Don’t let pursuit of trying to get somebody to do the right thing, blind you to doing the right thing by you
- Don’t passively wait around for someone to be struck by the thunderbolt of conscience and consideration – take action!
- Rescue me! Are you in pursuit of the happy ending?
- Don’t mistake awareness of the past with holding a grudge or a necessity to press the Reset Button
- Give up The Brady Bunch ideal – you’re not alone with your less than perfect family
- Learning to like & love you: Apply what you do to others to yourself
- Revisited: Are you worried about being ‘good enough’ for something you don’t want or are not even doing?
- Birthday thoughts: 36 things that I’ve learned about life, love and self-esteem
- Revisited – Dear So & So: Sorry, my heart/libido/ego/imagination says yes, but my self-esteem says no
- Listening to myself – time for a summer break!
- Reflections: You don’t know me… but I don’t know me either
- There’s no need to keep justifying your feelings to *you*
- Why you’ve got to stop letting that difficult career or educational experience define your perception of you
- Under pressure! When someone claims that they’re being pressured by you & how to deal with being pressured
- Being mistreated isn’t ‘evidence’ that you’ve done something ‘wrong’ or evidence of your worth
- Choices – we’ve all got to make them so why give you a hard time for not living a fantasy?
- Are you overfeeding your worry and fear ‘goldfish’?
- Phased In Commitment – Reality based instead of hope based commitment
- We Don’t Have To Agree On Everything, Especially With Loved Ones
- Lessons From Parenting My Five-Year Old: Why Mistakes Don’t Make You A ‘Bad Person’ & Why They’re Needed For Growth
- Reflections: Knowing Your Own Approval
- Have The Willingness To Listen To Your Gut
- Reflections: Knowing Your Own Love
- Why Is It So Hard To Learn To Like You When You’ve Liked & Even Loved Others?
- Why You’ve Got To Minimise Comparison To Improve Your Self-Esteem
- Self-Esteem: It’s Not All About Your Childhood – It’s About How *You* Feel About You & Whether You Internalise Your Experiences
- Happy New Year
- Is It Time For You To Go On a People-Pleasing Diet? Time To Make Way For Being You
- You Can’t Meet ‘Everyone’s’ Expectations. Really.
- If You Neglect Your Own Needs You’ll End Up Hungry In Your Relationships
- Revisited: They’re Just Not THAT Special
- When You Feel Like People Won’t “Let” You Be Yourself
- Being Assertive Won’t Stop People From Disagreeing With You But You’ve Still Got To Stand Up For You
- Happy Birthday To Me: 35 Thoughts On Relationships, Self-esteem and Life
- Be Myself, Don’t Fear NO, Passive Aggression Is a No-No & Other Personal Commandments I Live By
- Are You Trying To Be ‘Good Enough’? Surprise! You’re Already Are.
- Which Lead Weights Will You Drop Out Of Your Life To Achieve More Balance & Happiness?
- Mindfulness In Relationships: Reduce The Worrying & Fantasising By Getting Back Into The Present
- You’re Not Wearing ‘Eau de I’m Not Good Enough’
- 10 Instant Drama Reduction Fixes
- Learning How To Deal With Criticism & Conflict For Improved Self-Esteem & Relationships
- Never Judge You Based On A Perspective Gained From Being Treated In a Less Than Manner
- Is It ‘Fear’? Or Is It ‘Knowledge’ That You Haven’t Responded To?
- Forget About Being Unlucky In Love – You Can Make Your Own Luck
- Who Is The Designated Expert On You? Er, Yeah…It Had BETTER Be You
- Are You Waiting To Be Chosen? Why It’s Time To Put Away Your Choose Me Stick
- Video: Happy New Year!
- Stop Acting Like You’re a Fraud – It’s Time To Believe You Deserve Better
- The Right Decision Doesn’t Always Feel Good
- Stop Trading Yourself Down
- You Deserve Better
- Are You Insecure About Whether You’re Insecure In Your Relationships?
- You’ve Got To Call It As You See It: Why you mustn’t fear judging a situation or actions
- You’ll Learn To Trust Again When You Learn To Trust You
- How I Learned To Listen To Myself Again…And Why You Should Too
- It’s Not About You
- Self-esteem in a nutshell – When you believe you’re not good enough to drive your own life
- Dear So & So: Sorry. My heart/libido/ego/imagination says yes, but my self-esteem says NO
- The Importance of Holding Your Own in Dating & Relationships
- It Really Is OK To Admit You’ve Made an Error in Judgement. Yes really.
- Why You’re Nobody’s ‘Option’
- Are You Trying To Control the Uncontrollable? Linking Yourself to the ‘Am I Good Enough Today? Index’
- Compassion, Empathy, Sympathy, Hurt, Hinting and Kindness – 6 of the most misused words in relationships and the importance of learning their meanings
- Do we really need to forgive?
- Are You Still Trying To Be The Exception To The Rule? Maybe It’s Time You KNOW The Rule
- How Much Time Are You Actually Spending Thinking About YOU?
- Be Careful of Rushing to Date and Love Again – There’s No Fire
Healthier Relationships
- The Relationship Pothole of Giving Our Power Away to False Authorities
- Four Core Values for Healthy Romantic Bonds
- Intimate Relationships Need To Be Mutually Fulfilling
- Empathy and Allowing Ourselves to Say No Mustn’t Be Based on Status
- Why We Don’t Leave Painful and Sucky Situations: It’s Due to People Pleasing
- Circular Disagreements and Why We Need to Stop Hoarding Our Resentments
- The 2 Big Reasons We Lose Ourselves in Our Relationships
- Maybe we don’t need to assume that our relationship has lost its spark
- Why do we get upset and offended when people decline our invitation?
- Dealing With Our Resentment Toward a Loved One Creates Healthy Boundaries
- Questioning our complicated ideas about ‘love’ is the loving thing to do
- Wanting Romantic Relationship Status More Than Being a Loving Partner
- Feeling Anxious About Family Obligations and Expectations During the Festive Season? Here are 3 Tips
- Less than speedy text replies from loved ones doesn’t mean we’re being ignored
- Being together 24/7 or sharing all the same interests won’t make a happy relationship
- We don’t need to ‘confess’ our bad relationship experiences to a new partner
- In our intimate relationships, “stable” doesn’t *have* to equal “dull”
- The “give and take” of relationships needs more intimacy and boundaries
- There Really Is No Pleasing Unpleasable People, and That’s Okay
- Why You’re Catching Feelings When It’s Supposed to Be ‘Just’ Casual Sex
- Family Stressing You Out? Check In With Yourself
- Love isn’t making you ‘crazy’; reality-check the relationship
- Believing you’ve put in too much to leave and that to ‘give up’ would be a ‘waste’
- Making sense of people seemingly being unhappy with your happiness
- Parents Believing They ‘Had It Worse’ Makes Empathy Difficult for Them
- Were they ‘just trying to be nice’?
- Wanting to know someone’s intentions
- We don’t need to like or agree with someone to empathise
- Healthy Relationships Don’t Focus On ‘Winning’ and Avoiding ‘Losing’
- About dating when you want children
- They say you’re a ‘couple’, so why doesn’t it feel like that?
- It’s not someone else’s ‘job’ to make us happy
- Superficial relationships signal the need to develop a more intimate relationship with ourselves
- If you’re always The Giver, others have to play the role of The Taker
- 3 reasons why playing games in relationships is a bad idea
- Getting to know others involves acknowledging their consistent patterns
- Picking and choosing our battles
- The trouble with blending in
- Why some people try to make you feel bad about being single
- Awkward conversations don’t have to be avoided
- This is why that connection isn’t shorthand for “I know you”
- About Voting for the Relationship You Want
- You’re just not *that* intimate: No boundaries, no intimacy
- No more crumbs is a big yes to love, care, trust and respect
- Without integrity in our relationships, we can’t be emotionally available
- Recognising Healthy Interactions and Relationships (There’s a simple way to do it)
- Who’s Parked In Your Relationship Space?
- Our relationships begin before we have even met the person
- Be Careful What You Wish For (Or Raise Your Standards By Wishing For More)
- They Didn’t Change; You Just Got To Know Them
- About Unconditional Love
- There is no ‘job opening’; relationships are co-created.
- Blind Spots Block The Relationship You Want
- “They’re ‘Too Nice’ To Break Up With”
- Ask yourself: Is there a way that I could love myself AND be in the relationship too?
- Does Chemistry Matter When You First Meet Someone?
- There’s a Big Difference Between Interest and Commitment
- It’s Not That ‘One False Move’ You Made
- We’ve Got To Stop Trying To Recoup Our Sunk Costs In Our Relationships
- Advice Wednesday: He Didn’t Emotionally Support Me When I Lost My Father & Now He’s Done It Again
- Intensity Isn’t The Same As Intimacy
- It’s Unrealistic For Us To Expect To Be An Expert In Our Interpersonal Relationships
- Advice Wednesday: Should I Worry About His Reluctance To Label Our Relationship?
- Advice Wednesday: Help! I’m Just Not That Into My Mother
- Advice Wednesday: Help! I’m a doormat to my best friend
- Advice Wednesday: Something doesn’t feel right (& he still had the Plenty of Fish app on his iPad). Help!
- Are you doing the other person’s ‘job’ in your relationships?
- Advice Wednesday #9: Is It Possible To Remain Neutral Between My Feuding Friends?
- There’s No Need To Sacrifice You In Your Relationships
- Why We Must Be A Priority & Never An Option
- Advice Wednesday #1: How do I deal with my draining faux friend neighbour?
- No One Wants To Get Left Behind or Passed Over
- Being ‘Friends’ Can Be a Blind Spot In a Romance
- Best Guy/Woman Ever, Best Male Friend…Yeah… They’re Just Not THAT Special
- Faux Obligations With Family & How To Say No To Those Holiday Invites
- It Doesn’t Have To Be So Scary In a New Relationship
- Figuring Out If Your Relationship Has the Landmarks of Being Healthy and Loving
- Sometimes we prefer radio silence over vulnerability
- We Have To Allow Our Friendships To Evolve
- Is it my issues or am I in the wrong relationship?
- There’s nothing wrong with wanting love and a relationship but the path we choose to achieve our desires has its own consequences
- Commitment: If they can’t show up for the basics, they won’t be able to show up for the long haul
- What We Deserve Isn’t The Same As What Somebody Will Do
- Do you want to be in a battle or a relationship?
- Discussion Dodgers: When you try to raise an issue and the person finds fault with your timing or approach instead of addressing the issue at hand
- There’s a cost to leaving but there’s also a cost to staying
- Revisited: Relationships in a Nutshell – Co-pilots & the importance of a joint agenda
- You can’t date or forge a relationship without chipping in – it’s the cost of participation
- Do we really need to keep screwing around with friendship?
- The Quality of Our Relationships *Matter*. Forget Forced, Go Organic
- “Help! I’m scared of trusting!” Relax! There’s no need to be so ‘tight’ with trust!
- Relationships are 100:100 – It’s Tricky To Divide Up Relationships & People Into Halves
- Is It Time To Take a Break From Facebook? When Facebook Is ‘In Charge’ Of Your Self-Esteem
- How Do You Know If You Should Keep Working At A Struggling Or Even Flatlining Relationship?
- Can You Take a Hint? Why Hints Are Clues To What’s Really Up With Your Relationship
- You Can Be in Love On Your Own…But a Mutual Relationship Takes Two
- Disclosing Your Past and Insecurities
- Actions Matching Words in a Nutshell: If You Haven’t Got a Match, You Haven’t Got a Healthy Relationship But You Do Have Problems
- More on deal breakers: Knowing what will break your relationship deal…even when you’re crazy about them
- Can you elevator pitch your relationship issues or breakup? The importance of summarising and identifying issues
- Relationships in a Nutshell: Co-pilots, drivers, passengers and the importance of a joint agenda
- When You Experience Problems Upgrading Your Commitment
- The Landmarks of Healthy Relationships
- The Transition Phase: From Chasing a Relationship With Unlikely Sources To Dating Decent People and Giving Them a Hard Time
- Guest Post: Marriage Lessons That Can Benefit Any Relationship
- Getting Past The Fault Lines: Relationships are 100:100 Partnership, Not 50:50
- Love Lessons: Getting The Relationship You Expect, Not Every Man is Worth Keeping & More
- Get Out of Stuck! Getting Your Power Back In & Out of Relationships (Part 2)
- Get Out of Stuck! Getting Back Power In & Out of Relationships (Part 1)
- Getting Your Wake Up Call: Relationship Epiphanies
- Knowing When To Fold: Bad Investments in Relationships & Seeing The Bigger Picture
- The Life Lessons: How relationships teach us more about ourselves
- Knowing If You Feel Good In New Relationships Part Two
- Knowing If You Feel Good In New Relationships Part One
- When trust is absent from a relationship, there isn’t a relationship
- Reader Question: How do you teach someone boundaries for a healthy relationship?
- What is love and a good relationship?
- Relationships need two committed parties to grow and prosper
- Positive Woman, Positive Relationship
- Guest post: But, is he happy?
- Getting real about ‘successful’ relationships
- Return On Investment in Relationships
- Toxic Friendships
- How To Make Sure Your Relationship Survives Your Best Friend’s Wedding
- Tips for Meeting Your Boyfriend’s Parents
- 7 Tips for Saying ‘I Love You’
- 5 Quick Tips for Effective Communication Within Your Relationships
- Coping With Past Relationships
- Conscious Relationships
- 11 Maintenance Tips for a New Relationship
- You Make Your Own Relationship Luck
- Brain Training For Relationships
- 6 Things That Will Piss Off Most Women in a Relationship
- Tidy Up Your Love Life
- Guest Post: Raising Our Standards
- 7 Signs That Your Relationship Has Staying Power
- Honesty In Relationships
- Ten Key Lessons About Relationships
- NML’s Roughguide to a New Relationship
- Interracial Relationships
- Female Friendship: When She Can’t Be Happy For You
- Friendship and Sisterhood
- Tips for Good Female Friendships
- Let’s Stop Being Lazy About Communication
- Guest Post: An Emotional Guide for the New Relationship
- Wake Up & Communicate: The Marriage Issue
- Circle of Life
- Living Together: Committed or Trial?
- Great Expectations
