People-pleasing and the fear of ‘inconveniencing’ others
Something I’m very aware of is that I have an in-built discomfort about ‘inconveniencing’ others. Thanks to being a recovering people-pleaser and it being as natural to me as breathing because it started in early childhood, my longstanding habit was...
Why they’re still emotionally unavailable despite how much you tried
In my first book Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, I talk about the self-blame someone’s emotional unavailability can trigger. “Many readers [of Baggage Reclaim] believe their situation is unique and that the strange relationship that they’ve found...
We ignore red flags and our intuition because we want the fantasy
When we’re truly honest about why we ignore red flags or what I call code amber and red alerts, it’s because we want whoever or whatever it is to become our ideal person or situation. We’re in pursuit of a far-out fantasy. And if despite the odds given the red flags,...
Why your ex still reaches out periodically: intermittent reinforcement
I hear from so many people who have an ex they ‘randomly’ hear from out of the blue, typically via email or text. And these exes range from people they went on barely a handful of dates with, to people they dated but who didn’t feel ready for a...
Are you out of alignment with your values and needs?
Something many people struggle with is understanding why something isn’t working or why they don’t feel good. Despite doing all of the ‘right’ things or supposedly having what they want, like their ‘dream job’ or ‘perfect...
What if you’re not inviting misfortune upon yourself?
When life doesn’t go according to plan, when we believe we’ve erred or even failed, it’s worth considering whether part of why it feels so crushing, so painful, is the underlying belief that these things only happen to people who have not worked hard...
About giving the benefit of the doubt
Many humans pride themselves on being ‘good’ and ‘trusting’. This means that when we find ourselves in what might feel like the awkward predicament of not trusting someone, we feel bad about it. There can be this sense that we are bearing...
Feeling like someone took the better version of you when they left
Sometimes, what we miss the most about someone is who we thought we were or who we became when around them. In our mind, we became someone with possibilities. We blossomed into the most attractive version of us. And now, they’re out of our life, and we feel lost...
Rejection and disappointment are wounding when you were willing to give you up
Society has conditioned us to believe that abandonment of the self at the mere whiff of romantic interest or a potential relationship is normal. We think it’s the cost of finding love, so we’re willing to exchange loss of self for someone else’s...
What if your only resolution this year was loving yourself more?
In the first few weeks of every year of the almost seventeen that I’ve been blogging about relationships and human behaviour, I hear from so many people who have essentially crashed and burned on the disappointment of not living up to their expectations of the...
