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How do you protect yourself from the hurt?
***UPDATE AT END OF POST
Greetings all, sorry I know I have been completely absent as of late. I am still working 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. Should be done in about two weeks which will be nice as I am missing having a life. But I am also very much struggling with being hurt and thought writing might help, so I am going to sneak in a post despite my schedule.
What I missed
Since I’ve been on the topic of how we work through our grief for that which we did not have, I thought I would share some particulars losses I ran into and what was underneath them. As I’ve worked my way through therapy and uncovered the feelings I had buried so long, I also uncovered losses I had not been able to admit, let alone grieve. This is a very personal list. I expect that some of this will resonate with other people and some of it will be not true for them or seem like a significant loss. These are mine, what I needed to mourn, and I again offer the disclaimer that not everyone will need to do this the way I did. But I am hoping by being more specific about some of the issues I faced, that the process might be more understandable, even if my reasons to mourn do not resonate with you. Continue Reading
Happy 1st Birthday Tales
It has been a very long, sucky, painful day, full of misunderstandings and hurts, some caused by me, to my regret and some inflicted on me. (Yay!! While I was working on this, someone did an amazing thing and was vulnerable and we’re repairing it. Great now I’m going to short out my keyboard!) So I am more grateful than I can say to come here to my blog to celebrate a very happy milestone for me, and hopefully for some of you. 🙂 Tales of a Boundary Ninja is one year old today. This is my first blog and I was both excited and terrified putting up those first posts, not quite believing anyone would actually want to read what I had to say. Continue Reading
Accepting the “not so pretty” Parts
At the heart of most, if not all, effective therapeutic relationships lies unconditional positive regard. Ideally, our therapists accept and affirm us, making it clear that this relationship does not depend on us changing. They value and care for us exactly as we are when we walk through their door. Yet most of us go to therapy because we want things to change. And one important principle about boundaries that is often conveyed is that you have no control over the other person: what they do, what they think, how they feel. The only thing you can control and change is yourself. So following the logic, if you wish things to change, then you needs must change yourself. At this point in the proceedings, you find yourself saying “BUT I’m fine just the way I am, didn’t you just tell me that? So I don’t need to change. Which is it, do I not need to change or not? Am I ok or not? Make up your mind, before I start heaving large blunt objects in your direction!! ” (For the record, I would like to state that although I have often felt the impulse, I have never actually thrown anything at BN. OK, except that pair of socks, but that’s a story for another day. ;))
So you don’t need to change, but you’re here to change is another of the paradoxes which reside at the heart of therapy. Continue Reading
Tales of a Boundary Ninja 
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