Navigating Difficult Family Relationships

I come from a family with highly defensive, controlling, and unpredictable behavior. I know what it's like to care about people who can be irresponsible, mean, uncooperative, or self-destructive. For too long, I was the emotional support animal for my difficult family members - so I know how painful, exhausting and depleting it is.

In my forties, I worked with a therapist who taught me something revolutionary: You can have compassion for the people you love while protecting your time, energy and resources.

Now, it's my pleasure and honor to share what I've learned.

It doesn't make you self-centered to be centered in yourself - grounded in your own feelings, needs, and boundaries.

This might feel familiar:

A parent, sibling, adult child or someone else in your family:

• Is emotionally immature
• Guilt-trips you or rages when you set boundaries
• Has untreated mental illness, impulse control issues, or behavioral problems
• Acts out in anger or does things that embarrass or humiliate you
• Rolls from crisis to crisis - pulling you in to rescue them
• Refuses to take responsibility for their own life
• Makes promises that give you hope, then reverts to old patterns
• Lies or behaves in ways that feel untrustworthy or unsafe

In response you find yourself:

• Feeling like their mood dictates yours
• Rehearsing or replaying difficult conversations on repeat
• Feeling guilty for wanting distance
• Wishing you could "just set boundaries" like it's that simple
• Feeling heartache, because you know they struggle, and most days, you love them

How therapy can help

Together we will learn how to:

• Set firm, kind boundaries that you can actually enforce
• Nurture yourself in ways that heal childhood trauma
• Transform your codependent tendencies into radical self-care
• Discover what genuine self-worth feels like
• Lovingly retire from the job of helping someone who won't help themselves
• Stop betraying yourself to be there for others

We will work on real skill-building, finding the language you need to express yourself clearly, firmly, and kindly, without giving in or shutting down. More than that, we will look at ways you can start giving yourself the care you've been giving everyone else, because…

No matter what else happens, when you are unfailingly kind, gentle, and compassionate with yourself, everything else feels easier.