I bought this cute block décor, but realize that its flowery words actually irk me. “Bloom where you are planted” is meant to conjure a visual reminder to flourish within our present season and circumstance, without comparing or competing or striving for what we don’t …
In light of feedback from my last blog post, I feel the need to explore the idea of people pleasing and dreaming in more depth. Often when we think of the people in our lives that put limits on us and our dreams, we imagine …
What happens when you take a recovering people-pleaser and chronic approval addict and take away the majority of the people from her life? She gets a wide open space, suitable for both flailing and dreaming with nobody watching. And it turns out, some things actually …
I just watched the new Taylor Swift documentary “Miss Americana” on Netflix. Though my life is so far removed from Taylor’s I found myself choked up by the parts of her journey that overlap my own. She talks about the need to please people- the …
You might think of extroverts as the life of the party, the center of every gathering. Maybe you picture them laughing with every friend and mingling with ease, or walking up to new people to introduce themselves without a trace of nervous sweat. Maybe the …
I thought people-pleasing, by definition, was a selfless quality. Granted, people-pleasing isn’t for the faint of heart. It requires exhausting over-thinking, painstaking anticipation of emotional responses BEFORE they occur, and the compromising flexibility of a contortionist to bend into whatever agreeable shape is needed in …
“Your homework this week is to seek out difficult conversations.” My life coach had built me up and helped me pull out my mission statement, but then she left me with those jarring words. Not only did she want me to respond boldly to difficult …
I really thought grace and I were getting along just fine. But it turns out, grace makes me nervous sometimes. She is just so wild and doesn’t expect anything in return and I don’t do well with that. I’d really like to earn my grace, …
“Carrye?” A woman in comfortable boho style pants called into the waiting room, and I packed up my writing supplies to follow my new physical therapist into her spacious treatment room. She made small talk about what I was writing before launching into discussion about …
Four+ days in a cabin with 10 adults and 7 children has taught me many things: don’t put your cup of water down without marking it as yours; be cautious of trying to use the bathroom during a game of hide-and-seek; and if you play …