Boundaries protect the things we value like a fence around our house protects our home. When it comes to ourselves, in our relationships, boundaries protect our individuality, needs and sense of self from being absorbed, taken advantage of or ignored by the other in the relationship.
Read moreSelf Soothing Ideas
Self soothing means soothing or calming yourself when faced with a scary or difficult or even just mildly uncomfortable situation and is a great skill to have in your tool kit. Times you need to draw on these skills is when you notice perhaps beginning to feel a little anxious; a tightening in your chest or stomach; breathing quickens; heart rate goes up/pulse races; you may feel hot or flushed; start to fidget; lose your temper – the symptoms vary but essentially your brain has received a message that you are in an unsafe situation and it is starting to react.
Read moreDefensiveness
We develop defences to protect ourselves from all kinds of real and imagined pain that we have experienced over our lives. How impenetrable they are will be related to just how much we have had to defend ourselves in the past. Part of the attraction in the early stages of romantic love is that “falling in love” makes us feel like we don’t need our defences anymore. We feel we have finally found someone with whom we can be totally ourselves and our defences come down. As the relationship moves on, inevitably reality creeps in and our partners reveal themselves to be human after all and with being human comes the capacity to disappoint and cause pain. And the defences go back up again.
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