New beginning can happen any day.  It’s an internal decision to make a shift, sometimes by choice and sometimes by circumstance.  The real question is, are you ready for a new beginning?  Are you ready to stop living on a path that doesn’t work and move to a path that does?  That shift can begin today…if you choose. 

What are healthy boundaries?  Are you not supposed to feel for another’s pain?  Are you not supposed to help out?  Is offering advice bad?

 Here’s how you can quickly identify healthy boundaries – check in with your stomach and heart.  When you are tilting towards unhealthy there is an emotional pull you can actually feel from your stomach and/or heart.  It’s almost like an energy rope pulling or sucking you in a certain direction (I must save them!  I have to step in!)  There is desperate feeling in the air.

 With healthy boundaries you feel grounded, maybe your feet even feel heavy.  Your heart may still hurt for someone, but it is more like a squeeze then an uncontrollable pull. 

 It’s not usually the specific activity that identifies something as unhealthy but the emotions that are driving the support/boundary.  Sometimes people really do need extreme support offered by you, but the cost does not have to be your well-being. 

 How to do keep healthy boundaries?  By taking care of you every day.  That means checking in with yourself daily; eating and sleeping well; laughing; using humor when all else fails and when you feel that negative energetic pull, that’s your queue to consciously ground your energy down.  Down through your feet until you feel a sense of balance return.

 So, are you feeling grounded today?

Watching your loved ones suffer is hard.  Harder still is not trying to ‘fix’ the problem or the person yourself.

 It is almost impossible for me to hold my tongue when I see my loved ones struggling.  Most of the time I am able to withhold my advice by the simple truth, I am not really doing any of them any favors when I interfere.  Sure, it feels good to me to offer my so called wise council, but am I really helping?  Or am I denying them their own empowerment by wanting them to do it my way?

 I may think I am saving them from making the wrong choice, but don’t we all know it’s in those mistakes that the greatest lessons can be discovered?  Within the lesson, transformational moments happen – ultimately unlocking each person’s own separate peace. 

 When I step in, I deny my loved ones this opportunity.  I learned awhile ago that when you really love someone you allow them their failures.  There is room for mistakes and you continue to love them.  You may not excuse or accept all the behaviors, but with healthy boundaries, you can still love them as they stumble through the quagmire to a new day. 

 Hence instead of offering unsolicited advice, I encourage you to tell your loved ones you belief in them.  Maybe you do need to connect them to outside support.  Do, and then step back.  Return your focus to what you can fix, you. 

 You will discover much of your pointing at another’s problems is really masking your own real hurts that need healing.  This is your work.

 Later this week I will discuss healthy boundaries and family.  Please email me any specific questions that I can include in the discussion.

…Liking yourself.  When you like yourself, you accept yourself.  As life twists and turns, you respond with humor and compassion.  You allow yourself mistakes without judgment, as you know that nobody, including you is perfect. 

 When you like yourself, you aren’t threatened by another’s success.  You know there is enough for all and you are grateful.

 And best of all, when you like yourself, it shows.  There’s a certain glow of self-worth that radiates from those who like themselves.  It is attractive and you’ll notice, those who like themselves seem to have people around that like them too…

 How about you, do you like yourself?  Can you laugh with yourself, instead of at yourself?  Have you discovered the secret to happiness?

3. Do you feel required to help?  It’s your job?  Is there a guilty, emotional tug that drives you to help?  A good question for yourself is – do I have a choice?  If you don’t feel like you have a choice, nine times out of ten you are really rescuing. 

 When you help someone from a healthy place, it’s from a place of fullness not lack.  Your support is not dependent on anything in return, just goodwill.  Your help has healthy boundaries and you are able to see the person also has choices.  The person can say no to your offered help and it’s ok.  You can say no and that’s ok too. 

 If you struggle with saying no, then I encourage you to go deeper.  This isn’t about helping someone else, but about validating how you see yourself.  Rescuing becomes how you identify yourself and your role in relationships.  Ultimately it becomes how you see your worth – to rescue others…Unfortunately this seemingly ‘good’ intention is actually harmful – do you really know what’s best for others?  Are you some all-knowing God here to re-direct your loved ones to the right path?  Maybe making mistakes is how they will learn the lessons they are here to transcend… 

 I like to think of babies learning to walk.  They must fall down, over and over.  They will never, ever learn to walk on their own if someone is always holding them up beneath their arms.  They need to find their own balance amid the falls…We never change.  Our falls look different at 32 and 48, but fall we do…And each of us, no matter what the event, must find our own separate peace…Can you allow another’s peace to look different from your own and be ok with that?

2. Regardless of whether the person asked for help or not, can the person do this for themselves?  Or is your ‘help’ keeping this person in a victim place or dependent on you? 

 Sure, sometimes we all need help.  There are real health crises and other life events that require support from those around us, but is your help actually undermining the success of another?  Does this other person need to do for themselves if only to know they can?  Sometimes our help does more harm then good.

1.  When we rescue, often we just step in without an invitation.  We withhold information from the person to ‘protect’ them or we ‘do’ things for the person to make it easier for them, after all, we’re just helping.  

 Actually, there is a fine line between helping and enabling.  I good way to identify the difference is to ask yourself if you are looking for a pay-off?  Are you looking to control something, someone or even the information?  Are you looking for love?  Are you trying to keep things the same?  Do you want to feel like the special friend/lover who really understands?  If you are looking for any emotional payoff – guess what?  You are in rescue mode.

 As you can see, when you are rescuing someone, it is actually about you and how you want to feel about yourself.  You may convince yourself it is about the other, but that’s a mirage to keep your self-image held up.  If you are rescuing then you can’t be the one messed up, right?

 Rescuing keeps you busy.   Obligations are created to distract and provide excuses as to why your own goals and dreams are delayed if not ultimately left unrealized.  It’s a choice.  It’s a choice to get into your own life and rescue yourself from the same behaviors that keep you in a less-than place.

Are you rescuing someone?  Here are three simple questions to ask yourself before you help…

 1.         Has this person asked you to do this for them? 

2.         Can this person do this for themselves?

3.         Do you want to do it?

 Rescuing others comes as the cost of our own journey.  How can you possibly get to your own best life when you are distracted by where those around you are on their own journeys?  Or is that the point?  Does rescuing others keep you from ‘failing’ at your own life?

 This week in my blog I will be examining these three questions and how they impact you connecting to your most abundant life…So take a few moments over the next day and really look at the relationships in your own life – are you rescuing someone?  Check back tomorrow to explore what may be driving your desire to rescue…

1.  Is there a pattern?  Have you been here before?  It could be painful and frustrating to acknowledge, but if you have been in these shoes before, you still need to learn something.  Instead of getting bogged down in beating yourself up for being in this place again, I encourage you to try something new.  Respond differently.

 If you and your partner always fight about the same thing, I’m betting you are really fighting about the boundaries of your relationship or unmet needs.  If you are always broke, this is not about a job, but you and your deserving or being enough.  The problems are in fact opportunities for transformation, but first you have to transcend the beating up of self (ego trap.) 

 Beating yourself up keeps you down, stuck in your ego.  What if you responded with compassion and curiosity?  What if you used humor?  One of my self-defeating patterns is worst-case scenario thinking, because if I think of the worst thing, I’ll be ready, right?  Wrong, I’ll just be tired and anxious. 

 Here’s the compassion part – this strategy was born in my frightening childhood.  I was raised in a violent, alcoholic home, thus worst-case scenarios happened, but I am not a child any longer.  I don’t live in an alcoholic home; hence those strategies are hurting me today, instead of helping me. 

 Here’s the curiosity – what am I afraid of?  Afraid of losing?  Afraid of change?  Afraid of success? 

 We all will find ourselves in a pattern every now and then – it’s ok, we are always growing and expanding.  The key is to not get stuck in a pattern, but to use those moments to readjust and transform to what does work in this new day.

During the past couple months I have been witness to death.  A dear friend’s mother, small children and friends have died recently.  It has been an amazing lesson in living…

 Now is your time.  Today.  Nothing and I do mean nothing can make you appreciate life more than death.  Peace is to be enjoyed today and it is a choice…

 I have been honored, humbled and moved to receive updates of from a CaringBridge journal.  (CaringBridge.Org is a web site created to help you stay connected with loved ones during a serious health event.)  An old college frat brother of my husband’s is dying of brain cancer.  His wife updates the journal every few days.

 I can not begin to express how profoundly moved I am by her courage and grace as she moves through this transition.  Her beloved, the father of their child, her very best friend is moving onto another shore and she can but watch from the banks…How do you say good-bye?

 She is doing it well – celebrating small successes, humor, abounding love, tears and humbly she measures her days in conversations and words.  I am so grateful to be able to be an intimate witness of this family’s journey – I am better for it.

 Instead of shutting down, this woman’s heart bursts open – she has made to choice to celebrate and savor this moment.  Yes, she has made a choice to get into the boat with her husband.  To hold his hand until he reaches his own new shore…But she can not walk with him on his new beach, she must go back to the life they created together before this strange path unfolded.  She can only see in part right now…

 A couple weeks ago a dear friend’s mom died.  Unfortunately for this family there were many things left broken.  There are eight siblings in the family.  Before meeting the other siblings at the funeral, I only heard stories of the bickering.  In my mind I saw little kids fighting about who loves me best, hence when I saw this motley lot I was shocked to see they were all old people with gray hair.  For many of them, they had made the choice to be angry – forever. 

 Let’s be clear, most of us did not get the childhood we wanted.  There were real disappointments, betrayals, maybe violence and here we are.  I would say 90% of all parents are trying to do there best.  Unfortunately the best someone’s got can be stunning inadequate at times… 

 The wife I spoke of early could have made the choice to be angry – the situation is unfair.  Her husband was well just a year ago and now here they are.  I dare say this wasn’t the ending she wanted – it is cut too short. 

 And she responds with love, savoring the moments, the surprising conversations, thankful for the prayers holding them up and finding comfort in the sure knowledge – today she can only see in part, one day, one day she will see all…

 Information to create your own network of support through the CaringBridge.org.