Tag Archives: relationships

Personal Boundaries: Why, When and How to Protect Yourself

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Recently, Husband #2 and I changed the locks at our home. It was time. Actually, it was long overdue. Like, years overdue. After the upgrade, the deadbolt and the door handle are both the same color. And the door latches without having to pull it extra-hard. And the deadbolt doesn’t stick. Overall, it was worth the effort. But this isn’t a blog about home improvement projects. And I’m not just talking about my house here. This post is about personal boundaries. Like physical boundaries (locks, fences, walls, mountains, rivers, etc), personal boundaries create space around you and provide protection from external threats. […]

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relationship regrets

Relationship Regrets… I Won’t Do That Again

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Recently, I found myself retelling an old love story and I uttered the words, “I shouldn’t have done that.” And, while it’s true that I shouldn’t have done the thing that I did, I was immediately reminded of the experience that followed the thing and the lessons learned because of the thing. I don’t want to live with relationship regrets. After some thought, I changed my words to say, “I won’t do that again.” The experience caused me to reflect on other potential relationship regrets:  the issues of my past relationships, and the lessons I learned as a result. Following is a list of […]

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Love Like You’ve Never Been Hurt …?

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I’ve heard this Love Quote said both ways:   I think they’re both dumb. (That sounds harsh, I know) Of course, I enjoy the pretty pictures and the fantasy sentiment. And I like the often-accompanying messages about dancing like nobody’s watching and singing like you don’t need the money. I get it. It’s all about living from the heart and in the moment. But, the thing about being hurt… well, I think the existence of past and future hurts can enhance a partnership, not detract from it. To quote Glennon Doyle Melton: “Grief is love’s souvenir. It’s our proof that we […]

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Meant to Be

What’s Meant To Be…

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Was it Meant To Be? The night before I began my senior year of high school, my redheaded boyfriend and I broke up. I was heartbroken (funny how these things look so much different after a couple decades). About a week later, I received a wisdom-filled letter from my great aunt. “If it’s meant to be, it will,” she wrote. “And if it’s not, nothing will make it work.” She also suggested I take time to lick my wounds and focus on One Day At A Time while my heart healed. I found comfort in her words. Eventually I ran out of […]

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Trees preparing to let go

Before Letting Go, Do This

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This afternoon, I took a drive. It was a gorgeous day featuring unseasonably warm temperatures, so I opened the sun roof, cranked up some Ani DiFranco tunes and hit the back roads. As I drove, a few leaves floated into my car, and I thought about the beauty of autumn and the lessons the trees teach us about letting go. And I realized, for as long as I’ve appreciated nature’s release of that-which-no-longer serves, there’s an element of the process that I overlooked. A rather important element: Before the trees release their leaves, they stop feeding them. It’s a simple fact that’s […]

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