This post is for anyone who is dating, living, or working with someone who has an arrogant, intellectual air about them, who finds ways to put them down. This post is for anyone who has to deal with someone who behaves as if they are supremely more intelligent than others and who MUST find ways to tell the world how amazingly brilliant they are and often at your expense.

Not all narcissists are unintelligent sociopaths. Some of them in fact, are the brightest minds on earth. When we are dealing with an intellectual or cerebral narcissist, it can be even more challenging to hold onto the self because they have such a wonderful command of language.

In the end, consider how people make you feel.

If someone respects and loves you--you'll know it.

If someone is trying to make you feel bad so they can feel good--you'll know that too.

Drop into your heart space and ask yourself, "How does this person make me feel?" and then, listen.

Don't let any little smarty pants make you feel bad about...

As children, many of us who experienced emotional neglect spent our days fantasizing about the perfect person who would rescue us from our toxic homes. We relied on these fantasies to help us get through a day, however, there are very real consequences to whimsical thinking.

While we were still unaware we were unaware, our brains and minds became attuned to thinking and believing in relationship dynamics that were built upon pain, immaturity, and fantasy.

Although imagining being rescued or being the rescuer helped to fill our depressed brains with fuzzy warm feeling hormones like oxytocin, on a very deep level, we were developing beliefs about how life should be.
As healing codependent adults, we need to be very careful about the way we perceive ourselves, others, and relationships.

We need to ask ourselves;
"Have I idealized this person and now, as the honeymoon period wears off, am I blaming this person for NOT sizing up to the fantasy version of this person I talked myself into...

Many people ask me about how to set boundaries. I am asked things like,
"How can I set a clear boundary with my mother-in-law?"
"How can I set a boundary with my children?"
"How can I set a boundary with my mother?"

The thing is, you cannot serve two masters.

Dear One, you HAVE to DECIDE. Will you serve others’s happiness or your OWN?
Will you serve to PLEASE others or will you learn to live to please your SELF?
Will you cater to the needs of OTHERS or will you learn to cater to your OWN needs?

Boundaries are misunderstood. Many of us think of boundaries and see lines in the sand or clear lines of demarcation. When we think of boundaries we see stop signs in our heads and sometimes feel this tightness in our chest. We associate boundaries with being tough and strong--and yet--boundaries are about being open, honest, kind, authentic and real.

You know that electric surge you feel go up to your spine when someone does something that ticks you off, or what about that tight feeling in...

If it was easy to have healthy balanced relationships, everyone we know would be doing it, including ourselves.

The reality is, people are human, most of them are asleep to some degree, and all of us have subconscious wounds we carry, whether we are aware of them or not. This means that when we meet someone, it is HIGHLY unrealistic to presume that they will never hurt our feelings, say something that will piss us off, or meet every one of our needs every time we have a need that need to gets met. It is just as unrealistic to presume we will not offend someone we care about, no matter how hard we try.

If we want to find relationships that work, then we have to start by being FAIR. We aren’t perfect and neither is anyone else. We don’t read minds and neither do most people we meet, although often, we expect people to know precisely what we need even if we don’t have a clue as to what that is.

If we have never felt loved, as adults, we may think that love should play...

If you are an adult child from a dysfunctional home, whether the tool of dysfunction used was alcohol, emotional manipulation, guilt, shame or physical or sexual abuse--as an adult today, you may have a tough time getting out of your head.

Why? Why is it that so many of us who felt so pained as children have such a hard time getting ourselves involved with others in an intimate way?

So many of us struggle with intimacy today because our first experiences with love were so painful. We have been programmed and conditioned to fear being loved by others, as well as fear loving others. Our unconscious mind has us hard-wired to fear to let down our shield--the one that we can feel but cannot see--but that others can feel as well. The one that says, "It is safer to give than to expect to be given to," which of course keeps us spiritually and emotionally malnourished (unconsciously of course).

When an innocent child experiences emotional estrangement from the very beings that brought them...