As many of you know I’ve been traveling for the greater part of 40 days and now that I am “back” the amount of stress, pressure, anxiety, and “oh no” that has flooded my mind is quite jarring. I want to take this as an opportunity to let you all know that no matter where you are on your journey, stuff is going to come up. You can have it all “figured out” and then life is going to toss some curveballs or some old habits or memories pop up out of nowhere and you’re like “wait! I thought this was over?!” Nope. We don’t lose them - We grow WITH them. So, what am I doing? 1. Accepting these thoughts and feelings. I’m not judging them or criticizing them. I’m allowing them in because they are part of me. It doesn’t make them right or wrong, it makes them mine. 2. Not every thought or feeling is fact. We’ve all had our fair share of not so great thoughts that we know are not actually objective facts aka “I suck”, “I’ll never figure it out”, or even the worse things that I’m not going to mention. They are not facts whatsoever. Rather than taking any of this fabricated pressure as fact, I am accepting the thoughts and feelings and looking at them as if they are clouds passing in the sky. Then I let them pass by. 3. I’m going to enjoy my day. I get cut off in traffic? I’m sure they had somewhere to be faster than I do. I spill coffee? Good thing I am in a place where I can make more. I have a disagreement with someone and get my feelings hurt? I take a breath. Pause. And seek clarity rather than responding immediately. I’m sure they meant something positive and not what my knee jerk reaction felt. You need to learn how to set boundaries with yourself. You say you’re going to workout? You keep your promise and workout. You say you’re going to be kinder to yourself? You keep your promise and begin taking steps toward being kinder to yourself. You say you’re going to get off your phone? You keep your promise and get off your phone. Keeping promises to yourself (and having boundaries with yourself and with others) is one of the greatest acts of self love and self care you can build.

After the tough love advise you said on your live I could not sleep. It sad a person online is more blunt and honest with me than people I have known for years. I some times wonder if people have selfish motives when giving advise (not you Tyler). You were right …I was scared. Which made me look for the smallest reason to break it off before he had any chance to hurt me. So I sat up til like 2am. Restless writing and thinking pro and cons why I was scared , good and bad, what I have to lose and what I could gain. Talk about overthinking everything . 230 this morning I pick up my phone and called not thinking this man could be sleeping and has to work in few hours . He answered and asked what was wrong voice. Lol. We talked til he had to go to work. We are still meeting on Friday. Thank you Tyler for the tough love advice.

How do we offer support to those around us? Sometimes people are venting and then we problem solve for them (when they didn't ask for it). Sometimes people are looking for problem solving and we just give them space (again when they didn't ask for it). So, 1) how do we offer support to those around us? and 2) how do we let others know the support we are looking for? Here's a method I developed that allowed me to actually offer help in a productive way (and also how to express the needs I had myself when I went to others with my 'things'). The video below gives a breakdown of how to offer support to someone in need in the forms of: - A listening ear - A sounding board - Problem solving - Space Or said another way that I've used A LOT in my TikTok LIVEs Are you looking for... - Support - Encouragement - Validation - Advice What do you all think of this method? Does it resonate? Have you tried it out? Let me know what you think is your go-to way of NEEDING help and your go-to way of OFFERING help!

Please give this video a watch (it’s 1-minute long) and let me know what you think of this Boundary Breakdown! https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXDflFLDKNB/?igsh=eDY5aTJwNmN4bHgw I absolutely love the way this is expressed and completely agree with his 4 points. Most of us are really good at being there for other people, and we also need to remember… we have to be there for ourselves, too!

This is going to be a very long post, but ive been having a hard time processing what im experiencing and just need to get my story out because everyone views this man as a saint and a perfect partner. And that is just so far from my experience with him and i feel so manipulated. Im sorry this isnt the successful self growth progress update i wanted my 1 month marker to be. Ive officially hit one month post breakup and i thought i was heading in the right direction but the last few days have been a huge struggle for me. For context: (I am 28, he is 30) i was recently broken up with over text by my partner of 3.5 years after living together for 2/2.5 ish years. It has been a very confusing time for me and through self reflection ive realized that i was put through a lot of mental and emotional abuse that im honestly embarrassed by. I wasn’t ignoring the red flags, i literally could not see them at all. This last month has had me in a mental spiral trying to decipher the reality i had perceived was happening and the reality of the man he was actually being behind his mask. Ive felt like i have been on the verge of a mental breakdown trying to comprehend any of this (i am safe and in therapy) I went no contact with him immediately but had a friend that got left behind on one of his social medias accidentally. (This friend is no longer on his socials and i have no further attachment to him now) This accidental tether to my ex was the reason i found out that not only has my ex already hard launched his new girlfriend, but he was actually officially with her exactly 2 weeks after the breakup. He had spent most of our relationship confiding in me about his traumas, especially his trauma around his fathers affair. Because of this i foolishly trusted him to be faithful without a single doubt. This lead to him having the ability to micro cheat on me with all of his little internet ladies and overall disrespecting me and my boundaries. (Examples include: love confessions from these women, nudes from these women, woman blatantly asking when he was going to leave me for them or if they could be his second girlfriend ect) i know about all of this because he would either sit me down and tell me to be “transparent that he shut them down” (i now realize this was him trying to show me he had options) and he would also be on live public tiktok streams with these women on speakerphone while i was in the room. I would hear them making fun of my appearance and my weight and while he would never encourage it he would “laugh it off” and when i would talk to him about how it hurt that he didnt set boundaries/defend me it would start an argument about how i didnt hear everything and that he does defend me when im not overhearing the conversations. This had me feeling crazy and controlling and i didnt want to dictate his friendships so i trusted his word.