A recruiter is someone whose job is to match qualified candidates with suitable open positions at organisations. If they put any ole candidate forward for the role, they do everyone a disservice (and damage their reputation), so they have to be discerning. Having what I call a ‘recruiter mindset’ while dating saves you a lot of headache. This is especially so when a level of the ‘weeding’ often begins online. Those initial interactions matter. What you do or don’t do in the early stages of dating (stages 0-1) impacts relationship outcomes. Code amber and red alerts you ignore, dismiss or overr ..read more

In a world proliferated with inspirational quotes and lots of encouragement to be ourselves, lots of us don’t know what this means. It’s why one of my most frequently asked questions is, What the hell does being yourself mean and look like? Being yourself means letting you be the person you are when you’re not following all the rules (shoulds, musts, always, and nevers). When you’re being yourself, you’re being authentic, so being it’s the version of you that says no when you need, want to, or even should and also says yes authentically. You feel your feelings and allow you to experience conne ..read more

Boundaries are not about gaining agreement and validation. Instead, they’re about showing up and being stakeholders in our lives. If you consider that we are each our boundaries and our boundaries are us, we can’t make our existence about trying to please and prove ourselves to others. Healthier boundaries have to be about being more straightforward about who we are. People know who we are and where they stand when we know. A great way of grounding and checking in with yourself is to ensure you create and assert a boundary with your needs, expectations, desires, feelings, and opinions in mind ..read more

When you’ve been hurt and don’t feel safe in trusting others, it’s easy to rationalise that being in a bare-minimum relationship is the safe option. It’s like, How can I go wrong when I’m going out of my way to have low expectations? We figure accepting the bare minimum lowers the possibility of rejection and offers ‘low stakes’ to the other party. But a lot goes wrong because we’re doing ourselves a disservice. The decision to be in a bare-minimum relationship is self-rejection, so it accentuates the pain that caused us to make that choice in the first place. When we claim we need less than w ..read more

Over the last two decades, I’ve learned to pay attention to signs from my body and my life that I need attention and/or that I need to ask for or seek additional help and support from safe sources. This attitude is a dramatic shift for me because for the 28 years before, emotionally shutting down was my coping strategy. Avoiding feeling my feelings and being myself severely impacted my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. Here are some of the things I do now when my body and life call attention to my needs: Talk me through a set of ‘bad’ feelings so that I can calm down. I’m a fr ..read more

We’re often encouraged to be self-aware, but what does that mean? Here are some questions to help you answer the question Am I self-aware? Do you say no when you need, want to or even should? In those instances where you recognise you need to say no after saying yes, do you learn from it? Can you forgive yourself? Do you take care of you? Can you recognise and acknowledge your emotional baggage when it surfaces in situations? Do you know when you’re over your bandwidth? Do you recognise signals from your body and life about your needs? Are you able to trust yourself? Do you recognise ..read more

Feeling worse when you experience the onset of certain emotions or feeling as if you’re trying to anaesthetize feelings you’re attempting to repress, or feeling at a loss as to what to do when you need comfort and support, means that, like many of us, you haven’t learned to self-soothe healthily. It’s all that you know. You might say, think, or do things that compound the feelings. Or maybe you achieve temporary relief that ultimately delays and distracts in an unhealthy way. There are a variety of factors that contribute to how you self-soothe. For instance, perhaps your feelings were ignored ..read more

When we’re not used to letting our real selves hang out, voicing our needs, and creating healthy boundaries, it’s not unusual to assume that if we’re really into someone and we have ‘so much in common’, the rest should take of itself. In reality, that’s not how humans or relationships work. As a result, when we recognise something about the relationship setup isn’t meeting our needs, or we’re experiencing discomfort, it can throw us into an anxiety-inducing tailspin. Even if we try to pretend otherwise, once we’re aware of unmet needs and discomfort, a part of us knows the solution is to speak ..read more

I’ve worked with many clients who feel they’ve failed or are a failure because of a breakup or not being in a relationship yet. This mentality tells me a few things: They see themselves as being 100% responsible for the success of a relationship, so they will go to extraordinary lengths to make it a ‘success’, even if it hurts. To ‘make things work’, they were willing to overcompensate for where the other party wasn’t showing up, including hiding their needs. And they’d still be willing to do so if they thought it would lead to ‘success’. Because they see themselves as 100% responsible for th ..read more

When you say yes, but inwardly mean no, you stress your body with the conflict of the lie. Saying and doing one thing and feeling another (people pleasing) from time to time isn’t going to do too much harm, not least because being an occasional (as opposed to frequent or chronic) people pleaser suggests you normally prioritise being your authentic self. It also indicates that you’d learn from those times when you notice the conflict between how you feel inside or who you are and what you project or agree to on the outside. However, telling people what you think they want to hear and going ..read more