Lifesuccessnz personal development

When a Friend Controls the Friendship A CBT guide to spotting the pattern, changing your thinking, and taking your power back You leave the coffee catch-up feeling smaller than when you arrived. Somehow the whole conversation was about them again. You rehearse what you'll say to avoid upsetting them, you cancel your own plans when they're "having a hard time," and you can't remember the last time they asked how you were and actually listened to the answer. If that sounds familiar, you're not imagining it, and you're not weak. Friendships with controlling, self-centred people are confusing precisely because they're rarely bad all the time. The warmth, the charm and the occasional generosity keep you hoping. The criticism, guilt-tripping and pressure keep you compliant. This post uses  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)  to help you with the part you can actually change: your thoughts, your responses and your boundaries. You can't rewrite another pe...

  YOUR MIND, YOUR RULES Build Your Own Security: How to Stop Outsourcing Your Sense of Safety to Relationships A CBT approach to feeling steady inside, whether or not someone is reassuring you. You get a warm message and your whole body relaxes. Then a reply takes a few hours longer than usual and your mind starts writing the worst possible story: they’re losing interest, you said something wrong, it’s all about to fall apart. If your sense of safety rises and falls with how another person behaves, you’re not weak or “too needy.” You’ve learned, probably a long time ago, that security is something that comes from other people. The good news from a CBT perspective: what was learned can be updated. You can build a steady base inside yourself, and relationships get better when you do. Why relationship-based security is so fragile When another person is your main source of reassurance, three things tend to happen: •  Their mood becomes your weather.  A quiet partner, a distra...