The Struggle

Practical, tactical, how-to-deal-with-it ideas & inspiration

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Enough with just getting by, start healing

Gaslighting: Signs, Situations, and Tips For Pushing Back

What does “gaslighting” even mean? Well, it all starts out with your stove…. Just kidding! (Sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves!) For real this time, use this table of contents below to learn what gaslighting is, where it can show up, how to spot it –and most importantly– how to deal with it. What Is Gaslighting? In What Kinds Of Relationships Might I Experience Gaslighting? Gaslighting In Romantic Relationships Gaslighting In Families Signs Of Gaslighting: A Checklist How To Reject Gaslighting

From Coping To Healing: Making The Transition

Sometimes, we feel like all we can do is cope with our mental health. We don’t believe that we have the time, the resources, or the ability to actually work through our scars and struggles. Though managing symptoms through coping mechanisms may work temporarily, coping is not a long-term solution. Healing, on the other hand, means making long-term changes that allow us to thrive, rather than just barely survive. We can all work through our trauma and its effects on

After Trauma: Post Traumatic Growth and Liminal Space

Once you endure major trauma, you will change as a person–that much is certain. And while you didn’t choose your trauma or the potential negative impact that it had on you, you do get to decide what you’ll do next. That’s the beauty of both liminality, and the post traumatic growth it leads to. How Trauma Changes Us I am a trauma survivor. In October of 2016, I survived an assault, and prior to that, I’d undergone a very substantial amount

Healing From Injustice By Channeling Righteous Anger

Anger is a normal, valid, and often adaptive response to frustrating situations; not the demon it’s often made out to be. But anger–even righteous anger–can quickly become self-destructive if not processed carefully. In this guide, we discuss where anger comes from, how to understand your own anger, and how to use anger as motivation for healing. Healing from anger is very different from ignoring or stuffing it down. Additionally we want to note that while this article may also apply

Recover Your Sense Of Self In Order To Heal

When you’ve experienced a scarring event or relationship, healing means learning to follow your own path, and to meet your own needs before others’. However, the experiences that necessitate healing tend to also tear down your sense of self. How can you follow your own path, if your trauma keeps you from seeing it? In order to heal and make meaningful changes to your life, you have to recover your sense of self. Without rebuilding a strong sense of self,

NC: How To Go No Contact Without Guilt

Not everyone goes NC in their lives, but when you have to…you just have to. Below, we walk through the NC process and ways to beat the guilt that comes with it. For those of us who need to go the no-contact route, it often feels like an unpaved path that many can’t sympathize with or relate to. Even though many don’t get it, many do — and it may help to talk it out with one of those people.

Suffering: Why Do We Feel Emotional Pain?

As unpleasant as it can be, emotional pain is a tool that we can use. On the other hand, we suffer when we fail to meet our own needs and nurture ourselves in difficult emotional times. The worst suffering comes from unmet needs we have no power over. However, many of us suffer unnecessarily, in situations where we’ve dismissed our needs. Examining our own emotional pain helps us prevent needless suffering — and that helps us heal. Keep reading about

It’s Hard To Heal While Swimming In Self Blame

We all criticize ourselves every once in a while. Being aware of our faults and where we need to improve is a good thing. However, self-blame crosses the line from constructive self-awareness into emotional self-harm. Self-blame often pops up as a result of trauma, and can really mess with both physical and mental health. And in an unhelpful feedback loop, battling self-blame makes healing trauma, depression, and anxiety significantly more difficult. It’s important to remember that your struggles are not

Heartbreak: How To Heal After A Long Term Relationship

Can you mend a broken heart after a long term relationship? Yes. Have faith in your ability to heal from heartbreak, and get familiar with the 7-step process ahead… At the end of a long term relationship, only a few lucky folks escape feeling free of heartbreak. Especially after a lengthy period of time, you likely expected this to last, and may have even counted on it to last. Is it even possible to heal from this severe a broken

How To Know Your Boundaries And Assert Them Without Guilt

You politely laugh off something that makes you uncomfortable, only to later realize you wish you’d spoken up. You didn’t even hint at your discomfort, because you didn’t realize it was a problem for you, until after-the-fact. What would help in this situation? Learning your boundaries. Setting boundaries is both nerve-wracking and necessary, but it remains impossible without getting to know your boundaries. Few of us learn our own personal boundaries while growing up, and many others sacrifice their boundaries