Imagine the gift this work is to my kids and family of choice

This quote is one of my favorites. I find the visual chosen, here, really meaningful as well.

Stop.

Whining, stop recalling, stop obsessing, stop remembering, stop caring so much (in some instances), and stop the self sabotaging.

Self love, respect, and accountability follow immediately and naturally at the stopping of these vises.

Instead of pointing out others' lack of accountability, keeping track of my own keeps me occupied these days.

Tough one lately is putting a serious stop to the triangulation. I still find myself enquiring "What does so and so think of such and such?"  Man.  Thankfully, my kids remind me that this isn't something they choose to give much thought. Of course, I think to myself - Why would they?  It's triangulation.  It's unhealthy.  It's wrong.

What did so and so say?  Who thinks this and who believes that?  If I want to know, I need to ask the first party.

Imagine the gift this work is to my kids and family of choice. Not to mention the gift I'm giving myself.

Deliberately NOT putting others in an uncomfortable position takes conscious work for the adult child of a narcissist. But it's so worth the effort.

This again is all about boundaries.  How to create and keep healthy personal boundaries and too, how to respect others' boundaries.

There is a grey area with boundaries that is sometimes to be implied or even assumed in healthy relating that one needs to become cognizant of in order that things remain comfortable. People learn to navigate this grey area from an early age, however, for children of especially the narcissistic mother, it is learned later in life.

And for us this is what I call a deliberate practice of purposefully navigating personal boundaries.

 When in the past, often in an attempt to avoid doing this work, I trampled others' boundaries while not clearly setting my own resulting in misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and personal setbacks - I now do things differently.

Now and future confrontations are led, instead, with this tool.

Frankly, those who react negatively to personal boundaries are people to be avoided anyway. Often times we wish this weren't the case. And that's when in the past I chose to not deal with it at all - and just either allow them to destroy me or when forced to relate with them when they are experiencing a life change or a particular anxiety filled time, in order to keep the (relationship), show up in some way or condition that I didn't have to feel.

So, yeah. That was crazy and crazy making behavior.

It is always really sad when we realize someone in our lives are a negative force when after confronting them with personal boundaries (even with the utmost kindness and sincerity) they are defensive and dismissive.

We discover this is a weeding process in the end.  Something others have done their whole lives on first meeting anyone. Look how arrested this simple step in socialization is for the child of the narcissistic mother.

By the same token, when others reinforce their own boundaries with me, it is a gentle reminder how far I've come in the work and also that I need to keep the practice in the forefront.

I have great respect for myself and others who use this tool in life, refusing to accept anything less.