Brenda Knowles's Blog: Space2live, page 10

Avoiding or Approaching: Do You Strive to Escape or Connect?

Often the easy way out is to avoid something hard. We all have moments of weakness when we opt for  that path. We also have moments of courage when we move toward a difficult situation or conversation. In my experiences of parenting, marriage, coaching, writing, working within the juvenile justice system and as a special [...]

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Are You Motivated by Status or Growth?

Are you motivated by status or growth? This is the question I intend to discuss in this post. In my relationships and in my work, I've been motivated by many things. My first marriage included a huge rise in financial and lifestyle status. I was driven to obtain and maintain that status. Writing The Quiet [...]

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What You Need to Reverse Childhood Adversity

A landmark longitudinal study done in San Diego by Drs. Vincent Felitti and Dr. Robert Anda and colleagues, links adverse childhood experiences (ACES) with increased risk for heart disease, addiction, cancer and auto-immune diseases, to name a few. The book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity came across my radar twice in [...]

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One Way to Tell If Our Behavior Is a Problem

Some of you may have noticed. My posts are a tad shorter lately. I am working every day at the local high school as a paraprofessional. As you can imagine, my after school time is now devoted to errands, tasks and social obligations I did not get to do during the workday. My intention is [...]

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Why Asking for Help Is So Hard: The Difficulty with Dependence in Relationships

How are you at asking for help? Does it come easy to you? Do you trust you will be assisted? Does it make you feel anxious? Do you try to avoid it? I have discovered that asking for help sets off a cascade of emotions and defenses for me. When Mark and I first started [...]

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What the Heck Does Secure Attachment Look Like?

I've talked at great length about what insecure attachment in relationships looks like. Check out these posts if you need a reminder: This Is Not What I Expected, but That's OK: Reversing Our Insecure Attachment Stories Creating Relationship Security When You Have an Anxious Attachment Style Attachment Styles in Romance and Parenting: Moving Toward Love [...]

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Coping Mechanisms: Useful or Not Useful?

When we struggle, we make adaptations to our personalities and our behavior to get through the discomfort. I've previously written about coping strategies. They generally develop because we need more attention or less pain from our primary caregivers and family members. We may learn to be a people-pleaser or extra nice so as not to [...]

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Pause When Aggravated

I've been working on defining the difference between expressing my feelings and dumping criticism and aggravation on someone. Mostly, this happens in exchanges with my husband. Often I believe I am expressing my emotions (something I've read over and over is a healthy thing) and he feels like I am attacking him. I have not [...]

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Update: New Job a New Way to Self-Regulate

I apologize for being hit or miss with my post delivery lately. Those of you subscribed to the blog may have noticed you did not receive a new post last week. I have had technical difficulties with publicizing my writing this whole year. It has been highly frustrating. No one seems to know how to [...]

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Will Ferrell, Teams, Discipline and Security

  I recently listened to an interview with comedian actor Will Ferrell on Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard. In case you haven't figured it out, I'm a fan of this podcast. Will Ferrell talked about how he grew up in a divorced household. His parents split up when he was eight. Will was quite the athlete [...]

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