Brenda Knowles's Blog: Space2live, page 3

How to Free Yourself from Expectations

  Friends, today I have something special to share with you: An excerpt from a soon-to-be-published  book called You Don’t Owe Anyone by my friend Caroline Garnet McGraw.  To quote Caroline, “The book is about how I realized that actually, I don't owe anybody anything. For  years I thought I did. I was world class [...]

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High Sensitivity Means Feeling High Annoyance and Irritation?

Time together during the Covid quarantine has really amped up my level of annoyance and irritation. I have found myself griping under my breath and out loud about everything from too much noise in the kitchen to too much clutter on the counters. At this point, it does not take much to set me off. [...]

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More Compassion and Less Empathy Saves Energy

I get a fair amount of my self-esteem from helping people. Supplying others with what they need, makes me feel useful. It gives me a ticket to enter certain circles — family, co-worker, friend groups. The trouble with this people-pleasing nature is it drains anyone who primarily channels it through empathy. We take on the other [...]

Imposter Syndrome: A Blessing in Disguise

As I begin to daydream about the next five to ten years as an empty nester, a few concepts and ideas re-enter my consciousness. One of those concepts is imposter syndrome. What is imposter syndrome? My writing friend, Andy Mort, covers this topic in depth, starting years ago. Andy mentions how many of us feel [...]

Responsibly Setting Limits in a Long-Term Relationship

  I have harbored a lot of resentment over the years. The chief cause? A feeling that my partner buries me with the majority of the mundane, daily, essential, non-glamorous and non-paying household jobs while they soar at their interesting, daily, essential, sexy and high paying careers. The resentment only grew when they expected praise [...]

The Difference Between Neediness and Needing

She is commonly afraid of needing too much and then being rejected, judged or abandoned. Rejection, judgment, and abandonment are most painful because deep inside her unconscious she holds the incorrect belief that she is unworthy of receiving more. This belief was formed and reinforced in childhood every time she had to suppress her feelings, [...]

Empty Nest Decisions and Dormancy

I am not sure what to blame my creative slump on: Covid 19 or ten years of writing for brendaknowles.com. All I want to do is collect new experiences and information and rest. I do not want to organize anything or put it in writing. Covid 19's slow drain on energy I know I am [...]

The Power of Vulnerability

  Hello Readers, This week's guest post offers something I can't give you –  the young male perspective on vulnerability. There are definitely areas of overlap when it comes to vulnerability for men, women and non-binary genders, and this article from Marcus Neo gives you those and more. Please enjoy! I did! The Power of [...]

Covid’s Personal Space Crunch

Introverts, highly sensitive people and those with avoidant attachment styles love personal space. We feel depleted, anxious and even irritated without it. I miss people Covid 19 has left most of us craving time to ourselves, craving other's company or both. I wrote previously about how the pandemic has shown me how much I truly [...]

Top Brendaknowles.com Posts of 2020

Hello Everyone! Welcome to 2021! Before we leap from 2020 to the new year, I want to share some of the most read posts from 2020. Most of them make sense when seen in the context of the trying year. 2020 had most of us mourning the loss of autonomy, struggling to sleep, witnessing racial [...]