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Your perspective fuels our mission-driven work at United Way of Greater New Haven. We are committed to building a team that is inclusive across race, gender, age, religion, identity, and lived experience. As an organization, we are committed to addressing systemic racism and injustice in our community, our partnerships, and our practices. 

Who We Are Looking For

Are you passionate about using your organizational talents as a force for good in our community? Are you energized by working in a fast-paced environment and helping organizational leaders execute their duties with promptness and accuracy? Do you enjoy managing schedules, coordinating events, and facilitating connections through various administrative duties?  And are you able to fulfill your responsibilities with discretion, while maintaining organizational confidentiality?

If so, our Executive Assistant position may be perfect for you.

What you’re great at:

• You excel at planning and execution of meetings and events. Do you love organizing events? Do you enjoy planning all aspects of a meeting to ensure it runs smoothly? In this position you will work directly with the CEO to support events and meetings in various areas of the organization, such as:
  • Scheduling and administration of virtual and in-person Board of Director meetings, including managing technology and producing minutes
  • Planning and coordinating logistics for key donor events
  • Scheduling meetings for the CEO with donors, prospective donors, prospective board and committee members, CEO’s, community leaders, etc.

• You are adept at project and task management. Do you have the organizational skills to ensure tasks are completed effectively and on time? Does the opportunity to organize others to achieve common goals bring you energy? Are you adept at the art of influencing others without having direct-line authority?  The Executive Assistant will be crucial to ensuring achievement of organizational goals, through responsibilities such as working with Board members to support their ability to complete tasks, supporting donor campaigns through tracking assignments and providing administrative support to staff and volunteers, and assisting the CEO with organizing key projects to completion.

• You’re an effective written and verbal communicator. Do you excel at clearly and concisely conveying messages to various recipients? Do you enjoy preparing and executing messages via all forms of communication, such as email, written, phone, or in-person? The Executive Assistant works closely with the CEO to ensure effective communication, both externally and internally. This includes, but is not limited to:
  • Preparing correspondence and reports to funders and United Way Worldwide.
  • Assisting with engagement of major donors through mailings and CEO outreach.
  • Updating and maintaining the Board’s SharePoint site and ensuring Board member access to the site.
  • Answering calls to the main phone line and greeting visitors to the office in the absence of the Administrative Assistant.

• You’re a team player. The Executive Assistant works closely with every department at United Way. As the CEO’s go-to team member, you will interact with all staff across the organization, as well as United Way partners, to ensure our operations run smoothly. You'll work to keep leadership running and our constituents feeling connected. And of course, there will be other duties as assigned.  

What You Need:

• A Bachelor's degree from a four-year college or university and/or equivalent of employment and education experience.
• Previous experience supporting an executive preferred.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Proficient with MS Office365 and demonstrated comfort in learning new software/ online tools as needed.
• Experience with customer relationship management database; Salesforce a plus.
• Creative, customer-focused service skills to achieve desired results.
• Excellent people skills.
• Attention to detail.
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Good time management skills.
• A commitment to discretion and confidentiality.
• Ability to work with diverse staff and volunteers.
• Personal qualities of integrity, credibility, and dedication to the mission of UWGNH. 
• Valid driver's license and reliable transportation required.

In accordance with organizational policies, this position requires a criminal background check as a condition of employment.

This is a full-time, onsite position, located at our office in New Haven, CT.

The pay range for this role is $58,000 - $64,000 annually.

Please submit a cover letter and resume. 

About United Way

United Way of Greater New Haven brings people and organizations together to create solutions to Greater New Haven’s most pressing challenges in the areas of Education, Health, and Financial Stability grounded in racial and social justice. We tackle issues that cannot be solved by any one group working alone. We operate according to these organizational values.

United Way is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Don’t check off every box in the requirements listed above? Please apply anyway! Studies have shown that marginalized communities - such as women, LGBTQ+ and people of color - are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. United Way of Greater New Haven is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to still consider submitting an application. You may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!

To Apply:

United Way Of Greater New Haven Inc - Executive Assistant (paylocity.com)

Photo Credit: Nini form Paris

This is part two of my series about the top three tools for managing life that I gained from 12-step recovery. If you missed part one of “Mastering the Art of Pausing” you can read that here. 

Today’s topic is reaching out for help and support. For me, that means both reaching out to other humans as well as reaching out to my Higher Power. I was incapable of reaching asking for help and support, even from God, before I got into recovery. This is despite the fact that by then, I identified as a very spiritual woman. 

Reaching out to other people

I somehow internalized the notion that I had to do everything myself. I wasn't “allowed” or not supposed to reach out to others to ask for help. It just wasn’t an option for me. I was the helper, the fixer, the rescuer. Recovery taught me the absolute necessity of reaching out and accepting help from others and my HP. 

We are wired for connection, and we’re pack animals. We need each other. I recently heard someone say that there are many ways to build a community, but there’s one way to annihilate a community: be self-sufficient. If everyone is self-sufficient, we don’t need each other. And that’s simply not the truth. 

This business of learning to reach out for help can be crippling. I remember feeling like I was gonna die when I first started entertaining the idea of asking for help. It felt threatening. I came to see that I believed it was somehow “weak” to reach out to others when that could not be further from the truth. It’s courageous and strong to allow people to see us, especially in our most vulnerable states.

One of the many ways that 12-step recovery programs are helpful to us in our journeys to heal and grow is that they’re group programs. As we say in recovery, they’re “WE programs, not I programs.” We recover together. We’re protected when we’re connected.

My first overtures to seek support were at times when I was really upset. I remember thinking, “What are they gonna do for me?” when I thought about reaching out to other women in recovery for support. What I learned is that what they’re going to do is witness me. They’re going to see me. And that is unbelievably powerful – to be seen at our most vulnerable, and accepted, and soothed and comforted.

Don’t get me wrong, the process of getting to the point where I actually reached out for help was extremely difficult. But lucky for me, I had hit a codependent bottom and was so desperate for healing that I was willing to try things I’d never tried, and to do what others in recovery told me worked for them. I became willing to feel the discomfort of trying new things that scared me, instead of the discomfort of suffering alone that was oh-so-familiar. The first time I sobbed on the shoulders of another woman in recovery was monumental for me. It was as if my sorrow was cut in half, shared by her. What a gift!

One thing that helped tremendously in my ability to reach out for help was to talk about how difficult it was with others in recovery. They had the same experience too. And to reach out to them just to stay connected, not because I needed help. That meant when the shit hit the fan, it was so much easier to reach out because I already had a connection, a relationship with these people.

Reaching out to my Higher Power

Then there’s reaching out to my Higher Power, which I choose to call God. I grew up agnostic until my mid-thirties when I read the book Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh. When I finished that book over a weekend, I believed in my own conception of God. I began to identify myself as a very spiritual person. 

By the time I got into recovery about 15 years later, my spirituality had evolved enormously. Yet I’d never once reached out to God to ask for help, or to ask for guidance. What I mainly did before recovery was express gratitude to God. Which I still do, all the time (in fact, this month is my 24-year anniversary of keeping a nightly gratitude journal). But recovery taught me to use God.

What I mean by that is I “use” God for guidance and support. I didn’t used to do that. I didn’t really see God as a resource, which BTW – God is the ultimate resource! Now I turn my will and my life over to God multiple times a day. I ask God to show me what to do. I turn things over to God when I don’t know what to do. That was a revelation to me. 

Previously, I felt like I had to know how to handle everything¸ at all times, in all circumstances. Learning to hand things over to God and ask for guidance has relieved so much tension and anxiety in my life. I thought I was a woman of faith before recovery, but not like this!

I love what my friend Melissa Pearson says, “Fear and faith are the same in that you’re putting trust in something that hasn’t happened yet. Which will you choose?” Well, I choose faith! The fear thing wasn’t working for me.

I say that like I never have fear anymore, which isn’t so. But what’s different now is that as soon as I realize I’m in fear, I reach out to God, and/or I “change the channel” and think of good things instead of catastrophizing. But that’s a whole other article!

What’s helped enormously in reminding me to reach out to God more frequently is my consistent conscious contact with God. I say certain prayers in the morning, afternoon, and evening (and often in between), I meditate, say affirmations, do mindset journaling, and do spiritual readings daily. This routine didn’t happen all at once, mind you. I built up this practice over many years. Because of this consistent conscious contact with God, it’s much easier to remember, “Oh yeah, I don’t have to do this alone.” I’m much more likely to seek God’s help or support when I don’t know what to do or say, or when something feels too big. Words can’t express the enormous relief that brings me.

What's also really different is that I now ask God to use me. That’s not something I ever did before recovery. I ask God to help me be of use to God and to my fellows. I ask, “What can I do, who can I be, what can I say, what are the thoughts you want me to think so that I can help heal the world?” The places that has taken me in recovery and in my business are absolutely astonishing!

My life is profoundly better than it was when I was trying to run the show with no support from others or from God. I don't have to figure things out on my own anymore. In fact, when I hear myself say the phrase “figure it out” I know I'm screwed. Because “figuring it out” landed me in a 12-step recovery for codependence and compulsive overeating. 

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

The Neighborhood Leadership Program at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven is Accepting Applications

New Haven, Conn. (July 18, 2024) — Residents in New Haven, Hamden, East Haven and West Haven who are looking to make a difference in their communities are encouraged to apply to The Community Foundation’s Neighborhood Leadership Program.

The leadership training and grant program is holding an informational session on Thursday, August 1, 2024 from 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven 70 Audubon St., New Haven. A light dinner will be served.

REGISTER HERE

The Neighborhood Leadership Program is a networking, skill building and grant program carried out over eight months running from September - April. The program trains and supports participants as they imagine, develop, test and realize projects which build community and provide positive outcomes.

Participants are eligible to apply for grants of up to $3,000 to carry out their community-based projects after completing the training and planning stages of the program.

If you have a commitment to making a positive difference through resident engagement, are eager to build your skills and capacity to increase your impact, and you want to engage with other leaders in learning, practice and project execution, then YOU should apply to this program!

The Neighborhood Leadership Program is limited to residents of New Haven, East Haven, West Haven or Hamden.

REGISTER HERE

For more information, contact Lee Cruz.

About The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven in Connecticut was established in 1928 and is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the U.S. The Foundation stewards a permanent charitable endowment for 20 towns in Greater New Haven that has been built by donors creating funds to support a broad variety of issues and organizations. The Foundation’s mission is to inspire, support, inform, listen to and collaborate with the people and organizations of Greater New Haven to build an ever more connected, inclusive, equitable and philanthropic community. For more information about The Foundation, visit www.cfgnh.org or follow @cfgnh on facebook and twitter.

• Teachers MUST RSVP to attend. You can arrive at any time between 12pm and 5:30pm. Check out will begin promptly at 5:45pm.
• Sign up for a field trip to New Haven Reads during the school year. More information about our field trip program will be available during the event.
• 

Join us at an upcoming public workshop! Our next workshop is a virtual workshop on Zoom on July 30, 2024 from 5:30pm-7pm.

Register here: https://newhavenct.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrf-2hqz4qHdPN37wKnqfomEfq39fgFhKK

At this workshop, special guest IfeMichelle Gardin will lead participants in creative writing and visual art imagining New Haven's future.

Please help us get the word out to your friends, family, and neighbors!

https://newhavenvision2034.com/

Están invitados a nuestros próximos talleres para Visión 2034, el Plan Integral de New Haven. El próximo taller es virtual en Zoom el 30 de julio de 2024, a las 5:30pm.

Registrate aqui: https://newhavenct.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUrf-2hqz4qHdPN37wKnqfomEfq39fgFhKK

En este taller, la invitada especial IfeMichelle Gardin guiará a los participantes en escritura creativa y arte visual imaginando el futuro de New Haven.

¡Por favor ayúdenos correr la voz a sus amigos, familia, y vecinos!

Photo Credit: Gary Barnes

This is part one of my series about the top three tools I learned about in 12-step recovery. Mind you, I have an entire tool shed of tools now, thanks to recovery. But these three have been at the top since the very beginning and remain there. They are: pausing (the topic of today’s essay), reaching out, and keeping the focus on myself. The next two essays will be about those topics.

Before recovery, I’d heard things like, “Count to 10 before responding when you’re angry” but it never occurred to me that that could apply to me. After all, I was hardly ever angry (or so I thought). I didn’t make the leap to the fact that counting to 10 is a way to pause, or what the effect might be. I just wasn’t that aware.

Why pausing is so important.

I'm going to start with why pausing is so important. Then I’ll talk about learning to do it in the moment no matter how stressed you are. Many of us react rather than respond to situations, especially when we're stressed out. The problem with that is when we react rather than respond, we haven't put any thought into our response. We've just let our bodies take over. The most likely thing to come out of us is not from a place of calm thoughtfulness and often, can make the situation worse.

When we pause, we’re much more likely to be able to respond thoughtfully. That’s because when we pause, we take the time to breathe, catching our breath and calming ourselves down. The reason this is so important is that when we’re calm, we can think clearly. When we're stressed, we can’t. That’s because stress puts us into “fight-or-flight” mode. In that mode, our bodies are poised for action, not thinking. 

During stress, we can’t afford to spend the energy required for thinking, which is an enormous amount of energy. We need all that energy to go toward taking action (i.e., fighting or fleeing). Our bodies are so intelligent that when the stress response occurs, our higher-order thinking is no longer accessible. That’s so we don’t expend energy on that so it can be conserved for taking action. In the modern day, our bodies continue to work as if our lives are under threat. Today, the kinds of “threats” we encounter are things like comments from colleagues, approaching deadlines, traffic jams, or arguments with our lovers.

You may have noticed that when you're really upset, whether it's anger, fear, sadness, or some other difficult emotion, it's hard to think clearly. That's normal. I like how David Bayer refers to these types of emotions. He calls them “primal” emotions, which are contrasted with “powerful” emotions or states of being. When we're in primal states, the bulk of our body’s energy has been rerouted so that we can fight or flee rather than think. Our bodies are “wired” to protect us so that we can stop thinking and start acting. 

The thing about the modern day is that stressors come to us in ways that affect our bodies as if our lives are at stake when they're not. That means we react to things as if our lives are under threat when they're not. Unfortunately, when we react like that, we often make things worse rather than better. Pausing allows us to catch our breath, relax our bodies, and internalize the message “I’m safe” so that we become calm and are then able to think clearly. This is possible because our respiratory system is the only part of the autonomic nervous system that we can affect. The other parts of that system are not under our conscious control. This is quite the gift!

This is really important. If you want to have a well-lived life, thinking clearly matters. This doesn't mean we don't pay attention to our feelings at all. Of course, we do. But feelings are feedback to be taken into consideration, they shouldn’t be considered as the only information we use in to make decisions.

How to pause when stressed

Once I understood the importance of pausing, I thought, “Great idea, I have no idea how to do that!” 

Getting to be able to pause was monumental for me. It seemed like an insurmountable task because I’d been a reactor my entire life. I wasn’t aware of that until recovery though, I didn’t know there were other options. So learning to pause and respond instead of react was extremely difficult for me.

Part of my inability to pause, I think, came from the sense of urgency I lived with at all times before recovery. I felt rushed all the time, and like I had to have an answer for everything, even if I had to make it up! What I learned about pausing is that it’s like just about everything else in recovery – it’s a process and it takes time to learn.

This is how the process of learning to pause unfolded for me. It’s not a fast process, but it’s a deep process. I promise you, if you allow yourself time and are patient with yourself (i.e., don’t beat yourself up about it) over time you’ll be able to pause even under the most stressful situations. That’s the case for me now.

It starts with reflection. When a situation doesn’t turn out the way you would have hoped, or you’re not particularly proud of the way you handled a situation, take time to reflect on it. In my early months and years of recovery, I’d act out my usual dysfunctional patterns and see that that was not what I truly wanted to do. So I’d reflect on it and think, “I could have done X instead. That would have been a good time to pause.” Noted.

Taking that time to reflect was not easy or natural for me (even though I’ve always thought of myself as an introspective person, I was not reflective). What that meant is that sometimes it would be a couple of weeks after something happened that I realized I could have paused and chosen a different response. 

Then another time, I’d do something similar that wasn’t the healthiest thing and realize again that I could have paused. This time maybe it was a week later rather than two weeks later that I took time to reflect. Over time I started to see the gap in time closing between when I did something dysfunctional and the time I realized it was dysfunctional and that I had other options! That is, I could have paused and responded.

I got excited, because I thought, “Pretty soon I’m going to realize it before I do or say anything reactive and will be able to pause!” And that’s exactly what happened. It wasn’t a linear process – sometimes I remembered and sometimes I didn’t. But now, pausing is very much a part of the fabric of my life.

Paying attention to this process will help to sensitize you to the kinds of situations in which you’re reactive rather than responsive. You’ll be more aware of situations that are likely to trigger your reactivity and will see them coming and be able to stop, pause breathe, and think clearly, “How do I choose to respond to this situation?” 

What to say to give yourself time for pausing, reflecting, and responding

If you don’t know at the moment how you want to respond, there are a variety of ways to give yourself the time to pause.

“I need some time to think about this.”

“I’m not sure, I’ll have to get back to you.”

“I don’t know” (this was HUGE for me - I somehow grew up with the idea that saying IDK was unthinkable!)

“I’m going to have to get back to you.”

“I’m gonna put a pause on that for now.”

Some examples of pausing

If you receive an email that you know will be difficult for you to read, pause until you have the psychic space to deal with it. If you read it and it enflames you, pause before responding. Even if you type up a reply immediately, pause before sending it, then come back and re-read it again when you’ve had time to calm yourself. Or have another person read it first.

If someone asks you to help them move and you’re really not sure you want to, say, “I’ll have to get back to you.” Take the time to think about whether you actually want to help them move or not. If not, perhaps there’s another way you can be supportive if you choose to. You don’t have to answer immediately. If someone pushes you to answer immediately, say, “If you need an immediate answer, it will have to be no.”

Sometimes a pause will be very long. I once took 18 months to decide if I was going to go back to an organization where things unfolded in a way that left me unsettled. 

What I’ve learned over time as I’ve gotten better and better at pausing is that in addition to being able to use my thinking brain as a result of pausing, it also allows me to seek my Higher Power for assistance. When I was constantly reacting to situations, I couldn’t even think of reaching out to my HP.

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Since doing the 12-step recovery, I now have the ability to look back at my life before recovery and see it with crystal clarity in a way that was just not possible before. I’m frequently able to look back at various situations and see: here's what I was thinking, here's what I was doing, and here's what my motives were. Meanwhile, at the time it was happening, I was completely blind to all of it.

One of the things I can see now is that the extreme desire I had to understand things was rooted in my need to control outcomes. I wanted to know all the facts, the context, and the variables that contributed to something. I can see now that that extreme desire to understand things was because I thought if I knew everything that was involved, I could manipulate the variables in such a way that things would come out the way that I wanted. In other words, I could control the outcome.

When it came to romantic relationships, I wanted to understand why “he” (whoever “he” was at the time, since I date men) did that or why he keeps doing that. I felt that if I got that, then I could get him to stop doing “it” (whatever “it” was that I didn’t like). I did all this without having any conversations with him, of course, since I didn’t know how to directly and clearly communicate, nor was it an option for me. I didn’t know that was a thing. This is an important reason why I frequently resorted to manipulation and control. Direct and clear communication is key. For example, “Help me understand what you meant by that” rather than filling in the gaps with your own story and making their actions mean something that they don’t. Get clarity.

There are many ways I’ve let go of control in my life because of recovery. Some of that came from the fact that I didn't even realize that was what I was doing. As they say, awareness is the first step in any change process. I also became aware, on a deep level, that the only thing I can control is me: my thinking, my feelings, my attitudes, and my behavior. 

Another big shift that has allowed me to let go of control is that I became willing to let go of outcomes. I do the footwork, then let the outcome go to God. Even though I was a pretty spiritual person by the time I got into recovery, I wasn’t using God the way I do now. What I mean by that is I now seek guidance from God. I turn things over to God (i.e., give the outcome to God). I ask God, “Show me your will for me and give me the power to carry that out). 

This has changed everything. I no longer feel the weight of the world on my shoulders. I no longer feel like I have to have an answer for everything or know everything. I now make sure I stay connected to my Higher Power because I truly believe that my HP power knows better than I do. I trust in the inherent goodness of the universe. I know that even if things don’t look that good, ultimately they will be.

I was hyper-focused on things coming out my way and I’m no longer invested in that. This shift was aided by the fact that I came to understand that my way isn’t necessarily the right way or the best way. This was news to me when I did the 12 steps! It was the process of doing the 12 steps that revealed that to me.

Something that's come to the surface of my consciousness about all this is that I've really gotten the message that I don't get to get my curiosity satisfied all the time. I used to always feel like if I was curious about something, then I somehow deserved to get my curiosity satisfied. It felt like I HAD to have my curiosity satisfied.

Now I understand that I can just be curious and am able to live with not having it satisfied. I'm able to not get closure on things. I can live with things sort of “hanging open” and it doesn't flip me out the way it used to. Of course, I like to get closure, but it’s not required for my peace and serenity. 

This brings to mind two sayings about understanding. One of them is:
“When you understand, things are as they are.
When you do not understand, things are as they are.”
Meaning: the facts don’t change with understanding.

Another saying that contrasts with that is: 
“There could be something, the knowing of which, changes everything.”
I lived in the second saying. The facts may not change, but our interpretation of what those facts mean could change if we knew just one other little piece of information. I always thought that if I just understood some additional piece of information, then everything would make sense to me. Understanding would fall into place, and I could move on to the part where I could control the outcome. 

I think that partly my need to understand things came from growing up very confused. I didn’t realize how confused I had been my whole life until recovery. There wasn’t much direct communication in my family. My family didn't talk about a lot of things, we were just expected to know things or figure them out. 

A very basic example is that I was told my whole life, “You’re going to college” but never given any information on what, exactly, it means to go to college. What do I need to do to prepare (besides getting a good grade, I got that part!). But I never got any help on how to get good grades beyond, “try harder.” So, when I first landed in college, I dropped out mid-way through my second semester. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I felt completely lost. I was there because my parents told me to go.

That’s just one rather mundane example from scores of subjects in my life where I was just expected to know things. And the option of asking questions just didn’t seem possible. I can see now that I often didn’t understand what was going on, and what things meant, why are we saying we do this in our family when we actually do that? And why are we saying we don't do that but we actually do?

I think that confusion or lack of clarity partly drove my need to understand things. Now I don’t NEED to understand things like I used to. I’ve really internalized that I don’t get to get my curiosity satisfied, partly because I’m no longer attached to outcomes and no longer feel the need to control people, places, and things that are outside my control. I focus on myself, my thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors because those are things I can control. I also know how to directly and clearly community with people, which has radically changed my life.
I wanted to turn my partners into emotionally available people, turn my boss into someone who followed through on things and change our education system into one that equitably distributes education and resources to urban districts just like in wealthy suburban districts.

By taking an inventory of my life in recovery I realized that none of my efforts to control such things was working. Despite all my efforts to manipulate and control, I wasn't making things come out the way that I wanted. Attempting to do that was draining me and robbing me of the peace and serenity which are my birthright. 

I was trying to control the uncontrollable (people, places, and things). Because I had all my focus and energy out there, I wasn't focused on myself and what was going on internally (i.e., the things that I could control) so as to make my life even more manageable. 

When I'm attached to outcomes, it means I'm using my teeny tiny little Barb Nangle perspective rather than allowing God to use the perspective of the entire universe to figure things out. And that never worked!

As a recap, here are the seven insights I shared from my own personal experience on letting go of control.

1. Awareness of the Need for Control: Recognizing that the extreme desire to understand things was rooted in a need to control outcomes.
2. Letting Go of Outcomes: Becoming willing to let go of outcomes and trusting in a Higher Power.
3. Control Over Self: Understanding that the only things you can control are your own thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors.
4. Living with Unanswered Curiosities: Accepting that you don't always need to have your curiosity satisfied and can live with things being unresolved.
5. Trust in a Higher Power: Seeking guidance from and turning outcomes over to God, which has alleviated the pressure of having to know and control everything.
6. Realization of Ineffectiveness: Recognizing that attempts to control others and situations were draining and ineffective.
7. Focus on Internal Control: Shifting focus from controlling external factors to managing internal ones, which are within your control.

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

Photo Credit: Jair Medina Nossa

Seek and ye shall find. We all know this is true. When we look for happy joyful things, we find them. When we look for evidence that there is evil all around us, we find it. Same world, but our lens is different.

This is why it’s so important to ask ourselves constructive questions that build us up instead of destructive questions that tear us down. What I like to say is, “Ask a shitty question, get a shitty answer. Ask good questions, get good answers.”

For example, if you say, “WTF is wrong with me?” you’ll automatically start looking for all of the things that are wrong with you. And of course, you’ll find things that are wrong with you! But if instead, you ask, “Why am I so awesome?!” you'll start seeking all the reasons you're awesome. Maybe you'll even start asking other people, “What do you think makes me awesome?”

People in recovery and my coaching clients frequently ask “WFT is wrong with me?” or “Why do I keep doing this?” and it breaks my heart to hear all these lovely people (who often have no idea how lovely they are) berate themselves and constantly look for evidence of why they’re such a piece of shit.

My goal is to help you find evidence of why you’re so awesome!

I don’t care who you are, what you’ve done or not done, who you’ve hurt or harmed, you ARE awesome. You are here for a reason, and that reason is NOT to beat the shit out of yourself. It’s to bring your awesomeness to the world.

If you’ve been beating the shit out of yourself for years, here’s my question:

How’s that working for you?

It’s not, is it?

Beating yourself up ends up with you being battered and bruised, which is no place from which to grow and change. It does not lead to self-improvement. So stop it. Stop asking, “WTF is wrong with me?” or “Why am I so stupid?” These types of questions are demoralizing and beat us down. So let's get curious instead of self-deprecating. Curiosity is neutral.

Below is some guidance for asking constructive questions as well as some examples. One of my clients recently told me that these types of questions are called Ask-firmations. That is, they’re affirmations in the form of a question, which gets your subconscious mind “on the job” of seeking answers to these awesome questions. I’ve also heard them called “Lofty Questions” by Vishen Lakhiani, the Founder of Mind Valley. If anyone knows something about how to improve your life, it’s Vishen!

These types of questions lead to something good that can actually help you construct a better life rather than destructive questions that could destroy your life. It starts with curiosity and wonder. If there are things you’re not doing that you wish you were doing, those are good things to ask yourself about. 

Here are a couple of examples:

“Why do I always get along so well with my colleagues?”

“Why do I always know just what to say at the right time?”

These are much better questions than the destructive, judgmental questions we often ask ourselves like, “Why is he always such a jerk?” or “How come I never know what to say until after the fact???”

If it seems impossible for you to come up with questions for yourself, you’re in luck!! I created a free audio of 15 Ask-firmations that are geared toward people who are looking to improve their boundaries and boundaries-adjacent related issues. I pause briefly between each Ask-firmation to allow your mind time to fill in the blank space. I encourage you to play this often if it feels helpful.

Remember: seek and ye shall find.

Don’t forget to listen to the free audio here.

For more blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

Featuring the work of Roberta Friedman, Joyce Greenfield, Sheila Kaczmarek, Kathy Kane

By definition, Praxis means “the process by which a theory, lesson or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied, or put into practice.” It is the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. In City Gallery’s July show, artists Roberta Friedman, Joyce Greenfield, Sheila Kaczmarek, and Kathy Kane share the theories, lessons, and skills they each use in their work, which encompass a wide range of styles, materials, and applications. PRAXIS will be on view at City Gallery from July 5 – July 28, with a Closing Reception on Sunday, July 28, 2-4pm.

Of her work in this show, Bobbi Friedman explains: “There are always new discoveries and ways to play with light and textures. The spontaneity of the printing process on a hot surface, the vibrancy of encaustic wax paints, and the richness of oil pigments and cold wax produce a cacophony of color and expression.”

Painter Joyce Greenfield relies on the practice of observation for her work. “I spend time observing elements in live intense sessions of looking at my subjects in person, and in sketches, videos and photographs.”

For painter Kathy Kane, inspiration often comes from bright colors and the use of unconventional tools, while painter and clay sculptor Sheila Kaczmarek’s finds hers in an ever-present fascination with nature and its fantastic and other worldly forms. “I try to present a doorway through which the viewer is invited to enter and come away with some questions and new way of looking at life.”

PRAXIS is an opportunity to see the work of these four distinct artists and to learn more about their approaches to and practice of art. The exhibit is free and open to the public. It runs July 5 – July 28, with a Closing Reception on Sunday, July 28, 2-4pm. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. City Gallery follows New Haven City’s mask mandate policy. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Credit: Getty Images

In my boundaries coaching business, I coach some pretty high-powered women. There's an enormous toll on them personally, professionally, physically, psychologically, emotionally and financially. There are many factors that lead to this, but it’s mainly because they keep saying yes when they really want to say no, and they neglect themselves because they're so focused on other people. 

I decided to delve into the financial toll on these women, but I wasn't sure how to come up with that information. So I went to ChatGPT.

I asked it first to calculate the amount of money that’s lost by the average professional woman per year because she keeps saying yes to things she really doesn't want to do and neglecting herself because she's focused on other people. It added up to

$20,500 lost per year

Wow! I’ll share all the assumptions and calculations below for those of you who are data nerds and want to delve into it. Even if you’re not a data nerd, if you’re a professional woman or you work in organizations of professional women, this is a wake-up call.

We’ve got to stop saying yes and neglecting ourselves. It not only costs us our physical, emotional, and psychological health and relationships, but it costs us our wallets and our wealth as well. 

Speaking of wealth, when I went back to ChatGPT to ask the cost to a professional woman over a 30-year career (compounded over time), the answer was

$1,361,996.37

Some of the reasons women, say yes when they really want to say no is that they don’t want to be rude, offend people, or be thought of as bad people or unhelpful. Personally, I thought of myself as “nice.” I thought I did all those things for others because I was a nice person. It turns out I was really invested in what others thought of me. It’s not that I didn’t want to be helpful, mind you, but the reason I went overboard and said yes when I didn’t want to, and got to the point where I regularly neglected myself was because of what others thought. I cared about those more than my own well-being. Sound familiar? If so, you’re a perfect candidate for my private coaching program!

I also didn’t want people to think I was selfish. It’s astonishing how that word can stop just about any woman, no matter how powerful or successful she is. God forbid a woman be perceived as selfish! Women have been taught to caretake – to be nice, helpful, and selfless. Not that there is anything wrong with caretaking, we need to take care of others, it's what makes the world go around. But we don’t need to do it to our own detriment. And that’s what we do.

If you’re a professional woman yourself, or you work in an organization of professional women, I want you to know it’s possible to change that without giving up being helpful to others. I’m living proof. I worked full-time at Yale University for 17 years and had volunteered for 13 different non-profits by the time I learned how to build healthy boundaries. In terms of hours per week, I give more service to my community now than I did when I was a volunteer-a-holic. Learning to build healthy boundaries does not mean you’ll no longer be helpful. It means you’ll learn to make strategic decisions by choice (not by compulsion) for when, where, and how you’ll help. It also means you’ll learn to include yourself in the “help” you provide by filling your own cup first so you can pour from the overflow, rather than trying to pour from an empty cup.

For those of you who want to see how the numbers above were calculated, they’re listed below along with the questions I asked ChatGPT.

THE NUMBERS

“Calculating the monetary loss for the average professional woman due to constantly saying "yes" to things she doesn't want to do and neglecting herself involves several assumptions and variables. Here are some key considerations:

1. Time Spent on Unwanted Tasks:

   • Estimate the average number of hours per week spent on tasks she doesn't want to do.

   • Calculate the equivalent salary for that time.

2. Opportunity Cost:

   • Assess the potential opportunities missed (e.g., career advancement, skill development, rest, personal projects) because of the time spent on unwanted tasks and neglecting self-care.

3. Health and Well-being Costs:

   • Consider potential health costs due to neglecting self-care, leading to increased medical expenses or reduced productivity.”

It then broke down these factors into more details. 

For Time Spent on Unwanted Tasks, it made several assumptions, which you may or may not agree with but it’s a place to start.

• Hours per week spent on unwanted tasks: 5 hours

• Weeks worked per year: 50 (assuming 2 weeks of vacation)

• Hourly wage: $40/hour 

I wasn’t sure where the $40/hour figure came from so I asked some follow-up questions. The first was. “What is the average salary of professional women in the United States?” It gave me some historical data and some median earnings, but not a mean average. What it did was give me some categories to ask about: women in management, professional, and related occupations.

I then asked it to give me the average of the women in the category of management, professional, and other related occupations, and the response was $103,168. That calculates to about $50/hour so I used that figure going forward.

The next factor was Opportunity Costs. This includes things like potential salary increases or bonuses missed due to a lack of focus on career advancement because of the continual focus on others and people-pleasing. AI estimated $5000, which seems pretty low to me, but since I have no other basis by which to come up with a figure, I’m going with that.

The last factor was Health and Well-being costs. The assumptions made by AI here were that there would be increased medical expenses of about $1000 due to stress and self-neglect. That too seems low to me, but again, I have no basis on which to come up with another figure. AI also assumed about $2000 because of decreased productivity due to burnout. Again, that seems low but we’re going with it.

Putting that all together here’s what that looks like:

Assuming an average salary of $103,000 equates to about $50/hour.

• Time spent on unwanted tasks = 5 hours/week x $50/hour = $250/week = $12,500/year

• Opportunity cost = $5000/year

• Health and well-being costs  = $3000/year

That totals $20,500 per year. Granted there have been lots of assumptions made here, but based on the women I work with, the assumptions are low. The high amount of stress caused to women who keep saying yes to things they don’t want to do causes them all kinds of physical, emotional, psychological, and relationship issues.

THE COST OF SELF-NEGLECT

The cost of self-neglect is incalculable, especially when I consider my own experience of neglecting (and even abusing) myself for decades. There’s no dollar amount you can put on loss of joy, fulfillment, health, and easy relationships. In addition, these figures don’t include the massive amounts of money these women often spend rescuing, fixing, and saving others as well as buying others’ affection. One of my clients told me that last year alone, she spent $85,000 enabling her adult son!

If you’re done donating $20,000 a year to the cause of people-pleasing, sign up for a free 30-minute Better Boundaries call with me.

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

A new online resource called the New Haven People and the Environment Research Library (New Haven PERL) is now publicly available! We appreciate the invaluable support of those of you who have already contributed to the success of this project. 

Photo Credit: Ashlyn Ciara

We have certain instincts that we’re born with. They’re natural and are supposed to be there. These are things like security, self-esteem, and personal relationships. But what happens for many of us is that these instincts get distorted and out of proportion.

The way we talk about that in 12-step recovery is we say that that happens because we’ve acted out of our “defects of character.” One of my programs uses the term “defenses of character” which is a little softer than “defects of character.” Plus it conveys the notion that these character traits are a defensive reaction to something that happened to us. “Defects of character” makes it sound like it’s an inborn trait that can’t be changed, which is untrue.

The problem with all this is that when we're acting out of our defenses of character, we tend to get the opposite of what we want. That’s because when we act out of our defenses of character, we typically focus on what we don't want we end up creating that very thing.

The way this was explained to me the first time was this: let's say you want to have a good reputation. If you’re acting out of your defenses of character though, you instead focus on what don’t want: a bad reputation. So in order to enhance your reputation because you’re so fixated on not having a bad reputation, you lie, make stuff up, and/or embellish the truth. Maybe you fudge your sales report or say you’ve been places and done things you really haven’t. The goal is to make yourself look better, but by being dishonest and embellishing you actually ruin your reputation, the very thing you were trying to enhance!

Let’s take a look at this. If you change your focus from avoiding a bad reputation to building a good reputation, you’ll eventually achieve your goal of having a good reputation. Building a good reputation means things like being honest, kind, a woman of your word, following through, and not talking about people behind their backs. In other words, being a woman of integrity.

Another example that might resonate with you is the fear of abandonment. Most of us don't want to be abandoned by other people so we focus on that, rather than on what we do want: connection. If our primary concern is to not be abandoned by other people, we do things like cling and grasp at others. We cater to what they want, need, and like and we push aside our own preferences. As a result of that, we abandoned ourselves.

The result is that you’ve built abandonment into the relationship. You’re not actually in a relationship with the person when you’ve abandoned yourself to their preferences. Some fake version of you is in that relationship. They're not in a relationship with the actual you because they don't know who you really are. Even if they don't leave you, you’re emotionally abandoned by them because you've abandoned the relationship by not being there yourself!

The very thing we're trying to achieve – a good reputation, and true connection with others - is the very thing that we create when we act out of our defenses of character.
Here's the key to stopping that pattern, instead of going after what you don't want, go after what you actually do want. Keep the focus on YOU and what you want. Proactive people are much more focused on what they want and much less focused on what they don’t want. Where your attention goes, your energy follows.

For more posts like this go to: FridayFragments.news

Photo Credit: Andrej Lisakov

Yesterday a client told me her soon-to-be ex-wife called her “juvenile.” I wrote back “projection.” This was in response to my client asking to have their child’s car seat set up in her ex’s car according to the safety standards for his height and weight. Her ex kept putting her off and making shitty comments. She then offered to do it herself and was put off again. Last night she said, “I’ll drive him to daycare tomorrow” to which her ex said, “juvenile.”

The ex is prioritizing her disdain for my client above the safety of their child. That is juvenile behavior. And yet she’s calling my client “juvenile.” That’s a classic care of projection.

If you're not familiar with the concept of psychological projection, it goes something like this: when we have something emotionally or psychologically going on inside of us that’s too difficult or painful to deal with, rather than dealing with it internally we “project” it outward onto other people. Let’s use the quality of immaturity as an example, like my client’s ex.
When we can’t handle our own immaturity, we’re likely to get triggered when we experience immaturity in others. If they do anything that might remotely be considered immaturity, it’s like a neon sign and alarm bells go off. “IMMATURY ALERT!!!”

The expression we use to describe this concept of projection in recovery is, “You spot it, you got it. “ If there's something about other people that irritates the shit out of you and you see it all the time in others and the world, it's probably a quality you have. And one you don’t particularly like and have a hard time owning psychologically.

For me that quality is arrogance. I had no idea I was arrogant until I got into recovery. I realized that’s why arrogance is probably my most hated human quality – because I’m arrogant A.F. 
I had no idea I was arrogant until doing the 12 steps. I have a lot of grandiose thoughts and thoughts of superiority like, “If only they did things MY way.” I still have them sometimes, just not anywhere near as frequently. And now know they’re bullshit. That’s another thing I learned in recovery – just because I think something doesn’t mean it’s true! My mind was blown by that one!!

I still have arrogant thoughts, even though I don’t want to have them. Now I know not to believe them, though sometimes it takes me a while to recognize them. They’re just my thoughts, they’re not necessarily true. 
I have another story from recovery about projection that I experienced firsthand. Someone I cared deeply for projected their psychological issues onto me and blamed me for them. I'd heard of projection before that (and of course engaged in projection myself, I think we all do to some degree). I’d also seen it in action before, but not like this! Before I get into more detail I want to say that I’m not a psychologist. What I’m describing is from a layperson’s perspective, so please give me grace if I don’t get this exactly right.

The person who projected their stuff onto me, Here’s the story about someone in recovery who projected their shit onto me. I’ll call her Athena. She was probably my closest recovery friend at that time. After almost three years of recovery together, something happened to her. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I think she got a bit too deep without professional help. And again, I’m not a psychologist, I’m just stating what I concluded after the fact

One night, Athena shared at a meeting that she just realized she’d been gaslighting herself for decades. She talked about how she made jokes about herself, then roped others into making those same jokes about her too. Then she’d get resentful of those people for making those jokes that she fed them about herself. All of this had come to her consciousness that week. She gave the following examples. 
She said, “I tell people all the time that I'm bad at math and I joke about it, meanwhile I’m successful in a career that’s math-based.” She proceeded to give two other very similar examples. Then she mentioned how she ropes others into making fun of her, then she resents them.

What happened next is that she started acting out toward others in recovery. This all came to light after the fact and our recovery community was able to put this together afterward. I’d also noticed that she’d started doing and saying things to me that were a little off. I didn't say anything to her about it because I was waiting to talk directly to her in person but she kept putting me off. 

I was definitely concerned about her behavior toward me and the way she’d acted in meetings and at coffee afterward. But I wanted to speak to her directly in person rather than on the phone or via text because this was really important. I wish now that I hadn’t waited to do that.

One day she sent me a text message that was pretty harsh. I texted her back to say, “I'm getting concerned by your messages so I need a break from you for a bit. Please don't contact me again for a while until I let you know that it's OK to do so.” She immediately texted me back and wrote to say, “Toughen up.”
I thought, “HELL NO!” and I blocked her on my phone. I immediately called a friend in recovery to come over and help me process the situation. When my friend got to my place and saw the text from her, she agreed that blocking her was the right thing to do.

As you can imagine, I was really disturbed by this whole situation. There was zero compassion in her response AND she didn’t honor my request to stop contact. This was someone who had been a close friend for several years.
Later that night I was writing an email to someone and a message from Athena came in and the subject line was, “You're hilarious” and I opened it. Inside the message she wrote, “FUCK YOU.” I blocked her from email too. 
I want to note here that since I grew up in a dysfunctional family, I have a high tolerance for dysfunction. It’s taken me years to understand that just because I have a high tolerance for dysfunction I don’t have to live up to that. Back then, I didn’t understand that opening her email after I’d blocked her on my phone was not a wise thing to do. I’ll call it “dysfunctional” because it didn’t serve my best interest.

A few days later I did another dysfunctional thing, which was to look in my spam folder to see if she had emailed me. Of course she had, three times. I didn’t open them, but I didn’t need to because of the subject lines. One of them said, “You have assassinated my character.”

Then I asked myself, “Why the hell did I go looking for those messages? Why did I go into my spam LOOKING FOR TROUBLE?!” Then I realized this is my pattern having grown up with dysfunction, I go looking for trouble. That was the last time I’ve ever gone into my spam folder to see if someone I blocked had messaged me!

I reached out to another fellow in recovery and asked them to check me - did I assassinate her character? I think I’m too close to this situation to know. She said, “No Barb, she assassinated her OWN character when she shared in the meeting that she made jokes about herself about math, etc.” She was telling us openly about assassinating her own character. Then I realized that was some serious projection!
Athena couldn’t internally handle knowing that she’d assassinated her own character, so she projected the blame for that onto me. When she admitted publicly that she had been saying bad things about herself and roping other people into making fun of her, she was assassinating her own character in two ways:

By making jokes about herself
By pulling others in on the game with her

When the understanding of what she was doing to herself bubbled up to the surface of her awareness to the point where she admitted it publicly, she just couldn’t deal with that. She just couldn’t bear the weight of knowing what she’d done to herself and she projected it outward onto me! This is a perfect example of what can happen when people are digging things up in recovery and not getting the professional help they need. 

This was one of the most painful things that I have been through in recovery. I had to do a LOT of step work on it. That was one of the strongest boundaries I’ve ever had to set when I blocked her. It really solidified for me an understanding of what projection is and it helped me in my own recovery, especially with my boundaries. I understood she was a very sick person and I HAVE TO protect myself from her. There’s no wavering on this boundary if I want to take care of myself.

I share this story in the hope that you might understand that when someone projects their issues onto you, it’s not about you, it’s about them. Think of them as ill. You don’t have to put up with their shit, but you also don’t have to condemn them. 

For more blog posts like this go to: FridayFragments.news

NOTE: This article is 2 years old, the current situation is even more urgent than in 2022.

Even before the pandemic and nationwide racial justice demonstrations gripped the nation in 2020, “climate philanthropy” was rapidly expanding and evolving, with large foundations and mega-donors pledging billions of additional dollars to address the climate crisis. With an estimated $125 trillion of climate investment needed by 2050 to decarbonize the world economy, this growing support is welcome, but still represents a relative drop in the bucket.

The scope and nature of the challenge the world faces calls for a fundamental re-think of the philanthropic sector’s approach to this burgeoning crisis. Responding to accelerating climate change should not simply be a stand-alone grantmaking priority, but a programmatic consideration that influences a wide range of funding decisions, from youth development to affordable housing to the arts, to name but three. The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) recent research into the philanthropic and nonprofit sector’s climate-related views and actions underscores the need for a fresh approach...

https://cep.org/philanthropy-time-to-abandon-the-ivory-tower-of-climate-policy/ ;

Hamden, CT May 2024 – Interfaith Volunteer Care Givers of Greater New Haven (IVCG), a dedicated non-profit organization committed to serving seniors, many with visual impairments, is thrilled to announce the receipt of a generous $10,000 grant from the Albert Zunder Fund at The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. This significant contribution will be instrumental in advancing our mission to continue providing and improving services that empower our senior community members with visual impairments.

The grant from The Community Foundation is directly supporting the expansion and enhancement of volunteer training, website navigation, accessible program and educational materials, and community awareness initiatives. This work is essential for fostering continued independence, enhancing quality of life, and improving opportunities for seniors to engage in the community.

The award resulted from The Community Foundation’s proactive effort to provide grants from donor funds at The Foundation that identify a preference for aiding people with vision impairments. The Albert Zunder Fund was established in 1951 by his sister, Fannie Fern Falk with a preference for aiding blind people.  

IVCG recognizes The Community Foundation for its commitment to making a meaningful difference in the lives of those with visual impairments. Their support not only reflects a shared vision of a more inclusive society but also propels us forward in our quest to remove barriers and unlock potential.

"We are profoundly grateful for The Community Foundation’s generosity and belief in our mission," said Daniel Camenga, Executive Director of IVCG. "This grant is a testament to the Foundation's dedication to creating impactful change, and it will significantly enhance our ability to serve our community more effectively. Together, we are making strides towards a future where seniors with visual impairments have equal opportunities to thrive."

For more information about the programs and services offered by Interfaith Volunteer Care Givers, or to learn how you can support our mission, please visit the newly updated website, offering accessible options, via CareNewHaven.org or contact us at (475) 257-6538.

About Interfaith Volunteer Care Givers

Interfaith Volunteer Care Givers is a non-profit organization dedicated to neighbors helping neighbors live lives of connection and care, with seniors at the heart. We share experiences, rides, food, and other services that cultivate connection, support wellness, and relieve loneliness and isolation.

About The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s mission is to inspire, support, inform, listen to, and collaborate with the people and organizations of Greater New Haven to build an ever more connected, inclusive, equitable, and philanthropic community. Founded in 1928, it is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the country and the largest grant maker in Greater New Haven’s 20-town region. Generations of donors have built this community endowment by establishing permanent funds or making gifts to existing funds that distribute grants to support a broad variety of issues and organizations. These donors, past and present, make their gifts to ensure that programs and causes that matter most to them will be supported today and forever.

Contact:

Dan Camenga

Executive Director

Interfaith Volunteer Care Givers

1253 Whitney Avenue

Hamden, CT 06517

(475) 257-6538

Director@carenewhaven.org

www.CareNewHaven.org

Photo Credit: Andrej Lisakov

Spoiler alert! People usually get offended when you set boundaries with them because they don't have healthy boundaries themselves!! That means if you're getting offended when other people set limits with you, you probably don't have healthy boundaries. ☹️

It could also be the case that they get offended because you’ve decided to no longer accommodate them and make their lives easier while making yours more difficult.

Here’s an example of someone getting offended by my boundary. 

In this particular case, I chose to explain my boundary, but I don’t always do that. You don’t have to do that either unless you CHOOSE to.

When we start to set boundaries with people we’ve never set them with before, some will get upset by it. That could be because it’s new behavior, and difficult when someone suddenly changes. But often people get upset when we set boundaries because they don't have healthy boundaries. 

When we set a boundary with someone we have a relationship with, we’re differentiating ourselves from them as opposed to being enmeshed with them. Now, you’re distinct from them, and they’re distinct from you. Your pattern of interaction is now distinct from what it used to be. That can sometimes be painful to us and others when we build new boundaries because it’s so unfamiliar. This is especially true if we’ve felt like we don’t know who we are, or at least we don’t know who we are in comparison to others.

When we don’t know where we end and others begin, and we start building boundaries to figure that out, it can be scary to be in the world in an unfamiliar way. This is especially true if you've always been enmeshed with others, so it can feel like you’re putting up a wall between you and the other person. Or that they’re being rude or bitchy when you set a boundary.

Those are fears I hear from clients regularly – they don’t want to be seen as cold and bitchy or to build walls between them and others. The truth is that boundaries bring us closer to others. That’s because we’re being honest and authentic about who we really are - what’s okay and not okay, what we want, like, need, and prefer.

There’s a caveat to that though – if someone is abusive to you or takes extreme advantage of you, your new boundaries might actually be walls. And that’s as it should be. If someone is abusive or violent, then you need a wall between you and them. But it’s infrequent when that happens.

You can be kind and loving and have boundaries. Kind-loving people have healthy boundaries. That makes them safe because we know who we’re getting - we know when they say no, they mean no, and when they say yes, they mean yes. 

Here’s a story about someone who got offended when I set a boundary. She’s a fellow in recovery and I’ve known her for years, but only peripherally. She texted me in the morning to ask if I had a minute to talk. I responded by saying I'm booked today and tomorrow, but I have some time on the weekend. She responded with a very long text message that essentially said, “Who the f*ck do you think you are that people have to make appointments with you for outreach calls?” She went on about how I don’t respond to voice messages but send emails and text messages. She said this because she’d previously wanted me to call her, and I responded via email.

I was absolutely flabbergasted when I got this message from her. Instead of reacting immediately from my state of shock, I paused, said a prayer, and responded “Do you want to talk on the weekend?’

She responded with a couple more very lengthy, accusatory messages and it was clear that she was taking it very personally that I wasn’t able to talk that day or the next. I called my sponsor about this because it felt like an attack, and it really revved up my nervous system and made me feel very defensive. 

As I talked to my sponsor about it, I realized that this was me setting boundaries with her and that she was unable to respect them. For one, I have boundaries around phone calling vs. emailing and texting. And guess what? I get to communicate with people in whatever way I want. They don’t get to dictate how (or when) I communicate with them.

For another, I had boundaries around my time that day and the next. But I also offered her an entire weekend during which we could talk. And BTW – she did not take me up on that offer!

I happen to know that she's very enmeshed with her family and has an extremely difficult time setting boundaries with them. The way I experienced this situation was as if her reaction was something like this:

How dare you have boundaries Barb, when I’m not allowed to or not able to!

In consultation with my sponsor, I decided to send her an email. I didn’t have to do that, I chose to. It took a couple of days to construct the email so that I was sure to be cooled down. I also ran it by my sponsor before sending it since she was not emotionally involved in the situation and could look at it objectively. She asked if I was certain I wanted to do this and I said yes.

My email went something like this: I'm so sorry that my lack of availability to talk to you felt like a rejection. It was not. I’m very protective of my time because I used to give my time away to others all the time, and I don't do that anymore. I had a very busy schedule that day and the next, so I didn’t have time for phone calls. The day you texted me was my anniversary with my sweetheart, so I wanted to spend every spare minute with him.

In response to her comments about me responding via text or email but not by phone, I told her I’m sometimes able to shoot off a text or an email while I'm in the middle of something else. For me, phone calls are reserved for pre-scheduled times because that's what works for me and my schedule.

Again, I didn’t have to explain any of this to her. But I had compassion for her because I knew she was in distress and wanted to connect. Now that I have healthy boundaries, I don’t make other people’s emergencies into my emergencies. I live my life the way I want to live it, not by how others want me to live it.

I didn't hear anything back from her for quite some time. Weeks later, I sent a message to a bunch of people in recovery (blind copied!) about an event that was happening and I included her. I decided to include her because I'd always included her in such things, and I had no ill will toward her. She wrote back, “Thank you” so I took the opportunity to respond,  “I'm glad to see you respond to my message.” She responded, “I haven't responded to your other email because I'm still processing, so I let it go.

Some months later, she wrote back that she understood now. The more I thought about this incident, the more I could see that her reaction - which was way out of proportion to the situation - was because I set a boundary, and she couldn't handle it.

If you recognize yourself in her and this situation, and you get really offended when people set boundaries, it's an indication that you don't have healthy boundaries. If you recognize yourself in me in this situation, remember that you get to have whatever boundaries you want. You get to decide how you want to live your life. 

Many people don't manage their time the way I do, and that’s fine for them. I’m not living their lives, and they’re not living mine. Some of you are probably thinking right now that I’m a bitch for not taking phone calls at any time. Many people leave their ringer on and take phone calls at any time, or decide not to pick it up when it rings if they’re busy. 

That just doesn't work for me because I find myself getting resentful of people for calling me and texting me, so I turn off the ringer on my phone. That way, I get to decide when I’m going to look at my phone and when I’m going to interact with others. Then I don't get resentful of people.

If you’ve been afraid to start setting boundaries because you don't want to put up walls with others or be mean or rude, I'm guessing it's because that’s how you’ve experienced it when other people have set boundaries with you. That’s an indicator that you don't have healthy boundaries. If that’s you, this page has all kinds of free resources on boundaries. I also have tons of free resources on boundaries on my Instagram feed, including almost daily reels with actual scenarios from my life and the lives of my clients.

It’s not mean or rude to set limits with others so you can live your life the way you want. It’s healthy. You get to direct your life, and I get to direct mine. The way you direct your life will definitely be different than how I direct mine. And that’s as it should be. So if you’re taking offense to others’ boundaries, it could be because you have poor boundaries yourself.

For more blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

Join us at an upcoming public workshop! We will be at Edgewood Magnet on June 4th.

All workshops will include activities for children, food, and an option to participate on Zoom if you are unable to attend in person. At this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to give feedback on the topical working groups for the plan. And stay tuned for a virtual workshop in late July!

Please help us get the word out to your friends, family, and neighbors!

https://newhavenvision2034.com/ ;

Están invitados a nuestros próximos talleres para Visión 2034, el Plan Integral de New Haven. Estaremos en la escuela de Edgewood Magnet el 4 de Junio.

Todos los talleres incluyeran actividades para niños, comida, y una opción de participar en Zoom si no puede venir en persona. En este taller los participantes tendrán la oportunidad de asesorar sobre los grupos temáticos para desarrollar el plan. Próximamente anunciaremos un taller virtual para finales de julio.

¡Por favor ayúdenos correr la voz a sus amigos, familia, y vecinos!

An Exhibition of Fiber Art by Jennifer Davies and Paintings by Liz Hawkes deNiord

Amicizia, meaning friendship in Italian, is the perfect word for an exhibit by friends Jennifer Davies and Liz Hawkes deNiord, whose long arc of friendship and art-making has spanned more than 50 years. AMICIZIA: THE LONG ARC, featuring Davies’ fiber art and deNiord’s paintings is their first show together, and will be on view at City Gallery from May 31 - June 30, with an Opening Reception on Sunday, June 2, 1-4 p.m. and an Artists’ Talk on Sunday, June 30, 2-3 p.m.

Jennifer Davies will be showing a collection of sewn collages made from handmade paper, as well as lace-like pieces of hand-sewn Kozo fiber. Known for her inquisitive exploration of paper making and its use in fiber art, Davies says that creating with paper is like “dancing with a partner as I follow the lead of the material through a series of steps.” She handmakes her own papers, creating sheets of paper and an intricate lace-like material which she prints and paints to add subtle colors.

“Although I would characterize my imagery as abstract, its genesis derives from patterns of nature, overlapping bark, bubbly foam on waves, or tidal lines left on the sand. I use collage and textile techniques, layering, and stitching to build up layers of paper that I have printed or dyed with indigo or kakishibu, both traditional Japanese dyes.”

With similar attention to technique, color, and layers, Liz Hawkes deNiord’s distinct ‘excavated’ paintings are heavily textured, thickly layered and scraped with palette knife to reveal dazzling pentimentos infused with saturated, iridescent light. Working mostly on large canvases, the vertical alignment of her colorful abstract paintings resonates as a physical presence. As she explains, “The paintings evolve through layers, through rotation of the canvas, and through a suspended trust in the outcome to 'pay attention' consciously and unconsciously.”

deNiord is a painter as well as a ceramicist, and occasionally, a printmaker. Liz and her poet husband Chard deNiord live in the woods of Vermont where she paints and in warm weather also works with clay (treating glazing as three-dimensional painting). She received degrees in art education and art history from Southern Connecticut State College. She has had parallel careers as an artist, producing ceramics, paintings, and prints, along with teaching at public, private, and college levels as a learning specialist for 15 years and an art educator for 23. Liz shows her work regionally and nationally, as well as on occasional book covers.

Davies graduated from RISD and the Rome Honors Program. Trained as a painter, she has pivoted to fiber, making paper by hand. Group shows include the Fuller Craft Museum, Flinn Gallery, and Fiberart International. Solo shows were at City Gallery and the Museum of Papermaking. She is a member of North American Hand Papermakers and Surface Design Association. In 2012 she was awarded a Connecticut Artist Fellowship Grant. Her work appears in several Fiber Arts books, such as L’art du fil by Marie Madeleine Masse, and Wall Art, a Schiffer publication. In recent years, she has completed commissions for hotels, cruise ships, and residences.

Davis and deNiord have always wanted to exhibit their work together, and are thrilled to present AMICIZIA: THE LONG ARC at City Gallery in June. The exhibit is free and open to the public and runs May 31 - June 30, with an Opening Reception on Sunday, June 2, 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. The artists will be in the gallery on Sunday, June 30 for an Artists’ Talk. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., or by appointment. City Gallery follows New Haven City’s mask mandate policy. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Photo Credit: Ava Sol

I’ve always thought of myself as a very positive and optimistic person. When I got into recovery, I realized that I had a lot of negative thinking. Sometimes, it was ruminating about the past, but more often it was catastrophizing about the future. I call that “living in the wreckage of the future.”

To this day, one of the most difficult tasks in my life is to stop living in the wreckage of the future. Here’s what living in the wreckage of the future looks like for me: 

I decide something bad is going to happen or has happened. Then I think of all the repercussions of that bad thing happening. For example, if someone didn’t show up for something, my mind will assume they died and were perhaps maimed in a horrible accident. Then I think of how awful life will be without them, how much I’ll miss them, how it will impact my life and the lives of others around them.

Or, maybe instead of thinking they died, I might slip into victim mentality and decide, “They don’t love me anymore and don’t have the heart to tell me, so they just blew me off instead of showing up.” And then, I’ll go into a pity party about how awful I feel, and start seeking reasons for why they don’t love me anymore (which of course I’ll find because I’m looking for it!). Both of these types of thinking lead me down the road of negativity and usually activate my nervous system.

My dramatic shift in thinking

This kind of thinking happens much, much less frequently than it used to, but it still happens. When it does happen now, I can see it much more quickly and turn it around. One thing I did to be able to reduce the number of times that type of thinking occurs and to turn it around when it does, is that I made a dramatic shift in my thinking. Instead of thinking, “Something happened to them” or “They don’t love me” I think “Something must have come up for them.”

For example, maybe they got stuck in traffic, and their phone died, or they overslept or misplaced their phone and couldn’t contact me. This is something that I've had to work on with my sweetheart frequently. He’s been known to misplace his phone for hours at a time, and I finally learned that I shouldn't catastrophize if he doesn't respond to me. When I’m in a good state of mind, I’m much more likely to think, “Something must have come up” than live in the wreckage of the future. This is yet another reason to take really good care of myself and live intentionally. When I do that, I’m more often in a good state of mind and less likely to catastrophize.

I have lots of evidence that my sweetheart really loves me, cares for me, is attentive to me, and I matter to him. However, my brain still wants to go into victim mentality where something is happening to me like he doesn’t love me anymore and is going to break up with me. Then I remember, “Ohh, that's right - something probably came up for him.”

When we make mindset shifts like this, we gain more control over our lives. Instead of being in victim mentality, we’re in creator mentality. The circumstances may be the same, but what we make those circumstances mean changes. We don't have to live in drama and chaos. We don't have to activate that inner drugstore of chemicals that throw our nervous system out of whack. 

Instead, when we think, “Something came up” it has a much lighter effect on us. We're able to stay in the present and go on with our day and have pleasant experiences. If we assume the best of intentions on everyone's part, and that something benign came up, we're so much more likely to have high quality life. If we assume bad things happened to them, or they’re not showing up or calling means something bad about us, then we’re likely to have a much less satisfying life. 

When we think that something must have happened or we’re to blame, our emotions are likely to go haywire. We go down the rabbit hole of negativity. But you can avoid that rabbit hole altogether by thinking, “Something must have come up.” 

I honestly didn’t know I was thinking so negatively, or that it was an option to just think something innocent like something came up. And I’ve always thought of myself as an optimist!! I can’t imagine what happens in the minds of those who are pessimists if this is what happens in the mind of an optimist!! You have the power to determine the quality of your life, and it starts with what you’re thinking. This is a perfect example of how important changing perspective is.  

There’s a quote that goes like this: 

“Water the flowers, not the weeds.”

Focus on the positive and not on the negative. What you “water” grows. What you put your attention on grows. If you pay attention to negative thoughts and negativity, you’ll experience more of that. If you pay attention to positive thoughts and positivity, you’ll experience more of that.

Living in the wreckage of the future did me no good. In the past, I didn’t understand I had a choice about my thoughts. Or that I didn’t have to believe my thoughts just because I think them. Now, I understand I actually do get to choose my thoughts. And now you do too.

For most blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news

Photo Credit: Priscilla Du Preez and Sage Friedman

For some reason, most of the people I work with are super concerned about not being selfish. People (especially women) act like being selfish is one of the worst sins you can commit. Even being perceived as selfish is so distressing that they’ll go to just about any lengths to not be perceived as selfish - even if it’s detrimental to their well-being.

Since one of my mantras is “keep the focus on yourself” this thing about selfishness comes up a lot. I’ve been asked a few times what the difference is between that and thinking “It’s all about me.” They may sound similar, but they’re not. 

Keeping the focus on yourself is imperative if you want to live a life with the intention that you enjoy. When you learn to keep the focus on yourself, you're much more likely to be an energized, vital contributing citizen, and things are less likely to be “all about you.” Here’s what I mean. 

When you keep the focus on yourself, you’re focused on what you’re doing or could be doing, what you want and need. That means, you’re less likely to be focused on what others are doing or not doing, what they need, and trying to provide that for them. As the serenity prayer encourages us to do, we want to change the things we can (us) and accept what we can’t change (others). 

Keeping the focus on yourself is about being proactive in your life and not reactive to life. Another way to say that is that it’s about coming out of victim mentality. When we have victim mentality, we don’t perceive choices. We feel like life is happening to us rather than that we’re creating our lives. You will not and cannot take control of your life if you think life is happening to you. You cannot take control of your life unless you keep the focus on yourself. 

I was astonished about how much control I was able to have over my life as a result of my recovery, especially when I built healthy boundaries. I started to live much more intentionally, though I didn’t know I wasn’t living intentionally before that! 

When we live more intentionally, we mind our own business and take responsibility for ourselves and our well-being. That means we’re much more likely to live well, contribute to society, and be good citizens. Wouldn’t it be nice if our communities were made up of more people who live well, contribute to society, and act like good citizens?? 

You can’t control whether others do that, but you can control whether you do that. 

When we keep the focus on ourselves and have an internal focus, we’re much better able to see that circumstances in our lives are just happening. They’re not happening to us. Let’s say someone else has done something mean or nasty. If you’re focused on yourself and living mindfully and purposefully, then you don’t take things others do so personally. You’re more interested in what you’re doing, thinking, and feeling and how you’ll respond to that. 

I like peace. That’s become more and more important to me over time. So, when someone does something that previously might have pissed me off, I’m not really interested in “going there.” I want to maintain my peace. I don’t want to give my peace and serenity away to them (especially if they’re a stranger!). 

For example, when I see someone driving erratically, I remember that I used to drive like that. I know what that’s like. They’re typically “all about me” and not thinking of how their driving is upsetting others and potentially putting others in danger. So I bless them and let them go on their way without losing my shit. 

I’m focused on me, what I’m doing, who I’m being, what I’m thinking and feeling. I’m trying to maintain my peace and serenity. I’m not focused on them and what an asshole they are, which is what I used to do. 

When I used to get pissed off when things like that happened, I’d also relive that moment throughout the day feeling justified in my anger. That meant I experienced that difficulty repeatedly, instead of just one time. Now I can let it go because I’m focused on myself and the life I’m creating. I didn’t know it was an option to not be pissed off under such circumstances. In my family, someone pulling out in front of you equaled being pissed off. That’s just the way it was. 

If you’re always thinking, “It's all about me” you're a taker, looking to get what you can from others and society. You’re probably walking around thinking that people or society owe you something. You don't understand or care what’s happening to others. You don’t see that things are just happening in the world; they're not happening to you. 

You probably think that when somebody does something that pisses you off, they did that just to piss you off, or because they don't like you. You think that you’re the center of their universe rather than they’re the center of their universe. That makes you more likely to take things personally. That’s an external focus and the opposite of keeping the focus on yourself. 

The Serenity prayer reminds us to seek the courage to change the things we can (us and our internal world) and accept things we cannot change (others and the external world). You can’t change the internal world if you’re not focused on it. You can’t change the external world, period. 

If you want a life where you feel more in control and have more peace and serenity, consider keeping the focus on yourself. If you need help learning how to do that, you can listen to this podcast and/or read this article.

For more blog posts like this go to FridayFragments.news