I help overwhelmed people-pleasers say no without guilt and shame so they can finally put themselves first and stop stressing over what others think. I do this for a few reasons.

1. That was me! I didn’t even I know was a people pleaser. I thought I was just “nice.” When I first heard the term people pleaser in recovery, I didn't think it applied to me. I remember thinking of another friend and I was like,  “Ohh yeah …she's a people pleaser!” This just goes to show how much denial I was in about myself.
2. Guilt and shame are the main reasons people don't set boundaries or cave on their boundaries. This was true for me and I think I can safely say it’s true for all of my clients.
3. The reason that we have such difficulty saying no is because we care way more about what other people think than what we think. In other words, we're completely focused on other people and what they're doing (or not doing). You’re not going to have a powerful living experience when you never concentrate on your own life and are always focused on people's lives. It’s just not possible. You have to actually LEAD your own life. No one else will do it for you.
4. Women have internalized the message that “selfish” is about the worst thing in the world you can be (I had a client say “I’d rather be called a whore than selfish.” WTF??). They’re terrified of being seen as selfish. First of all, if you’ve been a lifelong people pleaser, you’re NOT going to turn into a selfish person, it’s not in your nature. Secondly, paying attention to yourself, taking care of yourself, and doing things that bring you pleasure and energy are not selfish. You have one life to live, so live YOUR life, not the lives of others. This doesn’t mean we’re not helpful and generous, it means we’re helpful and generous in ways that are sustainable, not draining.

Some of the main fears I see in clients and prospective clients are that they’re afraid to upset others and that people won’t like them. They’re afraid they’ll have to confront someone and have difficult conversations and maybe come to be seen as selfish. They don’t want to be abandoned, rejected, or judged. They’re probably also afraid that if they keep things up the way they are, they’ll get burnt out by taking on too much and that they won’t live up to what they know they’re capable of and what they’re meant to do in the world. They get stuck in a cycle of giving in to others, leaving little room for their own needs—if they even know what those are. 

They’ve probably been on a personal development journey for decades and know all the things they “should” be doing but just can’t get themselves to DO them! Second-guessing themselves keeps them stuck, unable to set boundaries or make decisions. They end up taking on way too much, then get resentful and eventually explode. Typically, it works when they explode – people listen to them and respect their limits, so they think “This is how it works – I have to be a dick for people to listen to me.” And because they hate when others get upset with them, want to be liked, and don’t want to be a dick, they just give in (again) to what others want. That means they don’t ever figure out what they really want because they’re so afraid to make waves and they go along to keep the peace. The result is that they haven’t allowed themselves to explore their own interests.

For all these reasons and more, it’s exceedingly difficult for them to say no, especially with very specific people. That could be family members, themselves, close friends, and/or, authority figures. They don’t really know themselves, which means they don’t know what’s okay and not okay with them because they’ve been such a chameleon. They have this belief that it’s not okay to set limits with others and it makes them a bad person if they do. 

They think if they had just the right words to say, they’d be able to get people to do what they want. And if people would do what they want, things would go much more smoothly. But it goes much deeper than knowing the right words. It’s about believing they deserve to have their needs met, their feelings honored and their limits respected. Even if they DID have the right words, they would know how to handle pushback when they set a boundary because deep down, they don’t believe they deserve to set limits.

They also have an exceedingly difficult time asking for help, if they can do it at all. When they even think of asking for help, they might feel like they’re gonna die (that was me – no exaggeration!). They don’t want to be seen as needy or weak or a burden. They probably have a history of family dysfunction or childhood trauma, which makes focusing on themselves and believing they’re deserving almost impossible.

The reality is that things will never improve until they stop putting everyone else first. In order to create a breakthrough to get the life and relationships they truly want, they have to stop ignoring themselves and start focusing internally. This allows them to determine what they truly value, so they know what’s okay and not okay with them. Then they can communicate that to others in an empowered way, including knowing how to handle it when people push back.

Here's what you can do.

Take time to get to know what you really want out of life. I suggest you start by identifying your values. What matters to you? Those answers will guide you toward the type of decisions you want to make and the types of boundaries you need to set. If your health is important to you, then you’ll want to dedicate time, energy, and money toward your health (i.e., set boundaries to promote and support your health).

Start focusing internally and reduce how much you focus on other people, places, and things. This is especially important if you’re more invested in other people’s well-being than they are in their own well-being. If you’re more invested in someone else’s wellbeing than in YOUR own wellbeing, that’s a red flag. I suggest focusing internally by asking what you want or need in a particular situation; what you could do differently in situations that don’t go the way you want; and whether it’s really your business to step in and help others or offer advice. If not, get their consent before offering help, or better yet – wait for them to ask for your help; stop trying to manage others’ feelings, they get to be upset sometimes, it’s not your job to make them happy; take good care of yourself by filling your own cup first so you can pour from the overflow, not from an empty cup.

If you recognize yourself in this article and are tired of reading all the books, attending all the seminars, listening to all the podcasts and you lack the ability to follow through for yourself, I’ve got you! If you recognize that now’s the time for you to change your ways, I can help. I’ll take you through a structured program of action and give you tons of personalized professional boundaries coaching. If that’s you, sign up for a free call with me here. Let’s make 2025 the year you FINALLY do this for yourself and live the life you’ve imagined!

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

The Progreso Latino Fund and Long Wharf Theater invite you to join us on Wednesday, January 29th, 2025, for a special pre-show reception of Long Wharf's production of El Coqui Espectacular and The Bottle of Doom.

The pre-event reception is free, and the performance is a ticketed event (purchase through Long Wharf Theater website). 

Details:

Date - Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Location - Lyman Center at Southern Connecticut State University, 501 Crescent St, New Haven

Time - 6 pm - pre-show reception. 7 pm - performance

Plenty of free parking

The play follows iconic Puerto Rican superhero, El Coquí Espectacular, along the streets of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where he finds himself up against supervillains and inner demons alike. Behind the mask lies Alex, a struggling comic book artist with a secret identity of his own. As he grapples with self-doubt and the lure of a steady job in advertising alongside his brother Joe, Alex must navigate the challenges of being a hero both on and off the page. This work is an exhilarating journey filled with action, humor and heart. The playwright, Matt Bardot, is Puerto Rican. 

Registration for the reception is required. Please go to :

Registration - hosted by GiveGab

We hope to see you there. 

Photo Credit: Unsplash

Have you ever mistaken familiarity for comfort? Many of us live in patterns that feel “comfortable” simply because they’re familiar—but are they truly comforting?

Comfortable vs. Comforting: What’s the Difference?

I’ve had a lot of patterns and dysfunctional behaviors that were comfortable because they were so familiar, but they were not comforting. That is, they may have been easy to do but hard to get out of like a well-worn groove. These patterns were dysfunctional and didn’t lead to my wellbeing; they weren't comforting.

One of the comfortable but not comforting patterns I had that many people can identify with is eating sugar to coat my nerves. Something difficult would happen and I’d find myself at the freezer door looking for some comfort, even when I promised myself I wouldn’t.  Many of us were given sweets to treat our boo-boos when we were growing up. Food in general was the only form of love some of us experienced, so it makes sense that some of us  turn to food for comfort.

Using food to soothe your nerves might bring momentary comfort, but it erodes your wellbeing.. It’s momentarily comfortable because we get a hit of pleasure and it’s sooo familiar. Ultimately, it’s not comforting because it’s emotionally and physically unhealthy.

Another such pattern I had was ruminating about the past and catastrophizing about the future. I used to think and think and think about troublesome things. I’d relive conversations from the past, replaying them again and again as if they might somehow turn out differently if I replayed them enough. Or I’d have negative fantasies about conversations in the future: “I’m gonna say this, then she’s gonna say that, then I’ll say this…” None of these things actually happened, yet I was left with the emotional impact as if they had. And those pretend conversations impacted my relationships with the people in them, even though they never actually happened!

Until recovery, I didn't really realize I was doing all that, or that it wasn't helping! I thought I was a totally optimistic, positive person. And yet I had all these repetitive, negative thought patterns. As I began to notice how frequently I did this sort of thing, I saw how much it was harming me!

Ruminating and catastrophizing were activating my inner drug store of adrenaline and cortisol, keeping me in a state of arousal and out of the present moment. It also kept me from taking any kind of action. These were very comfortable patterns of behavior for me. I realize now that I engaged in both  my entire life. On some level, I must have figured that if I thought about things enough, I’d either change the past or prevent catastrophes in the future. Instead, I was reliving the trauma of the past and experiencing emotions from future catastrophes that hadn’t happened.

These patterns kept my body in tension and negative arousal. They also kept me inaction, which meant things never changed. All that thinking was getting me nowhere except stressed and paralyzed. So if you're doing something that's comfortable for you, I urge you to consider whether it’s comforting. Does it lead to your wellbeing? 

We are wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain (i.e., to seek comfort). However, it’s impossible to go through life without discomfort. This is especially true if we want to grow. There is discomfort that comes from stretching yourself to grow, which is different than the discomfort of dysfunction. It’s good to feel the discomfort that comes from growing, but not too much too soon. It’s not good, nor is it beneficial, to put up with the discomfort of dysfunction.

We’re constantly bombarded with messages that try to make us believe that we should feel happy and satisfied all the time, and that any discomfort is bad. Don’t get me wrong - permanent discomfort is bad. Those who grew up in a dysfunctional family often have a high tolerance for dysfunction. Personally, I put up with shit for years that I didn't have to. That is not okay and that’s not the kind of discomfort I’m talking about. 

Being okay with temporary discomfort that leads to growth is a whole different story. For example, if you need to have a difficult conversation with someone, that will be temporarily uncomfortable. But it will lead to your long-term wellbeing. When you’re able to go through a momentarily uncomfortable conversation, that will lead to the kind of life you want to live.

Actionable Steps for Real Comfort

There is a balance in terms of the level of comfort we have in our lives. It’s important to stretch out of your comfort zone and work on doing things that are comforting to yourself. They may be uncomfortable at first (especially if you have life-long pattern such as self- loathing, self-neglect or self-harm). The trick is to make the shift to doing things that are comforting like:

• taking care of yourself – get 7-8 hours of sleep per night, drink plenty of water, allow yourself time for run and relaxation
• talking kindly to yourself – look at yourself in the mirror and say something nice like you would to a friend, be gentle with yourself when you make a mistake
• setting boundaries for yourself – pick a situation where you’d normally say yes even though you want to say no and rehearse saying no in your mind. Get support from someone so you’ll actually follow through and say no in real life.
• putting yourself first – schedule one hour of time for yourself this week and follow though on it, no matter what others say or do
• reflecting on your growth – take some time to journal this week about one uncomfortable new thing you tried this week and what you learned from it.

With these types of actions, you’ll create a life that is comforting, not just comfortable. 

It’s time to leave behind the false comfort of old patterns and embrace the true comfort of a life built on self-care, growth, and kindness. The journey might be uncomfortable at first, but the freedom it brings is worth every step.

I urge you to ask yourself if  your habits are truly comforting, or just familiar? Take a moment today to reflect: What’s one “comfortable” pattern you’re ready to trade for true comfort?

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

Featuring Jennifer Davies, William Frucht, Barbara Harder, Catherine Lavoie

Author Jonathan Swift’s famous quote “everything old is new again” plays out in interesting, creative ways in the January group show at City Gallery. MAKING AND UNMAKING — featuring work by Jennifer Davies, William Frucht, Barbara Harder, and Catherine Lavoie — presents the repurposing of what was into an eclectic exhibit of textiles, fiber art and handmade papers, prints, and photography. The show is on view from January 3 - January 26, with an Opening Reception on Saturday, January 11, 2-4 p.m. (Snow date: Saturday, January 18, 2-4 p.m.)

From Davies’ reuse of “that which is not deemed precious” and Lavoie’s consideration of discarded stories, to Frucht’s photographic exploration of our abandoned past, this mixed-media show explores the “necessary refocusing of the eyes to see things in a different context, when they are no longer trash, but art.”

Jennifer Davies graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and spent a year in Rome as part of the European Honors Program. Trained as a painter and illustrator, she worked for many years in watercolors, drawing, and monotype. Now her work is largely fiber oriented, incorporating paper she makes by hand using both Eastern and Western papermaking traditions. Fiber techniques she uses are pulp dipping, indigo dyeing, and sewing papers together to make large wall hangings.

William Frucht is a photographer living in Danbury, Connecticut, and working in New Haven. His photographs have been shown in juried exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, New York, Lancaster, PA, Greenville, SC, and elsewhere. Locally, he has received awards from the Carriage Barn Annual Photography Show in New Canaan, The Shoreline Arts Alliance Images Show in Old Lyme, and the Parfitt Photography Exhibit of the New Hampshire Art Association, Portsmouth, NH. He has also curated two exhibits of work by the Tibetan photographer Tsering Dorje: "Forbidden Memory" at City Gallery New Haven, and "Flames of My Homeland" (co-curated with Ian Boyden and Andrew Quintman) at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University. He has been a member of City Gallery since 2017.

Barbara Harder is a printmaker with a long history of involvement in New Haven’s arts scene as an artist, organizer, and teacher, including work at Creative Arts Workshop, Artspace, and Quinnipiac University.

Catherine Lavoie is a textile artist who explores human experience and the natural world utilizing repurposed and found objects. Recent work with bridal gowns create new life for garments that are typically worn once. Her handmade paintbrushes from pine needles and other natural elements add wispy marks to the fabric.

The MAKING AND UNMAKING exhibit is free and open to the public. 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. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

The People’s Opening Day Rally!

The 2025 Legislative Session Opens Up on January 8 and we are inviting all supporters of social justice and families of the incarcerated to join us at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford CT at 1pm at 300 Capitol Ave Hartford CT in Room 1D.

We plan to discuss demands of our legislators this session and calling upon our elected officials to represent the needs of ALL Connecticut residents. We hope legislators, everyone with incarcerated loved ones or those impacted by the prison system can join us in our fight to strengthen the Protect Act and give the Ombudsman more power to advocate for incarcerated people.

Please share on your social media, invite other advocates and people who care.

Note: Parking is free, when you enter the building you will go through the metal detectors and you’ll be directed to the Stop Solitary CT press conference.

This image was inspired by management guru Stephen Covey who introduced the concept of Circles of Concern versus Circles of Control. I love it for so many reasons, including that it’s really helpful for visual learners.

If you want to live your life on purpose and be proactive, spend the bulk of your time, energy and attention on the light pink inner Circle of Control. However, what many of us do is spend the bulk of our time, energy, effort and thought life on the dark pink outer Circle of Concern.

I love that Covey called the outer circle the Circle of Concern because we have every right to be concerned about those things. They’re important. But we can’t control them.

When we’re proactive, we have a small Circle of Concern and a large Circle of Control. That is, we spend a lot of time and energy focused on issues that are within our control. When we’re reactive we have a large Circle of Concern and a small Circle of Control. That means we’re expending so much energy on things outside of our control that we have almost no energy left for things that are within our control.

In recovery language, we’d say the Circle of Concern is “people, places and things” and that this is a good depiction of the Serenity Prayer. We need courage to deal with the things in the light pink inner Circle of Control, and we need acceptance to deal with the dark pink Circle of Concern.

Sometimes when we’re super focused on things we cannot control, we become paralyzed and unable to act. The global economy, the environment, politics, what everyone else in the world is thinking about you – that’s a lot of stuff! It’s draining primarily because it’s out of your control, but also because there’s so much there.

When you’re so focused there, you’re probably full of anxiety (on top of being drained of energy) and you have nothing left for things over which you actually do have control.

You get to decide where you’re going to focus your attention. Will it be on your Circle of Concern or your Circle of Control? If you focus on your Circle of Control, you’ll see you have many more options in your life than you previously thought. You’ll also find that you have a LOT more energy than when you were focused on the Circle of Concern because you won’t be drained by things you can’t control.

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

Painting, photography, video, and installation art by Sue Rollins, Maria Markham

When old friends Sue Rollins and Maria Markham’s paths crossed again earlier this year, they found a great commonality in the work they were producing. The result of that reconnection is ALTERED LANDSCAPES, a collaboration by the two artists that presents a statement about climate change and how we might all work together to save our planet. The exhibit is on view at City Gallery from December 6 - December 28, with an Opening Reception on Saturday, December 7, 4-6 p.m. and an Artists Talk on Sunday, December 15, 2-3 p.m.

“We believe that communicating through art, and remaining active and engaged, are positive steps forward,” says City Gallery member artist Sue Rollins.

Combining painting, photography, video, and installation art, the exhibit seeks to imagine a way through our current precarities. As Maria Markham explains:

“We don’t know what the future will hold but through art, we imagine one that thrives, that provides sustenance for humans and non-humans alike, and that achieves ecological balance. As artists, with our eyes wide open, we seek to excavate possibilities and divine the edge of other futures.

Rollins agrees, saying, “Collective action, belief in the power of community engagement and commitment to creating a sustainable future are our tools. By making conscious choices in our everyday lives, remaining engaged and optimistic, let us work together to imagine and create an altered landscape that is full of possibility and hope.”

Sue Rollins is a Connecticut-based painter and printmaker. Her recent work combines traditional landscape painting with abstract expressionist elements, addressing our environmental challenges with altered landscapes or windows into the past and future, creating art that is both peaceful and chaotic. Her long career as a graphic designer and love for typography and the printed word continues to inform her work in unexpected ways. She is a member of City Gallery, Silvermine Guild of Artists, and is an elected member of Art League Rhode Island and Connecticut Women Artists. Her work was chosen for the 2024 Silvermine 74th A-One show, and she was the recipient of the Samuel and May Rudin Award at the 2024 Greenwich Art Society Summer Exhibit, juried by Lauren Rosati of the Met Modern. Her work has been featured in galleries and museums in New England and Florida, including Galatea Fine Art in Boston, Five Points Gallery in Torrington, Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven and University Gallery in Gainesville, FL. She received a BFA from the University of Florida and studied with abstract expressionist Hiram Williams and printmaker Ken Kerslake.

Maria Markham works primarily in installation, sculpture, photography and video. Her work focuses on ecologies and the climate crisis, immigration, the failures of capitalism, and the socio-cultural anxieties and upheavals that mark contemporary life. Her artwork has been featured nationally and internationally in exhibits at The Invisible Dog, Brooklyn, NY, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, CT, Accent Sisters, NJ, Pollinator Gallery, PA, School of Visual Arts, NY and The Alternative Art School, along with venues in Latvia, Estonia, Ireland and England. She is a member of the Nua Collaborative. Markham’s practice is amplified by over 30 years’ work in the nonprofit sector with diverse groups and communities. She holds a B.S. from Trinity College Dublin and a Masters in Nonprofit Management from Brandeis University. Markham (b. Dublin, Ireland) lives and works in New Haven, CT. She recently completed an MFA at the School for Visual Arts in New York.

The ALTERED LANDSCAPES exhibit is free and open to the public. 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. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Description   https://careers.ctnonprofits.org/job/public-policy-and-advocacy-associate/75950258/

Under the general direction and supervision of the Director of Government Relations, the Public Policy & Advocacy Associate manages one or more membership Divisions and/or Forums and helps execute The Alliance’s public policy agenda and advocacy plans on behalf of Alliance members. This position functions as an advocate, organizer, and resource to Alliance member organizations. The Public Policy & Advocacy Associate is responsible for working with members to monitor and affect necessary legislative and regulatory change, as well as develop strong relationships to advance policy priorities. This position allows for hybrid work, except during the legislative session when in-person work is required at the state capitol. The Alliance is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive and equitable employment experience for all. 

Photo Credit: Andrej Lisakov

Most of us spend a lot of time wishing others would change. We feel frustrated, powerless, and stuck when they don't. But what if the real key to change lies not in them, but in us?

The way to change other people's behavior is by changing the way we behave towards them.

Let’s be honest, what we all want is for other people to change. One of the greatest gifts of 12-step recovery is that we really, deeply internalize the message that we can’t change others. We forget all the time though, that’s what the Serenity Prayer is said at the beginning and end of many 12-step meetings – because we forget.

We need the help of a Higher Power to get the wisdom to know the difference between the things we can and cannot change because it's so hard to keep this in mind. Then, once we get that wisdom, we might need the help of a Higher Power to accept the things we cannot change. Not accepting them is where the pain comes from. It's not what other people are doing that causes us pain, it's that we believe it shouldn't be happening. That’s why acceptance is so important. To be clear, acceptance doesn't mean that we like or want what happened. It means we stop fighting against it.

Here's what acceptance can look like. I want my brother to talk more quietly and to stop talking about politics. I requested both of these things many, many times and he’s literally incapable of them. I realized that this is who he is and what he’s like. So rather than trying to get him to stop, I decided to accept “This is what he’s like, so I have to change me.” I changed my attitude to “he’s going to talk really loud about politics” and decided I’d leave when that happened. Instead of staying and fighting against what is, I accepted it and left when it became uncomfortable for me.

When it comes to things we can change, we might need the help of a Higher Power to get the courage to actually make that change because change is hard. But of course, it's possible, no matter how hard it may be. 

The problem for so many of us comes when we're trying to change the things we cannot: other people, places, and things. When we focus so much on those things outside ourselves, we lose sight of changing the things we can: our behavior, thinking,  feelings, beliefs,  goals, and dreams.

We cannot change other people, but we can influence people.

When you change the dynamics of your interactions with others, things change between the two of you. You've changed your end of the interaction. 

One of the sayings I learned in recovery is that you can't have a tug of war with someone when you don't pick up the rope, or when you let go of the rope. Another similar metaphor is that when you change the steps of the dance you’re doing with your partner, they must either change their steps or exit the dance. These both represent the idea that changing your behavior influences the behavior of the other person. That’s how it works.

I’ve seen this time and time again in my own life, in the lives of my sponsees and my clients. Here’s an example from a sponsee of mine in recovery. She got a call from her dad just to see how she was doing. This had never happened before. They both said, “I love you” at the end of the call. When she told me this, she couldn’t believe this was the relationship they have now! For most of her 45 years of life,  she believed her dad was the center and cause of all of her problems. 

She told me, “My dad is not in recovery, HE hasn’t changed, but I have.” She stopped blaming him for everything, took ownership of what was hers to own, and accepted that this was the guy she got as a father, not someone else. Those actions translated into a much more peaceful and loving relationship with her father after 45 years. She’s the one who changed the steps of the dance with her father.

Here are some ways you can change the steps of your dance with others.

• Start telling the truth about what you want, need, think, and feel, and about what’s okay with you and not okay with you. 
• Ask for help from the people you always help. This lets them know that they have something to offer to you too. This could be advice, assistance with a task, or a ride somewhere.
• When someone says something about you that you disagree with, respond with, “That may be so” or “I see things differently” rather than getting defensive and saying, “That’s not true!”
• Let go of your expectations of others. Let them be who they are without trying to get them to change.
• Stand firm when you say no to someone. Just keep repeating, “That doesn’t work for me” or “I’m not going to make it” no matter how many times they try to cajole you into changing your mind. Expect that they’re going to do that, especially if they always have. Be ready for it and stand firm.
• Be really kind and supportive of yourself. When you get your own validation, you won’t need it so much from others. That will change the way you interact with them because you won’t be trying to extract love, affirmation, or assurance from them all the time.

What patterns or “dances” in your relationships have been causing tension? How might changing your own behavior shift those dynamics?

When I started changing the steps in my dances,  I often felt like I was going to die. I’d actually tell myself, “I didn’t die” afterward to reinforce for myself that I had a new experience so it would get logged into my memory banks. I now had evidence that the feeling I was going to die was inaccurate. It got easier and easier over time. I got less and less scared about doing new things.

It can be helpful when you’re changing your ways to others who literally or metaphorically hold your hand through the process. Having social support for your new behaviors can be a game-changer!

Think of one recurring conflict or dynamic in your life. Decide on one way you’ll change your behavior this week—whether it’s setting a boundary, asking for help, or simply letting go of expectations. Email me to share your experience, and let’s celebrate your growth together!

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

https://newhavenvision2034.com/events

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

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Mentoring has been practiced for millennia. It’s a fantastic way to build community, groom new leaders, forge ties between various groups, pass on institutional knowledge and culture, and feel connected to others. I’ve learned a ton about both being mentored and being a mentor in 12-step recovery through what’s called “sponsorship” in recovery. The most basic model of sponsorship in recovery is that you “find someone who has what you want and ask how s/he got it.” If the conversation goes well, you ask them to be your sponsor, and if they say yes, they take you through the 12 steps.

In some 12-step recovery programs, people are told that if someone asks, “Will you sponsor me?” you must say yes. As a former people-pleaser and rescuer, that doesn’t work for me. I’d have 50 sponsees if that was the case! So the main message I have for you here is:

Whatever mentoring relationship you get into, it needs to work for YOU!

It doesn’t matter if that’s a sponsorship relationship in 12-step recovery, career mentorship, spiritual mentorship, or a right-of-passage program. If the mentoring relationship doesn’t feel right to you, you don’t have to stay in it. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the mentor or the mentee. You get to be in a mentoring relationship that fits you, feels right, and you’re getting something substantial out of it.

I’m going to share my experience of sponsoring and being sponsored with some recommendations. Just as with everything I share, take what you want and leave the rest. My way is right for me, it might not be right for you.

Recommendations about mentoring relationships

If you're the mentor and feeling completely drained because you have too many mentees or other responsibilities, or your mentees need more from you than you’re willing and able to give, you can let people go. You could also change the way you do things. Perhaps start a group mentoring situation. Being a mentor should enhance your life, not detract from it. If you decide to let them go, you might try to help them find another mentor.

If you’re a mentee and feel like your mentor is just not getting you, not helping you, or you feeling crappy every time you talk to them, you can let them go. It's okay to do that. It's likely that over the course of your life, you’ll have multiple mentors. Some could be in different areas of your life, some could be in different stages of your life. In fact, having a coach is much like having a mentor except that mentors are typically not paid. Sometimes people work together with the same mentor for decades, and some people go from mentor to mentor. It's an individual thing, there’s no one right way for everyone.

If you’re the mentee, you get a say in whether the person mentors you or not. If someone says, “I’m going to be your mentor” you don’t have to agree. It’s unhealthy for people to foist their help onto others. We get to consent to whatever types of help we accept.

Getting started with mentoring

In choosing who might be your mentor, it’s good to look for someone who has the kind of life you want. This could be the kind of career, family, spiritual life, or recovery that you want. Whatever the area is that you’re seeking mentorship, they should be doing well in a way that you admire. When you find someone like that, speak to them and tell them what you admire about them, and ask if they’d be willing to be your mentor. Consider trying it out on a temporary basis, which might be best for both of you to get started. It will also be easier to let the relationship go if necessary when you start with an understanding that it’s temporary. 

Whether you decide to try out the mentorship temporarily or on a longer-term basis, perhaps check in at the 30-day point and again at the 90-day point to make sure it’s working for both of you. I recommend putting the onus on the mentor to do the check-in and to do it via email to make it as easy as possible for the mentee to bow out of the relationship if they choose to do that.  

Personally, I think it’s important to wait to get a mentor until you find one you really like. That way it’s much more likely to be a good match than if you just get a mentor to get a mentor. However, in 12-step recovery programs for addiction to substances like drugs or alcohol, you could possibly die if you go one more day without a sponsor. Keep that in mind. 

Take what works and leave the rest

The way the person gives you guidance is also important. You’re an adult and get to make your own decisions about how to live your life, so if someone is telling you to do something that just doesn’t feel right, you don’t have to do it. In fact, I prefer people who say things like, “Here's what I’ve tried that might work for you…” or “If I were in your shoes, here’s what I’d do…” rather than someone who says, “You need to do this.”

Think of it like this: they’ve been on this metaphorical staircase before you. They're ahead of you with a flashlight and they know which stairs creak but are still strong, which one's got a nail sticking out, and which one is broken. They're not there to tell you “You must go this way” but instead, “Here’s what I recommend” or perhaps “Here's what I've seen work in such situations.” They're there to guide you, not dictate to you. 

My personal experience

Now I’ll talk about my personal experience with sponsorship in 12-step recovery. When I met my first sponsor in OA, she said, “I’ll take you through the 12 steps, and when we're done I'm going to move on and get a new sponsee and you're going to move on and get a new sponsor.” That is, she set up the expectations for both of us from the start. That way, the entire time I worked with her, I knew it was going to end. I knew to start looking for another sponsor as we got toward the end of step 12. I found another sponsor soon after she and I finished the 12 steps. 

That person worked on something different with me using 12-step literature rather than doing the steps. But the work was still specific to the recovery program we were both in. My current sponsor and I read personal development literature together and talked about it. Sometimes it’s 12-step recovery literature, sometimes it’s not. I also share with her any difficulties I’m having and how I’m using the steps and my other recovery tools to handle things. I ask her for advice when necessary, and vent to her if it comes to that (which is less and less often as the years go by). I have a bi-weekly call scheduled with her, but if necessary, I reach out to her in between calls when I need support.

In terms of being a sponsor, I have several sponsees between my two recovery programs. In my ACA program, I’ve been working with the same sponsees for years. Once we completed the steps, we moved on to other program literature. Most of them I meet with bi-weekly at this point, though we met weekly for the first couple of years. I have one sponsee who’s taken the summer off from sponsorship work and another who’s currently on “pause” but texts me daily that she’s meditated for 10 minutes that day. That was something we both agreed would be helpful to her in her early recovery and she continues to do it. That way we’re still in touch a bit. At some point in the future, we’ll likely pick back up where we left off in the literature we were working through. 

When I started sponsoring, my sponsor told me I might sponsor 10-12 people before I finally take a sponsee all the way through the 12 steps. That was really helpful to me because I worked with people who’d dropped out of recovery, who decided our relationship wasn't working for them, or they weren't willing to do the work. Knowing that it doesn’t always work out the first time (or the second or third…) was so helpful. For me, it was my ninth sponsee that I got through all 12 steps. I had the intention of continuing to work with her after we finished the steps, but she decided to move on so I got another sponsee after in that program. The same could be true in any mentoring relationship – the relationship may not last as long as you’d hoped.

The other thing that I do in terms of how I work with my sponsees is that I have them scheduled ahead of time. If we meet weekly, it’s the same time each week. If it’s biweekly, it's the first and third or second and fourth weeks of the month on the same day and time. That’s what works for me and my sponsees. Some people gag at the idea of being the scheduled like, and that’s okay. That’s what works for me. It also ensures that I don’t lose track of any of my sponsees and that they stay in the work. If someone can't commit to being on the phone with me at a prescheduled time, I’m not the right sponsor for them. If they need to speak with me between calls, they text me to find a time to talk soon.

If you’re someone who has been around in recovery for a long time, or in a career or other position for a long time, I hope you’ll consider mentoring others. People are thirsty for connection, especially post-COVID, and this is a great way to give back to others.

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/ ;

Photo Credit: Allan Mas

“Just because you think something doesn't mean it’s true.”

This was a revelation to me when I got into recovery. Not only was that notion surprising, but the fact that I’d been doing some kind of personal development work for over 30 years and this had never occurred to me was shocking.

I’ve since learned that I can change my beliefs by changing my thoughts. That’s because beliefs are just thoughts we’ve been thinking for so long that we come to accept them as THE TRUTH.  This has reminded me of something I shared on a podcast episode 3.5 years ago about turning obstacles into detours.

Obstacles vs. Detours

That is, I changed my mind about what obstacles are. I used to think of them as blocking me from achieving what I wanted. I now know that they’re actually detours, put into my way by the universe as a signal to take another route. 

When seeming obstacles have appeared in my life, I can look back and see that they were actually rerouting me in a different direction. Things that felt like absolute disasters in my life turned into blessings or they led me to something fantastic.

When you come to a roadblock where there's a detour sign, it's because there's something ahead that you or someone else might be hurt by, or there will be an extreme delay if you go that way. The detour is meant to take you on a different path. You can still get to your destination, just by a different path and likely on a different timetable than originally planned. My experience is that this is also true with things that appear to be obstacles in our lives.

A personal example of a seeming obstacle that was really a detour.

I was introduced to a guy named Jerry with the intention of casually dating. Neither one of us had any intention of becoming serious. Yet we unexpectedly fell in love. Very soon we started talking about spending the rest of our lives together. A few months later, seemingly out of the blue, he dumped me.

Up until that point, it was the worst thing I had ever experienced. I was a f-ing mess! I felt loved by him in a way I never had before, so I was absolutely devasted. A few months later he came back, apologized, told me he’d had to do some soul searching and we reunited. Soon after, he asked me to marry him I said yes! Five months later he dumped me again.

As you can imagine, I was devastated again. I’d had my heart broken before, but not like this. And never twice by the same person. This felt like an enormous obstacle to the future life I had envisioned. I thought I’d never be able to live without him, I’d never get over him and I’d never meet someone I loved so dearly and who loved me so dearly.

Yet here I am, 20+ years later, and I’m completely indifferent to him. And I’m a healthy person in mind, body, and spirit and in a healthy romantic relationship with “my person.” A few years after Jerry dumped me, I got to the point where I became just as grateful that he had dumped me as I had been that he had come into my life. There was so much about that relationship that was extremely unhealthy.

For one thing, we drank booze and smoked weed very heavily together. I was extremely heavy at the time, and he really loved heavy women. He constantly gave me goodies like Boston cream doughnuts because he wanted me to be even fatter (which honestly blew my mind – I’d never heard of “chubby chasers” before I met him!).

Where that detour led.

Had I stayed in that relationship, there’s no telling if I’d still be alive. I certainly wouldn't be living happy, joyous, and free the way I am now, with a sweetheart who’s clean, sober, and thoughtful. I have an intimate, healthy relationship now which I couldn’t even have fathomed back then.

That breakup appeared to be an obstacle on the path to my “happily ever after” when in fact it was a detour. As a result of the deep pain of that relationship, I decided I was not going to wait for the universe to reveal the reason for that experience. I decided *I* was going to make meaning out of it. I took a deep look at myself and I realized two aspects of my life were an absolute mess: my finances and my health.

I then proceeded to take a five-year period of time to overhaul my finances. I changed over 25 habits and behaviors around my finances and started reading about finances daily so they’d always be at the forefront of my mind. I later took about a five-year period of time to overhaul my health and lost 50 pounds. This was well before I got into 12-step recovery, so even though I worked on all this stuff back then, it wasn’t enough. However, those two periods of working on my finances and health paved the way for where I am today. 

How to transform an obstacle into a detour.

The way to transform a seeming obstacle into a detour is to make a decision to do so. It’s really that easy. There’s no need to wait for the perspective of time to realize, “This isn’t an obstacle, it’s a detour!”

Here’s another example. I was laid off after 19 years at Yale. Many would think of that as a disaster. In fact, that’s what I thought at first. Yet I would never have started my own business if that hadn’t happened. I've helped thousands of people on their healing, growth, and recovery journeys through my professional speaking, podcast, writing, and coaching. None of that could have happened unless I hit that “obstacle” of being laid off. 

The universe is for you, not against you. Or, as David Bayer says, “Believe in the certainty of the goodness of the future.” When we remember that things that appear to be obstacles are actually detours, it eases our tension, anxiety, and worry. There’s no need to wait for the future to show you, “That was a good thing that happened.” 

The universe knows better than you do. All you have to do is change your mind about what things mean: this is a detour, not an obstacle. When you start playing with that idea, you can start to imagine “What fantastic places might this detour be leading me to?” instead of “What disasters are coming my way because of this obstacle?” Dream about good things that could be coming your way and stop catastrophizing.

When you do that, you’re approaching life from a powerful state of being and living on purpose. When you see things as obstacles, you’re approaching life from a primal state and living reactively. All it takes is one little decision to make that shift.

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!

The incident that landed me in a 12-step recovery was that I hit a codependent bottom. It happened as a result of inviting my homeless friend Dan from church to stay overnight at my home during a really heavy snowstorm in January 2015. He accepted my invitation, of course. Then he stayed another time and another time, and within a few weeks, he was practically living with me. 

He was an admitted addict and an alcoholic. Now I think it’s possible he also had some kind of personality disorder. This guy messed with my head in a way I’d never experienced. He made me question my reality, and my motives and generally wreaked havoc on my life. And yet I continued to allow him to say. 

One time he was super high on this stuff that was going around in New Haven at the time. It was called K2 and it was almost like PCP in its effects. The high made the person have super unpredictable behavior and be really “out there.” During one of these highs, he was stumbling around my apartment and just wrecking the place. I was really scared. My nervous system lit up just by writing that. 

I had no idea what to do so I took out my phone to video record him. My brilliant idea was that if I showed it to him when he was sober, he’d “see the error of his ways” and stop getting high. I thought I could manipulate him out of his addiction. I didn't know any better back then, which seems rather obvious since I invited a homeless person to stay in my home!

Instead of him seeing the error of his ways, he lost his shit when I showed him the video. He said, “That's exactly the kind of thing that my father did to me!” By then I knew how much he demonized his father. When Dan’s mother was alive, she’d allow him to sneak into the family home to get food and sleep sometimes. His father was the one who kicked him out because he wasn’t willing to enable him, which is why Dan demonized him.

When I showed Dan the video, he turned me into the villain. He acted like I was a horrendous person because I recorded his escapades. This strategy took the focus off of HIS behavior and put it on ME. He blamed me as if I’d done something wrong by making a video when he’d just trashed my apartment. 

At the time I thought, “He’s the one taking advantage of ME here” but I now know that he wasn’t “taking advantage of me.” I opened my home to him, invited him in, cooked, and did laundry for him. I drove him places, bought him cigarettes, and did all kinds of things to enable him so he would not suffer the consequences of his homelessness. And not suffer the consequences of his behavior while high. He was not taking advantage of me. I offered all these things to him.

Then I got resentful when it became too much. This is a hallmark of codependence – we give and give and give, expecting nothing in return. Then we hit a wall and become resentful because of the imbalance in the relationship. 

I didn't have any boundaries. I had a victim mentality, thinking he was doing these things TO me. Yet I’d invited him in, and gave him all kinds of stuff to make his life easier so he could continue using. I can see now what I couldn’t see then: I believed that I could somehow save him. That if I just provided him with enough stuff, care, and attention he’d magically turn things around.

What's interesting about that is he and I had a conversation once time where I mentioned how hard he had it being a homeless person. He laughed and said that I had it so much harder than him because he had no responsibility and I had tons. I was flabbergasted! He was a homeless person in New Haven, CT in a snowy winter with no income, he begged for money and went to 12-step meetings just for the free coffee and to get warm. And he thought MY LIFE was harder!

I lived in an apartment with heat, hot water, had many changes of clothes, a bed, food, a car, and other material items, not to mention a retirement plan and health insurance. He had only the clothes on his back and thought my life was much harder than his!

He said, “I don't have to do anything. I don't have to be anywhere. I don't have to answer to anyone.” What he was saying, which I know now, is that responsibility scared the shit out of him. He clearly did not have the skills to manage life. He shared with me that he’d come to believe that his mother subconsciously kept him needing her. He was the youngest of four children and she didn’t want him to leave. This kept him from not taking responsibility for himself. So the idea of responsibility scared the shit out of him. My guess is that he also didn’t think he deserved much better than what he had.

Back to my codependent bottom. I just didn't know how to make it stop. He’d do things like the K2 episode, lay these heavy guilt trips on me, and make me question what was wrong with me that I would even think about recording him. Now I can see that what was wrong with that wasn’t so much that I recorded him, it was that I thought that him seeing the video of himself while high would be enough to get him to stop getting high.

I can see now that I believed I could do something to intervene between him and his addiction. That's the thing with codependence -  we feel this compulsion to get in between other people and the consequences of their behavior. But we can't because we're not God. Then we get resentful of them, and make them be the entirety of the problem, even though we’ve been enabling them all along.

He was blaming me for being the problem because I recorded him. Yet I was blaming him for being who he was from the day I met him. And I was also taking the blame by feeling responsible for getting him to stop using.

Eventually, it just got to be so painful that it was intolerable. It finally sunk in, “I have to get him out of my house.” My sanity and my safety finally took precedence over trying to save Dan, who I’d only met a matter of months earlier. My compulsion to rescue, fix, and save him was so strong that I acted like it was my destiny to save him from himself.

Recovery truly and deeply showed me we cannot change other people. It doesn't matter how much we love them, how much we give to them, or how much we bend over backwards. It doesn’t matter if we slit our wrists and bleed for them.

We can't change other people.

This is why the Serenity Prayer is such a staple of 12-step recovery. I believe this is one of those lessons in life that we have to learn over, and over and over again: to discern the difference between what we can and cannot change. 

We especially cannot change other people who are addicts. The only thing more powerful than addiction is God. The thing about God is that the addict has to seek God and welcome God's guidance in order for God to interfere with the addiction. God can't interfere without that person's willingness because of that whole freewill thing. Since God is the only thing more powerful than addiction, but only if invited in, then you and I are not going to get another person to quit no matter what you do or don’t do. 

There are things you can do to make it more difficult for them to use, but you can’t stop the addiction, make them quit, get them into rehab, or get them into recovery. Those things essentially boil down to centering yourself in your own life instead of centering them. You can learn more about that in episode 140 of my podcast, “Loving Someone through Addiction” with my guest Jane Mackey. In the episode, she recommends the book Get Your Loved One Sober: Alternatives to Nagging, Threatening and Pleading. It’s excellent.

The book and Jane’s episode teach things you can do to lessen the likelihood of them using, that is, to stop enabling them. You can create conditions where you’re not making it easier or more pleasant for them to use. You’ll learn to make it more difficult and less pleasant. The main way you’ll do that is by centering yourself in your own life. I typically refer to that by saying, “Keep the focus on yourself.” You’re the only thing you can control, so the endless drain of energy that comes from trying to control people, places, and things will end when you keep the focus on yourself. They may or may not recover, but at least you will no longer be endlessly drained, and resentful and you’ll learn to actually enjoy your life. 

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

We Love What Makes You Unique

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 a team, we are also committed to addressing systemic racism and injustice in our community, our partnerships, and our practices.

Who Are We Looking For?

Do you have a knack for relationship-building and a talent for executing memorable fundraising and donor events?  We are looking for a proactive Fundraising and Events Coordinator to work independently and as a member of the Resource Development team to implement and support the fundraising initiatives at UWGNH that raise $3.5 million annually.

 
What You'll Do

Workplace Fundraising:

• Execute best practices for successful United Way workplace fundraising campaigns with local businesses to achieve revenue goals.
• Provide outstanding customer service with a focus on growing meaningful relationships.
• Support the Sr. Director of Development in managing priority workplace campaigns and partnerships.

Special Events:

• Plan and manage logistics for creative and engaging in-person and online community fundraising events including the annual Trike Race and our new Martini Competition and donor stewardship events.
• Provide support and service to company-sponsored employee engagement events including peer-to-peer fundraisers.

Department Coordination:

• Coordinate departmental and inter-departmental projects including mailings, donor touchpoints, recognition programs and promotional materials.

Corporate Engagement

• Identify new business prospects and participate in strategy development and solicitation.
• Represent United Way at networking and community events to increase visibility of United Way and build new relationships.

What You Need:

• Related Experience: One to two years of work experience, preferably at a non-profit. Bachelor’s degree a plus.
•  Communication Skills: Strong verbal communication and writing skills to effectively present United Way’s message to businesses, employees and the community. Comfort and ability to represent and speak about United Way in a variety of settings and with diverse audiences.
•  Project Management Skills: Strong organizational skills and attention to detail. Ability to manage multiple projects, prioritizing and planning for highest productivity.
•  Relationship Building: Skills to establish and maintain high quality relationships with a variety of stakeholders and create a consistent, positive experience for donors and organizations at every touch point. Collaborate and build relationships across the organization. Ability to work with diverse staff, partners, and volunteers.
•  Technology Skills: Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint and Teams. Experience with personalized large scale and small mailings required. Demonstrated comfort in learning new software/online tools as needed.
•  Database/CRM: Experience with Salesforce or other CRM products preferred. Knowledge of online giving platforms a plus.
•  Flexibility: Occasional evening or weekend hours are required. Reliable transportation with the ability to travel to and from meetings in greater New Haven is necessary.
•  Personal Qualities: Integrity, credibility, and dedication to the mission of UWGNH

The pay range for this position is $45,000-$49,000. 

United Way staff currently work in a hybrid environment, and this role is expected to work 3 days per week in our New Haven office.

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

About United Way

We bring 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 operate according to our organizational values.

United Way is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Don’t check off every box in the listed requirements? 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 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!

Too apply: Careers | United Way of Greater New Haven (uwgnh.org)

Photo Credit: Adobe Stock

If you’re dreading the holidays because you end up doing things you’re not really interested in doing, or going places you don’t really want go, or exchanging gifts when you don’t feel like it – I’ve got some good news for you!

You get to have the kind of holidays YOU want to have!

It’s OK to ask for what you really want and need during the Holidays. This could mean the type of gift that you want, the amount of time that you want to spend with someone, the amount of alone time or lounging time you have with your family, or certain destinations that you’d like to go to.

It’s also okay if people get mad at you for setting boundaries during the Holidays. It’s not the end of the world to have someone upset with you – it shows that they heard you! You deserve to enjoy the Holidays just like everyone else does!

The sooner you set boundaries with your friends and family, the sooner you’ll be able to actually enjoy the holiday season!

• it’s OK to not go home for the Holidays
• it’s OK to change holiday traditions
• you don’t have to spend the Holidays with people that you don’t like 
• you don’t have to exchange gifts if you want to 
• you don’t have to host a holiday event this year, or ever (even if you’ve always been the one to do it)
• you don’t have to live up to other people’s expectations for the Holidays
• it’s OK to refuse affection from family during the Holidays
• it’s OK to stay at a hotel instead of at your family’s home during the Holidays 
• and you don’t have to talk about subjects that are private or that make you uncomfortable over the Holidays

Below are a few suggested scripts for some of the above boundaries you might want to set.

You don’t have to explain yourself if you’ve changed your holiday traditions. In fact, it’s never your job to convince anyone to understand your boundaries. Choosing to no longer over-explain and justify a boundary is a boundary in itself.

If you want to change holiday traditions, you might say something like, “I’m not going to _ this year.  I’d like to try something new. it doesn’t mean I don’t value our old traditions, it means I want to create some new traditions.”

It’s OK to not go home for the Holidays. You might say, “I’m not gonna make it this year mom. I know you’re disappointed, I am too, but it’s just not possible this year.”

You don’t have to exchange holiday gifts if you don’t want to. You could say, “I’m no longer exchanging gifts with friends, just family. What I’d really like is to spend some time with you.”

You don’t have to talk about subjects that are private or that make you uncomfortable. You might say something like, “I don’t discuss that with other people” or “I’m uncomfortable with this conversation, let’s change the subject.”

If you know you want to set one or more of these boundaries for the holidays, I recommend you do it today! It’s respectful of the others with whom you’re changing plans, and it gives you peace of mind that it’s over with (and that you’re not going to do things you don’t want to do!).

For more posts like this go to: Fridayfragments.news

Join us this Monday, October 7th, at 11:00 am in Ives Squared at the Ives Memorial Library as the New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL) hosts the Regional Digital Navigator Kick-off! This event marks the official launch of our regional partnership to provide expanded computer and technology assistance in the form of a Digital Navigator in communities throughout the state of CT, supported by an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant in collaboration with the State Library.

What is a Digital Navigator?
According to the National Alliance of Digital Navigators, they are "trusted guides who assist community members with ongoing, individualized support for accessing affordable and appropriate connectivity, devices, and digital skills."

The Digital Navigators provided through the State Regional Hub are trained team members who specialize in offering personalized help with all kinds of technology, from computers and tablets to online tools and services.

How does this benefit our community?
While NHFPL staff already assist patrons with their tech needs, they also juggle many other responsibilities including general reference, collection development, and programming. The Digital Navigator program allows us to offer a dedicated team member solely focused on providing individualized tech support, whether at the Library or out in the community. Plus, participants who commit to working with a Digital Navigator for multiple sessions may be eligible to receive a free laptop or tablet of their own to keep!

We are thrilled to host this kick-off, especially as it coincides with the start of Digital Inclusion Week 2024. We’re looking forward to welcoming our partners from Bridgeport, Hamden, Naugatuck, Derby Neck, West Haven, and Woodbridge, along with Mayor Elicker and local elected officials.

Meet Our New Haven Digital Navigator
Help us spread the word about Hugh-John Dunkley, New Haven's very own Digital Navigator! A recent graduate in Computer Science from the University of New Haven, Hugh-John is available to meet with clients at the library or anywhere in the community—coffee shops, community centers, and colleges (just not private homes). Bilingual support is available in English, Spanish, and Arabic. He is available in New Haven on Wednesdays and Thursdays, by appointment.

Learn more about the program here.

How can a Digital Navigator help me?
Our Digital Navigators assist with job applications, résumé building, basic Microsoft and Windows skills, email setup, learning how to use computer programs, navigating MyChart, college applications, and distance learning tools. They can also help with any type of digital device beyond just PCs and tablets.

Celebrate Digital Inclusion Week with Us!
Digital Inclusion Week highlights the importance of bridging the digital divide. For many, access to technology is a barrier to career mobility, applying for benefits, or accessing education or healthcare resources. Digital equity is key to ensuring everyone can use digital tools confidently and effectively.

Here are some exciting programs happening systemwide during Digital Inclusion Week:

Resume and Tech Support with Yale Undergraduate Prison Project (YUPP)** at Ives on 10/5
Introduction to Computer Literacy Series** in partnership with CfAL starting 10/7 at Ives (three-part series)
Digital Navigator Introduction and Cyber Security Awareness** for local senior centers on 10/10 at Ives

Remember, NHFPL also lends free hotspots and Chromebooks to help extend access beyond the Library walls.

Let's work together to build a digitally inclusive community!