The Boundaries.me Podcast

What is the psychology of becoming yourself? How is your identity formed? This is a deceptively layered question related not only to your past, but to your present and future. There is a concept here that's important to understand: your true self, and your false self are not the same. We all understand who our true selves are, but our false selves are that person we show to the world out of fear,...

In this third final mini session on difficult conversations Dr. Cloud talks about getting clear about the purpose you're bringing to the conversation. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to win, trying to persuade, to convince, to show you are right? Or, are you trying to find a solution? When we come with the goal of finding a solution that works for both sides it becomes motivational. This...

In this highlight, Dr. Cloud goes into part two of his session on having a difficult conversation. This one is all about preparation. How do you bring your best and keep your fear in check when entering into a difficult conversation? First, you have to have a difficult conversation with yourself. What splinter is stuck in your finger? We have to take that splinter out before we go into the convers...

This is part one of a short series on how to have difficult conversations. In this highlight Dr. Cloud talks about an important skill to build before having a difficult conversation. In this session, he talks about how to create safe space for conversations that could explode. There are a few major issues that arise in difficult conversations: fight, flight or freeze. Dr. Cloud shares ways to make...

In this highlight from the show, Dr. Cloud talks about how we hold ourselves back internally from being who we want to be, or doing what we want with our lives. As children we are kept on short leashes and as we become adults it can be extremely difficult to accept our freedom. No one is holding the leash anymore, but in our heads it's still there. As long as we keep these mental leashes in our mi...

In this highlight from the show, Dr. Cloud talks about love and limits. One of the more difficult things about loving others is that we make ourselves vulnerable. Codependency easily arises in relationships when we fear losing love and enable bad behavior to prevent that love from leaving. The question then is whether we're loving them fully when we don't set limits around bad behavior. Dr. Cloud...

In celebration of 5 years of Boundaries. Me, we are hosting an open house October 17-31! All of our courses, coaching, and community are available for free during this time, with no credit card and no purchase required. Visit http://www.boundaries.me/openhouse to join us.   In this highlight from the show, Dr. Cloud talks about one sure fire way to ruin relationships: Fairness. Why would fairness...

In this highlight, Dr. Cloud talks about something all of us are guilty of: avoiding pain. The psychologist RD Laing said, "There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain." Avoiding pain is a prescription for more pain. Dr. Cloud shares ways to address pain with less fear, and stop avoiding pain.   Dr. Cloud's ne...

You'll constantly hear about two main areas to improve on in your life: the physical and the metaphysical. But that's not the whole story. In fact, it's missing a HUGE part of our lives–the third leg of the stool if you will. In no particular order there are three areas we  we need to maintain and improve on in our lives. One is our physical bodies. Next we have our metaphysical side (our thoughts...

In this highlight from the show, Dr. Cloud presents us with a seeming paradox of growth: developing new abilities and meeting challenges involves struggle. Trees need wind in order to stay standing–they need the stress of wind to stimulate the growth of deeper roots. It's a parallel that applies to us humans too. Good stress fosters growth. Just like we need resistance to grow muscles, we need met...

In this highlight from the show, Dr. Cloud talks about how and why we procrastinate and gives us some deceptively simple ways to address it. It starts with shrinking the task. Because the things we are putting off doing are always overwhelming in some way, the key is in breaking it down to one simple thing you can do. It's not that you lack the ability to do the thing you're avoiding, it's just th...

Starting on a successful path of growth requires having a good accountability partner. So what makes for a good accountability partner? Dr. Cloud goes through a short checklist of what to seek out and what to avoid in our candidates.    Dr. Cloud's next workshop is on Healing Parental Wounds . In this 2-hour live streaming webinar Dr. Cloud will help you identify your parental relationship injurie...

Dr. Cloud's next workshop is on Healing Parental Wounds . In this 2-hour live streaming webinar Dr. Cloud will help you identify your parental relationship injuries, understand how to face them, and give you the practical tools and advice you need to grow past your suffering. If you can't attend live, don't worry, you can stream the recording as much as you like. To find out more about it go to ht...

We all want to be self confident but it's often elusive. Dr. Cloud takes us through an introduction on how we acquire self confidence. Self confidence comes from trusting yourself and your actions. That's hard to do when we doubt ourselves. Dr. Cloud brings it back to original sin, and the idea that we are able to judge like God does. When we commit to these types of self judgments we are no longe...

In this highlight from The Dr. Cloud Show: When we're trying to get from point A to B in a relationship or with a goal, a critical factor is our time. Literally anything we want to improve on–an addiction, finances, raising children, learning a new skill–requires time and prioritization. How we use our time is obviously important, but it's very easy to miss the reality of what we're doing with it....

In this highlight from the podcast, Dr. Cloud discusses the old cliche about how your thinking determines your feelings. Does your thinking change your feelings? Do your feelings change your behavior? Does your behavior change your thinking? In short, yes, to all of these depending on what you need to address. It might not be intuitive. You might be feeling anxious, and you know that changing your...

Achieving the ideals in life–feeling good, having great relationships, and accomplishing goals–is something that all of us want. It's funny that so many of us struggle with this right? So often the first crucial step is missing. You have to focus on the inside. Seeking internal growth is required to see the changes we want come into existence. Dr. Cloud asks: What path are you on to work on your i...

In this highlight from the Dr. Cloud Show, Henry talks about a key mental state for making big changes. 99% of what you're trying to accomplish in your life has been done, even the really hard stuff. People have lost 100 pounds, they have turned around broken relationships, they've gone from bankruptcy to wealth. These things happen and they can happen for you, but it requires doing things differe...

In this highlight from the podcast, Dr. Cloud dives into an all-too common problem during confrontations: Hijacking. We've probably all had this happen at least once. Someone has done something that needs to be addressed and when we confront them they externalize it: it's about someone else, or some other thing that happened. The problem is no longer in the room, and as we all know, you can't fix...

The word "hate" triggers lots of thoughts in most people, but there are good types of hate. It's good to hate depression, poverty, lies, violence and so on. In fact, what we hate can actually  define us in positive ways. At the core of this talk, Dr. Cloud points out that while hating is a very natural human emotion, it needs to be done the right way.   We have an upcoming workshop called Getting...

There are two parallel tracks that run through just about everything we do: Love and Truth, or put another way–Love and Structure–or yet another Love and Limits. To get the good out of something we need to apply a structure, a method, a limit, but we need to do it lovingly. This applies broadly in life. Not just in how we treat others, but also in how we talk to ourselves. When you fail at somethi...

What does happiness mean to you? 90% of it comes from things other than circumstances. We don't have a lot of control over the circumstances in our lives, but we do have control over our practices and routines. No matter what circumstances happen to you, winning the lottery, buying something you've always wanted, whatever it is, you'll come back to your set-point of happiness. Happy people put pra...

In this highlight from the podcast, Dr. Cloud comes back to a foundational, but oft overlooked aspect of boundaries. The Law of Respect. When we want people to respect our boundaries we in turn have to respect theirs, and it's not easy. We have to learn to love and respect people's "no's." It's one of the hardest parts about setting boundaries.   We have an upcoming workshop on Narcissism on June...

In this highlight Dr. Cloud talks about the gap between where we are now and where we want to be. It's often fear that prevents us from getting where we want to be. Each person's fears are different. How are you afraid, and what does your reaction to fear look like? Dr. Cloud talks about how to find what those fears are in the different parts of your life.   Got a narcissist in your life? Not sure...

In this highlight from the show, Dr. Cloud addresses why we worry about people not liking us. It's fine to be concerned about what people close to you think, but not everyone. If we can't differentiate between who matters to us and who doesn't, then anyone can affect us. We'll start people-pleasing with everybody. The solution is not a solo-event. While there is some work one can do on their own t...