Christine Brunetti M.A., N.C.C., L.P.C

06/15/2026

One of the hardest parts of ending a relationship is watching your ex seem to ride off into the sunset with someone new.

From where you’re sitting, it can feel like:
“They won. They’re happy. I lost.”

But here’s what I want you to remember:
We all have a wagon.

Every one of us is dragging around old hurts, fears, habits, defenses, and relationship tools we picked up long before we knew what we were doing.

Having a wagon doesn’t make you broken.
It makes you human.

The difference is that some people are willing to stop, pull the wagon around in front of them, and look inside.

That’s uncomfortable work.

That’s grief.
That’s loneliness.
That’s uncertainty.
That’s sitting with feelings instead of distracting yourself from them.

Your ex may be in a new relationship.

But if they haven’t looked inside their wagon…
they’re probably just pulling the same wagon into a different driveway.

And you?

You’re doing something harder.

You’re admitting the wagon is there.

You’re sorting through what’s inside.

You’re deciding which tools no longer belong.

That doesn’t mean you lost.

It means you’re one of the few people willing to do the work.

05/20/2026

05/15/2026

LESS IS MORE

When every day in a relationship becomes problems that need to be fixed…

“What’s wrong with us?”
“Are we okay?”
“How do we fix this?”
“Why does this keep happening?”

…the relationship itself can slowly stop feeling like a place to rest.

And it’s not always because (like your brain may insist):
One person cares more.
And the other person cares less.

Sometimes people care deeply…
but they just carry, express, or protect love differently.

Sometimes fear, hurt, or old experiences turn love into constant monitoring.

But relationships need room to breathe.
Room to laugh.
To be ordinary.
To have unfinished things and still feel okay.

Because eventually the relationship can start feeling less like connection…
and more like a problem waiting to be solved.

05/12/2026

🙄🤣🤣

05/12/2026

People pleasers often struggle to trust themselves when someone is treating them unfairly.

Especially when the other person or system is confident, inconsistent, manipulative, or “playing unfair.”

Instead of being grounded in the reality of:

“Wait a minute. Someone just took my lunch money.”

their mind will often automatically move to:

“Oh no…I’m causing a problem by reacting.”

Fear can completely take over in those moments.

Not because the person is weak, but because somewhere deep down they learned:

* keeping the peace = safety
* questioning authority = danger
* advocating for themselves = guilt

So instead of confidently standing up for themselves, they freeze, over-explain, second guess, and try harder to be “understanding.”

Like:

“Eh, I should just let it go…it’s only $1.30. Maybe they need it more than me.”

Meanwhile the nervous system is quietly screaming:

“Something isn’t right here.”

A huge part of healing is learning to pause long enough to ask:

“Is this only fear I’m feeling…or is there also some healthy anger underneath it?”

Because healthy anger is often what helps clarify reality.

Not explosive anger.
Not cruelty.
Not punishment.

Just the grounded recognition that:

“No. This is not okay.”

Learning to tolerate that realization, without collapsing into guilt, panic, or self-doubt, is a huge part of healing.

05/07/2026

Being clear is not the same as being cruel.

A lot of people were taught that saying what they want is:
• selfish
• harsh
• "too much"

So instead they:
• hint
• soften
• over-explain
• disappear mid-sentence

But clarity isn't aggression. It's honesty.

05/04/2026

But seriously…
Aren’t you exhausted from working your ass off to get it “right”, only to still somehow end up being the disappointment?

The bar keeps moving….
You try harder.
Explain better.
Become more patient.
More understanding.
More accommodating.
More useful.
Less needy.
Less emotional.
More whatever they seem to require this week
…and somehow it’s still not enough.

At some point you have to stop and ask:
“What exactly am I participating in?”

Because a lot of us are living by an invisible rule that says:
“I have to…or else.”

I have to keep the peace…or else.
I have to fix it…or else.
I have to make them okay…or else.
I have to absorb the blame…or else.

And usually the “or else” isn’t even conscious. It’s just an old nervous system terror that says:
“If I stop performing correctly, I could lose love, safety, connection, belonging.”

That’s why it feels so serious.
So urgent. So hard to put down.

But when the bar constantly moves, the problem is not that you haven’t worked hard enough.

The problem is that you’re trying to earn stability from people who are committed to instability. ❤️‍🩹

05/03/2026

I love this so much! ❤️‍🩹

05/02/2026

One of the wildest things about chronic people pleasing is how much time you spend working behind the scenes trying to stabilize people who are actively destabilizing you.

Trying to soften their moods.
Translate their behavior.
Prevent explosions.
Keep everybody okay.
Manage the emotional weather.

And somewhere along the way you start calling this:
“being loving”
“being patient”
“being a good person” 😳

But really a lot of it is:
hypervigilance + conditioning + fear of what happens if you stop managing the room.

And the shift starts when you realize:
other people’s words and behaviors are allowed to belong to THEM.

If someone repeatedly threatens to leave…. lashes out… blows things up…
creates chaos…

you don’t actually have to crawl inside their nervous system and fix it.

You can just…
believe what’s happening.
Proceed accordingly.
And let reality enter the room.

That doesn’t make you cold.
It means you’re deprogramming from the belief that love means abandoning yourself to hold everything together.