Connect Counseling & Wellness

04/15/2026

https://open.substack.com/live-stream/160613?r=msyt3&utm_medium=ios

Todd Kashdan on Substack

04/15/2026

If someone keeps pushing until you react, that may not be conflict. That may be baiting. The goal isn’t the conversation. It’s your reaction.

Baiting is a manipulative pattern where someone says or does something intentionally provoking so you get emotionally activated. Once that happens, the focus shifts away from what they did and onto how you responded.

Why people bait in toxic dynamics:
• throw you off balance so they can feel more in control
• provoke a reaction and use it against you
• avoid accountability by making you look like the problem
• reassure themselves that they can still affect you emotionally

This is why baiting can feel so confusing.
You walk away thinking, “How did that even turn into this?”

Because the setup was never about finding resolution. It was about destabilization and shifting the control.

A few signs you may be getting baited:
• The comment feels unnecessary, cutting, or oddly targeted
• The person seems more interested in your reaction than a real conversation
• You feel pushed to defend yourself, prove yourself, or explode
• The issue gets flipped and suddenly you’re the one being blamed

What helps:
Pause before responding.
Take a deep breath.
Ask yourself, “What is really going on here?”

• You do not have to respond to every provocation.
• You do not have to explain yourself to someone who is committed to misunderstanding you.
• And you do not have to keep engaging just because they want access to your energy.

You can calmly say:
“I’m not continuing this conversation if you’re speaking to me like that.”
“I’m willing to talk when this becomes respectful.”
“I’m not going to defend myself against something meant to provoke me.”

Sometimes the healthiest response is stating a clear boundary.
And .... sometimes it is no response at all.

Healthy communication is not built on traps, blame, or emotional setups.
It is built on safety, respect, and the ability to repair.

You deserve relationships where the goal is understanding. Not control.

04/15/2026

Every attachment style expresses love. The difference is in the form it takes and how visible that love is to the person receiving it.

Anxious love is loud and hyper-attentive. Avoidant love is practical and quietly present. Disorganized love is real but inconsistent in ways that confuse even the person giving it. Secure love is expressed directly, without the interference of fear about what that vulnerability might cost. None of these styles loves less than the others. But they communicate it in ways that can be completely invisible to a partner with a different attachment style.

Learning to recognize how your partner shows love, not just how you want to receive it, changes everything.

04/15/2026

Your Beautiful Life by Alexa

04/15/2026

“Navigating social exhaustion is a two-fold process. It is equally about prevention and about having the right tools to bounce back when it does happen. If you’re like me, I offer you these five strategies to help you avoid and recover from social exhaustion.”
👉 https://www.additudemag.com/social-battery-exhaustion-adhd-tips/

04/15/2026

While caring for a loved one can be very rewarding, it also involves many stressors. And since family caregiving is often a long-term challenge, the emotional impact can snowball over time. Learning to recognize the signs of caregiver stress and burnout is important, so you can take immediate action to prevent things from becoming worse and start improving the situation for both you and the person you’re caring for.

https://ow.ly/p0TZ50YInIP

04/15/2026

04/15/2026

When your client glances away mid-session, is it distraction—or something more?

According to Harvard-trained psychiatrist and trauma expert Frank Anderson, dissociation is one of the most underrecognized phenomena in clinical work—not because it's rare, but because most of us are trained to be on the lookout for the dramatic version and missing everything else. The subtle glance away. The client who's always in their head. The shutdown that gets labeled depression.

These are all points on a spectrum we're only beginning to understand.

In this conversation with the Networker's editor in chief Livia Kent, Anderson demystifies dissociation, challenges some of the field's assumptions about IFS and parts work, and offers a bottom-up, body-first approach to helping clients come back to the present. He also makes a compelling case that "dissociation" itself might need a new name—one that honors the survival intelligence behind it rather than pathologizing it.

🔗 Read the full interview here: https://bit.ly/4sEgMVY

04/15/2026