Kristen D Boice, LMFT

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Noblesville, IN
Kristen D Boice, LMFT

Psychotherapist, Coach, Speaker, Close the Chapter Podcast Host + Facilitator helping you to close th

12/30/2025

Love doesn’t just want to be expressed. It wants to be felt. 🩷

In this episode, Dr. Etel Leit shares how the need to feel seen, heard, and emotionally held begins at birth.

It’s not a preference or a love language, it’s a survival need.

When that need isn’t met early on, it doesn’t disappear.

It often shows up later in relationships as longing, urgency, or fear of losing someone.

For many people, this is where love addiction begins.

Not because they’re weak or dependent, but because connection starts to feel like survival.

The body remembers what it was like to not feel held, and it clings to the person who seems to provide that sense of safety.

That’s when love can start to feel consuming, obsessive, or frightening to lose.

Understanding this matters because it helps shift the story from “What’s wrong with me?” to “What did I learn about connection?”

❤️‍🩹 Healing isn’t needing someone less but learning how to meet yourself with the steadiness and care you’ve been searching for in others.

I created a free guided journal to help you slow down and reconnect with yourself when love feels overwhelming.

Tap the link on bio or get it here at www.kristendboice.com/freeresources.

12/29/2025

Love addiction can grow out of the fear that without this person, I won’t be okay.

That being alone feels unbearable.
That I won’t know how to take care of myself or manage the grief, the emptiness, or the fear that comes up.

So we hold on longer than we should.
Even when we sense the red flags, letting go can feel too threatening.

We stay connected to the fantasy of what could be, even when the reality continues to hurt.

If this resonates, please know there is nothing wrong with you 🤍

These patterns make sense when your needs went unmet or when emotional safety wasn’t consistent.

And the good news is, these patterns can be healed ✨

🎧 To explore this more deeply, listen to my conversation with Dr. Etel Leit on the Close the Chapter Podcast, Episode 349: Healing From Love Addiction.

👉 https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode349

📘 Dr. Etel Leit’s book, UnAddicted to You: Loving Yourself Through the Darkness, is linked in the show notes.

12/28/2025

Loving others isn’t the same as letting yourself be loved.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Etel Leit who shares an insight that many people know how to love, give, and show up for others, yet struggle to receive love as they actually are.

She also talks about how love addiction can show up as staying hyper-focused on someone else while avoiding a harder turn inward.

That’s where real change begins: shifting attention back to personal responsibility, self-awareness, and the ability to receive love without conditions.

This can be a turning point, because healing doesn’t begin by fixing or blaming another person.

It begins with honesty about patterns, choices, and the relationship we have with ourselves.

This clip is just a small part of a much deeper conversation. Listen to the full episode of this week’s Close the Chapter Podcast.

Available on all podcast platforms or directly at https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode349.

12/27/2025

If love feels draining instead of supportive, something deeper may be happening.

This is something I see all the time when we talk about love addiction.

Many people explain away behavior by focusing on a partner’s trauma, their past, or what they didn’t receive growing up.

Over time, though, that empathy can quietly turn into self-abandonment, and self-protection starts to feel selfish or wrong.

💞The truth is, knowing why someone behaves the way they do doesn’t automatically make a relationship safe or sustainable.

Love addiction often keeps people attached to potential instead of reality, holding on to the hope that if they’re patient enough or understanding enough, things will finally shift.

Healing starts when attention turns back inward.

When pain is acknowledged instead of managed through caretaking.
When boundaries are allowed to exist without guilt.

💖And when love no longer requires losing yourself to keep the connection.

Have you been organizing your life around someone else’s healing?

12/26/2025

Have you ever had a moment where you realize that I’m losing myself?

When your thoughts, energy, and identity become consumed by another person, it can feel almost invisible at first. But over time, it turns into obsession, not love. Not connection. Obsession.

When all of your attention is focused outward, you disconnect from yourself, chasing the illusion that someone else will make you whole.

But that never brings peace.

You are not meant to disappear inside someone else. You are meant to have a life, identity, and sense of self that is fully your own.

🎧 Want to go deeper?

Listen to Close the Chapter Podcast – Episode 349: Healing From Love Addiction with Dr. Etel Leit.

👉 Listen here: https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode349

📘 Dr. Etel Leit’s book, UnAddicted to You: Loving Yourself Through the Darkness, is linked in the show notes.

👉 Save this post & share it with someone who needs this reminder 💛

12/25/2025

If you keep finding yourself in the same kind of relationship, it might be worth slowing down and getting curious.

In this episode,Dr. Etel Leittalks about how love addiction can quietly repeat early attachment patterns often without us even realizing it.

So many people think they’re being loving by staying, fixing, or holding space for someone else’s healing, when really they’re replaying a role they learned a long time ago.

That matters, because relationships built on rescuing or over-functioning rarely feel calm or mutual.

They usually feel exhausting, confusing, and heavy.

Awareness isn’t about blaming yourself or judging your past but understanding why certain dynamics feel familiar and noticing that familiar doesn’t always mean safe.

When we start naming these patterns, things shift.

Attention comes back to you. Choice becomes possible.

🥰 And love doesn’t have to mean losing yourself.

If you want a gentle way to explore these patterns, my free guided journal is here to help you.

📓 Tap the link in bio or grab your copy at www.kristendboice.com/freeresources.

12/24/2025

When love turns into control, it could be a sign that something deeper is going on.

In this week’s episode, I and Dr. Etel Leit, a human communication researcher and award-winning entrepreneur talk about how addiction can slowly place someone else at the center of our emotional world.

We start managing moods, anticipating reactions, and trying to stay one step ahead so we don’t get hurt or caught off guard.

It can feel like awareness, but it’s often fear-driven control.

The hard truth is, we can’t control or change anyone.

No amount of hyper-vigilance will make a relationship feel safe if it isn’t.

💯The only real control we have is over our choices—how we respond, what we tolerate, and what we continue to participate in.

The full episode explores how control, obsession, and love addiction are
connected and what it takes to break the cycle. You don’t want to miss it!

Tune in here https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode349.

12/23/2025

Grief is rarely just one feeling. It often asks us to hold two truths at the same time, and that can feel uncomfortable.

You can feel heartbroken and still notice moments of meaning, connection, or even peace. Both experiences are real.

Swipe through to read a few reminders about allowing these truths to coexist. ✨

Does this reflect something you’re experiencing in your own grief, or something someone you care about is navigating?

We talk more about this in my conversation with Dr. Pauline Boss, where we explore why closure is often a myth and how learning to live with unresolved loss can gently ease some of the inner struggle.

🎧 Listen to Close the Chapter Podcast, Episode 348: Why Closure Is a Myth (and What To Do Instead).

🔗 https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode348

12/22/2025

What if the reason grief feels so hard is because you’ve been told it should end?

In this encore episode, I talk about something I see come up again and again in my work: chasing closure often deepens suffering, because grief doesn’t offer certainty.

What it offers instead is the ongoing work of learning how to live with what was lost.

This reframe matters.

When we’re taught that closure is the goal, every wave of sadness can feel like failure.

Every moment of missing someone can feel like proof we’re doing grief wrong.

But grief isn’t something to complete or resolve.

💗 It reshapes how we carry love, memory, and meaning over time.

Trying to force certainty where none exists keeps the nervous system searching and tense.

Allowing grief to remain unfinished without rushing it toward an ending can actually bring more relief than chasing answers that aren’t available.

Grief changes when the focus moves from trying to finish it to learning how to carry it.

The full episode gives this conversation the time and care it needs, especially around letting go of closure. Tune in here https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode348.

And if you want a quiet place to process afterward, the free guided journal is there to support you. Tap the link on bio or get it here at www.kristendboice.com/freeresources.

12/21/2025

If healing feels like you’re circling the same questions again and again, you’re not doing it wrong. ☁️

In this encore episode, Pauline Boss reminds us that healing from loss doesn’t move in a straight line.

People often return to the same questions over time, but with new understanding, new capacity, and new perspective.

That matters because so many people judge themselves for revisiting old feelings or doubts. They assume they should be “past this by now.”

But healing doesn’t work that way.

Sometimes healing asks for less certainty not more.
Sometimes it asks people to release the need for clear answers.

And other times, it calls for reclaiming personal power after loss has taken it away.

Both are part of the process.

Growth doesn’t mean never looking back.
It means meeting familiar questions with more compassion and steadiness than before.

For anyone moving through loss right now, the encore episode might be for you.

Listen to it here https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode348.

12/20/2025

Loss doesn’t move in straight lines, and most people who are grieving are not broken or sick.

They’re responding normally to something deeply human.

Especially when the loss has no clear ending.

👉🏻 Swipe the carousel to learn why grief isn’t something you “get over,” how ambiguous loss works, and what actually helps people live with loss over time.

This conversation deserves more space.

The full encore episode is now available on all podcast platforms or directly at https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode348.

12/19/2025

Vulnerability becomes powerful when personal loss is shared honestly not to inspire, not to teach a lesson, but to remind others they’re not alone.

💯 That distinction matters.

So often, people feel pressure to package pain into something uplifting or useful before they’re allowed to share it.

But real vulnerability isn’t performative.

It doesn’t rush toward meaning.

It simply tells the truth about what hurt, what changed, and what still lingers.

😌When loss is spoken about honestly, it gives other people permission to exhale.

To stop pretending they’re fine.

To recognize their own grief, fear, or uncertainty reflected back to them.

This kind of sharing doesn’t fix pain.

But it reduces isolation.

❤️‍🩹And sometimes, that’s what heals first.

💭 Where in your life have you felt pressure to “make something positive” out of pain before you were ready?

🎧 Listen to the full encore episode for a deeper conversation here https://kristendboice.com/podcastepisode348.

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Welcome!

My name is Kristen Boice,

a psychotherapist (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist -- LMFT), motivational speaker, workshop presenter and trainer, and Close the Chapter podcast host who specializes in getting people unstuck—and that’s exactly what I help people like you do every day.

Through my speaking, Close the Chapter podcast, group coaching work, retreats, and free resources, I help people move forward to close the chapter on things that no longer serve them (like toxic relationships, negative behaviors and patterns, and old beliefs), and step into a different way of being.

Translation? If you’re in a period of transition, or have felt trapped where you are for too long, we’ll peel back the layers of your doubts and fears, and uncover the essence of truth already within you—so you can open the door to an incredible new phase of your life, no longer bogged down from the negativity holding you back.