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The Awareness Studio Finding serenity, power, and freedom through relationships, recovery, and spiritual path.

10/13/2026

One of the most confusing parts of the healing journey is realizing that healthy relationships will probably not feel good at first.

If you grew up believing that love meant people-pleasing, caretaking, defending and overexplaining, walking on eggshells, or putting other people's needs before your own, healthy relationships can feel weird. If you can find one.

Usually, we attract what we know, so, you must first learn what a good relationship looks like and feels like. Then you must become someone capable of having one.
“Build it and they will come.” It really works.

Healthy relationships ask something different of us.
They ask us to be honest.
To let ourselves see and be seen.
To have boundaries.
To tolerate disagreement.
To stay grounded in ourselves while staying connected to another person.

That can be difficult if you've spent years believing that love hurts, and that relationships require self-abandonment.

But over time, as you grow out of old patterns, something beautiful happens.
You learn that you do not have to choose between being yourself and being loved.

I’m a counselor who has helped people have happy lives through healthy relationships for more than 20 years. When you're ready to reclaim your personal power and build healthier relationships, check out the link in my bio.

🧡 Patty Farinola

Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn about my counseling practice.

As a counselor who helps people have happy lives through healthy relationships, I have worked with a lot of codependent ...
10/08/2026

As a counselor who helps people have happy lives through healthy relationships, I have worked with a lot of codependent clients.

Codependence is often misunderstood as being too nice or caring too much. But sometimes it is quite the opposite.

It may take years to reach this place, or it may start in early on, but some people eventually reach a point where over-functioning, over-accommodating, and self-abandonment turn into something else entirely.

 Withdrawal
 Resentment
 Emotional shutdown
 Hyper-independence
 Feeling exhausted by relationships
 Feeling repulsed by another’s neediness

Usually, people do not pull away because they do not care.
They pull away because connection has cost them too much.

Healing codependence can feel confusing at first.

You might not yet know how to trust others – or yourself.
And you might not yet know how to stay connected without becoming resentful, overwhelmed, or emotionally flooded.

That middle space can look messy. But just like spring cleaning a closet, messy is part of the process.

You may notice yourself:
❌wanting closeness, but avoiding being open,
❌ craving support while struggling to receive it,
❌ feeling irritated by others’ needs because yours were ignored for so long,
❌ feeling alone and lonely.

Healing is about learning how to trust yourself, choose healthy people, and stay connected without abandoning yourself in the process.
✔️ Graceful boundaries
✔️ Powerful self-trust
✔️ Direct and respectful communication
✔️ Receiving support without feeling guilty (or like a burden)
✔️ Tolerating conflict without collapse

Those are relationship skills many of us were never taught.

If this resonates, you are not broken. There are just some things to learn (and unlearn).

When you are ready for support in unraveling these patterns and building healthier relationships, call me.

🧡 Patty Farinola

Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn about counseling with me.

06/27/2026

Many who grew up in codependent, addicted, narcissistic, or emotionally immature family systems became experts at understanding everyone else. That’s a skill that can be handy later in life, but…

Knowing what other people think, feel, and need is not the same as knowing yourself.

Personal power begins when you connect with your own thoughts, feelings, wants, needs, values, purpose, and identity.

This isn't easy to do. It takes time and effort, but it is worth it.

Developing YOUR power offers more freedom, more ease, self-respect, self-alignment, and the ability to form thriving and fulfilling long-term relationships.

I've walked this path in my own family and have spent years helping others do the same. As a minister and counselor, I've developed a framework to help you break free from these patterns and step into your personal power.

To learn more, feel free to DM me or check out the free guide at the link in my bio.

🧡 Patty Farinola
Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn about my counseling practice.

For many, learning to set boundaries does not initially feel empowering.It feels mean.Selfish.Unsafe.Cruel.Guilt-inducin...
06/22/2026

For many, learning to set boundaries does not initially feel empowering.

It feels mean.
Selfish.
Unsafe.
Cruel.
Guilt-inducing.

Not because your boundaries are bad or wrong…
but because somewhere along the way,
you learned that your role in relationships was to manage other people’s feelings.

To smooth things over.
Prevent disappointment.
Avoid conflict.
Keep the peace.
Be easy.
Be agreeable.
Be needed.

And when that becomes your blueprint for connection, someone else’s discomfort can start to feel like an emergency.

So when you finally say:
• “I can’t do that.”
• “I’m not available.”
• “That does not work for me.”
• “I need space.”
• “No.”
• Or even, “I want/need to do this for myself,”

… your nervous system may react as though you are hurting someone, even when you are doing something normal, or simply taking care of or protecting yourself.

**But you cannot have compassion without good boundaries.**

And you can understand someone’s feelings without taking responsibility for them.
You can care deeply about people… and still have limits.

Sometimes the most important shift in healing is realizing this:
Someone feeing disappointed by your boundary does not automatically indicate that your boundary is mean, bad, or wrong.

When you’re ready to unlearn guilt, people-pleasing, and emotional over-responsibility, I can help.

🧡 Patty Farinola
Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn about my counseling practice.

06/19/2026

For people with Complex PTSD, "just be yourself" is not that simple.
Because, how do you do that when you’re not so sure?

The real you is in there, but it’s buried beneath the things you had to do to survive.

Like:
✔️ Avoiding conflict
✔️ Tracking other people’s moods
✔️ Shape-shifting for emotional safety
✔️ Staying small, so you’re under the radar
✔️ Or rebelling to push the trauma away

I heard an interesting quote:
“The foundation is yours, but your family built the house around it to fit their comfort, not support who you were”

That explains complex trauma pretty well.

So, healing is not only about remembering who you are.
It’s also about burning down the faulty structure and rebuilding from the ground up.
Slowly creating a life, identity, relationships, boundaries, nervous system, purpose, and spiritual connection that feel like home.

This can be really hard at first, because authenticity can initially seem unsafe and uncomfortable.

But over time, you stop living in reaction to everyone else.
And begin enjoying a life that fits the real you.
You finally feel comfortable in your own skin.

Follow me for more awareness.
And when you’re ready to rebuild from the inside out, you know where to find me.

🧡 Patty Farinola
Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn more.


One of the greatest honors of my work is helping people build healthier, more connected, love relationships. Something t...
06/15/2026

One of the greatest honors of my work is helping people build healthier, more connected, love relationships. Something to remember: it’s never too late to get it right.

Most of the time, the work happens quietly. In conversations about communication, trust, vulnerability, repair, and learning how to love one another well through life's inevitable challenges.

Every now and then, I get the privilege of witnessing something extraordinary. The moment two people stand before their family and friends and choose one another.

Officiating a wedding feels like a beautiful extension of the work I do every day. It is a chance to celebrate not just a relationship, but the commitment, growth, courage, and dedication that make lasting love possible.

Healthy relationships aren't built in a single day. They are created through thousands of small moments of choosing love through connection, understanding, respect, and care.

There is something deeply moving about standing with two people as they begin a new chapter, knowing that lasting love is not found. It is built. Day by day, choice by choice, heart by heart.

What a privilege it is to bear witness.

🧡 Patty Farinola
Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn more about my work.

06/11/2026

What Happens When a Parent Never Takes Accountability?

One of the hardest things about growing up with emotionally immature parents
is that there is often no real repair when you feel hurt.

No ownership.
No curiosity about your experience.
No connection.
Just deflections and denials that feel like a punch to the gut.

You may have learned to:
overexplain yourself, trying to feel heard
question your memory, trying to understand
anticipate reactions, to avoid their anger
or feel guilty for having needs at all, to avoid being shamed.

Many children learn to abandon themselves because that was the only way to survive.

The antidote? Find your power.

PERSONAL POWER is knowing that you have the right to…

✨Think what you think
✨Feel what you feel
✨Want what you want
✨Need what you need
✨Be who you are

Healing begins when you start living from your truth,
and stop making your reality dependent on whether someone else validates it.
That shift can feel incredibly hard if you grew up in a codependent, narcissistic,
or emotionally immature household.

Follow me for more awareness, and when you are ready to reconnect with your needs, boundaries, and sense of self after growing up in those difficult dynamics, you know where to find me.

🧡 Patty Farinola
Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn more.
For my article on Personal Power: https://theawarenessstudio.com/2026/06/11/personal-power-2026/


We live in a world SO full of shame that any mistake, anything that doesn’t work out, anything that doesn’t live up to e...
06/04/2026

We live in a world SO full of shame
that any mistake,
anything that doesn’t work out,
anything that doesn’t live up to expectations… is “baaaad.”

We often make it mean that we’re bad, too.

I know, I’ve been there.
For me, anything less than 100/100 was failing.
Yeah, that helped me do well in school,
but it did not help with my sense of self or peace of mind.

Consider this: there’s a difference between perfectionism and striving for excellence.

Perfectionism: we hold ourselves to unattainable standards = a severe form of self-abuse.

Excellence: we do the best we can at the time, knowing some days will be better than others.
This is self-acceptance, coming from self-worth, because when you know you’ve done the best you can and it doesn’t work out, that does not mean you’re bad or broken, it means there’s something more to learn.

How else can you grow?

Which is why there is no failure, only feedback.

Follow me for more awareness,
and when you’re ready to reduce your shame and explore the feedback life is giving you, you know where to find me.

🧡 Patty Farinola
✨Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn more about my work.

05/31/2026

Have you ever felt invalidated when you told someone your feelings were hurt?

You say, “That hurt my feelings.”

They dismiss it with,
“You’re overreacting.”
Or, “I didn’t mean to.”
Or, “It’s your problem, not mine.”

That hurts even more.
It can feel confusing.
And clarifying.

I once heard Marianne Williamson
share a similar experience.
Her response?
“I’m sure you did not intend to hurt me.
The problem is, you did not intend to love me.”

You did not intend to love me. Wow.

When self-worth is low, we question ourselves.
When it’s high, we notice the other person’s behavior.
And we act accordingly.

Sharing your feelings is vulnerability.
It invites closeness.
Their response either builds trust… or breaks it.

Vulnerability needs two things:
Receptivity… and safety.
Without safety, it’s not a viable relationship.
Without receptivity, you don’t get connection. You get rejection.

Sometimes this can be talked through.
Sometimes, not.
So, you have to check yourself – what are you choosing here?
Do you love yourself enough
to deal powerfully with that kind of behavior?

Follow me for more awareness.
And when you’re ready to raise your self-esteem, you know where to find me.

🧡 Patty Farinola

Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn more about my work.

Children do not grow up and randomly distance themselves “for no reason.”Most adults who pull away from their family of ...
05/25/2026

Children do not grow up and randomly distance themselves “for no reason.”

Most adults who pull away from their family of origin spent years trying to preserve the relationship first.

Trying to explain themselves.
Trying to feel heard.
Trying to feel emotionally safe.
Trying to have needs, feelings, boundaries, or individuality
without guilt, punishment, criticism, instability, or emotional withdrawal.

Children are biologically wired to seek closeness with their caregivers.
So distance is intentional, often necessary. Not casual.

And when maturity finally brings autonomy, many people begin making decisions based on something they could not fully prioritize as children: emotional safety.

That does not mean parents must be perfect.
It does not mean conflict never happens.
It does mean that relationships remain close in adulthood must be built on consistent safety, accountability, warmth, respect, and repair over time.

Guilt and shame cannot create genuine closeness.
Control and criticism cannot create intimacy.
Access is not the same thing as connection.

And many adult children are not withholding love.
They are recovering from the cost of abandoning themselves to keep the relationship intact.

If you are an adult child of an emotionally immature, narcissistic, neglectful, or abusive parent and are trying to unravel the role you learned to survive in, you do not have to navigate that process alone.

Healing happens through safe, loving relationships. Through being seen clearly and caringly. Feeling heard and understood. Treated differently than what you may have learned to expect.

Healing often involves reconnecting with your truth: your needs, emotions, opinions, boundaries, and sense of self outside of old survival patterns.

If you would like support in that process, feel free to reach out to me about counseling.

🧡 Patty Farinola

Visit https://theawarenessstudio.com/ to learn more about my work.

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