Codependency in Singapore — What It Actually Is and Where It Comes From

Codependency gets described a lot as a behaviour pattern — giving too much, needing too much, losing yourself in a relationship. But those descriptions start in the middle of the story. Codependency begins earlier, in a childhood where love and self-erasure became linked. This post is not a checklist. It is an examination of what codependency actually is and what it cost you to develop it.

Read More

People Pleasing and Exhaustion Singapore — Why Always Being Okay Is Costing You More Than You Think

There is a particular kind of tired that does not come from doing too much. It comes from never quite being allowed to be fully yourself — from the constant low-level labour of reading the room, anticipating what people need, and making yourself smaller or more useful or less inconvenient before anyone has even asked. This post is about that specific exhaustion and what is underneath it.

Read More

After Cutting Off a Toxic Partner or Family Member Singapore: What Happens Next

Most people expect to feel better immediately after cutting off someone toxic. Some do. Many do not. The guilt is real. The grief is real. And so is the strange disorientation of a nervous system that has been organised around managing someone for so long that it does not know what to do with the quiet. This post is about what actually happens after, and why it is not as simple as just moving on.

Read More
Family, Childhood, Self-Worth Rene Tan Family, Childhood, Self-Worth Rene Tan

How to Set Boundaries with Family in Singapore — And Why It Feels So Hard

Boundaries with family in Singapore carry a weight that the word alone does not capture. There is the filial piety layer. The face layer. The small social circles where word travels. The voice in your head that says you are being ungrateful. This post is not about whether you should set limits with your family. It is about why it is genuinely hard here, and what it actually looks like to do it sustainably.

Read More

Why Do I Keep Giving to People Who Don't Give Back Singapore

Most people who over-give in relationships do not think of themselves as over-givers. They think of themselves as caring, loyal, and perhaps a little exhausted. The exhaustion is the tell. Genuine generosity does not deplete you in the same way. This post is about the difference between giving from fear and giving from fullness, and why the body knows which one is happening even when the mind does not.

Read More

After an Autoimmune Diagnosis, When You Can No Longer Be Who They Need You to Be

Getting sick is one thing. Watching the people around you respond to it is another. This post is personal. It is about what autoimmune disease does to relationships — specifically the ones where you have always been the one who shows up, holds it together, and asks for nothing. And what happens when you can no longer do that.

Read More

Why Growing Older Can Feel Like Coming Home to Yourself

Nobody tells you that getting older can feel like a return rather than a loss. Not everyone experiences it this way. The ones who do tend to have one thing in common: they did not just survive the hard years. They stayed present in them long enough to learn something. This post is about what that process looks like from the inside. 

Read More

What Is the Scarcity Mindset and How Does It Show Up in Your Body

 Most people think the scarcity mindset is about money. It is not, or at least not only. It is about what your nervous system learned to do when there was not enough safety, love, or stability growing up. This post looks at what scarcity actually feels like in the body, why cutting people out changes it, and what the return to self looks like when it finally arrives.

Read More

Why Boundaries Are So Hard to Keep — And What They Actually Require

The advice to set boundaries is everywhere. What is less common is an honest account of why that advice so frequently fails — why people who understand boundaries, who want them, who have even managed them in one area of their life, find them collapsing in another. This post is about the gap between knowing and doing, across the different contexts where boundaries tend to be most difficult.

Read More
Self-Worth, Attachment, Childhood Rene Tan Self-Worth, Attachment, Childhood Rene Tan

What Is Self-Worth and Why Knowing You Are Enough Does Not Always Feel Like Anything

Most people who struggle with self-worth do not think of themselves as someone with low self-worth. They think of themselves as someone who just needs to do better, try harder, or finally get it right. That is not a coincidence. That is what low self-worth looks like when it has been present long enough to feel normal.

Read More

Why Am I Such a Perfectionist — And Why Is It So Hard to Stop

Most people who identify as perfectionists have already tried to fix it. They have read the articles, heard the advice, told themselves to loosen up. And it still does not shift. That is because perfectionism is not really about high standards. It is about something that sits much deeper — in the way the nervous system learned to stay safe. This piece looks at what is actually underneath it, and why it tends to be so stubborn.

Read More

How to Stop People Pleasing at Work in Singapore

Most people who people please at work in Singapore are not doing it because they lack confidence or assertiveness skills. They are doing it because somewhere along the way, saying yes and making themselves useful became the safest way to stay acceptable. That is not a training gap. It is a pattern with roots — and it requires a different kind of intervention than a communication workshop.

Read More

Fear of Abandonment Singapore — Why Even a Good Relationship Cannot Quiet It

The relationship is good. Your partner shows up. The care is real. And still there is a part of you waiting for the other shoe to drop — convinced that one day they will see something in you that changes everything. Fear of abandonment does not only visit difficult relationships. Sometimes it takes up residence in the good ones.

Read More

Why People Pleasing in Singapore Is So Hard to Stop

You already know you do it. You say yes when you mean no. You manage everyone else's feelings before you register your own. You have probably been told to just set boundaries, speak up, put yourself first. The problem is not that you do not want to. It is that your body will not let you — at least not yet.

Read More