Mary Anne Byrnes, BSW, LMFT

11/23/2025

It’s wild how easily we forget this:

humiliation has never made a human being rise.
Shame has never built cooperation.
Discomfort has never taught emotional safety.

We know this in ourselves —
the last time someone spoke to you with disrespect or made you feel small,
did you feel inspired to do better?
Or did something inside you shut down?

Children are no different.

If anything, their nervous systems are even more tender, their sense of self still forming, their trust in us the foundation they stand on.

Correction is necessary.
Guidance is essential.
But neither require wounding.

When a child feels seen, respected, and safe, their instinct is to meet you — to reconnect, to learn, to grow.

We don’t have to make them feel worse to help them do better. We just have to lead them in ways that honour their humanity, not compromise it. ❤️

Quote Credit: ❣️

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11/20/2025

Connection… then redirection!!

We talk a lot about teaching, correcting, and shaping our children…
but none of it lands without connection.

A child doesn’t follow guidance because we’re bigger, louder, or in charge.
They follow it because they feel safe with us.
Because the relationship matters to them.
Because their nervous system is steady enough in our presence to actually hear what we’re saying.

Connection isn’t the soft alternative to discipline — it’s the foundation that makes discipline meaningful.

When a child feels understood, they’re more open.
When they feel respected, they’re more receptive.
When they feel valued, they’re more willing to trust our lead.

That’s why the real work happens before the instruction ever leaves our mouth — in the tone we use, the presence we offer, the relationship we choose to protect.

Because guidance only really sticks when a child feels anchored to the person giving it. ❤️

Quote Credit: ❣️

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10/26/2025

Every hard conversation carries a choice — to open the door to connection, or to close it in defence.

When our children come to us in conflict, confusion, or emotion, they’re really asking: Is it safe to bring my truth here? And in that moment, our tone, our posture, our words — they answer that question louder than anything else.

If we meet their honesty with judgment, the door narrows.
If we meet it with curiosity, it widens.
If we rush to correct, we teach them to hide.
If we pause to understand, we teach them to trust.

But so often, we shut down these moments because we’re scared — scared of losing control, scared of being disrespected, scared of what their emotions might reveal in us.

Yet fear cannot lead our children. When fear takes the lead, connection takes the fall.

So we have to stop seeing these moments as battles to win or lose. Because when we “win” through power or pride, what we lose is far greater — the trust that keeps the door open.

There’s no victory in silence, no wisdom in fear — only the loss of what could have been understood. Because when fear forces an ending, love never gets to finish its story. ❤️

09/21/2025

I work a ton from the lens of attachment theory. This is a simplified breakdown of work needed to earn your attachment security. It’s not simple or cut and dry like this outline. But this is a wonderful overview to give people ideas about what healing requires, in a nutshell.
It’s important to remember that healing is messy. It’s not pretty. And you’ll never accomplish perfection. Perfection is not the goal!
The goal is to learn about yourself… the good and the need areas. Learn to accept it all. And figure out how to work with it rather than rejecting it and trying to bury it.
A lot of clients want to “stop feeling this way.” We don’t eliminate emotional experiences. But over time we can decrease their intensity and impact by learning how to support ourselves through those emotional experiences in a way that we can be more proud of. In a way where we learn about ourselves and others, leading to growth and connection, rather than reacting to the emotions in ways that lead to regrets, shame, and disconnection.
Embrace being human. We are biologically designed with emotions as a signaling system. We’re all responsible for figuring out how to navigate that system, just like any other skill we develop in life.

04/03/2022

03/26/2022

03/10/2022

Advice for raising children with a narcissist. This is an extremely complicated and tricky issue for those who have children with the narcissist, as a narcissist doesn’t co-parent, they count…

03/06/2022

03/05/2022

As a therapist, it has been one of my missions to reframe people’s thinking to “managing” their reactions to emotions rather than “controlling” the emotion itself!! We can’t “control” our emotions!!! We’re biologically designed to have them and use them as a system to signal us to take action to change something or protect ourselves!! We have to learn how to read those signals, including differentiating between when the signals are hyper vigilant vs when there is a real threat!! Then determine and follow through with an appropriate response or reaction, not based on emotion but based on health! If you really want to grow, you have to first be realistic with yourself!!

02/23/2022

Why would you lower your standards, your values, your life’s dreams, your energy, and give your precious time to accommodate and make another person’s life comfortable?

When we think of it this way the answer would be a resounding no.
When we abandon ourselves, It never works out well for us so “to thine own self be true” and continue learning, growing, and rising to your highest ideals for life.

When we rise we can offer a hand to help others rise too. 🖤

Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life