Episode 73 - Boundaries
Episode 73 - Boundaries
Hello friends!
Welcome to today's episode of the Seasons of Joy podcast.
Before we get started I wanted to remind you again about my upcoming retreat. An Awakening Retreat will be held in Garden City, Utah near the beautiful Bear Lake. It will be October 5-7th. It is an opportunity to refocus on what is important to you. An opportunity to reconnect with yourself, others and God. And an opportunity to rejuvenate so that you can step into your life with confidence. Please be sure to click on the link in the show notes to get on the interest list so you can get more information as it becomes available in the next few days!
Now on to this week’s episode, Boundaries.
Most of us have heard of “boundaries” when it comes to relationships. There can be some negative connotations associated with these because they can be viewed as something like a wall we set up, pushing someone away, or blocking off someone from our life.
Do you feel frustrated or resentful because you don’t want to disappoint others so you always say yes?
Do you avoid any type of confrontation?
Do you disagree with someelse’s life choice but you still want to support them?
Do you worry about what other people think of you?
Are you trying to change other people’s behavior?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you probably don’t have healthy boundaries in your life and you probably have a negative view of creating boundaries for yourself.
Let’s talk a little bit about what a boundary is.
A boundary is something you create for yourself. An emotional boundary is much like a property boundary--it delineates where one person ends and another one begins. It is a way of "drawing a circle" around our behavior and ourselves. A boundary includes a request you make of someone to change a certain behavior and a consequence of what you will do to self protect if they violate the boundary again. Healthy boundaries promote self responsibility and empowerment which create closer relationships with others.
I recently heard Leah Herman on a podcast explain the work of Randi Buckley who compares the work of establishing healthy boundaries like planting a garden. When planting a garden, we want to create an environment where conditions make the garden thrive and foster creation. When establishing a garden, we determine the plants we want to grow and the weeds we want to remove. It takes planning, preparation, and intentionality to nourish something beautiful.
This is like our life.
When getting ready to plant and prepare our life’s garden, we want to ask ourselves questions like:
Who do I want to be?
How do I want to be?
How do I want to show up in the world, in my community, and in my family?
What do I want in my garden?
When we take the time to consider what we really want in our garden, we are better able to invite all the good in and then we nurture it. This creates peace in our life because we are allowing ourselves to say “yes” and “no”.
You get to decide what kind of garden you have. You get to decide how you want to feel and ultimately the experience you have. You get to decide what comes into your garden and what you will weed out of your garden.
One of the things that I work with my clients on is discovering their personal values. Once you discover your values, you are better able to plant and nourish those in your life’s garden. I will include a pdf in the show notes to help you begin discovering some of your personal values that help you feel like your true and divine self. Once you have discovered those values that are important to you, you get to decide who you let into your garden. If someone can’t honor safety for you they can’t come in. You meet them outside of your garden.
So when and how do we create a boundary?
Before setting a boundary, you must be clear to yourself about what your personal boundaries are. Most of us have a clear boundary around our home. This makes it really easy to see when someone has crossed it. However, many people aren’t as clear about their personal boundaries, so other people are often unaware that they have even crossed one. For example, do you allow people to yell at you? If not, what do you do when this happens?
I recently had an experience when someone yelled at me. I honestly haven’t really had anyone yell at me like this so I didn’t have a boundary around it. I just froze and allowed it to happen. Because I hadn’t created a boundary around this, I left this interaction with a feeling heartbroken and resentful. Had I created a boundary, I could have shown up as my best in the situation while protecting my emotional garden without the resentment.
Usually, boundaries only need to be communicated only when someone has violated them. For example, I believe, most of us have a boundary around physical violence. We won’t tolerate it. However, we don’t walk around saying, “Hey, if you hit me, I will call the police or run away.”
When a boundary has been violated, we need to communicate clearly to the other person that they have crossed a boundary and what the consequences will be if they don’t stop.
Let’s say someone comes into your backyard without permission, they have violated a boundary. You can either yell and scream at them, or you can tell them, “Hey, you need to leave, and if you don’t, I will call the police.” By saying this, you are letting them know they have crossed a boundary and what action you will take if they continue to do so.
You need to be clear on what your personal boundaries are and communicate them clearly when a boundary has been crossed.
So how do you set a boundary?
There are two steps:
The request. You ask someone to stop doing the thing that infringes on your property. This means literally or emotionally.
The consequence. You tell the person what you will do if they do not comply with your request.
Again, boundaries are meant to protect you emotionally, so you need to clearly communicate when a violation has occurred. You can set a boundary with your neighbor who comes into your yard and yells at you by saying, “Listen, if you continue to raise your voice at me, I am going to go inside my house. When you are ready to discuss the issue calmly I would be happy to speak with you. If it continues, I will call the police. This allows your neighbor to ultimately choose how they will behave, but clearly describes what you will do if the crossing of the boundary continues. You make the request, give them the option to do whatever they would like to do, and then you follow through on that request.
Perhaps you have a friend who is always late. You could decide this is wrong and disrespectful so you decide to not hang out with her anymore. You end the relationship. Or you could create a simple boundary instead of cutting your friend out of your life. It might be something like, “Hey, listen, I really want to meet you for lunch and I know that sometimes you run late. I’ll wait 15 minutes for you, but then I am going to need to leave. I won’t be mad or upset with you–I just don’t want to wait around longer than 15 minutes for you. I hope you understand and I am really excited to spend time with you.” Setting a simple boundary like this allows your friend to be who she wants to be and behave how she chooses to behave while allowing you to protect yourself, your emotions, and your time.
Making a request and following through on the consequences help you to effectively set a healthy emotional boundary.
Many people confuse requests with boundary issues. I actually believe we have very few boundary issues. We may want our husband to take out the garbage. We may want our wife to be more romantic. We may want our boss to give us more positive feedback on our work. We may want our friends to text us back sooner. We may want our adult children to come to visit more often.
These are requests and they fall under what I call the Manual rather than a boundary issue. It is totally appropriate and ok to make requests of people, but when our happiness or emotional well-being depends on their fulfilling the request, we create problems for ourselves. In the examples I gave, the other person is not violating your personal or physical space by not honoring your request, so this is not a boundary issue and it is not appropriate to create a consequence. If we do, we are trying to manipulate or control someone else and can be considered threatening behavior. Boundaries should always come from a place of love and promote kindness for self and others.
A boundary is not an ultimatum. We don’t use it as a way of controlling someone else so that we can feel better. This never works and only creates separation and disconnection. People don’t like to be controlled or forced to do something. Honestly, an ultimatum is a boundary violation against another person.
Here is an example. Let’s say I have a mother-in-law that likes to come by my house unannounced to see our family and she doesn’t knock first. I may believe that this is crossing a boundary for me but I have allowed it to continue without saying anything, so my mother-in-law most likely doesn’t even know she was doing so.
I can decide out of love for all of us and self kindness to set a boundary. I tell my mother-in-law, “We love spending time with you and I am so glad you like spending time with us, but I really need you to give me a call and let me know when you are going to stop by so that I can let you know if it is a good time or not. If you don’t call first, we may not be home and the door will be locked. We may be in the middle of something so we might just not answer. Calling ahead would be better for me because I would know when to expect you, and it would be better for you, so you don’t show up to find nobody home.” This sets a clear boundary with reasonable consequences if the violation continues.
It is important that I follow through with the consequences, this is the hard part for many people. I could worry about locking the door because I worry about how my mother-in-law will react. When I fail to follow through then I send the message that the boundary doesn’t truly exist. Additionally, my mother-in-law continues to come over unannounced, I feel frustrated and angry and slowly build up resistance and resentment. This doesn’t foster connection and an intimate relationship, but rather, it causes me to create unnecessary drama and conflict which my mother-in-law may not realize she is contributing to.
There are challenges to setting boundaries.
At one end of the spectrum there are people who try to manipulate other people’s behavior with all kinds of ultimatums believing they are setting boundaries.. At the other end of the spectrum, there are people who don’t want to set proper boundaries because they don’t want to risk losing relationships. They are afraid that if they set a boundary, take care of themselves and tell the truth, they might make someone angry. So, in order to avoid the other person getting mad, they stay in relationships that are based on lies, pretending, and resentment. This prevents connection and true intimacy in our relationships.
It can feel uncomfortable and challenging to have boundary conversations. It takes hard work. True Intimacy is hard work. When we honor our true and authentic selves while being willing to let other people interpret it or choose how they will react, it is difficult but so worth it in the end. Some don’t have the courage to have these conversations and they wonder why they don’t feel true connection or intimacy in their relationships. Or worse, the relationship falls apart in the end because of the built up resentment and anger, and we blame the other person because of our lack of boundaries. Often, we believe that others should just know our boundaries so we never tell them. We set boundaries because we love everyone in our stories, this includes ourselves and others) enough to tell the whole truth.
Other people don’t have to understand or agree with your boundaries. It is a real possibility that they won’t and you need to be prepared for that. Communicating a boundary that has been created from love for yourself and the other person can be done without attacking or yelling at them. Your boundary is about you and has nothing to do with them. They get to decide how they will interpret it or what they make it mean. This is not your fault so long as you have approached it from a healthy, positive, loving place. In the end, you get to decide how you will move forward in your relationship as your best self without resentment.
When we do this work, our relationships become intimate and genuine. People worry that they will be viewed negatively if they have a boundary conversation. What is ironic, when they don’t have a healthy boundary put in place, they generally act negatively and in a way they are trying to avoid because they are feeling resentful underneath. When we are more open and honest in our relationships, we create space for more honesty and connection.
Healthy boundaries require love, kindness, compassion and honesty. If you are angry, frustrated, or mad, you are going to want to work through these emotions first. The reason you are upset in the first place is not because this person has crossed your boundary. It is because you haven’t set a healthy boundary and you haven’t clearly communicated the truth. When you can own that and take responsibility for your emotions, you can explain your boundary from a place of love and set clear consequences for what will happen if it isn’t honored.
We can tell the other person that we are doing it all out of love. For example, “Hey, this is a boundary issue for me, and I am not comfortable with this going on. If it does continue, this is what I am going to do. I think you are wonderful and amazing, and I value our relationship, so that is why I want to be clear and straightforward with you about this.”
You need to always remember that the other person in the relationship gets to choose how they will act. When you have set a clear boundary and it isn’t honored, you’ll need to follow through with the consequences. Many people do this from a place of frustration or anger because, again, they believe they are being forced to follow through. But this isn’t true. The other person isn’t forcing you to do anything. It is your boundary and your consequence, and you’ll want to enforce it from a place of peace and love. There is no need or place to ridicule the other person or make them feel wrong or bad for their behavior. This doesn't feel good and it isn’t necessary.
It is important to empathize for yourself and the other person that you are doing this because you are taking care of yourself and it’s nothing against them. Again, be clear about upholding your boundary. Often, people will continue to cross your boundaries because in the past you haven’t had any, so they just keep doing what has always been done. But when you decide to begin taking care of yourself by enforcing your boundary, that will change for you.
I have talked about how setting healthy boundaries needs to come from love. It also requires kindness. Kindness is different than nice. I have spoken to this before in previous podcasts. Nice is when we try to manipulate the emotions of other people so we can feel better or to hold the truth all in so that the other person will feel better. Either, way it isn’t kind. Kindness means we are taking care of everyone in the story. Sometimes, the kindest thing we can do for someone is to tell the whole truth and to set a boundary.
Here are some signs you may not be ready to set a boundary yet.
You don’t feel peaceful and loving
You are trying to manipulate someone else’s behavior for your own benefit to avoid having to follow through on consequences
You are blaming others for your emotions
You are trying to cut someone out of your life
If you are experiencing any of these, it is not an ideal time to set a boundary.
Many people decide that they will just eliminate someone from their life because they trigger something negative in them. This makes sense, but this is not a boundary issue. What if the people who trigger something negative in us could be our greatest teachers? This can seem hard. However, if we step back and broaden our perspective, the people who set us off the most are able to do so because we either don’t have a healthy boundary in place or we never learned how to.
What if we can actually learn something from this relationship, especially if they are someone close to us like a family member or someone we have known for a long time? How can we use this as an opportunity to take care of ourselves better and create great connections and an authentic relationship through this conversation?
I have talked about setting boundaries from love, kindness, and honesty.
There is one more ingredient I believe is required–compassion.
It can be just as challenging when we are the one who crosses a boundary issue. We can become defensive or think shameful thoughts about ourselves. Either way, we create a lot of drama for ourselves and the situation.
What if there is another way to look at it–another perspective?
It takes a lot of courage for someone to share their truth with you. This is challenging and vulnerable. The fact that someone was able to do so says a lot about how much they value the relationship. More courage is required to set a boundary than to cut someone out of your life, or harbor resentment. What if it is a gift when someone shares a boundary with you?
Having this perspective can help us have compassion for all of the imperfect humans in our life. We are all doing the best we can and sometimes we step on toes and cross boundaries. It just happens and it’s ok. Let’s not overthink it or overanalyze it. Let’s just try to do better.
Boundaries aren’t easy but they are beautiful tools that can strengthen our relationships and create greater connection and intimacy with those we love. They don’t keep people out of our lives–they simply keep our important spaces safe.
I invite you to get really clear on what is important to you–your personal values. Look at what you want to plant in your life’s garden. Consider what you want to nourish and what you want to weed out. Decide what are boundary issues and what are just requests. Be willing to have the courage to honor yourself and tell the whole truth then watch what grows–peace, love, and connection.
That is all I have for you today.
If you want to dive into this further, I would love to be your coach.
I invite you to schedule a free Discovery Call with me to see if coaching is right for you.
Thanks for being here and have a joyful day!
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