A complete lesson on setting and enforcing healthy boundaries in your life-- even if you've never done it before.
Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com
Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session
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Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
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A complete lesson on setting and enforcing healthy boundaries in your life-- even if you've never done it before.
Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com
Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session
---
Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
---
My friends. So as you can probably hear, I have some kind of nasty cold. So instead of having to listen to my congested voice and me having to edit out when I cough every 30 seconds, I'm going to give you the audio for a boundaries masterclass that I did think around a year ago. This is one of those topics that I think you'll find very timely for this time of year when we start having to deal with our extended family and all kinds of relatives. I also wanted to let you know that now through December 8, I am doing a raffle giveaway, where you can win a free coaching session with me. The way you enter the raffle is you leave a review of this podcast and you email me the screenshot of your review and that counts as your entry into the raffle. You can email it to gerdungmelinda@gmail.com and this information will also be in the show notes right so without further delay, here is this week's episode on boundaries. Enjoy! all right. It is time to get started. Welcome to boundaries. masterclass. Boundaries is one of my favorite things to talk about because I think it's so important, especially as someone who has been in an abusive relationship. Boundaries are a really important tool in order to be able to form healthy relationships in the future. So I talk a lot about boundaries because it's something I feel very strongly about and it's something that I'm passionate about sharing with others. So let's gets started. So how this is going to go is I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about what a boundary is and what a boundary isn't. Then we're going to talk about how to set boundaries and enforce them. Then we'll go into some q&a. So if you are attending live, you may raise your zoom hand if you want to come on live. And the way that you do that on zoom is you go down to the bottom of your screen and you hit the buttons that says reactions and then you raise your virtual hand. now that we got that out of the way, so what is a boundary? A boundary is something that you implement in order to protect your physical or emotional space. It's something that you will do for you in order to maintain what you want in your life, what feels good to you. The basic elements of a boundary are what your boundary is, how you will know it's been violated, and then the action that you will take when that boundary gets violated. So it becomes very clear when we think about it in terms of physical space. So if you think about your yard, your backyard, there's a physical space there that belongs to you. So if you're in your backyard, and a stranger comes and walks into your backyard this person has violated a boundary. And you could then ask them, Hey, you are going to need to leave or I'm going to have to call the police. That's how you would let them know that they violated your boundary. In that sense, it's very clear what the boundary is and the action that was taken afterwards. And when we go to set boundaries in other areas of our lives, it's really the same formula. So if you can remember that example, You'll be able to get kind of a plug and play for your specific situation. I think it's a lot like those story problems in math class that we used to get. You just find what in your life needs a boundary and plug it into the formula. And that formula is your boundary and then the action you will take when that is violated.
What boundaries are not:I feel like people get confused a lot about what boundaries are and aren't. Like, if you assert something very angrily and forcefully that's not a boundary. Boundaries are not rules for other people to follow. So if your husband leaves his socks on the floor and you really just don't want him to leave his socks on the floor. That's something you really want and maybe it makes you angry, but it's not a boundary violation. And you can ask him to pick his socks off the floor. But if he doesn't, he's not violating any boundaries. Right The adults get to make their own decisions and decide how they want to be in the world. We can't control what anyone else does or says. We can only take actions that will protect our own inner peace and that's really what the boundary is supposed to do. It's not about manipulating anyone else or trying to get them to behave differently. A boundary isn't even really about other people. It's about you and what is good for you. In that vein, I think a lot of people are afraid to set boundaries because they are afraid that boundary might come off as angry or rude. Or it might somehow damage a relationship. And I think the important thing to remember about boundaries is that boundaries should really be set out of out of love. So it's love for yourself and for the other person. If you set boundaries out of love it comes off a lot softer. I actually think that if someone is really angry or frustrated that they need to work through those feelings before they're ready to set a boundary. The boundary that gets set out of anger usually has some of that controlling or manipulative or like angry vibe-- the whole vibe is very different. And they do tend to not be taken as seriously when they're set out of anger as when they're set from a very calm and certain, loving place. Right. Because a boundary is not something we're doing out of anger to punish someone-- that would be fall into more of the manipulative, abusive territory. So let's go through a couple of examples. So we'll take a fictional Susan. Susan's mother in law likes to drop by whenever and visit her grandkids and it's driving Susan crazy. She doesn't want her mother in law to just show up whenever like sometimes she doesn't want her around. So this is a perfect place for Susan to set a boundary. So she can tell her mother in law look, I love having you around. And I love that you like to spend time with the grandkids. But I need you to call before you just show up. If you show up without calling first, we're not going to answer the door. And that's a boundary that will likely feel very scary to set. If you've never set boundaries before, it's probably going to be pretty terrifying. Especially if you're a people pleaser and you're so used to using your actions as a way to try to control what other people feel. And so when you set the boundary, you're going to have to be prepared for people to feel the way that they're going to feel. If you've never set boundaries before and you've let people you know violate your boundaries, they might be shocked. They're not going to know what's going on. It's going to be really really surprising to them. And so, I would expect there to be a little bit of of maybe some friction, but the more lovingly that you set your boundaries, it does kind of lubricate that a little bit. And you will have to have your own back after you set them. There's a chance that someone does get upset or is frustrated or takes it personally. You are going to have to be a friend to yourself and really be there for yourself and stand in your own reasons and let them have their feelings. It's okay for them to have feelings. There was a time with with my own mother. I had this situation where she's very religious and I'm very not religious. She liked to take opportunities to like sort of preach at me or if something was going wrong in my life where like I was having any sort of issues she would use it as an opportunity to just slip in her own religious views as like the solution. I call it Jesus bombing. And it was something that bothered me for years, but I always just kind of like bit my tongue on it because I didn't want to make waves and didn't want to rock the boat. But the thing is while I was trying to not rock the boat, I'm having a lot of inner rocking of the boat. And that while that is happening, while she is violating a boundary that she doesn't even know exists because I've never set it, it's straining our relationship. Lack of boundaries strains relationships because when someone's violating your boundary, there's that resentment that will always come. The other person a lot of the time doesn't even realize they're violating a boundary because if you don't tell them how could they know. So it took it took years before I had like the clarity and the courage and the lack of emotional volatility where I felt like it was time to set that boundary. So she had texted me one day about something religious and I just responded back to her. I appreciate the sentiment, the loving sentiment, but I'm sure you have lots of people who are willing and happy to talk religious things with you, but I am not one of them. And so her reaction in that instance, was to apologize and she has since not brought it up. I had spent years in discomfort because I was afraid of her reaction and her reaction wasn't even that bad. And I was prepared for whatever it was and was willing to have my own back with that. But as it turns out, sometimes we do make things worse in our heads than they are in in real life. So that's something to keep in mind too. Like internal catastrophizing isn't always reality. What we think will happen doesn't always. And what's important is just being being willing to be open to whatever and having your own back no matter what. So for a quick recap. Boundaries are something that you set for you for yourself and for the interest of preserving relationships. Boundaries preserve relationships against a sense of resentment or anger that builds up inside when we allow people to violate our boundaries. A boundary should
consist of the boundary itself:what you do not want your life that someone is currently doing and the action you will take if that boundary is violated. And I want to stress how important it is to take the action. So ideally, you'll want to decide upfront, decide ahead of time what your boundaries are. Like what are you actually not willing to have in your life and will make your life better if that wasn't part of it? You'll need to to be very clear about what those are because it's not really something you can decide on the fly in the moment. Because then it's usually very reactive and it's not it's not really in the true spirit of boundary setting. Once you have decided what your boundaries are, then you have to decide what action you will take if they are violated. The action is always something you will do for you. It's not something that you will do to other people or in an attempt to get someone to do something different. Right. So if you were to do if you don't do X, then I will do Y --that's more of a threat. It's not about making threats to people. So if you don't want to be in a conversation where someone is raising their voic, you could say if you continue to raise your voice, I'm going to have to leave the conversation. It is about you. They get to decide whether they will or will not continue to raise their voice. That's their decision. You don't have to keep saying it. You get to exit the conversation. It's to preserve your peace. It's not about punishing them for raising their voice. It's think it's not really necessary to even treat someone like it's something wrong. Right? Just because something violates our boundary doesn't mean it like capital W wrong. It just means it's something we don't want in our life. We don't need to treat them like a villain. We just need to say I don't want to experience this and this is what I'm going to do if it continues. And then do whatever your action is that you will take for you in order to maintain your peace. That action is so, so important is because without the action piece, it's not a boundary. If there isn't an action that you are taking, if you're just saying oh I don't want people to yell at me, but you're not doing anything about it when it happens, iti's not a boundary. People will tend to get hung up or frustrated because they think no one is is following their boundaries and people keep violating their boundaries. But the problem is actually that they're not setting a boundary. They're not enforcing a boundary, they're not taking a boundary action. So essentially the boundary becomes non existent when you're not taking the boundary action. And there are some people who intentionally test boundaries. That will fall more into your toxic kind of relationship dynamics. So with those people it becomes so critical that you take the boundary action. And be very consistent because if you take the boundary action one time and then next time you don't, what that tells them is that they have to do it five times and then you'll comply with what they want. The boundary action has to happen every single time. It has to be very non negotiable for you. So that's part of why you really want to decide ahead of time. So your boundaries aren't wobbly. It needs to be like very firm like oh, this happened. You don't want to be like floundering like Oh god this happened. I don't want it to happen and then we do nothing and then you have have no boundaries. To decide ahead of time, what your boundaries are, what your actions are and being very committed. If you don't feel like you can take a specific action, like if you don't think you'll be able to enforce the boundary, you probably are not ready to set that boundary. It might be something you want to work on. Get yourself up to the point where you are willing to take the action or to decide that maybe that isn't a boundary that you want. It could be that you don't want to actually have that boundary. We do this all the time. We don't like something that someone does, but we don't want to take the actions that would be necessary in order to be a boundary. So you have to be really honest with yourself and you'll have to make the choice. Is this really something that's important enough to me to take these actions? Am I willing to experience any discomfort that might come? If you are willing to take these actions and willing to risk the emotions of other people, that's what will make your boundaries. What are you truly willing to enact and enforce. Let's move on to Q&A. One person couldn't make it live but they did have a question they emailed in. Oh, it's kind of long. So I'm not gonna read the whole thing. Ok so, at the beginning of the relationship she and her boyfriend had talked and he said he wasn't going to watch porn anymore. And after a while it seems like she caught him doing it again. And they talked about it and she told him that it makes her feel bad. She feels not good enough that he has to look at other women. So she wanted to set a boundary for him not to watch porn. So she told him not to watch it and he said wouldn't and then later he did it again. So she is asking how she gets that boundary. Oh, this is a really, really good example. So what you have right now is you have not set a boundary. The eason that you feel like you keep getting violated is because you don't have a boundary right now. You have made a request. You have asked him not to do this thing. He has declined to to comply with those rules. Right? Maybe verbally he did agree . His actions are not lining up. He doesn't actually want to stop. And we can't force him to do or not do anything, right. He's a grown person and grown people they get to make their own decisions in the world. You can't can't force anyone to do or not to do anything. If if you want it to set a boundary around this. you could decide I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who watches porn. That could be a boundary. In that case. If you were in a relationship with someone and they did that, that would mean you would end the relationship. That would be a boundary right and that's something you'll have to really consider it like is it important enough to you to end the relationship? Because at least in that case, if that was your boundary, that's the action you will take. The action you take has to be something that you will do for you. And no and it doesn't have to be that extreme. You could play with it a little bit like if you're going to do that I'm going to leave the house or I can't be around for a number of days. But you have to be very careful because you could easily slip into like a threatening or punishing sort of thing, right? You don't want to be like punishing. You don't want to move into that kind of controlling behavior. Right? He's his own person and he gets to decide who he is and who he is seems to be is someone who engages in porn. You will have to decide if you want to make it work. Do you want someone in who does that in your life? Because we can't make him stop. You don't want to move into that more controlling path right. Like if you don't stop I'll break your Xbox--t hat's not not a boundary. That's like controlling. You'll have to be really clear like there's something you want to send a boundary around. What would that be? What would that look like? Plug and play into the formula. So what is it that is your boundary? Without more information, that's what I would do.What I would encourage is to find where it fits in the formula. Make sure that you're not setting it out of anger, or feeling like you want to punish him. Set it out of a sense of love for yourself and for him. What would be the most loving thing that you would do for yourself around the situation? Okay it looks like we don't have any hands raised. So let's look in the chat. I did want to talk about something someone had brought up to me. I can't remember when, but something about you know, I keep setting the boundaries. Then at some point I just give in. So if there's an element of fatigue there-- that sounds like an element of fatigue. I would guess that if there's any element of fatigue, you haven't set a proper boundary. Because if you have a true boundary, like when you're taking your boundary action, it should actually be preserving your sense of emotional safety or emotional well being. Like it might feel uncomfortable for a little while to deal with other people's like reactions to that. That's very different from like a fatiguing. I would without having more information, but just from that little piece, I would check to make sure you have filled out the formula properly. Then make sure you are very consistent in taking the boundary action right. It's not enough to just tell someone you have a boundary there. You're just saying something not taking the action. It's it's the same as it not existing. The action is what makes it a boundary. Double check it is fitted into the formula. See how that improves the feeling. I'm trying to think if there's any more examples I could give to help solidify and clarify what a boundary is and how you could set it. So I think let me go to the one of the examples I gave when talking about this course was okay you have a mom in your mom group that likes to feel superior to everyone else and likes to infer that or directly state that your parenting style is wrong and she knows better. Right? How would you set a boundary in that situation? We go back to our formula. So the boundaries in this case would be I don't want to participate in conversations that are attacking me. What if she she attacks you for your parenting style? I will probably say to exit the conversation. When you're setting that boundary where you would say, hey, I really enjoy coming to this group and I'm glad we're all hanging out but I really don't appreciate being verbally attacked, that might be strong. So if you keep doing that, I'm going to have to exit this conversation. So setting that boundary and then being willing to feel the discomfort that comes up. Whatever her response is, you can deal with it accordingly. If she continues to be confrontational, that's your action, leaving the conversation. Lot of times you will find when you start setting boundaries, it almost like gives permission to the people around you to set theirs too. Like you can end up being a real inspiration and a good example for the people around you. Like the other moms in the group in this hypothetical group might have been going through the same thing and they watch you set that boundary and it might inspire them to do it too or to take care of themselves in that way. Like whenever your brain is trying to overcomplicate your situation, go back to the backyard example. Go back to the formula. Plug and play into the formula and don't overcomplicate it. Make sure it's it's a real boundary. And not just wanting people to not be the way that they are. Right that is it. If anyone has any additional questions you can reply to the email you got that gave you this link. And I will see you all later. Have a good one.