00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 174, "Better Boundaries." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:19 

Alright, hello there and welcome to the podcast today. If you can tell, still got a little bit of a cold going on. It's been doing its thing. I have taken a COVID test, but have not gotten my results back yet. So we'll keep our fingers crossed that I can do something this week besides just hang out at my house That would be super fun. 

00:41 

Alright, here we go today, my friends. We are going to visit the discussion on boundaries again. We're talking about better boundaries. Now, I know that a lot of you have not been with me since the beginning, which has been a little over two and a half years ago. But back in podcast number seven, eight, and nine, I did three in a row on boundaries, I just had so much to say. And I know that a lot of y'all have not gone back and listened to earlier ones, which is how most of us are when it comes to listening to podcasts. So I wanted to talk about boundaries again because they've kind of resurfaced again in my life with some situations that I've been watching and experiencing and looking at some of the things my clients are going through. And just such a valuable discussion to have. And so if you want a little bit more after this podcast, go back and look at number seven, eight, and nine where I talk about boundaries more in-depth there. 

01:38 

So I want to start off today by just talking to you a little bit about my boundary journey. So "boundaries" in the context that we talk about them with relationships was not a phrase that I had ever encountered before I got divorced. Now, I look back and I think "ooh boundaries would have made a big difference in a lot of ways." Yes, they definitely would have, but I hadn't heard about them. And so I got divorced about a little over six years ago and that first year didn't really encounter it, but about nine months into my divorce I encountered Brene Brown's work. Now, Brene Brown talks a lot about boundaries and there were some huge pieces in there that started to connect with me. I started listening to a lot of Brene's stuff and reading her books multiple times over the next couple of years, and I really stepped into this place of self-realization. This place where I started to realize how my inability to set boundaries had been so detrimental to my marriage. 

02:47 

Now just to give you a heads up, the home that I grew up in, I just don't feel like we needed to talk about boundaries much because we just didn't cross boundaries. My parents didn't cross boundaries with us. We didn't really cross a lot of boundaries with my parents. And so boundaries never needed to be a discussion. And even though we didn't have the terminology, the concept of boundaries just really didn't come up much. And so it wasn't something that was really on my radar at all when I got married. And I don't know that it was on my previous husband's radar either. And so when both of us were crossing boundaries, which we were, there was no discussion about it. We didn't know to talk about it. We didn't know to set boundaries. So anyway, I'm so grateful for this journey that I've been on because it was doing Brene Brown's work and really learning about boundaries, which was my first really big dive into the kind of coaching that I do now. And then that just kind of grew. 

03:53 

And then I found Brooke Castillo's work with the Life Coach School. And I found some other people, Byron Katie's work, and started to learn. And so boundaries are kind of my foundation in all the work that I've done to heal and to move on from my divorce and to move into a space where I feel like I can have such healthier, better relationships with the people in my life, whether it be my children, whether it be friends, work colleagues, whether it be someone that I'm dating. I just feel like this is the foundation of so much of what I do. So my heart really is tied up in boundaries. And I love to talk about this. So let's talk first about all about what are boundaries. In the basic easiest terms, it's basically just knowing and telling what is OK and what's not OK. What behavior is OK? What kind of interaction is OK? What kind of touch is OK? What kind of verbiage is OK? And what is not OK? And having the ability to speak that and to say it when it is necessary. 

04:59 

So we're going to talk today about a couple of things, but first of all, let's chat about why boundaries are so important. First of all, for self-respect, and second of all, because it protects the relationship. So let's take a look at both of those really quick. First of all, our self-respect. We have to love ourselves enough to take care of ourselves. Alright? It is my responsibility to take care of me. It is no one else's responsibility. Okay? I'm an adult. I get to take care of me. When I have little children, it was my responsibility to take care of them. But as they have moved into adulthood, they get to take care of them. And that's their job. Right? My job is to take care of me. I have to know that my voice matters. My thoughts, my feelings, my wants, my desires, guess what? These all matters. And so do yours. All of these things matter. Other people are not more important than us. We are equally important. And I think sometimes in a religious setting, sometimes with the societal expectations that we grew up with, we grew up as women thinking that other people are more important, that we need to put ourselves on the back burner to make things easier for other people. We need to constantly be in this serving place and that if we're going to be Christlike, we always have to put other people before us. And that is not right. That is not even what Christ taught. Christ taught that we are to love other people as we love ourselves. We are equally important. We need to love and respect ourselves as we love and respect other people. We're on equal footing here. And what I need matters, what feels comfortable to me and what feels uncomfortable to me, those are important things. And it's so vital that we respect ourselves enough to put ourselves on an equal footing with other people. 

07:00 

This is not saying that we think that we're better than other people and that people should always have to acquiesce to what we want. What this is saying is that we need to make our wants part of the discussion in whatever relationship that it is, whether it be a work relationship, a marriage relationship, a dating relationship, a parent-child relationship, friend relationships, all of these things, it is so vital that we see ourselves as equals, that we see all people as equal. We are all children of God. And God wants us to take care of and love ourselves. And so it's important that we do this. So self-respect is one reason why boundaries are so important. 

07:43 

Another reason why is because it really protects the relationship. When we love something, we protect it. And when we don't set boundaries, we leave our relationship vulnerable to destruction, because not being heard and seen over time will create resentment. I experienced this in my previous marriage. Just not being willing to speak up, not being willing to be heard and seen over time, created so much resentment and my heart was filled with so much resentment that, guess what, there was no room for. No room for love in my heart because it was so full of resentment. Resentment destroys relationships. It puts us always on the defensive. It makes us always angry. It makes our brain create stories that don't exist, that are blowing things out of proportion and seeing the worst things that could happen. 

08:42 

It may seem really hard at first to set boundaries, but it is necessary, vital, for the relationship to not just survive but also to thrive. So like a quick example, let's say you have an adult child who has always come over coming over and borrowing things from you but then not returning them or returning them broken or in disrepair or something, right? How does this play out? This plays out with with you not wanting to say anything because you still want him to come over and you don't want him to feel like you don't love them. And so we hold off, we don't say anything, but every time they bring something back and it's broken or it's dirty, it's not taken care of, we start feeling angry. We start having thoughts like "why do they take advantage of me? What's going on here," right? And then when they ask, we start getting our back up and we start getting like "why are they asking" and then we say "yes," but we don't say "yes" from a place of openness and love. We say it from a place of anger and resentment. And over time this is going to break down the relationship. Over time your child is going to start feeling this and they're not going to know what's going on because we haven't told them, right? We haven't set this boundary of what needs to happen. 

10:07 

Not setting boundaries allows negative emotions like resentment and anger and frustration to run amok. It shuts down our communication. We don't feel hurt or respected and our brain starts to spin stories. It's what our brain is so good at. Our brain loves a beginning, a middle, and an end. And if it doesn't have a piece, it's going to create it. And when it's creating a story from resentment, it creates all kinds of things that do not send us into a good space. Boundaries create safety. Okay, think about a teenager. A teenager with no boundaries starts to freak out a little bit. If their parents are just like, "oh yeah, do whatever you want, come in whenever you want, hang out with whoever you want," that child does not feel safe. They feel like they do not have a responsible adult in their life who is protecting them, keeping them from making stupid decisions  because they know they're gonna make them. They're never gonna tell you that. And consciously they may not think they do, but they know that they make stupid decisions. They want boundaries. Boundaries keep them safe. There are studies on this that boundaries help teenagers to feel safe. They need boundaries. 

11:27 

Here's a quote from a book called "Give and Take" that I really, really love. It's from Adam Grant and he says this, "research shows that on the job, people who engage in selfless giving," okay? This is not having any boundaries. This is just giving, giving, giving, giving all the time without doing anything. Okay, back to the quote. "People who engage in selfless giving end up feeling overloaded and stressed as well as experiencing conflict between work and family. This is even more true in marriages. In one study of married couples, people who failed to maintain an equilibrium between their own needs and their partner's needs became more depressed over the next six months by prioritizing others' interests and ignoring their own. Selfless givers exhaust themselves." Boundaries keep us from exhausting ourselves. They keep us from getting in this space where we feel like other people are exhausting us as well. Boundaries are so important. They protect our relationships. 

12:31 

Okay, so then the next big question is, "well, then how do I set boundaries?" Right? Here we go. Boundaries have to be set from a place of love first and foremost. We love the person. We love the relationship. We love ourselves. Alright? That is the first rule of boundaries, always from a place of love. Setting them from frustration or anger just turns into telling the other person what to do. Alright? And also doing things out of compulsion is not love. If I feel like I have to do something to keep the peace, I have to do something to make the other person happy, that is not love. That's compulsion, right? So if we're going to set boundary from a place of love, we have to love the relationship enough to want to protect it, to want to put it in the best place ever. Okay? What we may do in setting a boundary may hurt the other person at first, but it will not cause long-term harm. Okay? Short-term hurt, sometimes things sting. Right now, short-term hurt, but long term they actually protect. And this is what boundaries do. Sometimes boundaries will hurt right up front, but long term they protect. They do not harm long term. Right? So we have to love the other person. We have to love ourselves and we have to love the relationship enough to move into this space of setting boundaries. 

14:02 

Second, boundaries have to be about us and not about them. Here's the deal. We are not telling the other person what to do. Most of these situations, the other person is an adult and guess what? Adults get to do whatever they darn well please. We are not telling the other person how to behave, how to think, how to feel, how to treat us. Okay, we're not telling them what how to behave, what to do. We are establishing our behaviors based on their behaviors. Alright, so this sounds like "when you do this behavior, then I will do this." Okay? When you do this, you're welcome to do this, when you yell at me, you're welcome to yell at me. You're an adult. This isn't how you'd say it obviously, but this is what's going on in our heads, right? When you yell at me, and you are welcome to because you're an adult, you get to choose whether to yell at me or not. When you yell at me, then I will pick up my stuff and leave the room. Okay? It's not saying "you can't yell at me. You don't have a right to yell at me," because guess what? Yes, they do. They're an adult. They can do whatever they want. It is saying what I will do when you do behavior, when you engage in behavior, that is not okay with me, then I will do this. Okay? 

15:25 

And the last thing is I just want you to realize that actually verbalizing boundaries is not a frequent event. Alright? We don't walk up and down the aisles of the store and say to someone walking past us, "hey, don't hit me. If you hit me, then I'm going to walk the other direction." We don't do that because most people in this world are pretty good at picking up on social cues and going from there. Right? We can say in a more personal relationship, we can say, "I don't like it when this happens." Or "when you call me names, I don't like that. I would appreciate it if you didn't call me names anymore." And most people in our lives, because they're loving, kind, good people, will go, "oh, I didn't realize that was hard for you. I'm sorry. Let me change that behavior." And maybe occasionally they'll need a quick reminder, but most people are pretty good at picking up on these social cues and going from there. 

16:27 

But there are a select few people, sometimes in our lives, who will continue to push. And this is when boundaries need to be verbalized. This is when we need to say, "listen, if you keep doing this, then I will remove myself or I will leave the house and go spend the night with my friend or my parents," or whoever, right? This is how we do boundaries. We have to not be afraid to say what needs to be said. And most of us are. Most of us are afraid in certain situations to do that. Now, I will tell you that you, put me in a school setting in my class with my eighth graders. I've never had any issues from the very beginning  setting boundaries. Right? I'm very clear with my students on what's okay, on what's not okay, what's expected behavior in my class, how all of that works. But I noticed that even though I was teaching school and married at the same time, I was not good at boundaries in my marriage. Alright? And a lot of times the closer the relationship is, the harder it can be to set boundaries, right? That's kind of an interesting thing. Like passing somebody in the aisle at the store, if they were to reach over and slam into our cart or punch us or something, we would go, "hey, what is that? That's not okay." And we wouldn't have any issue doing that. But sometimes in these closer relationships, boundaries can be tricky. And here's some reasons why. I've got quite a good list here. I didn't even number them. But here we go. 

18:09 

First of all, it can be easy to pull into "just this once" mentality. But then it just becomes easier to do it again and again. We just think, "oh, just this once." They didn't, you know, they didn't ask politely. They didn't, you know, do whatever, but that's okay. They, you know, it's just happens this once. But then the second time it happens, it's harder to say, well, wait a minute, you know, because we've already let him get away with it once. So it's tricky because it's so easy to get pulled into the "just this once" mentality. Alright. Another reason is because we are socially conditioned to see ourselves as servants and we want to be compassionate, especially as women. We are so trained to think that we should put ourselves last, that we go on the back burner, that everybody else comes first. And we think that being compassionate is the opposite of having boundaries. But actually compassion and boundaries go hand in hand. Okay. So in fact, Brené Brown has this quote. She says, "the most compassionate people have the strongest boundaries." When I have very clear boundaries of what's okay and what's not okay, my heart can move into compassion because guess what it's not filled with? It's not filled with resentment. When my heart is filled with resentment, guess what? There's no room for compassion. So if I want to be compassionate, it is vital that I learn to have boundaries. 

19:39 

Another reason they can be tricky is I'm trying to avoid awkward situations. It is hard and tricky sometimes to tell somebody, "hey, yeah, that's not okay. I'm not okay with that behavior. When you say this to me, that doesn't feel right and I don't like that. Please stop." That sometimes feels awkward. It can feel uncomfortable and we want to avoid that. Another reason they can be tricky is because we don't want the other person to get mad. Sometimes we think that when we say something, the other person is going to get upset. But here's the thing. The only people that get upset when we set a boundary are the people who are benefiting by us not having boundaries in the first place. Think about that for a second. If someone's going to get upset, it's because our not having boundaries, our putting ourselves at the bottom, has been beneficial to them. Those are people that we may want to look at our relationship with them anyway. If they're going to get mad when we respect ourselves enough to set a boundary, then we may want to look at that relationship. Okay? And that doesn't mean that that's a horrible person, but it means that that relationship is going to need some help and is going to need some work. Alright? 

20:52 

Another reason they can be tricky is because we don't want to be seen as selfish. We think, as women so often we've been socially conditioned to think, that if I ask for what I want, then I'm selfish. Okay? Not true. We are not selfish when we ask for what we want. We are seeing ourselves as an equal player in the game. Another reason they're tricky. We want the other person to know we're all in. We want to let them know that, "hey, I'm in this relationship. I'm going to do this." But not setting boundaries is doing exactly the opposite. Alright? We're not all in if we're not setting boundaries, because we're not doing what it takes to create a healthy, strong relationship. We're setting our relationship up for failure when we do not set boundaries. So guess what? If you want to be all in, you have to have those difficult conversations. You have to communicate what's okay and what's not okay. And you also have to be able to respect that the other person may be setting boundaries as well. 

22:05 

So another reason they can be tricky is because sometimes we feel like we are making up for past mistakes or we are appeasing our guilt. Right? Because I did all of these bad things in the past, now I have to be down on my knees groveling to make this better. Absolutely not the case. Okay? That is not how we make up for past mistakes. Can we even do that? We really can't even make up for past mistakes. All we can do is say, "listen, I know that I was in the wrong. I know that I did not show up how I wanted to, but this is how I'm going to show up from now on. This is how I want things to go." If we're holding on to guilt from past things, that is work that needs to be done. We've got to work through that guilt for our past mistakes and we've got to bring that to the forefront and take care of it. But by not setting boundaries, that does not make up for past mistakes. It just creates a breeding ground for more mistakes in the future. 

23:15 

Alright. Another reason they can be tricky is because we see ourselves as a peacemaker and we think that keeping the peace is our job, at the expense of our inner peace. Really? Okay. If you have not listened to podcast number 172, just a couple of weeks ago, "Peace Misunderstood," that's what this one talks all about. Okay? We are not keeping the peace when I'm filling my heart with resentment and anger and frustration. That's not keeping the peace. That is not a peacemaker. Okay, a peacemaker is not somebody who just lets people walk all over them or make whatever decisions or do or say hurtful things. And they don't say anything. That's not keeping the peace. Right? Keeping the peace means that we are taking care of our heart and making sure that our heart is in a good place. And that means not only that we say what needs to be said, but we say it in a kind and a loving way. 

24:17 

Okay, here's the deal, my friends. Healthy relationships are built with healthy boundaries. You cannot have a good, healthy relationship if we are not clear about what is okay and what is not okay, if we are not having the conversations that clarify what is good, what is not good. What feels good to me, what doesn't feel good to me, right? We have to have those conversations, which are boundary conversations, if we're going to have a healthy, strong relationship. Love yourself, respect yourself, love the people in your life and set boundaries. 

25:07 

If you need some help figuring this out in your own life, if you're realizing that, "oh, I don't set boundaries clearly. I'm not really sure I know what boundaries are. I know that I'm already up to my eyeballs in not setting boundaries and resentment. And I want to figure this out." This is the place you can do this. Go to tanyahale.com. You can book a free 30 minute consult. We can discuss how to get you started and how to get moving on coaching and how to do some one-on-one. One-on-one coaching will fast forward your progress. I mean, listening to these podcasts, great. So glad you're here. And for many of you, this is exactly what you need and it's all you need. But some of you out there, and you know who you are, you need some help. You need some help moving into this in a deeper, more engaged way. And that is what I do. So contact me, let's set up a consult, let's get moving. And serious, this podcast, I love it so much. Thank you for being here. 

26:08 

If you have not left me a review and you listen quite frequently, please take a few minutes to get on your favorite podcast app and leave me a review and share this information with people that you feel can use this and that you feel will benefit from this. I love, love being a part of your life this way. And I love sharing this content with you. It has impacted my life in an indescribable way. I am in such a better place because of the work that I do and because of these concepts and it all started with boundaries. So yeah, boundaries are really, really important to me because I recognize how being able to have a voice. Boundaries require that we have a voice and that is fundamental to our growth and development as people. Okay, my friends, I love you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing this time with me and for investing in your growth and your development. So thankful to be a part of your lives in this valuable, valuable way. Alright. That was good. Okay, have an awesome week and I will talk to you next time. Bye. 

27:29 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.