00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 47, "Thoughts, Consequences, and 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. 

00:23 

Alright, hey there, nice to be with you today. I kind of should tell you, I love doing these podcasts. I love preparing for them because it really stretches me and pushes me to think about things and to process things and to put pieces together, so I love preparing them. And then I love sharing them with you and I really, really love when you give me some feedback. And sometimes I get little notes, or like the other day my cousin called and was just like, "oh my gosh, I've been listening to your podcast, I love it", and it was just such a good feeling to know that this is making a positive impact on the world. So, thank you for your kind words and thank you for joining me because I do think that this information is some of the most important information in our lives. I love working through it myself and then I love sharing that with you. I hope that you're working through it as well and that you're finding your life in a better place. 

01:16 

So here we go, today we are talking about thoughts, boundaries, and consequences. This is such an important topic and I always know it's a topic I need to talk about when I encounter it three times in one week from different sources. So here we go. I want to start off by saying that I just think the model is really amazing. The biggest reason I love it is because it is a place of responsibility rather than a place of being a victim. I believe that in our world right now we are training people to become victims. Everyone is always blaming someone else or something else for every little thing that goes wrong. We blame the traffic for being late even though we knew it was rush hour and we would need more time than normal, right? We blame our children for our stress, even though we're the ones who signed them up for and then paid for all of those different activities. We blame our spouses for our unhappiness, even though we're not doing the self-care activities that are going to put us in a good place. 

02:14 

And then there's so much validation from our blaming. Social media is great at validating. We're all working so hard at being empathetic that we're afraid to call bull crap when we need to. We believe stories that are full of half-truths and we pass along victim cards on social media like they were flyers at a state fair. So along this vein, I've seen some people using the thought model as a way to say that they can do whatever they want and it's the other person's responsibility to get their thoughts under control and they don't want to take responsibility for their own actions. 

02:47 

Okay, am I responsible for taking care of my own thoughts about somebody else's behavior? Absolutely, no doubt. Your actions in your model move into the circumstance line of my model. So if you treat me poorly, that is your action, right? But your action moves into my circumstance line and then I get to create a thought about your action, which then creates my feelings and my behaviors. But my having control over my thoughts does not exempt you from the consequences of your behaviors. 

03:23 

So I'm gonna use an extreme example so that it's clear, but by no means is this an impossible example. In fact, I think it's probably more common than many of us know. So we're gonna say that your spouse had an affair. Alright, so you definitely have some work to do surrounding your thoughts about this circumstance. I think for most of us in this situation, we would have thoughts running rampant all over the place for a little bit of time, all right? We eventually, though, would begin to settle down and then we could start choosing how we want to think. But our first thoughts could include such things as, "how could he do this to me? I don't deserve to be treated this way. He's the most horrible person to ever walk the earth. I will never, ever forgive him for this. What did I do to make him want someone else?" 

04:15 

Okay, all of these thoughts and feelings, all of these thoughts will create feelings of anger or resentment or betrayal. And that's okay. I would dare say that those are probably the right feelings at the right time. But it's so important to remember that it's not the infidelity that creates those feelings. It's your thoughts. At first, that's hard to wrap around because everything's new and fresh and raw. But as things start to settle down, we need to start remembering that it's our thoughts, okay? The infidelity was happening for some time without you knowing about it and you didn't feel any anger, resentment or betrayal, right? It's only when you found out about it that you started having thoughts about it that created the feelings. And that's okay. We will probably want those feelings for a while because of the enormity of trust that has been broken. 

05:07 

But let's say in this particular situation you decide to try and work through it with your spouse. You decide that we're just gonna figure this out because we love each other and we want to continue to have this relationship. One of the biggest places you will need to get to is a place of not feeling anger, hatred, betrayal, resentment, right? Which means we have to start thinking thoughts that will take us to different places. So we try on some other thoughts. I do know he loves me and he really wants to fix this. Or maybe we all make mistakes and I know he's sincerely sorry. Or I know he's doing the best he can to repent and repair the damage. 

05:48 

A new look at your forecast this morning...there are a ton of thoughts you could have, and these are just a few, but you choose a thought like that, and you work through it, and you work through it, and you work through it, and within a few months you feel as though you can believe one of those thoughts, and you start feeling a softening of heart towards him. You're being patient. Your heart is filled with love for him. You truly feel as though you've forgiven him. So all is good, right? Time to move on? Time for things to be how they used to be before the affair? Yee, not so fast. There is so much going on here than just getting your thoughts and feelings and actions aligned where you want them to be. The reason the thought model comes first is because healing cannot take place until I begin to allow myself to forgive and feel love. As long as I'm harboring anger and resentment or hatred and betrayal, I will never feel good myself because those feelings just don't feel good. They can make me physically ill. They can mess with my emotional health. They can even hold me back spiritually. 

06:53 

So first of all, it's vital that I'm responsible for myself and that I get to a place where I can begin to have feelings of love and compassion and forgiveness for my own sake first. I'm the benefactor of this amazing tool. The thought model is huge on getting us to this good place. The second benefactor of this will be your spouse. When you can approach them with these feelings of love and compassion and forgiveness, rather than with feelings of anger and hatred and resentment, the chances of you having discussions where healing can occur go way up. Because rather than being approached in a way that will cause them to want to put up defenses, love and compassion help create a safe atmosphere where they can open up, be vulnerable, and connection and healing can start to work their magic. 

07:49 

But again, all is not done. Because forgiveness and trust are not the same thing. Just because you get your heart to a forgiving place does not automatically mean that you put your spouse back into the same place of trust. Trust in this type of situation may take months, if not years, to build back. That timeline will be very personal, and it will depend heavily on the behaviors of the spouse who committed the adultery and also on you. But trust, although it takes a long time to build, can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. If you've been married for 15 years when you find out about the affair, it took 15 years of marriage plus dating time to build the intimate trust that exists between the two of you. But it can be destroyed the minute you find out about the affair. So it's 100% reasonable to expect that 15 years of trust building will will not be restored in 15 days, or maybe not even in 15 months. It's a long process of consistent, trustworthy behavior to regain trust. And it will start slow, it will trickle in a tiny bit at a time, but it's so small that it could be destroyed again pretty quickly if another infraction occurs. So you expect yourself to trust them right away? That's a little bit unreasonable. Is it unfair? Personally, I don't think so. But you can totally be in a place of love for your spouse and not trust them much, if at all. 

09:21 

Think about your teenager, he keeps sneaking out at night and getting in all kinds of trouble. Do you love them? Fiercely. Do you trust them? Not at all, okay? Is there a chance you could trust them for sure? Once they've stopped the behavior, once they've engaged in other behavior that builds trust rather than destroys it, and done it consistently for a long period of time. And this, my friend, is the natural consequence of the behaviors. Broken trust is a consequence of having an affair, and a piece of that consequence is that it takes a long time to rebuild. Could you just put them right back into the same place of trust? Yes, but they're going to be in a place of trust, really by name only. Deep down, you're really not going to trust them, and there will be a level of suspicion and resentment on your part, if they've not earned the trust back through consistent trustworthy behaviors. Okay? 

10:23 

And if the spouse gets angry at you for not trusting them, that's their thoughts about the situation that are creating their own anger. Recognizing that rebuilding trust takes time, is them taking responsibility for their action? Okay, obviously you don't have any control over whether or not they choose to take responsibility, but it's helpful to recognize that is what's going on. When they take responsibility for the behavior, they realize that a huge consequence of their behavior is a destruction of trust that will most likely take years to rebuild. Consequences are part of life for you and for them. In this case, it takes time for you to trust them again. 

11:08 

Alright, another piece of this puzzle is setting boundaries. And this is another place where sometimes people think that because of the thought model, I should just accept whatever behavior comes along and do it with thoughts that are going to bring me happiness and peace. And the response to that is "no." Is the thought model important here? Absolutely. And here's why. When I set a boundary, it is imperative that it comes from a place of love and not from a place of anger or spite. If I am setting a boundary to get revenge on the other person, then I don't understand what boundaries are and how they work. Boundaries are not used to punish the other person or to put them in their place. But when boundaries are established from a place of anger or spite or revenge, they're being used to punish. And the receiver of these types of boundaries will begin to resent you and your boundaries. Boundaries are not meant to punish, but they are meant to protect you. Boundaries are you saying, what is okay and what is not okay for you? What is appropriate and what is not appropriate for you? These types of boundaries, when established from a place of love, are helpful and they create a space for love and compassion to grow. 

12:27 

In this example of a spouse who's had an affair, boundaries need to be put in place to protect you and what is left of the marriage. So engaging with the thought model is the first and most important step in anything that we're doing, but it's not the only step. First and foremost, because when we can come from a place of love and approach the person in whatever situation we are in from a place of love, we are helping to create an atmosphere where connection can happen, where hearts can be softened, and situations can be worked through. If I approach any situation from a place of contempt or resentment or frustration, the first thing the other person does is put up their defenses to protect themselves and this will often make the situation worse. 

13:14 

So when I'm coming from a place of love and approaching the other person from a place of love, I'm helping to create an atmosphere that is conducive to resolving concerns. But the thought model and getting our thoughts in a place where we can feel love is not everything required to fix all of the problems in our lives. First and most important step, I believe so, but it's only the beginning of tackling some of these really huge problems. Your teen was caught drunk driving. Start with approaching from a place of love. That's where the thought model comes in, right? And then set boundaries and have them work through the consequences of their choices to rebuild trust. 

13:54 

Let me give you a quick example of that just today. My 17 year old daughter, she's just been seeming to be spending more and more time on her phone and she's 17. She needs to start making these choices on her own, right? And I trust her to make some good choices because of our past history, right? So when I talked to her about it, I just said, "hey listen, I just want to talk to you about something." I said, "I just would really like you to take a look at your phone use because I see you on your phone a lot and it's starting to concern me that that may be becoming a problem. And I just want you to look at it and reevaluate it and see if there's something you need to do to make sure that you're just in a good place with this." And she said, "okay, I will. thanks mom for caring so much about me." Now I know that that was totally like "wow, what, that really happened?" But it did and I was like "you're welcome. You know that I love you. You know that I care about you more than anything else and I just want you to take a look at it and be aware." And she's like "okay, I will." What she does with that at this point is kind of kind of be her choice. She's 17 and a half, right. She's got to start making these kinds of choices. Here's another situation. 

15:07 

So that was just kind of a little aside that I just thought of that happened today. So let's say your spouse is playing video games from seven to twelve every night and not engaging in the family responsibilities with you. Okay, first we have to start from a place of love and then we can have a frank discussion about it. We can start connecting on this issue rather than having contention about this issue. If you come at them, attacking from a place of anger and frustration, the first thing they're going to do is put their walls up, right? But if we can start from a place of love and just say "hey, listen, I really care about you. I really care about our family and I see something going on that has me concerned. Can we talk about it?" It's going to start that discussion off in a completely different place. 

15:59 

Another example may be your spouse is over spending and wreaking havoc with your family finances. Again, start from a place of love and then begin the conversation that will allow you to begin to resolve the concern. Another benefit from starting from a place of love is that looking at a situation from a loving space is going to help you see things that you very well may not have been seeing before. Maybe you'll start seeing that your spouse has always paid the bills first, so you're not behind or don't have any debt but you also are not saving money the way that you need to or that you've discussed. 

16:39 

But if you look at the extra spending from a place of contempt and resentment, it makes it very difficult to see the positive that may be going on in this case that you don't have debt, that your bills are paid, right? So what we see is completely different if we're looking through a lens of contempt or if we're looking through the lens of love. That's why the same behavior that entranced us when we were dating can now sometimes make our skin want to crawl. It's the lens we're looking through. It's how we're choosing to think about the behavior. In many instances, the behavior hasn't changed at all, but our thoughts about the behavior have changed. For example, when you were dating, you may have loved how service-oriented your spouse was, but after a few years, you may become resentful that they're always out serving other people when there are things that you wish could be going on at home, right? So though the behavior hasn't changed, the way that we've chosen to think about the behavior has. 

17:41 

Okay, so I really hope this has been helpful in clarifying some misconceptions that I've encountered this last week. Thought model first and foremost, because there will always be situations where it doesn't really matter, but getting our thoughts in a good place is just going to kind of smooth them over. But for some of the bigger issues, it's the jumping off point to help our crucial conversations and our difficult discussions get resolved in a way that brings us closer together, rather than ripping us apart. 

18:10 

Okay, if you have any specific questions about this topic or any other topic, go to my website, tanyahale.com. You can click on the "contact me" tab and you can send me an email. Super cool, right? I would love to have a discussion with you about them or even turn it into a podcast. Okay, I love growing up, don't you? I love this process of understanding concepts that are happening. So if you'd love some personal help from me to learn the difference between forgiveness and trust or how consequences and boundaries work, you can contact me at, again, my website, tanyahale.com. You can book a free 20 minute coaching session if you go to the "coaching" tab. I would love to help you work through some problems. 

18:55 

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19:36 

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!