A Jolting Exploration of How Boundary Setting Creates a Safe Space for You to Heal Emotionally: Part 1

In this episode, Sarah talks to you straight about when to set boundaries, why to set them, and how emotional immaturity in others can challenge your boundaries. Learn why being defensive is the opposite to healthy boundary setting and why some people confuse boundary setting with being controlling. Boundaries are often challenging to set for those of us who have experienced relationship trauma, so Sarah explains why this could be the case for you too.  If you liked The Aware Mind's previous episodes on emotional immaturity, you will be a fan of this two-part series on boundaries as well.

Handout for "Emotionally Immaturity": https://www.tsdmind.org/_files/ugd/8bdf26_676fc2f475fb420f9e75007d4e64d55c.pdf

Important links:
TSD Mindfulness Virtual Meditation Center https://www.tsdmind.org
Sarah's Mindfulness Coaching website: https://www.sarahvallely.com

This episode is a meditation for beginners, and mindfulness for beginners resource. Intermediate and advanced meditators will also benefit. The Aware Mind produces content that supports stress reduction, anxiety relief, better concentration and focus, and trauma healing.

The Aware Mind is produced by TSD Mindfulness, a virtual meditation center, offering mindfulness classes, certifications and private coaching for people with past trauma, anxiety and depression disorders, business leaders, and people who work in the helping professions (i.e. counselors, healers and yoga and meditation teachers).

Transcript

 I did a two part series on emotional immature people. over a month ago. Hopefully you got a chance to listen to that.

But the gist of that subject is, if we were brought up by someone who is emotionally immature, or if you have a close relationship, or you had a close relationship with someone who is emotionally immature, then you almost definitely have relationship trauma. In that part two of that series, I talked about some ways to heal through that trauma.

However, part of that healing journey is setting good boundaries. And so that's why I decided to create this two part series on boundary setting. Often when I'm working with clients who are interested in moving into some really deep emotional healing, I invite them to Really set aside two months to dedicate to this healing in this very certain way Which means maybe not Connecting with certain people that you normally connect with spending some more time alone really creating the safe space Where they can do the emotional healing because if there's something that happens It's between them and another person that can really just throw them off course.

So it's this container that we create with these boundaries that helps us heal and that can actually be our whole life. We will continue to have certain boundaries that are important for our whole life to stay in this healing safe space. A question that comes up a lot when it comes to setting boundaries is can I still be a loving person if I set boundaries?

Yes! Yes! In fact, the books will tell you that you will be a more loving person with these boundaries. More loving to yourself, more loving to the relationship. And a good way to think about this is Boundaries are only about safety. One exception to that is boundaries are also about creating this space to, so that you can get a task done.

But so much about creating this safety, physical safety, emotional safety, and that is never selfish. So I said that this is going to be another two part series. And so today I'm going to be talking a lot about these ideas that are just going to help you Wrap your brain around this whole idea of boundaries because it is such a huge topic.

And then in the next part two, I will go into more of the how to, how to set boundaries. So I'm not going to talk a lot about that today, but after today you will have a really good grasp on what this all entails. Some examples of physical safety would be sexual boundaries. Another, putting yourself into physically dangerous situations, overworking your body.

Emotional safety has to do with putting yourself into situations where you might be shamed, right? So these would be examples of when you are not emotionally safe. Putting yourself into situations where you're criticized. devalued, neglected, putting yourself into situations when you are not able to open up emotionally because of the other person.

Now there's another reason you might not be able to open up emotionally, which is more about yourself and things that you need to work on internally. Another emotionally unsafe situation would be not being able to speak up for yourself, again, because of the other person. Not necessarily because of something personal that's going on within you.

So what I would say, the way I would take a look at this, instead of So instead of asking, is setting boundaries selfish, instead I think the better question is, is setting boundaries controlling, or is this boundary that I want to set controlling? Because sometimes, things that we do or someone does, are actually controlling when it might be presented as a boundary.

So it's really good to understand the difference. And there is some nuances there. People sometimes do controlling things and confuse it for boundary setting. So here's how you can really tell if that's happening. One is how attached are you to the outcome? This is hard. This is hard because it is really easy to get.

Attached to the outcome, meaning you are setting a boundary with someone perhaps about the way they speak to you. And so you might be really attached to them speaking to you in this certain way and really attached to them speaking to you not in this other certain way. That's just something to look at, is how attached are you?

Because if you are really attached, that could veer into the world of being a little bit more controlling. It's better to be more attached to what you are going to do in your consequence. Boundary consequences are about not participating, and I'll go into that in more detail in a minute. So, Rather than being so focused on really wanting the person to respond in a certain way, it's better to be more committed to walking away if they don't.

So you're in a perfect place if you can say, okay, they might do this or they might do that. I'm going to kind of let go of that outcome. But what's really important to me is that if they do the thing that breaks the boundary, I am definitely going to walk away or whatever it is that you decide is your consequence.

And like I said, that's hard. That's hard to let go of that outcome. And so that could take some emotional processing with your therapist or with your coach. That can, uh, it can be really helpful to have someone helping you through this in the beginning to set yourself up for success. A second way to kind of get an idea if your boundary that you're setting is controlling or not is to ask yourself, is the consequence to this boundary being broken something other than not participating?

If your consequence to the boundary being broken is yelling at the person, is saying something that's passive aggressive, is guilt tripping them, is trying to make them feel responsible for your emotions, then It might be in more in the realm of controlling. So here's some examples of situations that need boundaries in case you're going through your mind and thinking, Huh, what areas in my life do I need to start setting more boundaries in?

Just a few examples. One is, Your partner is constantly late in getting ready to go somewhere. That is a situation in which a boundary can be set, and we'll go into more detail about that either in this episode or the next. Another situation. People asking you for help more than is healthy for you. A friend criticizing your political beliefs or your parenting style.

That's a situation in which you need to set a boundary. A family member snooping through your personal things. A partner sharing personal details about you to others. And another example here, a parent trying to control your decisions about finances. So you might take a moment and reflect and see if there's something along those lines that's going on in your life that maybe it would be helpful to have a boundary.

And I will say that if you do have boundaries in place for these things, your anxiety level is going to drop. It's amazing how once we get boundaries in place, our anxiety is so much better. better. You know, because we are more emotionally safe. That's so important. If you read some of the books about boundary setting or listen to some of the podcasts, you might hear this phrase being responsible for someone versus being responsible to someone.

And when I hear this, I'm kind of like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. It's just, I guess I'm just not much into catchphrases to begin with, but I will tell you what this means. Transcribed So you know, and I'm sure it is helpful in the end. But the idea here is, if you are responsible to someone, then you don't do things for them that they can do for themselves.

If you are responsible to someone, you instead encourage them to fulfill their responsibilities by providing, uh, resources, support, helping them in some way as far as, talking things through, that kind of thing. However, if you are responsible for someone, then you would do the things for them. So that's the difference.

So this relates to boundary setting because if we are more in this place where we feel responsible for them, we might be in a more codependent relationship. We might be a people pleaser. In either of these situations, Call for really understanding boundaries better and implementing boundaries. And if we are codependent, if we are people pleasing, we're probably doing it because we want to gain emotional intimacy.

We're actually people pleasing and we are being codependent, feeling responsible for others because we want to have more of an emotionally intimate relationship. But it never works. It doesn't work to gain emotionally. intimacy that way. In fact, setting good boundaries in many cases will help you develop better emotional intimacy.

I was reading a book recently. It has this quote, when someone needs two hours from me, I cannot say no, but when I need 10 minutes from someone else, I cannot ask, right? I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that can relate to that. And that stems from relationship trauma. Having this difficulty to ask for help is rooted in relationship trauma.

This need to say yes to people on a consistent basis. is rooted in relationship trauma, and that could be for a variety of reasons. That could be abandonment trauma, a parent abandoning you emotionally, abandoning you physically, and so you might develop this style of people pleasing to get as much attention and love as you possibly can.

You might develop this fear of asking for help because You fear that you will push them away if you do. So that's part of this whole big picture of boundary settings is taking a look at what are your challenges with setting boundaries? Where does that come from, rooted in? And it doesn't have to be, you know, big trauma in childhood.

It could be having a parent who's quite critical can cause this relationship trauma in you that makes it difficult to set boundaries. But if you do have relationship trauma, which most of us do, here are some reasons that setting boundaries might feel really challenging. For some people, it might feel impossible.

Fear of hurting someone's feelings. So there's a part of you that feels responsible for someone else's emotional experiences. Fear of being selfish. Your relationship trauma might cause you to have a fear of making someone angry. The main goal is just don't get your parents angry because when that happens then everything blows up in your house.

You might have a fear of being criticized. You might not want to set a boundary because you're afraid you will be criticized if you do so. Fear of feeling guilty. Which, when you break that down, usually ends up being shame. Guilt is something we feel when we go against one of our values. Shame is when we feel bad when we haven't necessarily gone against a value.

And another reason your relationship trauma makes it hard to set boundaries is you might have a fear of pushing someone away, a fear of someone not liking you. So the first step to boundary setting is admitting truths about why you are not setting boundaries. You know, what shame do you have around these, these things?

And shame is any time you feel not good enough, you feel lesser than. Fear of being criticized could actually be rooted in shame. This shame thinking that I'm lesser than if somebody criticizes me. That's shame. That's, that's shame. Inaccurate. That's how we handle shame, is pointing out the inaccuracies and correcting that within our own thinking.

Fear of pushing someone away, again, can be rooted in shame. I'm not good enough as I am. I'm not good enough when I have these needs and express them, might be the shame thinking there. Some of these truths that you admit to yourself might have to do with feeling overly responsible for others, for their choices, for their emotions.

And abandonment triggers. Setting a boundary, or even thinking about setting a boundary, can trigger abandonment feelings. It's really scary. Abandonment trigger might feel like this fear of someone not loving you anymore because of something that you do or say. Abandonment trigger feel like it's impossible to ask for your needs to be met because that might push someone away.

It's also helpful to look at symptoms. What symptoms in your life are showing that you need boundaries? You know, if you're hurting, it might be a symptom that you need boundaries just like your body. If somebody's doing something and your body ends up hurting because of whatever they're doing, that's a situation where there needs to be a boundary body should not be hurting.

In some situations with emotional pain, there might be a boundary that needs to be put in place there. So some examples might be feeling frustrated because your partner is not getting ready on time. On a deeper level, you're feeling dismissed. So that feeling of dismissed, to open up to that and realize it and feel it, is helpful in you getting to a place of understanding that I need a boundary.

You might feel overwhelmed because you committed to more than is good for you, good for your mental health, good for your emotional well being. And so on a deeper level, you might feel inadequate. You might feel inadequate because you feel like you're not able to do all of these things that you committed to, which is stupid.

It's just an emotion. It's, this isn't the truth. You're not inadequate. You're just committed to too much, but opening up to that emotion of inadequacy might be information for you that, Hmm, maybe I do need to set a boundary here because this is hurting in the end. I end up feeling hurt. Another example, you might feel nervous around a friend who criticizes your beliefs.

And on a deeper level, you feel unsafe. That is truly important. Getting to this place where you realize, you know, I just feel unsafe. And that's pretty much a guarantee that a boundary needs to be set. Something needs to be implemented there because you need to feel safe. Another example, a family member goes through your things without your permission and you feel angry.

On a deeper level, you feel disrespected. So again, taking some time to allow that emotion of disrespect, feeling that, allowing it to be there and helping you realize that I need a boundary here. I'm not feeling respected. That's another key emotion to let you know that a boundary needs to be put in place.

So as you know, I have a private practice of working one on one with people, coaching. I specialize in abandonment trauma, relationship trauma, but some other things too, I work with clients on. And this comes up a lot, boundary setting, we spend a lot of time on it. And I will tell you my clients, Their anxiety gets so much better.

They feel so much better once they really start setting boundaries in their life. And what comes up a lot in these conversations is defending themselves. They find themselves in these situations where they, you know, need to set a boundary, and what they end up doing instead is defending themselves against another person.

And I think a lot of people feel like that act of defending yourself is setting a boundary, but it is not. Defending yourself is not a replacement for setting a boundary. It's not a way to set a boundary. In fact, I believe it is the only way. opposite. This is a huge misconception. I'm not really a big fan of defending yourself.

There's so many other approaches that you can take that are probably going to be healthier for you in that moment. The problem with defending yourself is you are engaging with the other person. You're engaging them with their behavior that you really want to set a boundary with. And when you engage with them, on some level you are validating  their behavior.

On some level you're saying, it's okay that you are doing what you're doing because I'm engaging with you and defending myself. It's not a good approach. Instead, you are setting a boundary when you decide not to participate in the discussion or you decide not to participate in the activity. That is boundary setting.

And in a lot of situations, you don't even need to explain yourself. You don't even need to explain to them, here's the boundary. This is what I'm setting. If you don't follow it, I'm going to implement this consequence. You don't necessarily need to do that. There are some situations where that is helpful, especially in romantic relationships, but a lot of times you don't need to go through that explanation.

You just need to do it. The other person will eventually get it. It might take a couple months, but if you keep implementing the non participating consequence, they will get it because they want your attention. They want you to engage. And if you're not, then they are on an unconscious level going to redevelop their approach so that you will engage and they will realize what they're doing that results in you engaging and what they're doing that results in you not engaging.

So engage when they are following the boundary, disengage when they are not. That might mean politely getting off the phone. That might be leaving the room. That might mean leaving for the party even though your partner is not ready to go. This type of non participating often gets people's attention more than complaining, more than defending yourself.

It's really effective. So boundaries are about not participating or participating with conditions.  There's someone that was in my life that I set this boundary with around email. I would get emails from this person that had them saying negative things about me. And it took a few years, but for this few years of time, I never responded to an email that included something that was criticizing me.

If there was an email they sent that had no criticism of me, then I would respond. Did this for a few years and this person got it. It was probably completely unconscious, but they got to the point where they only sent me emails that were appropriate, supportive, included no criticism in them. So it does work.

So hopefully these ideas are helping you Get into this headspace of understanding what boundaries are, what they're not. Maybe even understanding what situations in your life could use some boundaries that you might want to start implementing them. But it's a process. I recommend that you really work with the boundary setting ideas on your own for a month or so to really incorporate it and it changes your attitude when you get to that attitude change.

And so in the next part two here, I'll go into some more information about how to go about that process. Uh, but there's one thing I want to address before before we end today. And that is breaking boundaries, not respecting boundaries. There's actually a term for that. It's called reverse boundaries or inverted boundaries.

And so this is when a person's behavior or actions disrespect someone else's boundary in a way that is manipulative, coercive, emotionally damaging. They might unintentionally or deliberately challenge, push, or violate your limits. And there are some more mild forms of this that I wouldn't say are necessarily manipulative.

In fact, forms that we all do. Sometimes even myself, I'm going to go through this list. I've done some of these things. I probably still do sometimes. So when we are moving into this boundary work, it, this also includes taking a look at ourselves and, and how are we doing with our own boundaries, you know, really respecting other people's boundaries.

emotional process and emotional safety. And these reverse boundaries, this is one of the reasons that this subject coincides so well with the emotional immaturity episodes that I did, is people who are emotionally immature will generally struggle with respecting other people's boundaries. But I'll go through this list, and like I said, some of these are things that you might even do yourself.

Like I said, I, I've done some of these things. So examples of reverse boundaries, inverted boundaries, you know, breaking boundaries, not respecting boundaries, uh, guilt tripping someone into doing something, being passive aggressive about pressuring someone to do something, an example of that might be, I guess it's just easier for you to keep pushing things off onto me.

Using emotional manipulation, example of that might be, I've done so much for you and this is how you repay me. Controlling or dictating decisions in your life. Love bombing. Love bombing is an example of reverse boundaries. And this is because it is manipulative. If someone is love bombing you, they're doing it to control your emotions, to get you to feel a certain way, so they can have a little bit more power over you.

Even if that means that you will simply like them more. Another example of these reverse boundaries is making someone feel responsible for their emotions. An example would be, if you do that, I will be devastated. I think I've said something like that to my kids at one time or another. Or trying to take someone's independence away.

Or dismissal or disrespect of your personal values or preferences. For example, making fun of your religion or your political beliefs. Or making someone feel ashamed for having certain needs or desires. An example might be, you never want to spend time with me. Or, don't you care about this relationship?

Those are things that can easily roll off the tongue, but we need to take pause. And C, are these in some way shaming to the other person? Is there a more healthy way for us to express ourself? You know, sometimes just being really direct and stating your needs is healthier. Another example, invalidating the importance of personal boundaries altogether.

So if someone says to you, you shouldn't be so sensitive, that would be an example of that. Or making someone feel like they owe you something would be another example of this idea of inverted boundaries.  So, there you have it, some very important ideas about boundaries and lack of boundaries. I hope this was helpful.

I know my approach can be a little jolting, but hopefully jolting in a good way. And while this episode might leave you kind of in this daze. open space of just kind of reeling and just kind of opening up this can of worms. The next episode will bring some real clarity and practicalness to this subject.

Thanks for listening and if you liked this episode, please share it with a friend and maybe even leave a review. Thank you so much. The Aware Mind Podcast is A TSD Mindfulness production. Please check out our show notes for upcoming events and links to additional resources.