Developing Boundaries in Healthy Relationships

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on developing healthy relationships. In this presentation, we're really going to focus on helping people learn about and develop healthy boundaries in order to to develop healthy relationships. Thursday's class will focus on love, languages, and temperament in creating healthy, nurturing relationships. We're going to learn about boundaries, signs of boundary violations, and how to maintain boundaries. And we're going to summarize. Finish up by summarizing the characteristics of healthy relationships. Obviously, you can probably list bunches of them. I found a couple lists online that had like, 50 characteristics of healthy relationships, But a lot of them seem to be redundant to me. I tried to boil it down, down to the top, you know, 15 or so. That way people don't have as much that they need to try to focus on. One of the things a lot of clients don't understand is what boundaries are. They've never had boundaries or never thought about boundaries. So one of the first things that we need to do is introduce them to that whole concept of boundaries as things that help us live authentically, respecting our feelings, needs, and wants. I teach my clients that boundaries can come in many different flavors. We have physical boundaries, affective boundaries, or emotional boundaries, cognitive boundaries, environmental boundaries, and relationship or relational boundaries. And we're going to go into each one of those in depth as we go through the presentation. To develop effective boundaries, people need to be clear with others about who they are, what they want, their beliefs and values, and their limits. For a lot of people that I work with, this is a foreign concept to them. They don't know who they are. They have been living like a chameleon, being what everybody else wants them to be for so long. They are out of touch with what they want or be often because they've put their needs or their wants on the back burner for so long, or they've been involved in addiction for so long that they have numbed everything out and they don't know what they enjoy and what they want and need anymore. A lot of clients that I work with are out of touch with their beliefs and values. They've always just kind of gone along, putting one foot after the other, not really thinking about what things do I really value? What are my core values that I hold? And we've talked about that in other classes. It's important to ask clients, what, when you are gone, what do you want people to remember you for? What are the five qualities that you want people to remember you for when they are talking about you? Whether it's because you died or because you've moved to the other side of the country or. Or whatever, you're not there. If somebody were to describe you, what five qualities do you want them to talk about? Where do boundaries come from? That is the next question that a lot of clients have. They're like, you know, was I born with these? How do I know what my boundaries are in? As children grow up, they develop a sense of what is okay and what is not okay. Our boundaries most often come from our family of origin. If you come from a healthy family, there is democracy. There is respect for our physical boundaries. You know, we don't get too close, we're not touched inappropriately. But there is enough physical affection when we need it. Healthy families have that nice balance between independence and interdependence. If the family is enmeshed, that means they're. The boundaries are too loose. The expectations are that someone, usually the parents, are going to tell you how to think, how to feel, what to do. They control what you eat, etc. If they're too detached, then there may not be any feedback, and the person may feel alone or in isolation. In addicted families, the mantra is don't talk, don't trust, and don't feel. All of those are violations of boundaries. The person with the addiction typically is the one that controls or tries to control what's going on in the family. Another place that we learn boundaries is from our culture, and part of that is from our family, but part of that is from the media and from other people in our culture. Think about in the 1950s. I told you last time that I just ordered the Bewitched series on TV on dvd. I love that series, but I'm watching it now, and the little voice in my head about boundaries and women's rights and stuff is just going off all over the place. In the 50s, boundaries were very different. Emotional boundaries, cognitive boundaries between husbands and wives, for example. Today's culture, think about what it teaches about boundaries. Physical boundaries. What are our physical boundaries? What's okay to do, what's not okay to do? And there are a lot of physical boundaries that have even crossed over into looks and microaggressions and things like that that people are becoming even more aware of or have challenges with. Affective boundaries. How we feel, our. Our culture often tells us. And this isn't just today's culture. You know, always cultures have communicated what's important to be happy about, what's important to be sad about or be worried about. But, you know, for example, Right now, with coronavirus going around, I've seen a lot of valid invalidation of affective boundaries. I've seen people who are not scared be shamed and be criticized for not being worried. I've seen people who are anxious trying to promote that everybody should be anxious. They can't understand why people aren't anxious. And that's a violation of an affective boundary. Not everybody is going to react the same way. Cognitive boundaries are how we think. And we see a lot of violations of cognitive boundaries online. And, and I've seen a lot on social media, you know, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, those sorts of places where people, if they share their thoughts, they often get shamed, told they're wrong. There's not a, an attitude of acceptance and understanding that we would hope there would be. With healthy boundaries, we can state our own opinions, even if they differ. But we don't have to criticize. We don't name call, we don't use hateful language. Environmental boundaries are, you know, what is safe, what is yours. And a lot of us are pretty clear on our environmental boundaries. We have a diary, we expect people not to read it. We have a laptop. We, we expect people not to log on to our profile at work. We expect people not to rifle through our desk. And when they do, we feel that boundary violation. And our culture does teach us a fair amount about, you know, what is acceptable for boundaries and then relationship boundaries. And there's a lot of those there. And that goes to how we interact with other people, how much we share with other people. And I think it is important for you to consider, for example, when you're working with clients, what their particular culture, what does the Hispanic culture teach, what does the Asian culture teach? When you're working with people from different cultures, their boundaries are probably going to be a little bit different based on cultural mores. And it's really important to respect that. There is one person that is in my life right now who is from a second generation Hispanic American family and his parents are very, very traditional. And there are a lot of rules and behaviors in that house that are different than what happens in our household. And it is interesting to look at the, at the difference and appreciate the cultural differences, recognizing that that is how a, that culture promotes boundaries. And that's it's different than ours. It's not wrong, it's not right, it's just different. So let's start talking about those individual types of boundaries really quick. And when we're going through this, when I go through it with clients, I want them to think about three main questions. What do these behaviors look like? So what does it look like if I am able to be touched or have personal space as I desire versus not having control over my body or what others do to me? When what does that look like in my life? And it can be very, very different. What are these behaviors? Communicating? If I do things that encourage others to respect my personal space, what does that behavior communicate? If I do not assert my boundaries, if I have very weak boundaries and I let other people do to me what they will and control my body, or what does that communicate? And where did this notion come from? Where did I learn that it was either okay to have physical boundaries or it was not okay to have physical boundaries? When somebody has healthy physical boundaries, they are able to be touched or have personal space as they desire. They can give hugs, they can receive hugs, but they can also respect personal space and have their personal space respected. Different cultures have different levels of personal space. In some cultures, it's a lot closer. In other cultures, it's a lot further away. Eye contact is a type of contact you might put under physical boundaries. Some cultures are very. Against isn't the right word. But it's inappropriate or impolite to look an elder directly in the eye. And in other cultures it is in. In inappropriate not to look an elder directly in the eye is considered a sign of disrespect. So again, we want to consider culture, but we also want to consider other things. If somebody grew up in an abusive household or grew up in a situation where they were not allowed to say no, where they were not allowed to have control of their own body, then they may have difficulty asserting that. Now, if somebody is able to do things alone, that is a healthy physical boundary. That's. That could be relational. But whatever. They are able to take themselves and go to the grocery store or go shopping or go on a walk or whatever they want to do, they don't feel. Feel like they need to get permission in order to do something that they want to do. The final aspect, or one we're going to talk about for healthy physical boundaries is an awareness and respect of one's physical needs. What do I need for nutrition, for sleep? And I put a bunch of different things here. If you think about a really controlling relationship, you may think about one in which the other partner controls what the person eats, how much they sleep, when they go to bed, whether or not they take medication, whether they're allowed to take medication, maybe even what. Whether they color their hair or not or how they cut their hair. My mother in law, it tends to be very amenable to whatever my father in law wants in as far as how she does her hair and what they do for recreational activities and things like that. But again, they grew up in a different culture in a different time. They grew up in the 50s and early 60s when that was, those were acceptable boundaries. They are happy with those boundaries right now. She's not unhappy with, you know, getting his input and feeling like, you know, she's supposed to follow his lead. That is okay for her. So that's the other thing we want to look at with boundaries. Even if they don't feel like they fit the mainstream, asking the person when this happens, how does it make you feel? Unhealthy boundaries physically is not having control over your body or what others do to you. If you are feeling like you're being forced into situations that are physically uncomfortable. Inability to feel safe around others, resulting in withdrawal. Sometimes people just don't want to be touched at all. They don't want to be around other people because they are, you know, too afraid of being physically hurt or violated. And obviously that likely goes back to a trauma of some sort. Always having to be accompanied by your partner. Now this can be either way. If you feel like you need to have somebody go with you everywhere because you're afraid to go by yourself, you know, that's one thing. But also if you're in a relationship where your partner says you can't go out by yourself, I know of one person in and you know, there's lots of people, but you know, thinking of friends and acquaintances where one partner in the relationship was never allowed for the three years that they were married, was never allowed to go to the grocery store alone, was always required to be accompanied by the other partner, and you know, that felt very oppressive to that person. So it's important to think about, you know, how does this make you feel? And you know, do you feel like you have your own personal agency? Like if you wanted to go to the grocery store by yourself, you could, but. But you prefer to have company needing to get permission to do things or go places. It's one thing if you're talking about an eight year old, it's another thing if you're Talking about an 18 year old or a 28 year old feeling like they need to ask permission. Now there's a difference between asking permission and advising. When I go to the grocery store, when I go out, I advise my husband where I'm going. Just so he knows, you know, he can tell me, oh, while you're at the store, pick up some bread or, you know, whatever. But I don't just walk out of the house and go, see ya most of the time. Every once in a while I just need, you know, some time to clear my head and I'm like, I'm going out on a drive, I'll be back. And you know, that's okay. I don't need permission to do that. But in order to keep him from worrying, I do generally tell him, tell him I'm going out, you know, two somewhere or 4x period of time and I'll be back by dinner or, or whatever. So he doesn't worry. And he does the same thing for me. And I expect our children to do the same thing for us. If they're going out, they tell us where they're going and when they're going to be back. And unhealthy relationships, the one partner dictates the other person's physical needs. And I talked about that a little bit earlier. Sometimes, uh, people will get into really controlling relationships in which one partner, you know, wants to control every aspect of that person's life. Now, you know, putting this into perspective, there are certain aspects of bdsm. For example, when people get into a female led relationship or a, they call it a slave master relationship. I really hate that title. But it is what it is. That's what it's called. Some of these are lifestyle relationships in which the submissive is actually choosing and prefers to be told what to do and have his or her needs dictated. So again, we want to ask the person, is this causing you to distress and you know, just kind of putting that out there that some people do want to take on that submissive role. That's not the majority by any means, but it is important to recognize and, and respect affective boundaries are our feelings. People who have healthy emotional boundaries, affective boundaries recognize that they're responsible for their own happiness. It is not anyone else's responsibility to make happy. It is my responsibility to choose how to respond to life and to choose the behaviors and the reactions to whatever happens that is going to help me be as happy as possible. Recognizing that as Hayes says in acceptance, acceptance and commitment therapy, nobody's going to be happy all the time, but I am responsible for my own feelings. I. If I feel angry, that's okay. Remember, feelings are our body's warning sign. It's our alert that tells us either fight or flee, or please do that again. Feelings are Natural, chemically, B based reactions based on prior learning, that's okay. What we do with those feelings, we are responsible for whether we nurture them. In the case of happiness, that's an awesome thing. In the case of resentment, not so good. Or whether we, we feed them or whatever we do with them, we are responsible for ultimately our reaction to our emotions. In with healthy boundaries, people have emotional awareness, personal emotional awareness and intelligence. Emotional intelligence. Recognizing that they what they need, how they feel, why they feel that way, and what the next best step is to do in order to help them improve the next moment. People who are anxious, for example, who have good emotional awareness and emotional intelligence will recognize, hey, I'm feeling anxious. Let me see. I'm feeling anxious because of and these are my options to deal with it. That's awesome. People who are not emotionally aware, who are alexthymic, may not be able to identify their emotions. Maybe they were never taught how to identify their emotions. However, they are not able to effectively live authentically if they are not in touch with how they feel. If they are not in touch with what makes them happy versus what makes them sad. If they don't know these things, then they don't know where to set boundaries. It is really important that people get in touch with what their wants, needs, likes and dislikes are. And finally, in affective boundaries, it's the ability to have compassion for yourself and others, recognizing that nobody's perfect. And with affective boundaries, instead of being critical of how somebody else is reacting, I'm going to have compassion for them. Instead of saying you shouldn't feel that way, you should feel this way. I'm going to say you feel how you feel and I will sit here with you. I will sit here while you feel your emotion. Because I can't tell anybody how to feel. And being compassionate with myself, I'm not telling myself I should or shouldn't feel a certain way. I am respecting how I feel in the moment and being compassionate with myself. Cognitively, this is how we think. And people with healthy cognitive boundaries are aware of and communicate their wants, needs, thoughts and ideas. And you know, affective and cognitive kind of blend together. But it's important to remember that people are allowed to have their own opinions. And when we have healthy cognitive boundaries, not only do we know what our opinions are and our and we're willing to assert those opinions, but we're also willing to respect others opinions even if they differ from ours. And that is huge in terms of boundaries. So for healthy boundaries, we're aware of and communicate our wants, needs, thoughts, and ideas. We're willing to consider other perspectives. We hear somebody's perspective that differs from ours, and instead of telling them they're wrong, we say, let me understand a little bit more about where that's coming from. You know, their perspective is their perspective based on the knowledge and information they have and their phenomenological reality. There's no shoulds there. It's people have their own thoughts and approaches and beliefs about things. Another aspect of healthy cognitive boundaries is just being aware of our thoughts and our wants. What things are we thinking and recognizing them and being true to them. When we're having thoughts that about something about how to solve a problem or about where to go on vacation or whatever our thoughts are, being aware of those thoughts and able to assertively communicate them in a safe situation is. Is important. You know, if we've all been in situations where somebody said, like, where do you want to go to dinner? And you're like, I don't care. Well, occasionally that's true. You don't have any preference. You don't care. It's important, though, to make sure that you are aware when you do have an opinion about where you want to go, because that can be really frustrating for other people if every time they ask you for your opinion, you defer to someone else. You're not aware of what your opinion is, doesn't mean your opinion is necessarily theirs, but it is your opinion. And in healthy relationships, we want to respect each other's boundaries. In a healthy relationship, I don't want to be the one always dictating where we go on vacation, where we go for dinner, what we do on the weekend. You know, that's me control. It feels like me controlling the relationship. I want to know what the other person's opinion is. And reciprocal self disclosure is important. And again, this could have gone in a couple different categories, but is the difference between someone who meets you and all of a sudden just vomits their entire history onto you with no attention to, you know, appropriate sharing and boundaries versus reciprocal self disclosure? And we learned about that in counseling 101. You know, people are going to gradually share a little bit more about themselves. Now in counseling, it's a little bit different because they come in expecting to, you know, kind of be able to word vomit. But in relationships, you've probably been in situations at some point in your life where you met somebody and you'd known them for 20 minutes, and all of a sudden they're telling you their deepest, darkest secrets, and you're going to. Okay, that's a little bit more than I wanted to know about you quite yet. That's a boundary violation. Unhealthy cognitive boundaries include relying on what you're relying on your partner to tell you what you want or what you think. It's important to know what you want and think and be able to assert it. You know, if I want to go out for pizza tonight, that may be my preference. And I need to be able to assert that doesn't mean I'm going to get my way, but I do need to be able to know what I want and communicate it. It's unhealthy in relationships if you believe that your partner or your friend, you know, your, the other person in the relationship must agree with you all the time. That just communicates to that person that they're not allowed to have their own boundaries. That's not a healthy relationship. That those are boundaries that are intrusive. Unwillingness to consider other perspectives. That's holding a boundary that's really solid and going, I don't want to hear about it. This is the way it's going to be. My way or the highway. Again, that is not a healthy boundary. It's important. You know, in our house we occasionally engage in what I will call Socratic debates at dinner. Just will bring up a topic and I will ask my kids opinions on them and why. And generally it has to do with some ethical dilemma or politics or something. Just to encourage them to learn how to articulate, you know, know what they're thinking and articulate their position. I haven't always agreed with them, but I've always respected their point of view and you know, their point of view is their point of view. Unawareness of your thoughts and wants is another sign of unhealthy boundaries because that generally comes from having people always squish your thoughts and wants for their own. Always disregard your thoughts and wants. So you just quit becoming aware. It was like, well, why pay attention to what I want if nobody's going to listen? And sharing too much too soon. We talked about that one. Environmental boundaries, having your stuff respected, your diaries, your phone, your social media accounts, your email. I have worked with countless couples who have had a lot of difficulty with environmental boundaries. The each partner was basically spying on the other one, trying to get into their phone, insisting on having the login for their social media accounts, getting into their email with or without their permission. With their permission. A lot of times it was demanded, you will give me your password. And we needed to Talk about, you know, what does that behavior communicate? If you are in insisting that your partner is not allowed to have privacy, what does that communicate about your relationship? What does that communicate about you? What does that mean? That if you can't, you know, see into this, you know, I'm hearing a lack of trust or a fear of abandonment. You know, there's a lot of stuff I'm hearing and where is that coming from? In environmentally, unhealthy boundaries often revolve. Physical, environmental boundaries often revolve around a lack of privacy and secrecy. I have people who I've worked with who have throwaway phones. You know, they have. What are they called, burner phones or whatever that they have that other people call them on. They have two different Facebook accounts. They have a lot of different things in order to try to work around their significant others. Invasion of their privacy. So again, I want to ask, you know, where is that coming from? Why do you not want to share? And you know, why is that person so determined to understand or to see what's going on in there? If there's a history of addiction, you know, compulsive porn, compulsive pornography use, something like that, if there's been infidelity, obviously all of those are a breach of trust. And some of these issues may start arising then. But it is important to make sure that both parties feel like they are empowered over their boundaries. If they, if one part party wants to, you know, say here, here are all my passwords. You know, more power to them, but making sure that it's a negotiation and one partner doesn't feel pressured or forced into something. And relational boundaries, now obviously this one's a lot longer because a lot of times we talk about boundaries in terms of relationships. Healthy relational boundaries. Trust versus suspicion. Remembering everything is on a continuum. You know, generally you want to be in a relationship where 99.999% of the time you trust that other person. If occasionally a suspicious thought crosses through your mind, that doesn't necessarily mean it's bad boundaries. But that goes back to that environmental aspect of boundaries and being able to trust someone, someone versus constantly giving them the third degree and wanting to, you know, be in every aspect of their life. When people are lacking in trust, I want to know where that comes from. What happened to you that lead led up to this. That makes you feel insecure. It could be that they have low self esteem and they're afraid of rejection, which we're going to get to in a minute. Could be that they have been in Bad relationships before and are carrying baggage from prior relationships and holding this current partner hostage for that. And that's kind of a boundary, that violation there. If I'm holding you hostage for everything everybody else has ever done wrong. To me, there's a lot of extreme words there, but you get my point. That's kind of an imposition. You know, that's a, I'm putting stuff on you that's, that doesn't even belong to you. And when you think about baggage, you know, think about walking through, you know, in, into a hotel room or a hotel or something and you're carrying your baggage and you meet somebody and you're talking to them for a couple of minutes, then all of a sudden you're like, here, here are my 17 bags. Why don't you carry them for me? Nobody would carry your 17 bags up to your room, most likely. Same sort of thing. When we're talking about emotional baggage. In healthy relationships, people are honest. They say what they mean and they mean what they say. Remember Horton? Here's the who. I think that's what it's called. I, I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful. 100%. I love Dr. Seuss. Sorry, y'. All. But being honest about what you want, what you need, as opposed to game playing or manipulation. If you want your partner to spend more time with you, then assertively communicating that and honesty and assertiveness really go hand in hand. If people don't feel like they can be honest with their partners, and I use the term partner kind of loosely because we need to have boundaries in all of our relationships, our friendships. We need to have boundaries with our kids. We need to have a variety of different boundaries. And it's important to figure out what those behaviors mean and try to work towards developing honesty and trust and self esteem. We don't want people to feel like they have to play games or manipulate us to get us to do the things they want us to do. We don't want people to feel like they have to have validation from others for permission to breathe the air. That we don't want people to feel like they need others to tell them they're okay. We want people to have strong self esteem. We want people to be able to respect differences in their partner and not be jealous when their partner succeeds at something or not be jealous when, when somebody else gives your partner attention. You know, respecting differences in your partner is really important. And we're going to talk about that a lot on Thursday when we talk about temperament. But people are so different, and it's important to recognize and synergize, as Covey would say, willingness to help without needing to rescue or making yourself indispensable. And this is one of those continuum sort of things. Sometimes we have a friend who's in crisis and needs help, and, okay, you know, we'll jump right on to that. We'll be Johnny on the spot. There's a difference between occasionally helping out versus feeling like you constantly have to rescue people or push them in the right direction because they're not going in the direction you think they should be going. Starting to cross into a lot of codependency here. Assertively communicating your needs and standing your ground is important in healthy boundaries in relationships. When I say, you know, I have these soft boundaries that, you know, I would prefer not to do this this weekend, but if. If it's really important to you, we will. And I have hard boundaries of, no, that is. That ain't gonna happen. Sorry. Versus feeling like people take advantage of you. One of the things that is difficult in relationships and kind of falls here is mind reading. And that's actually a cognitive distortion as well. But it is a boundary violation to engage in or expect mind reading. When you engage in mind reading, you are assuming you know what that person's thinking. That is a type of a boundary, that boundary violation. Because you don't know what they're thinking, you're putting a lot onto them that they may not even be thinking at all. Mind reading is a boundary violation. The same is true about expecting mind reading. If I expect my partner just to know what I want to do for Mother's Day, or know where I want to go on vacation, or, you know, if I just expect him to know things without telling him, that's a boundary violation. Because I'm expecting that, that he's reading my mind. I'm expecting that he is being that intrusive. And, and you're right, it goes along with that line of, well, you should already know what's wrong. I shouldn't have to tell you that is expecting mind reading that is unfair and a boundary violation. Independence versus dependence are signs of differing ends of the continuum on boundaries. There is being too independent sometimes where you don't want anybody else around, you don't feel like you need anybody else, and you're just gonna, you know, take your ball and go home. Versus being completely dependent and needing people to tell you what to do all the time. We want to strive for interdependence and culturally That'll look a little bit different for different people. But it's important to have encourage people to embrace whatever level of independence is comfortable for them. Taking personal responsibility versus blaming others is another sign of healthy versus unhealthy boundaries. If I start blaming all of my co workers for because I was late for a meeting, you know, she didn't tell me, and she didn't get her paperwork to me on time, that's why I'm late. You know, that's not taking personal responsibility and that's violating boundaries. That's putting another person in a position of feeling unsafe, and that's not taking responsibility and being honest and authentic for myself. Attention versus apathy is the next to last characteristic we're going to talk about. Attention is what we need to provide to relationships. In healthy relationships, we are willing and we recognize that relationships are kind of living, breathing things that can grow or they can die out. And we need to give them attention and love and nurturance, quality time, those sorts of things. In unhealthy relationships, the person is completely disengaged from the relationship and they're like, well, you know, if that person's there, they're there, and if they're not, they're not. You know, that is a very detached boundary there. We want to have people, you know, they don't spend every moment of every day thinking about what can I do for improving my relationship, but they do make a concerted effort to nurture that relationship on a regular basis. And finally, balance and reciprocity in relationships. We've seen relationships, I pretty sure most of us have, where there is a nice give and take. And, you know, generally it's 50, 50, but sometimes it's 90 10. When my mother was ill, we went to North Carolina when she got put on hospice care. That was an example of 9010 in the relationship. You know, I was doing good just to kind of put one foot in front of the other. My husband was, you know, doting, and I couldn't have asked him to be more helpful and supportive. So there was that 90 10. Now there are other times, you know, when it's gone the other way where he's had some sort of a crisis. And, you know, I've tried to be there for him to be supportive. So there are times when there's a power imbalance, but it averages out. And ideally both of you aren't in crisis at the same time. It's important that there is balance and reciprocity. There's not one person who's Constantly taking, taking, taking, taking, taking, and the other person just has nothing left to give. One of the questions you can ask clients is who do you struggle to set healthy boundaries with? And this is one where you can pretty easily do a stations around the room with flip chart paper. And in one corner maybe put partner, spouse, whatever you want to call it. The another corner children, another corner, maybe in laws and another corner best friend, you know. So those are four general groups of people. And have your clients go around to each station and identify what types of things happen in those relationships that violate their boundaries or that are signs of unhealthy boundaries. I will give my clients a list of the boundaries that we just talked about. The, the healthy boundaries and the unhealthy boundaries. And they can go around to each one. And when they get, for example, to the one with children, they look, look down each characteristic and they go, that sounds like me. That sounds like me. That sounds like me. Oh, that unhealthy one sounds like me in this relationship. I need to put that up there. I remember with my daughter, she took classes at a, one of the local universities as a dual enrollment student. And it was the most abysmal experience that I think she probably could have had. It was, it was horrid and I was embarrassed for the university, that's how bad it was. And it would frustrate me. And I knew it was frustrating her, which frustrated me even more. But I had to respect her boundaries. I wanted to, my, my husband's friends with the president of the university and I wanted to call up the president and be like, hey, do you have any idea what's going on under your nose? But that would not have respected my daughter's boundaries, who wanted to be the adult and wanted to fight her own battles. So that was one place where I had to really, really struggle to maintain healthy boundaries and not become overly enmeshed, overly paternalistic or maternalistic in this case with her. Another example of boundaries. When my daughter, again, bless her heart, she is a strong, strong little woman. But I remember a few years ago, she went through a phase where she wanted to dye her hair colors, like purple colors, and it threw her father for a loop. And it took every ounce of restraint he had to respect her boundaries to be able to, you know, do with her hair as she wanted to do, you know, figuring ultimately, you know, there are other battles that we can fight. This is probably one we need to let her self express and all that kind of stuff. But you know, for him, that, that was a huge Challenge the purple hair will go down in. In infamy. Encouraging people to recognize times where they have had their boundaries challenged or. Or had to struggle to maintain healthy boundaries and recognize what that looks like. I had a family member who, you know, God loved them. It came from a place of love. But they are very critical, and whenever they come over, they have always got something critical to say. And it used to get me all riled up. You know, I would get so upset that, you know, the person would have to make a critical compliment, or not compliment, but a critical comment every time they came over. And finally, my husband pulled me aside one day and he said, you know what? This person is going to make a critical comment. That's just who they are. That's just what they have to do. I'm sure it comes from a place of love. It could be said nicer. But you have two options. You could. Well, three actually. You can either not have them come. That wasn't an option. You can let it go just recognizing that once this person gets it out of their system, you know, it's fine, or you can talk to them about it assertively. And in this particular situation, I knew assertive communication would not go over well. So, you know, I just chose to let it go, recognizing that this person had their own issues and being compassionate for what it must be like in their head. But that was me deciding how to handle my boundaries in that relationship while not feeling, while not letting that person contribute to unhappiness. Remember, I'm responsible for my own happiness. It was my responsibility to assert my boundaries and say, you know what? That's okay. I'm not going to let it get me down. Encourage people to brainstorm things they can do to improve their boundaries. And if they have difficulty maintaining boundaries in particular situations, having them use guided imagery, having them. Having them visualize interacting with this person and setting and maintaining healthy boundaries. It is very difficult to do, especially in today's 247 social media, people are always available, that sort of thing. Sometimes it's harder to set boundaries now because you're reminded of those people kind of on the regular. But it's important to envision, you know, what a healthy relationship with this person would look like. What would a healthy resolution to this situation with this person look like? Envisioning healthy boundaries. Getting support is really helpful. Not everybody that you set boundaries with is going to like it. And they may be irritable or unpleasant. If you're work dealing with somebody who has borderline characteristics, you know, they may get Very, very angry when you try to set and assert, maintain boundaries. So it's important to make sure that you have support from other people that you can call and go and, and talk about how it went, how it didn't go, how you feel about how it went, you know, because you're not always going to be able to assert boundaries and have them respected by everybody. Not everybody is healthy enough to respect other people's boundaries, and we do need to respect that. Rehearse with assertive communication. If you're going to have a conversation with someone about something, rehearsing it with a friend or even just in the mirror, but preferably with a friend in order to plan what you're going to say, know how you're going to say it, know how it feels. Journaling can be helpful to improving boundaries. If you journal throughout the each day what happened that day and really pay attention to, did I maintain my boundaries? Was I living honestly and authentically? Do I feel like in these particular relationships I'm maintaining healthy boundaries? And that, remember, healthy boundaries doesn't always mean preventing others from taking advantage of you. It could mean preventing yourself from taking advantage of others. You know, being too overbearing is also a boundary violation. So our boundaries can be too weak or too, too, too strong, too overbearing, depending on the situation. You may have a client who has very weak boundaries with, you know, her significant other, but is very controlling and maternalistic over children, and they feel it's very, in a very enmeshed relationship. So the lack of control over here may be redirected to over control over here. And we want to look, always look at what is the meaning of this behavior? If you are refusing to stand up for yourself, if you are refusing to be assertive and it makes you unhappy, what is it that is inhibiting you from asserting your boundaries? You know, what prompted this? Where are you getting the message that it's not okay to have this particular boundary? And we want to again, explore the reasons for poor boundaries. Some people may have guilt if they feel differently than their counterparts. And that's another thing that's come up with COVID Some people have confided in me that, you know, thank you for saying that because, you know, I'm really not all that stressed out about what's going on with coronavirus, and I feel guilty for not being stressed out, or I, you know, feel guilty that I'm not helping more. Um, so I'm going out and I'm doing extra volunteering, and I'm starting to get Worn down. We want to look at the motivation underlying the behaviors. Fear of rejection. A lot of times when we assert boundaries, especially if we haven't done it before, we get met with some resistance. And it's important to prepare people for that, to help them be assertive, to help them create win wins when they're setting boundaries, you know, and that is really important to have that discussion in a way. And this goes along with the guided imagery envisioning creating a win win situation where both partners feel like they are being respected and able to respect their boundaries. And low self esteem is another cause, oftentimes of poor boundaries. Because people with low self esteem often rely on others for validation. So they do everything they can to try to get other people's approval, even if it's not what they want. They are human chameleons, if you will. We want people to, you know, really think about how are these people in your life going to respond when you start asserting boundaries. And you know, with kids, we've talked about this in class before. When my kids got to the point where, you know, they were old enough, they were toddlers and I would go to the bathroom and I would shut the door and they'd be outside the door, Mommy, mommy. And I'm like, you know, mommy's in the bathroom. You'd see those little fingers coming under the door and you knew they were like sitting there trying to look under the door crack. That's a boundary violation. You know, it's a normal child thing to do. But recognizing that boundary violation and then figuring out how to address it assertively, you know, addressing something assertively with a two year old can be a little difficult. Planning for how that person's going to respond, making sure that just like you would do with anybody, you want to validate your affection for them, unconditional positive regard. Validate your affection for them as a person and talk about this behavior that may need to change because it's violating your boundaries. Or sometimes you may have to, to apologize for violating other people's boundaries. Many of us know, have a friend who is always kind of sticking their nose in to somewhere they weren't invited. It's out of love, they want to help, they're trying to fix somebody up with somebody else or they're, you know, talking out of turn. They're trying to be helpful, but it is not something that's wanted. So sometimes you may need to apologize for having, you know, overbearing behaviors that violated other people's boundaries and thinking about how they will respond and finally have people ask about, ask themselves, how will having healthy boundaries impact my health and happiness? Looking back over those behaviors, and we're going to talk about them real quickly here. Trust. If I trust myself and if I can trust those people in my life, how much more energy will I have? How much less anxious will I be? How much less hopelessness and helplessness might I feel if I trust other people? Then the big question comes, the million dollar question, how do I develop trust? And that's a whole other class. But it is important for them to recognize that trust is one of those foundations of a healthy relationship and start brainstorming ways to develop trust. For example, keeping a journal or a diary of times that they, you know, trusted somebody and it went right, you know, thinking about my kids, for example, they're older teenagers now, but recognizing that both of them have proven themselves over and over again, very trustworthy. So there are times now where, you know, a little spidey sense in the back of my mommy, mommy brain goes, not sure about that. But then I have to remind myself, like when my daughter started driving, she is trustworthy. She has always proven herself to be trustworthy. So I need to trust her. And you know, she's thankfully, so far, she's always proven me out to be right. Respecting other people and their boundaries is important in healthy relationships. Looking at your own behaviors, recognizing, you know, what do I do that disrespects other people's boundaries and what do I need to do differently? Being honest with yourself about your wants, needs, thoughts, feelings, and with other people. Using assertiveness. Independence is a characteristic of a healthy relationship. People, ideally in relationships aren't going to fuse and become one. They are going to have their own characteristics. I use the analogy of cookies because I love cookies. Sugar cookies on their own are awesome. I love sugar cookies. Chocolate chips on their own are awesome. I will eat those like nobody's business. You can eat both of them individually. When you combine them, you get something. Chocolate chip cookies that are super awesome too. But you also have the sugar cookie and the chocolate chips that are independent ingredients into this chocolate chip cookie relationship. And that's what we're looking for in relationships. We don't want people to have to complain, complete one another. We want them to, when they combine in that relationship to form something totally new and awesome and still respect what they are. You know, in a chocolate chip cookie, those chocolate chips melt right there. And then, you know, you can clearly see where the cookie ends and the chocolate begins. Attention. We need to give attention to our relationships. Awareness of what we need and what others need. And that awareness doesn't come from mind reading. That comes from effective communication. Being willing to be understanding and take the other person's perspective when something makes you angry. You know, encouraging clients to step back and go, okay, let me put myself in that person's shoes and see where they might be coming from. See how they might be coming to where they're at. Self confidence. Not being jealous of the other person and not using the other person as a sole source of validation. Taking personal responsibility for one's own happiness and behaviors. Making sure there's balance and reciprocity in the relationship. Being caring and compassionate, committed to enhancing that relationship and trying to understand the other person. Communicating assertively, using good conflict management skills. Again, no mind reading and being willing to compromise and accept individual differences. My husband and I, and you're going to learn more about that on Thursday, are very, very different people. I'm an extrovert, he's an introvert. So, for example, for celebrations, I like parties. I like having, you know, 10, 15, 20 people over to the house. That is overwhelming for him. He likes, you know, maybe a double date. And that's about as much as he can take for social input. So that is really important to be able to understand and respect. Okay, I saw there were a bunch of questions here, so I want to go back through. When feeling okay with boundaries that are not mainstream. What if the partner is okay because of stunted emotional growth, lack of insight regarding what's really going on, or generally unhealthiness. And it is definitely a judgment call. It's definitely a continuum. There are people, for example, who grew up in very unhealthy environments, very unhealthy relationships. I'm thinking, you know, top of my head, domestic violence. So they may think that certain behaviors are mainstream. I'm avoiding using the N word, mainstream. So we may need to educate them about what's mainstream. However, you know, just being aware of the fact that of different types of dominant submissive relationships is important to know so you can ask about it when they're. Somebody's talking about their relationship, if. If to see where it comes from. In a BDSM relationship, where there's a power differential, it is consensual, and it is both partners are very well aware of where it's coming from and the function it serves and why that works for them. So, yes, it is important to identify whether this is where the behaviors are coming from. And ultimately, we want to ask the person if it's a non mainstream behavior. We want to ask the person what benefit they're getting from it and would they prefer something else and if they would, why aren't they trying to develop that something else? You know, explore what the behavior means and if it comes from a place of fear or anxiety, fear of abandonment, then you can start processing those issues. And yes, social media is, oh, it's a hornet's nest of boundary violations because you can see when people are online, you know, you people cyber stalk one another. There are a lot of things that happen on social media that can be can contribute a great, a great deal to poor boundaries. And it is difficult to parse out learned helplessness from culturally based dependence or interdependence, recognizing what the expectations are in that particular culture. For example, in cultures where you have multiple generations living in the same household, there may be a figurehead in that household that has more power, more control, that does dominate and tell people what to do and you know, have more of a controlling role and that is appropriate for that culture. So it's important to again to ask them, does this feel uncomfortable to you? And what how would you like to see this relationship? Alrighty everybody. I will work on creating a little short on guided imagery for enhancing boundaries because I see there are a couple of you interested in it and other than that, I will see you on Thursday. Between writing notes, filing insurance claims and scheduling with clients, it can be hard to stay organized. That's why I recommend TherapyNotes. Their easy to use platform lets you manage your practice securely and efficiently. 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