Respecting Boundaries and Prioritizing Selfcare in Relationships
A short recorded talk by Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes on setting boundaries and prioritizing self-care within relationships. The speaker frames self-care as necessary ("non-negotiable") for sustaining energy and presence, asks viewers to define their "rich and meaningful life," and to map relationships against that vision. Practical steps include identifying how self-care supports goals, communicating needs with I-statements to create win-wins (example script provided), and maintaining emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal boundaries. The talk also covers responding to partners' reactions (acknowledge feelings, inquire about thoughts), reflecting on one’s own reactions, and finding compromises (example: adjusting meeting times).
Chapters
Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on how to set boundaries and prioritize self care in relationships. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. A lot of us have been taught that self care is bad or self care means you're lazy, and that's just not it. When you're going to prioritize self care in relationships, it can be a shift for a lot of people. So it's important to understand what you want to do, why you want to do it, and communicate it effectively. The first thing is to establish your goals for your rich and meaningful life. I know you're scratching your head. You're like, what does that have to do with what you're talking about? I'll get there. Once you figure out what's important in your rich and meaningful life, then explore how your relationships fit fit into that rich and meaningful life. Those people that you're interacting with, those people that you need to set boundaries with. How does, how do they fit into your rich and meaningful life? The next step? All right, now here we're getting to self care. Examine the role in achieving those goals of self care. In achieving those goals, why is it important for you to take care of yourself to nurture those relationships? Why are those relationships, relationships important in your rich and meaningful life? Now you're starting to put the puzzle together. Once you've identified all of this, then it's important to communicate your needs for self care using I statements and creating a win win whenever possible. For example, I need to take some time out each week in order to regroup and restore so I can be mentally and physically present for you so I can stay health, have more energy to interact with you the other six and a half days of the week. So you want to present it to people. When you're saying I need to take care of myself in a way that says I want to make myself stronger and healthier and more present so I can nurture our relationship. That's that win win. Resolve to respect boundaries, both yours and theirs. Now, we have five different types of boundaries, but the three that we're really going to focus on here are interpersonal, emotional and cognitive. And I'm not going to go through these in order. Emotional boundaries are how you feel and how they feel. You may feel excited about this decision to engage in self care. They may feel terrified. Okay? Their feelings are not wrong. Their feelings are their feelings. So it's important to recognize if they get angry about it, if they get anxious about it, or if they're supportive of it. Those are their feelings. And it doesn't mean that your feelings are wrong cognitively. Same sort of thing. Your thoughts are your thoughts and their thoughts are their thoughts. You, you think of self care as a way to build yourself up to recharge your battery so you can be as useful and present and effective in your relationships as possible. If they think of self care as something different, well, those are their thoughts. That is a boundary that it's important to set and to say, this is what I believe about self care. This is what I believe about this situation. You don't have to agree, but I don't have to change my thoughts. Okay? So how I feel is how I feel. What I think is what I think. How you feel and think is how you feel and think. That's one of the core features of respecting boundaries. When you're respecting those boundaries, you're not going to, quote, allow them to stomp all over your boundaries and guilt you into changing your mind. And finally, interpersonal boundaries. When you are resolving to engage in self care, especially if the person you're in a relationship with has a sense, a fear of abandonment, they may start getting really anxious and decide, okay, you can engage in self care, but we're going to do it together. And maybe part of your self care is just needing downtime time alone. Maybe you're more of an introvert, Whatever. For whatever reason, if you need time alone, then it's important to assert that and not let that person dictate how you engage in self care. And we're going to talk about compromise in a minute. It's important when you're maintaining those boundaries to recognize other people's reactions as their own. And these reactions may be based on what they believe or what they've been taught about self care. If they've been taught that self care means you're lazy or self care is not something you can do until everything else is done. Whatever it is that they've been taught, okay, those are their beliefs. And if you are doing something that is runs counter to their beliefs, then they may feel anxious or angry or frustrated because they don't understand where you're coming from. Their reaction is based on the meaning they assign to your choice to take care of yourself. If they hear you say, I want to do this so I can be fully restored and charged so I can be most effective on our relationship, and they hear that and they accept that, then that's wonderful. If they hear that and they think, oh, that's just an excuse because you're getting Ready to leave me, then their reaction is going to be completely different. But that is based on their thoughts and their feelings. Their reaction can also be based on their own need for self care and inability or unwillingness to to prioritize it. Now, an unwillingness to prioritize self care kind of goes back to the beginning when we talk about their beliefs about self care. If they don't believe it's important, if they're not willing to prioritize it, then they may not support your decision to prioritize it. And I have inability in here. And yes, even adults may have an inability to prioritize self care if they don't understand what they need. If they don't recognize that they have a issue that needs to be addressed. Nobody in their family ever engaged in self care. Nobody they know engages in self care. So it's just this foreign concept to them and they may not have the tools and resources to even acknowledge that there's a need. All right. However they respond, respond to their feelings. If they start getting anxious or agitated or angry or critical criticism is often a aggressive response. When somebody feels like they're losing control. When they start feeling anxious, that they're losing control, okay, so let's recognize what their reaction is saying. Respond to their feelings. If they are seeming to act anxious because maybe they're fearing that you're going to abandon them or reject them them or you're engaging in self care because you don't want to spend time with them and that's just an excuse. Whatever their thoughts are, their feelings are that of anxiety and threat and anger. Anger. So it's important to respond to their feelings and say, you know what, you're safe, I love you, I'm here for you. I really want to spend time with you and this has nothing to do with you except for the fact that I want to be able to be more present and more effective when we are together. Reasserting that can be helpful. And inquire about their thoughts. Don't assume if they start getting angry or anxious when you say, hey, I need to take care of myself, then acknowledge their feeling. I sense that you're feeling really anxious or really irritated about this. All right. Acknowledge their feeling. That is their feeling and they have the right to it. But then inquire about their thoughts. I'm wondering what about my decision to engage in self care is problematic for you or is causing you to feel angry or anxious? I know when people get out of residential treatment a lot of times they do something called 90 and 90, which means going to 9012 step meetings in 90 days, which is supposed to be one every day, not like six on one day. But I digress. Anyhow, a lot of significant others of these people don't understand why they are going to these meetings every single day. And they may feel somewhat rejected. They may fear the person is relapsing. They may. There may be a lot of fears and thoughts and resentments and all kinds of stuff coming up. I don't know for any individual person, I don't know why they may have a negative reaction to their significance other going to those meetings, engaging in that self care. But clearly through over 20 years of working with people with addictions, it is very common for significant others to want their loved one to be healthy and whole and recovered and all that. And feel insecure and anxious and even resentful. When the person is taking care of themselves, sometimes it's because they want to spend time with the healed person. There's a lot of reasons. That's a different video. And then reflect on your reactions. They react. However they react, you respond to their feelings. You inquire about their thoughts, you talk it out, respecting boundaries. But then it's important to reflect on your own reactions. The feelings and thoughts you're having right now about self care, are they yours? Or have you let that person manipulate your thoughts and feelings, guilt you into something? Are the feelings and thoughts you're having right now about the other person's reaction, Are they yours? Or again, are they sort of modified by that person trying to make you feel guilty and telling you you are doing this to me and, and trying to get you to not engage in self care. All right, you just got to decide, am I feeling and thinking the way that is true to me or am I caving? Is basically what it comes to. And are you choosing your behaviors on what helps you move toward your rich and meaningful life? Remember that was the first thing we talked about. Define your rich and meaningful life and examine how self care is important to that. So are you choosing behaviors based on what helps you move toward your rich and meaningful life or based on what the other person guilted you into doing? And so often I see unhealthy compromises where someone says, okay, well I won't engage in self care or I'll only do it 20% of the time that I wanted to. And it's important to determine what is it that you need and how can you get it? Yeah, you may not be able to get it. At the same time, when you want it every day. So for example, we'll stick with 90 and 90. The person who is needing to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. Maybe it's not ideal for them to go to the 6 o' clock meeting every night because that's when their significant other is trying to get the kids ready for bed and making dinner. And their significant other really needs help or would prefer to have help. Okay, so that's fine. Can you stick around, help your significant other out with that so they don't feel overwhelmed and then go to the seven o' clock meeting? So there's a compromise. You're still going to your meeting. You're still taking care of yourself. But you may be choosing a time that is more conducive to supporting the relationship that's important in your rich and meaningful life. Self care. It's non negotiable. It's like charging up your your phone. You gotta do it or the battery dies. If you're exhausted or burned out, you. You have no energy for those things that are important in your rich and meaningful life. And after all, just like your phone, what happens when your battery goes dead?
