In this solo episode of the "Stronger in the Difficult Places" podcast, Dr. Zoe Shaw guides listeners—particularly women in challenging relationships—through the process of learning to love their personal boundaries. She opens with a candid "win and fail" segment to model self‑compassion, then explains why many people, especially empathic, people‑pleasing individuals, resist setting boundaries. Dr. Shaw distinguishes boundaries from ultimatums, emphasizing that a boundary is a self‑defined limit, while an ultimatum is a consequence that may arise from a boundary. She argues that loving oneself is the prerequisite for loving one’s boundaries, using the analogy of protecting a child to illustrate how we naturally safeguard those who cannot protect themselves. The episode offers practical steps: clarifying personal values (spirituality, health, emotional well‑being), articulating clear limits, calming self‑talk, and practicing assertiveness distinct from aggression. Dr. Shaw stresses the importance of following through—speaking up when a boundary is crossed and, if necessary, removing oneself—to build confidence and self‑respect. The episode concludes with encouragement to view boundaries as a loving act toward oneself, a reminder to subscribe, and an invitation to continue the journey of self‑care.
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This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm so glad you're here today. Today the episode is called How to Fall in Love with Your Boundaries, and I'm excited to talk about that. But first up, my win and my fail. So my win is that I've been, I've been showering daily, Back to normal, and I've still managed to be able to keep up with my my workouts. And in case you didn't listen to last week's episode, I skipped a day or two of a shower last week, and that wasn't a good idea. It allowed me to work out a little bit longer, but I'm realizing that this whole work from home thing means you still need to you know keep up with all that other stuff. So yes, I am sitting here in my. I'm looking forward to talking about boundaries. My fail is that I set a goal for myself to write 200 words a day. And although I've probably written 200 words a day in other capacities, I really wanted to focus on specific writing that I'm doing. And I have not. I have done some writing, but I have not done 200 words a day. And that's my fail. And sometimes we don't reach our goals. Sometimes we sabotage ourselves. Sometimes life gets in the way. Life gets in the way, and we do have to give ourselves grace. So I am confessing today that I have not done those 200 words like I intended, but today's a new day, and I'm looking at my calendar right now as I'm speaking, and I'm starting again with my 200-a-word-day goal, and I'll let you guys know how I do. For 30 days was my challenge, self-personal challenge. I remind you every now and then why I do these wins and fails. It's not just to Shoot the breeze. And it's not for a confession either. I share my wins and my fails to remind you really to give yourself grace because there isn't a week— I don't believe there's a week that's gone by on the podcast that I have not been able to come up with both a win and a fail. And we are almost 193 episodes in. I don't usually share them when we have guests, But that's really just a time thing. But 190-some episodes and I can still come up with one. And really, that's just the reality of our life. Daily, weekly, monthly, we do really great things and sometimes we mess up, and we always will. Our goal is to continue to fall forward and give ourselves grace. So I will continue to share mine, and I hope it gives you time to ponder yours, to figure out your lesson, and to give yourself some grace too. So let's talk about falling in love with your boundaries. I titled this How to Fall in Love with Your Boundaries because I really want that word to be associated with this, this line that we draw with this boundary. You can love your boundaries. Often when I talk about boundaries to clients, I get a response like, I know I have to have boundaries. And boundaries seems like this awful thing that we know is important, but we dread. We dread others' boundaries, we dread erecting our own, but boundaries are such a loving thing that we can give to ourselves. Boundaries and ultimatums, I think they kind of sometimes get paired together and they are very closely related. I'm gonna talk about ultimatums in a couple episodes from now, but they are different because a boundary is not an ultimatum, although a boundary can lead to an ultimatum, and an ultimatum always stems from a boundary. Most people who have trouble setting boundaries are empathic, loving people. You might tend to put others' needs in front of your own, and you feel others' pain in a really deep way in your soul. It's easy to put yourself in someone else's place, and you want to be liked, you want to be loved, you want to be needed. But often you become exhausted and sometimes resentful because you give and you give. And maybe you even verbally set a boundary and it's constantly crossed, or maybe you feel like it's just being bulldozed. So then when someone, after all of your effort, tells you that the problem is yours, that you need to set boundaries, you might feel all kinds of knots tying up in your stomach because boundaries feel rude. They might feel mean, and they might feel like you're just not that type of person. Boundaries for someone who's an empathic person can Feel cold and uncaring and even selfish. And especially for someone who wants to be liked, you might feel that if you set them, you will no longer be liked or loved. Even worse, people with low boundaries get praised and validated sometimes because of how giving they are and how caring they are. And your sense of identity might be derived from how nice, loving, nurturing, and caring you are. So if you set boundaries now, there's nothing to make you feel special or liked, so you tell yourself. And you certainly won't get the love you need in return. Your fear is that they're going to leave you, or they're going to no longer have any interest in you if you set boundaries. Now, there are a couple of other reasons why you may not be in love with boundaries. You might be so far out of touch with yourself that you don't even know what you want. It may have been that often when you expressed a need as a child that you were told it was invalid, and you learned not to trust. What you even wanted. So you don't realize that your boundary was broken. So you might not even realize that your boundary's been broken until after the fact. And then you're angry and you're upset and you're resentful when you haven't clearly set a boundary to begin with. And you're probably too scared to back it up now and let the person know. You may tend to confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness, and you certainly don't want to be aggressive, right? Another reason why you may not erect boundaries is because you don't believe you deserve to. You haven't grasped your own sense of personal value. And so you feel like, why me? Why do I have the right to tell someone else how they can act around me or behave? But the definition of a boundary is something that you hold for yourself. You're not telling anyone else how they have to behave. You're simply stating what you will or will not accept. It's your line, not theirs. I know I've said it many times in this podcast, and I will keep saying it. In these cases, often you desire the relationship more than you desire caring or loving for yourself. So the way that you begin to love your boundaries more is to begin loving yourself more. When you love someone, you desire to fiercely protect them. Think about your kids if you have them, or maybe your niece, or, or even your own child self. You might not have boundaries for yourself, but you recognize that children do not have the capacity to erect or hold boundaries for themselves. And so you— We'll happily hold them for them. You don't let people take advantage of your kid or treat them badly. No way! I know that mama instinct surges in to protect them, and your protection tells them you're loved and that they can count on you to care for them. Children feel loved because you hold boundaries for them that they're not able to hold for themselves, and it's second nature for us to do that because we understand no one else can hold that boundary up for them. Now eventually, of course, they're going to learn to hold up their boundaries for themselves. But my friend, unless you are a child, no one will hold up your boundary for you. No one. So that leaves you. So you must love yourself in the same way that you wish someone might have done for you as a child, because we know parents aren't perfect, so they certainly don't always hold them up perfectly. They do their best. So one of the first ways to fall in love with your boundary is to begin loving yourself more. The next way to fall in love with your boundary is to understand what they are to begin with. A lot of times we don't have a lot of clarity, and so we don't even know enough to state a boundary. When it's crossed, we think it is, we're not sure, we don't know how to articulate it. So what you must first do is understand what your boundary is. Ask yourself, what are my values regarding how I express my spirituality? What I eat, how I value my health and the ways that I choose to protect it. What are my values around my emotional and psychological well-being and what I know is good for me? These are all good things. Your boundaries are holding up, reinforcing, and protecting all that is good and healthy in your life. So why would you not fall in love with that? You fall in love with your boundaries by understanding the beautiful message you are sending to yourself that says, "Hey, I love you." And you're worthy and valid to be loved. Ask yourself, where does my value lie? Hint, it's not in people pleasing. You have a value that does not require you to do or be anything. You don't have to knot yourself up in a pretzel to be worthy. You don't have to earn the love that people give you. You are lovable as you are. Now, of course, we've got to be respectful. Of course, we've got to be considerate, but that's different than people pleasing. You as you are are good enough, and you can experience that goodness in a healthier way by having healthy boundaries. Another way to begin loving your boundary is to calm your self-talk when you think about or actually follow through on erecting a boundary, because that can feel scary, and you're probably telling yourself a lot of scary things about it. Instead, remind yourself this is a loving thing to do. Assertiveness is different than aggressiveness. Assertiveness is loving myself. Another way to love your boundary is to simply follow through with them. When you take the time to clearly state your boundaries, whether you write them down or you hold them internally, and then you actually follow through with the boundary, meaning if someone crosses it, you speak up, and if they continue to cross it, you remove yourself, you're going to begin to experience a sense of pride and love for yourself, both because you followed through and because you can feel the confidence and upholding your own boundary. And also because you just sent a powerful message to yourself that you deserve to be loved and cared for. This episode is just a quick reminder for you that your boundaries are not a chore. They are not just a skill even that you need to learn. Just like you care for those that you love, your boundaries are something that you can fall in love with too. Go love yourself. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go up on Tuesdays. Subscribe to my email list so that you can get some encouragement from me. Have a strong week.
