666: How to Make Beautiful Boundaries

Let's stop thinking about boundaries as something negative or difficult or painful to create or enforce. Let's just wipe that out of our brains. Pretend we'd never heard that. We never had a negative association with them. In fact, it was totally the opposite. We have the best associations with boundaries. Oh, my God. The more boundaries, the better. Yes, I've got great boundaries. I'm always strengthening them. They always work out for me. They've made my life a living joy. Right? Did that just kind of mess with your head a little? It really pointed out, at least to me, huh? How far away am I from completely feeling that? Why do I feel like boundaries are that thing you have to get to and do, and it's gonna be hard and the people are going to be mad at you and where did that come from? Can I get rid of that? Can you get rid of that? Let's explore today what your life would look like if in fact you lived with that feeling that I create beautiful boundaries around myself. Emotional boundaries, physical boundaries, energetic boundaries. Boundaries with my time. And you know what they do? They preserve me. They help me grow. They nurture me. And I love having them. And what's more, the people in my life love that I have them, too. It makes everything work. Yeah, let's go for that. Stay with me for more Flow Dreaming. Flow Dreaming. It's a show where we talk about the power of your mind to change your world around you, to literally affect the fabric of your reality. We talk about this feeling of hope and joy and relief. And that is what being aware of your flow does. It gives you a feeling of power again in your lives. Breathe. I'm Summer McStravik and welcome to another episode of Flow Dreaming. All right, you guys, raring to go? We have episode six. 666. Beautiful boundaries. 666. My God, I can't believe I got here. And that's an interesting number. I know. You guys don't worry about it. It's kind of like the elevator does go to the 13th floor. They're just calling it something else. But this is a perfect episode to talk about creating healthy, strong, nurturing, beautiful, gorgeous, high vibe boundaries in your life. And especially for remaking our thoughts around that. Remaking lack thinking around that. So let's dive right in. I'm Summer McStravik. It is so lovely to meet you. I'm happy that you're here, and I hope you're falling in love with Flow Dreaming and that you will love not just the technique, but the whole way of Looking at the world just as much as I have, and I do when I think about boundaries, I realize I've done a few episodes on this topic over the years. It is one of my more favorite ones, especially because it's part of manifesting. Right? You can manifest things, but at certain points, you have to manifest the corral that you put the horses in. And that's what a good boundary is. If you have a good boundary, everyone's happy. The horses are happy, you're happy. Right? Keeps them from wandering, getting lost, getting sick. You get to feed them. All right, the horses is a kind of a weird metaphor, but you get what I'm saying. Boundaries are meant to increase the satisfaction in your life and in other people's lives. Now, here is where we often kind of get messed up in our head about them. We assume that if we create a boundary, we're going to be taking away something from someone else and they are not going to be happy. That's often what it boils down to. That's often why when we create boundaries, we're reluctant or we make them, but we don't enforce them. We let things just slide right back to where they used to be. Because why? It's easier. And I don't want to get in a fight. And so someone's gotta do it. And, oh, we have a whole list of things. But, you know, the end result of that, you've had that feeling. We've all had that feeling. Like, that was not okay. Not okay. Why is hard for me to say that was not okay. You know, maybe it wasn't really okay for the other person either. Why do I assume it was okay for them? Maybe they too are like, not okay with that. Maybe we're both not okay. Maybe we need to reach out and get to okay. So let's dive into how to make beautiful, beautiful boundaries. This first concept that I'm sharing with you is beautiful boundaries are what allow you to say, I'm not okay. And here's what we need to do about it. You have to allow yourself to the permission to ask, give yourself permission to ask for other people to make some sort of correction in your interaction. That's it. Let's just make a correction in our interaction. If they don't like that correction, well, they'll tell you if you are a person who avoids conflict, you may not like that, but you need to ask for it. You need to ask for it. I know the fear. You won't be loved. They'll leave you. They'll be angry at you. They'll talk behind your back, they'll be sulky, they'll think you're a jerk. The family won't like you. All kinds of stuff, right, that we fear. So we give and we give and we give and we over give. And it's not all right with me, but I'm doing it because I'm afraid. And I'm afraid that by drawing boundaries, I'll be in a worse place than I am now. Stepped on and tired and not really cool with this and angry about that and resentful about that. But I'm afraid it'll be worse if I put that boundary up. Hmm. What is a good boundary? Like, what is a boundary? I mean, it's one of these words we throw around, like, so much. A boundary is, like I just said, it's when you make a correction with someone, right? You recognize something is going off track, something is broken, something is not working. Something happened and you didn't want it to happen, but it did happen. And then you end up in this position where you're not able to protect yourself. And by protection, I don't mean any extreme example of, like, self defense. I mean, I couldn't protect my emotions. I can't protect my heart. I can't protect my time. I'm gonna give something up at my own expense. Somehow we got to that. We need to make a correction. Would you want somebody you care about to be doing that? To be feeling that inside them? You wouldn't, would you? Even if it was benefiting you, you would know, oh, there is a price tag. And that is the utter unhappiness of my partner, my friend, my employer, my whatever, it wouldn't settle. Here's the funny thing about boundaries, though. We often don't really vocalize them. You know, we just kind of get into patterns or habits of interaction. And we. In these patterns, it's like falling to the default. No one really agreed on this. No one really spoke it, but this is where we ended up. It's not working for me, probably. You know, a lot of times it's not working for the other person either. You did not enforce a boundary that you need for your health, for your safety, for your heart, and you think that you're giving to the other person by doing so. But I bet you if you really look closer, ask, open your mouth, talk, you might discover that they're not actually receiving from you what you assume they are, right? That right there is kind of a mind bender. Like, wait a minute, I'm doing this and you don't even appreciate it. You don't even know, like, how many times have we said that? And you don't even appreciate it? Like, no, because they don't recognize that they're running across one of your important things, your boundaries. So, no, they don't appreciate that they're getting something. All right, have I made the point? Have I made the case? Boundaries are good things. They're beautiful things. They are meant to uphold and grow things. Without them, we don't get to do that. So let's talk about some types of boundaries. Emotional boundaries, energy boundaries, time boundaries. It's fascinating when you think about it. The most obvious boundaries are boundaries around things that we will and won't do. Let's say you have someone who asks you for money a lot, and they're family. I was actually having this very discussion with my brother just a few days ago, and I said, you know, you ever need money, I'm not going to loan it to you. I said, I'm going to give it to you. Because I know too many families who say, I'm going to loan it to you. And then they never, ever get paid back again. And it creates this little seed of bitterness. I say, if you need it, and I know you need it, I will give it. Clean, clear. For me, it's a boundary. And the boundary is one where if you ask and then you ask again, and then you ask again, and then you ask again, at some point, I'm gonna say, no, this is not healthy for you. No, you need to do this on your own. I'm. What do they call it? Enabling you? I'm preventing you from reaching your own growth by always stepping in. We do this a lot with people we love. Not just with money, but with all kinds of things. Living at home, not paying anything, like, well, you know, I want to get them on their feet. I like having them here, or I don't like having them here, and they eat everything and they spend their money on stupid stuff. And instead of, like, helping me out with the groceries, these are boundaries. These are ways of communicating where if you were to say, I love having you here, I need to know that you. You appreciate and value being here. You need to chip in this amount. If you don't, you will not be eating out of the fridge anymore. Period. Right? Everything is really clear. When you have a good boundary, everything is like a transparent window letting in the sunlight, whereas when there isn't, it gets murky and unsure. And I don't feel happy. And I'm Mad. But I'm not really sure what I'm mad about because I never told them what I was mad about because I didn't enforce the boundary. Now I'm mad at myself. Now I'm mad at myself and them. You see, just oh, it's allowing. It's the fallacy that the enforcing of it or stating the boundary is going to be worse than living in the confusion. But you know, it almost never ever, ever is worse. It's almost always, always, always, always better. What about other kinds of boundaries? What about time? You have people situations, work. Are they doing another 60 hour work week? They're doing another, you got to work all weekend. Are they doing. Do you have a person or people in your life who expect you to always be the one who goes over and takes care of mom on Saturdays? And nobody el, only you. And you love to take care of mom. But gosh, it would be great to have some help. Be great if there was more than one of you over there. Boundaries with your time. When you're overstretched, constantly tired, overworked, no time for yourself, you know how you feel. You get to the end of the day and you've got no mental stamina left. It is on E4 empty. The most you can do is watch some stupid TV because it asks nothing of you and heat up a bowl of ramen. But what happens if you start reclaiming your time? First of all, I want you to think of it like this. Sometimes we take on obligations because we think no one else will do them, that we have to, it's the right thing, etc. And then after a while, we forget we can actually be depriving other people of the valuable experience that we are grudgingly doing. Right? If there's no one to organize the church potluck and you don't want to do it, you've done it every year, not very happy about it. Did it occur to you that if you said, I will not be organizing it this year, if you guys want to have one someone else step up. It's asking everyone, evaluate how important this is to you. It's asking everyone, hey, is there someone else here who wants to get that kind of community service and do that? Because I've been taking that opportunity, believing no one else wanted it. But now I'm not. And I'm actually giving back. I'm giving other people a chance. I'm giving them a shot. It's a different way of seeing things. Ditto for being on the board of supervisors or for being the one who drives all the kids to school because no other parents want to do it. You know, maybe they could do it. Maybe they can arrange their schedule. Or twice a week, they get to drive their kids to school, and it's the best thing that ever happened to them. And they finally had to tell their employer, hey, I have to come in a half hour late and start my, you know, adjust the time of my day. But I just discovered, oh, my God, I love doing this so much. You're giving people opportunities to make positive shifts in their own life that they wouldn't have otherwise made. Possibly. Pretty cool, huh? What about boundaries of your heart? Boundaries of your heart. Ooh, this is a hard one for some of us. Let's make it easy. Let's put this in flow. Boundaries of the heart often go like, he doesn't really make me feel secure. He doesn't make me feel that I'm his one and only. Maybe I even know that he has other sweethearts. I'm saying, he could be. She could be. They. But I'm still waiting. I'm sticking around. I'm waiting for them to shape up. I'm waiting for them to turn the corner. I'm waiting for them to turn into the person that I know that they could become. Who here has done this? Like, hands up quite a few of us, meanwhile, our heart gets a little more trampled every time, a little less valued. Now, do you think your partner really wants your heart to be less valued? Do you think they do? Do you think perhaps they're caring more about their own desires and their own heart than your heart? Is that the partner you want? Is that the kind of person you want? Boundaries of the heart mean, I need this from you. We need this together, or I cannot continue this relationship. I feel like I could do a whole episode on just this one thing. But we get afraid to say that. And so we step back and we let a little more of our inner pride be taken. We let a little more of our feelings of worthiness be taken. And our partner often doesn't even know they're taking it from us, but it's happening. And then one day we realize, I'm not getting what I need here. I haven't been getting here what I need for a long time. I've been wishing and hoping and allowing and letting and suffering and then pretending I'm not. Because the boundary, the healthy boundary in my heart looks something like this. We are 100% committed to one another. We make all kinds of effort and movement with realistic and true timelines that we meet to move our lives and ourselves closer together. We say yes to one another. I'm not living in this half relationship anymore. That is a strong piece of truth. That is what I want to build a relationship on. I want to build a lifetime on that. Think about the strength of building on that versus building on the boundaryless walk over me. I allow this. I give up for you kind of life. Which one is stronger? Which one is representative of who you truly are and where you want to lead this relationship. Easier said than done. Not necessarily. You start with flow. You start with your energy surrounding that. You start by shifting and marshaling yourself to say, I don't approve of this. I don't allow this. My heart is not getting fed from this. And yeah, your partner might say, wow, I did not know I was disappointing you so much and that you were so unhappy with me. And your answer to that is, well, now you know. And I'm sharing because I care about you and I love you and I want to see this correction happen in the way we are with one another. And I feel that I have been very compassionate and very patient. But I need to be fed, I need to be nourished. I need to be seen. I need to be valued. I need to feel strong in you all the time. Every time my thoughts slide over to you, I feel strong in you and in us. Oh, isn't that beautiful? And you think, well, I'd love that. But honestly, Summer, I don't know if I deserve that. This is probably the best I can do. I've never found anybody better than this. Why would I ask for more? Why not ask for more? You gonna stop now at this point in your life from ever asking for more? That would be silly. Your job is to keep asking for more if it means more love, more connection, more strength, more stability. Yeah, ask. Ask away. Keep asking. I want to do more of that with you. That would be what your partner says. Now, I just used the romantic couple as the kind of example, but it can be anything. It can be you and your family, you and the way your sister interact, or someone who is always badmouthing you or putting you down or something that you deal with. And you toler and you say, well, it's easier than confrontation. I want you to back away from the idea that there's anything. What's the word? Confrontative that's not quite right. There's anything confrontational. That's what happens when I spend the whole morning recording. I start to lose my grip on the words. There's nothing confrontational about sharing what you need. You expect others to do it, right, and they by and large probably do. You can, too. You can. You have permission. And let's see what happens. Let's see what you get from that as a result of that. Let's see what you get. I want you to lift your heart into the place where you say, I feel like what I'm going to get might be really, really, really, really positive. It might be really, really, really, really good. And that's where you step forward with that feeling. Let's talk about boundaries in yourself, your soul, your life. This is another area where we often let people and things and responsibilities and duties, you know, run roughshod over us. I have to do it. This is what I'm supposed to do. I don't want this. I don't like this. I want a strong and beautiful boundary so that I can create the walls that keep my home warm inside my heart. Okay, so what are you giving away in yourself? What are you giving of yourself that you. You don't want to give? What are you tolerating that you don't want to tolerate? What are you putting up with that you know is not healthy, is not good, isn't reflective of who you are and where you're going? Notice that nail, that. See that? There it is. It's showing itself to you. It's shining and shimmering right in front of you. And you know what it's asking you? Fix me. Please fix me. Are you gonna fix me? Will you fix me this year? Can you please fix me? Gosh, I've been waiting for you to fix me. Why are you always fixing other people and doing it for them but not for me? Not for you? Why am I last? Why are you last? This is what boundaries mean, Evening things up. I'm not saying make yourself first in everything and be a jerk to everyone and be unhappy. Unhelp, helping and selfish. No, I don't think you could be that way if you tried. If you don't have great boundaries, believe me, you're not going to overcompensate to the point where you become that jerk. So just let that go out of your head, out of your fears, out of your worries. Instead, what do you need? Where do you need help? This is a great time to think about writing a list. If you can't because you're driving, you're doing something. Make a little list in your mind, speak it to your phone, have the phone, write the list. Where do I need to Recapture my time. Where do I need to feel stronger and more loved and joyful? In my heart, in my relationship, in my friendships? Where do I feel like I'm giving things I don't really want to give? At least not anymore? Where do I feel that I'm doing a duty that I believe other people could be sharing with me, yet they're not. All of these are ways of encountering boundaries. And you have permission to do this. You have more than permission. There is an expectation you will do this. And when you don't, it makes everybody else feel kind of weird too. Sure, they're gonna roll with it and just go with it because it's the way things have been going. But they can tell. They know you're not happy. They know you're grumpy. They know you're resentful. They know you're displeased, that there's a gulf, a separation. They know. But they don't know what to do about it either. Because, see, you're the one who's invested in personal growth. You're the one who loves to better yourself, figure out what's working and not working. Therefore, you're the one in this relationship who's expected to come forward and say, let's fix this, let's correct this. Let's make this work for both of us. These are your gorgeous boundaries. Gorgeous boundaries is like building a house. You build it so that there's a room for everything. I don't want to go to the bathroom in the kitchen, so I make a bathroom. You build boundaries so the pieces and parts of your life all work together in the places and the ways that they should. There's nice thick walls and, you know, carefully, you know, shuttered windows to keep the cold out, keep the rain out, right? To keep out the things that don't work yet. If you were in the middle of a snowstorm, a blizzard, and you threw open all the windows and the house got freezing cold and you messed up all the things in the rooms, it would be awful. Good boundaries are the structure. Everybody relies on everybody. And no one else is more deserving than you notice. I said more deserving. Why? Because we are all equally deserving. Your partner needs good boundaries. Your friends need good boundaries. You need good boundaries. Your kids don't. You want your kids growing up strong and thoughtful and clear and wise? You don't want people taking advantage of them. You don't want them secretly nursing a half broken heart, hoping and waiting. You don't want that for them. You want them to know their desires. Let's start doing it then. Let's begin with ourself. There's this last moment here I want to mention before we close the episode. It's the actual act of enforcing the boundary. It's easy to think of the things that we need to do or want to do or would make us happier. But then there comes that moment when everybody gets home and they throw their jackets all over the place and they track the mud through the house. And you just cleaned it and you realize this is a boundary of mine that's being crossed. They're being thoughtless, they're being impolite. And this is where you say, hey, you don't do this. You take your shoes off at the door, you hang up the jacket. I don't pick up everything and clean up everything after you. You do this. If you don't do this, you're going to find your shoes and your jacket missing tomorrow when you need them. Right? There is something that will occur if the behavior, if the person doesn't adapt, right? And we want to create people in our lives who are capable of adapting. Otherwise, we're allowing people to become frozen in their bad behaviors. We want adaptable people that we love. They want us to be adaptable. They're going to ask us, hey, there's this boundary, right? You're working too late every day. I know you think you need to, but it's hurting us, it's hurting our family. Maybe it's time for a different job. Or let's come up with a horizon that we know this will end by. Let's work this. Let's clear this. Let's get strong around this. Isn't that exciting? That's the moment where you open your mouth and you share. And you know what? You might fumble at first, and maybe the person will take it badly because they're not used to this. But we have to teach them and help them get used to this. Maybe they've never had anybody enforce a boundary. So they always take it, like, horrible, like, fly out of control, like, oh, you're accusing me and you're blaming me. And then they point it back to maybe they don't know how and what it looks like to have a boundary presented to them. Fair, right? Especially if we haven't been doing it with them. Fair. So their reaction might in fact be pretty darn poor. But you're going to teach them. You're going to say, this is not the reaction that I'm looking for. I'm looking for a really Bright, positive outcome for us. Something that lights up my heart. That works for you. We'll come back to this. We're going to talk about it again, and maybe next time you're going to come to it with a different understanding. Eventually someday. I know that you will because you're going to understand. My heart is hurting around this. And I know that means something to you. You get it. Like, presented like that, I would just be like a puddle on the floor. Like, okay, yes, of course I want to do this with you. Of course we need to do this. Yes, I want to be adaptable. Yes, I want to grow. Share with me. Let's. Let's do this. Oh, my God. I'd love to get good at boundaries. I'd love to be good at helping you with yours and making my own better. Win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win. Beautiful, beautiful. Boundaries. Okay, so you've got your assignment and you're fired up and ready to do it. And how does this relate to flow dreaming? Well, it does to a degree, because I go in my flow and I create these boundaries and I really start to get clear on what I'm giving. And if I'm happy giving it, if I'm happy giving it, heck yeah, man. Maybe I'll even give more. But if I'm not, I need to make some adjustments. I need to figure out what those are. I don't want to spread a pool of that unhappiness into everything I touch. There's a flow dream I want to recommend for you guys. It's called strong, healthy boundaries. And it gets you into this mindset, exactly what we've been talking about. You will feel those boundaries fluttering and rippling inside you. You'll feel it like the walls of a building getting built. Those big still beams going into place, able to. To hold some big things. That's you. So please check out strong, healthy boundaries. Another one that might be good is called no more family Drama. Because that's often where we get our boundaries all messed up. There's another one, Enough time for everything. That will help some of us who are over givers of our time. But peruse the store. That's the cool thing about flow dreaming. It's as much about changing you emotionally. Right? I mean, the thought that you could develop, consciously work to develop aspects of yourself into having the characteristics that you want to have, that's mind blowing. You know, that's phenomenal. That's saying, I wasn't just born this way. I wasn't just nurtured this way. Brought up. But I am a continuously evolving being. I'm a continuously transformative and growing being. And that means, hey, you know what? This is the year where I play with and I experiment with boundaries and maybe I nail it and maybe I only make a little bit of progress. But it's time and I want to do it because I believe that doing it is going to lead me to feel really good things. And that's where we're heading. I want more good things in my life. I want to feel those things. I want to do those things. I want to be those things. And I know the pieces and parts it will take. And usually that means the pieces and parts that are the most broken need to be shored up so that I can have that growth, so that I can have that joy. The more you do this process, the easier it becomes. In fact, the more exciting it becomes. I'm thinking already, what do I want to characterize my year ahead with? Every year I pick a theme. I'll talk more about that in the next few episodes, but pick a theme. This is the year of what? Right there, I'm creating a direction for myself and it may require me to adjust the boundaries, adjust the compromises, adjust the give and takes with other people. Probably will. But I'm flexible and the people in my life are flexible and adaptable. And that's why I love them and hold them close. And the ones who aren't, well, they're a little further at arm's length from me. Makes sense. All right. With that, remember, you can go find those flow dreams@flowdreaming.com that is my website. It teaches you how to do the process of flow dreaming, which is a very active form of, you could call it even a meditation. An active meditation. But it's beyond meditation. It's getting into flow state. It's getting into this connective bridge between physical and non physical and in that place, doing some incredibly potent things. So please do check it out. Also check out my program, Flow on and the courses area of the website. That's something new I introduced this year. I have more than a dozen courses there on all kinds of topics. If you like these podcasts, these episodes, oh, they're like teasers for the courses where we really dig in with techniques and observations and we do the change, we make the change. So go check those out and I hope you enjoy those. Lots of love to you guys and I will see you. We've got one more episode, I believe, of season 17, and after that we start our bright Shiny new episode. Whatever, whatever. 668. 9. Something like that as we start season 18. Oh my gosh. 18 years of flow Dreaming of this podcast. Like, has been going for 18 years now. That is so bonkers. All right, love you guys again. I'll see you next time for more Flow Dreaming. Flow Dreaming is a universe. On the one hand, it's extraordinary. It's a technique that can change everything in your life. You can feel better, manifest your dreams, heal it, does it all. And to learn it well, just go to flowdreaming.com and get my free kit that teaches you how. Look under free goodies. And you can also download the Flow Dreaming app, which has the kit right there for you. But Flow Dreaming keeps going. Once you fall in love with the technique, you might want to know how to use it better. How to think better, feel better, really change inside. That's why I have Flow on a monthly membership where I teach people a new way of using flow in their lives every single month. Check it out. Finally, you might be perfectly ready for MI School. I know you've heard a lot about MI School, but maybe you haven't actually looked it up yet. It's my most effective program, a culmination of 20 years of teaching. It's been taken by hundreds of students over the last seven years. And this is where you really light that fire that grows and you make this a life worth living. You can find it all@flowdreaming.com so go check it out and at least write yourself a note, even if you can't check it out this minute. And while you're at it, subscribe to the podcast.