30: How to set life-changing boundaries

Hello friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges and loss, and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics ranging from interviews to recipes to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. And I'm honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. Have you ever felt like, why is this person always hitting on me? Or why is this person gossiping towards me or bringing negative energy to me? Or, you know, why am I always being asked to do a certain thing or have felt resentful that you were giving more than you were getting back in exchange, or perhaps working with somebody who wasn't understanding your schedule or constantly trying to contact you? Any of these things and million more examples all comes back to boundaries. So buckle up because this is a good one. You guys have asked. This was initially inspired by a conversation I had with one of my one on one coaching clients. And it surfaced a number of times in the group coaching and the mindset work of move. And I decided, you know what, this is so widely applicable, I'm bringing it to the podcast. So today we are talking all things boundaries. I'm going to tell you the benefits of boundaries, the challenges around boundaries, internal boundaries versus external boundaries, and give you some tips on how to move forward so that you can really set and understand clear, meaningful boundaries that are going to help you feel your very best. So you're not asking those questions anymore. It's a lot to process. You probably want to grab a pen or just listen to it a couple times. Let's dive right on in. So boundaries. Boundaries are something I have studied a lot, I have practiced a lot. And in truth, it was in my own grief journey, like pretty much everything we talk about on here is in my own grief journey, that I really, at a deeper level, understood the significance of them. I'd heard them talked about and I thought, you know, boundaries were kind of associated with being cold or not loving or not caring. And boundaries were for people who didn't want to help others. And those were conceptions I had. I know that, you know, I'm not alone in those. And it was in my grief journey when I realized that boundaries were necessary to survive. Right? Boundaries were necessary to grow I had to set boundaries for what I was capable of doing. I had to set boundaries for what I needed in any given moment. And it's really easy for us to see and understand that in the trauma and the depths and the trenches of grief. But there are things that get in our way, right? They hinder us from seeing it in life. And it's really no different, the principle and the concept. It's just that when people maybe are grieving or in trauma, we understand, oh yes, yes, they need to set boundaries. But if people aren't struggling, quite often we don't recognize that boundaries are a really healthy, fair, loving way of functioning. And in fact, when we don't set boundaries, here are some things that happen. We become resentful, we burn out. We become angry or annoyed that somebody doesn't seemingly understand us or appreciate us or value us. We waste energy. We wonder why somebody doesn't get it. We constantly feel stressed by being in a position of having to say yes or no over and over rather than just having set that boundary up front. We can exhaust ourselves and quite often we can kind of self sabotage or blow up our world. Because if we don't establish a boundary around our energy, well, sometimes we just create something else that will. Whether it's some drama or some chaos or something, right? A sickness, an ailment, an injury, an argument. Anything that's going to give us that boundary that we haven't found the words to articulate. You know, I am all about energy. In order to have integrity and power and strength with our energy, we've got to understand boundaries. Now what stops us from setting them is one, nobody talks about them. Right? We need to completely redo our education system. Probably not going to see that happen in my lifetime. So we'll just offer alternative forms of education here and you guys can all help me spread this out into the world. But no one talks about them. Nobody talks about boundaries. I didn't know what they were. I didn't know until my grief coach started talking to me about, what boundaries are you setting now? Someone's constantly asking you to do something. You don't have the energy to do it. Have you given them the information they need to stop asking you? I was like, oh, okay, Kendra, I'm in my grief right now. Can you not challenge me in that way? Right? But that was me feeling a little bit minorly victim, victimization. But the truth is that she was right. She was looking to protect my energy. She was teaching me how to protect my own energy. And so what stops us as one is that we haven't talked about them, we haven't been taught about them. And then when we do learn about them, it's scary because we think that it might come with a disconnection or rejection or our value or our worth goes down if we can't meet some certain expectation or do something for someone else. And when we pull out the Bible, right at the core of it is fear. And as I always explain, at the core of everything is really love. And so there's this huge misunderstanding and this fear that we are not worthy of love or we're going to stop receiving love. We're going to be cut off from love if we establish the boundary. But I promise you, open your mind here and trust me, when we really become clear and aligned in the boundaries that we set, we're actually creating more room for love to flow. We're holding more space for love and we're giving more energy to love because we're not exhausting it in ways that deplete us or impact us negatively. As always, it starts internally. So before you start thinking like, oh, I'm gonna go tell Sally that she needs to stop doing this, right, let's go internally first. The most important thing is how we set boundaries within ourselves. So we need to look at where are we sending energy? Where are we giving energy away? And I talk about this a lot in terms of a bank account, right? I have an upcoming episode on Favorite Analogies. This one will make an appearance in more depth. But I remember talking with one of my one on one clients and saying that we don't want to just sit there with a stack of $100 bills and distribute them out. We're just flying them out, just throwing them out everywhere. Are we doing that with our energy? Start thinking of energy as a bank account. Look at where it's going, right? Where is our money going? Where is our energy going? Money is just an energy source, right? Just like emotion, just like time, all of these different energy sources, just money is so tangible for us. It's easy to make that connection. So internally, as you're setting boundaries, where are you setting your energy? Because just because somebody invites you to something or pulls you to something doesn't mean you need to go, right? Somebody begins gossiping. You don't have to jump in on that. You don't have to give your energy to that. Someone's doing something that's draining for you. You don't have to go to that. You don't have to give any energy to it at all. So if you're doing things that you don't want to do, that's an internal boundary that you need to set with yourself. Another one internally is finding that sweet spot, right? Imagine that sweet spot of where you're pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, but not too far. So where is that boundary for you? Are you allowing yourself that space to have downtime? Are you allowing yourself that space to recover? Are you allowing yourself that strength and that push and that motivation to go a little bit further at times and finding that balance? And that's a tricky one because it's so different for everybody. And in truth, that sweet spot, if you're truly aware of it, should change and shift from day to day. So where that is on one day is going to be different on another day. This is why I believe so strongly. And the morning mindset work that I have, everyone I work with do, and that I do every day, it's so important because we take a second and we check in. You can think of that morning mindset as almost like your little boundary check, like where am I at and what do I need today? You're setting that internal boundary so that you can then go set externals. Another internal boundary is recognizing we don't have to absorb everything that comes to us, so we don't have to read every social media account, right? We can unfollow them and I'll get into that more with external. But say you're in a conversation or you know, this is really common in workplaces. And I know I was in group homes and I was in really draining, energetically draining fields of work at a time when I didn't understand boundaries and someone would come to me with this heart wrenching story and I couldn't separate myself from it. I would stay up at night, I would feel it, I would lose sleep over it, I would be sick to my stomach over it or this drama or this chaos or whatever was happening. And the thing is, my inability to set a boundary made me less powerful in my ability to show up for them. And that's why boundaries allow me to do the work that I do now. And I like to think of it as like I'm holding a bucket for people to process and sift through whatever they need to get through. But I'm not necessarily absorbing it and taking it on myself. And I'm right there with them. I'm down in the sand, I got my pail, I'm ready to go. But I'm not suddenly like absorbing all of that. And what happens is when we absorb all that, it becomes more about us and less about them. So remember, when we're setting these internal boundaries, you don't have to absorb everything that comes to you. And then the last internal boundary, and there are many more, but these are the ones I want you to start with. And we can go deeper. We will go deeper, is the expectations that we have, right? And that's a boundary. Our expectations are boundary. And quite often we have an expectation if we give somebody loyalty, they're going to return it with loyalty. Reasonable, yes, but not widely applicable. Or if we're working really hard for someone or a company or something, that they owe us a certain thing. So when we look at these internal boundaries, we have to let go of expectations that we're entitled to anything, because that entitlement is kind of like a boundary leak. And now all of a sudden, we get upset if we don't get it in return. Now, yes, there is a time and a place to have certain expectations for what we get back. But those are clearly communicated. They're not just thought about. They're not just imagined on our own end and projected outward. They're clearly communicated. Whether it's in a relationship or in a workplace, those two way street expectations, or friendship, whatever it is, family, those two way street expectations are communicated. What I'm talking about are the expectations that we don't communicate, that we just have, that people are going to live by our code or choose the way that we would choose or give us something because we've given something to them. Those are the ones we got to get rid of. So internal boundaries are huge, right? Internal boundaries are the place that we need to start. Once we become really clear on those, then we look at external boundaries. And I like to look at external boundaries as kind of three layers. And one of these layers I alluded to in the gossip podcast episode that came out recently. And I know that really resonated with a lot of you all. So if you haven't listened to it, I highly recommend it, especially if you're interested in boundaries. But that outermost layer is you just ignore. You give it zero energy. Common things that this can apply to somebody's texting you something that either is not at a time, that works for you, Right? Sometimes I get messages at, you know, 11:00pm and for some people, they're up then. But for me, I'm not. So rather than getting annoyed, I put my phone on, do not disturb. Or I. If I see it, I just don't Reply. Because if I reply, I'm sending the message that this is an okay time. My energy is available to you at this time. I don't reply. I'm just letting them know one way or another, my energy is not available to you at that time. So silence. Right? Same with social accounts. There are social accounts that drain you. First of all, go unfollow them, and second of all, don't watch them. I can't tell you how many times I've had people say, did you see this in stories? Or did you see this post? And I'm honestly like, no. I really only follow and give energy to accounts of places that, you know, feel good, that align with my goals and where I'm at and that I can contribute to and that they also contribute to my growth. Gossip. Another one, just give zero energy to it. If you hear it, you know, you just don't have to. You don't give anything to it. And that's one way of drawing a boundary. If you are not replying to people who are gossiping, they are going to stop gossiping too. And then another one, that is a different energy form that I don't know that we talk about enough. We get so caught up in boundaries as just people and relationships. But purchase it, right? That's a purchase. And one of my good friends from Energize actually said this one time that every purchase we make is a vote. I love that every purchase we make is a vote because it's an energy source, right? Every time we choose to allocate our energy, it's a boat. And so I no longer purchase from companies that I don't believe in. And instead of just arguing with these companies, I have to spend a little more money to have a purchase come from a place that I feel good about. Well, that's a value I've decided on. So that's a boundary that I've set. I am no longer giving energy to these places that don't align with me or that maybe deplete me. The next layer is things that might go a little bit further in terms of if you find yourself, like why is this person always asking me to go out to dinner or to go to the movies? Or why is someone flirting with me? Or again, gossiping to me if it's chronic and it doesn't stop. The first step, ignore, right? Layer two is communicating a little bit more directly, but we're not going too deep yet. So this could just say like, oh, that's not really my thing. Or I don't want to give energy to that. I'm not into that. Or I really prefer this. Maybe somebody's constantly offering you meat and they have no idea that you're a vegetarian, right? So instead of expecting them to read your mind that you're a vegetarian, you can just say, oh, actually, I'm a vegetarian. I'm a vegan, whatever it may be. I'm plant based. There's a million different terms, right? You know, if somebody's still chronically gossiping to you and you've given it the silence, well, then maybe you need to be a little bit more clear and say, I really don't want to give my energy to that. I know that, you know, it helps you to talk about that, but is there someone else you can talk about it with? Because it really drains me if somebody's constantly asking you to hang out and you're not available or you're in a relationship. Well, you got to look at it. They're just looking to connect in the way that they know how. Have you given them the tools in their toolbox or the information they need to understand your boundary? I'm going to say probably not. And I'm saying that from experience, right? Kendra, back when I was in my most broken, shattered state, my earliest grief, dark days, you know, kind of called me out on that. And that was so loving. So I'm gonna offer that same tough love. Like, you're probably not establishing a boundary if somebody is chronically doing something, right? If your work is chronically asking you to stay late, you probably haven't established a boundary, right? If somebody is chronically asking you out on a date or to hang out, you probably haven't let them know that you're in a relationship or that your schedule just doesn't allocate that much flex time right now, if somebody's chronically talking negatively or gossiping, you probably haven't let them know that that's not okay by you. That doesn't align with the way you want to use your energy. So in layer two, it's really taking that personal responsibility and giving whoever we need to give a little bit more information or having that direct conversation, whether it's in the workplace or whether it's in a relationship or, you know, just in passing, but really establishing that. All right, layer three, we're getting deeper here. So now layer three should be more strategic. This should be for places where you want to build closer relationships or lasting relationships, or if something in layer two is persisting and you really need to go further but in layer three, we're going direct communication and what we do is we're teasing out what their goals are and where we can meet them. Now if you think about it, in layer two, we didn't ask where we could meet them. And so this is why this tends to be more particular towards a relationship or the workplace. Because in layer two, you're just establishing your boundary. You're just owning your truth so they have all the information. Because it could just be like some random person, maybe you know, a student in one of my classes that I just have to establish a boundary that having your phone out isn't okay. In my class they didn't know that if I didn't tell them, I don't need to ask them where I can meet them. Where can I meet you on having your phone out? No, it's just not okay. Right. I don't need to explain to somebody or whatever it may be. The example, if you're saying you're too busy or you're in a relationship, you don't have to ask somebody where you can meet them. Like, oh, you want to go to dinner? Actually, I'm in a relationship, but where can I meet you? That feels good for you. We don't do that in layer two, we're not looking to meet them, we're owning our energy. We're giving them the information they need so that they stop with all the best intentions. Right? I'm sure they have all the best intentions or they just weren't aware. They stop kind of violating a boundary that we haven't communicated. So layer one, we're just not giving our energy, right? Zip, Zada. Layer two, we are communicating a boundary rather than expecting people to read our minds. That's it. Layer three is when we go deeper and we find how we can meet somebody within both of our needs and boundaries. So again, these are going to be more of your relationships, professional situations, whatever it may be. And what you want to do here is you want to tease out their goal and assess how that can work within your boundaries. So if somebody is asking you to go to some event on a Friday night and you can't attend to that because of another boundary you have, whether it's self care or work commitment or something else that you've committed to, it's establishing that boundary of not trying to make everything work, but saying, I would love to, this is why I won't be able to. What's their goal? Their goal is probably fun and connection. I would love to find another way to Build in that fun and that time to connect. What would work for you at this time? And so now you're setting a boundary, you're offering a container. And too often we kind of just say like, oh, we'll find something else, right? I was coaching somebody and setting up a call with somebody and she said, I'd love to chat with you sometime. Huge difference between I'd love to chat with you sometime and can we find five minutes in the next week by phone? That's kind of setting a boundary and it actually makes it a lot easier for people to say yes or no to. That's an easier thing for then someone to just say, can we chat sometime? Like, they're like, well, yeah, but then it's just a little bit ambiguous and it's up in the air. So when we're going deeper in layer three, we're directly communicating our needs, boundaries, identifying what their needs are, figuring out where they can meet without either person having to be depleted. Now, of course in relationships and in work, here and there, you're gonna have to give and take, give and take. But when you become aware of this process and you do it, it's not constantly give and take, give and take. You just find that space where it just aligns and it works naturally. You know, you could say, I would love to, not gonna work for me. Where can I meet you? Where can we find another way to do this? Or, you know, in a professional setting, I won't be able to stay late. It's really important to me to get the job done that you want done. Would you like me to come in earlier? Or knowing that I can't stay late, should I shift my hours earlier? Or would you like me to plan on one night a week that I stay later? Or logging some hours from home, whatever it may be. But you got to find an orgasm because for some of you, that that boundary might be working from home. For some of you, it could be a late night. Some of you could be early mornings. It's going to be different for everyone. Same thing in your relationships. Another one you can communicate is, you know, in order to feel my best, I really need to hold space for X, Y or Z. I'd like to support you in meeting that goal. And here's how I think we can do it. And you want to be clear and you want to be specific. And it gets easier with practice. I always recommend practicing in low stakes environments. Practice in a low stakes environment. Setting a boundary. Maybe it's like, I don't know, a Workout class or lunch or something that's low stakes and then build up to the high stakes so you kind of build your confidence and you get that momentum. So that was a lot on boundaries. That was a lot. Remember, we started with internal boundaries. That's where it starts. We are so quick to point fingers, point fingers and say, like, you know, Dave asked me to do this and Sally keeps pushing on this and you know, why does Susie always ask me to do this? Like, whatever it may be, if you are asking those questions, first you got to look internally. What internal boundaries do you need to set? Clean up, repair to have more integrity and control over your energy? Once you've started internally, only then do you look externally. And we've got three layers of setting boundaries. One, we just don't give it a boat. Nothing, nada, right? Ignore silence. Two, there is no explanation. There is no meeting the other person somewhere. You're literally just communicating your truth and giving someone else the information they need to make their decisions. That's all. So often people just don't have the information they need to make the decisions. It's loving to give them that. Layer three is deeper. That's where we're directly communicating. To tease out what the person asking something of me, what's their goal? Let's not focus on exactly what they're asking me to do. What are they seeking to accomplish? Is it productivity? Is it connection? Is it fun? Is it love? What are they seeking to accomplish now? How can I, without compromising my boundary, meet that and how can I communicate that in a way to them that allows our relationship to grow, that fosters understanding, that promotes a safe environment for these honest conversations, that if this is a long term, whether a personal and professional relationship, this is a long term relationship, that it will continue to grow without suffocating one another, without putting pressure on one another and creating these depleting environments. Now, I do want to point out that in no circumstances here, none, are we correcting the other person. We are not saying how could you ask that? Why would you think that? We're not trying to explain to them why they shouldn't post that on social media. We're not trying to explain to them why they shouldn't gossip. We're not trying to tell a company why they should, you know, do their employee, whatever it is, a little bit differently or source only from a certain place or use organ, whatever it is. We're not imposing our beliefs on anyone. So we're not correcting them. That's a waste of energy. They all get their votes. They are all just as entitled to their votes as we are to ours. There's no right or wrong. We just got to choose what works for us. We are also not apologizing. So we are never once in any of these have we apologized for our needs or the boundaries that we're setting. We're not judging, absolutely no judgment here. You bring judgment into boundaries, it's no longer a boundary. And we're not over explaining or justifying or asking for forgiveness, right? Even in layer three, we're not over explaining or justifying, we're just stating like, I'm really clear, this is what I need or I'm really clear this is what my boundary is, whatever it is. But we're not over explaining or justifying. So remember, those things do not come into play with boundaries. When we set boundaries, it is loving internally, so then we can be loving externally. And unlike what I originally thought that it was cold hearted or mean or uncaring, whatever it was, all of these misconceptions I had, I promise you, boundaries have allowed me to show up so much more powerfully for myself and for every single person that I support in the individual setting and in the group setting. And it will allow you to do the same and, and to feel more aligned, authentic and clear. It is going to stop lighting your energy on fire. So I hope this episode, this was a lot, we just covered a lot. You guys, thank you for being here with me as we went pretty deep on boundaries. If you love this episode, please take a moment to rate a review. And if you're interested in going deeper on this stuff and learning more about energy and alignment and authenticity and clarity and all of these things that we talk about at a deeper level. Just shoot me a message on Instagram, you can find me on Facebook, you can get me on email, whatever it is. I am opening up space to work with two more one on one clients as I have someone I've worked with for quite a while now whose time is ending and it is so bittersweet. So I'm proud to open up two more spots. The end of July, mid August range. And then of course at Move right we've got that entire community that incorporates mindset, fitness, gut, health and nutrition. So if you want that width of all of those resources, reach out to me and we can chat about that as well. Doesn't really matter how you choose to grow. I just think it is so important. Don't disservice yourself by tricking and saying I will choose growth when the time gets better. The time is always now to choose growth. Just find the path that aligns for you. It happens to be something I offer. Let's chat about it. If not keep growing. Do you? Thank you for being here. I am so freaking grateful. I love you all. Help me shine Layden's light. Nothing means more to me. And we'll chat soon.