Sandi L Boucher shares what she learned spending Christmas with her kids after a year apart, then explains why setting boundaries starts with respecting yourself. She recommends naming veiled insults directly: call a nasty comment nasty.
Chapters
Hi everybody. Sandy Boucher here, and welcome back to my world. It's December 26th and I hope you had an absolutely amazing Christmas. I know I did. Just, Just the chance to enjoy the sound of my children's voices again as they open up their presents and as we laugh and share an evening together was absolutely amazing. They say you never really appreciate anything until you lose it, even temporarily. And I can totally understand that. Last year I had a good Christmas, but it was a Christmas alone and the first Christmas that I couldn't spend with my children. So this year was a true blessing. Just being able to be with my children and have them in my home again. And it was just absolutely amazing. But that was yesterday and soon it will be New Year's. And I always like to spend the time in between Christmas and New Year's kind of debating my mind what I'd like to achieve in the new year, what I'd like to do differently, what I'd like to maintain, what I've learned in the past year and want to take forward with me. I've had some discussions with friends of late and one of the things that we discussed in detail were boundaries and the fact that when you're trying to be a good person, sometimes, whether it's in your personal life or your professional life, you run into people that push your boundaries, whether they treat you with disrespect or they take advantage of you or whatever the case may be. And I have a lot of friends that are really good people and they don't like confrontation and they don't like having to draw a line in the sand. And often I have to remind them that I truly believe that we are treated the way we allow others to treat us and that respect starts with self respect. Often I politely draw a line in the sand. Someone will make a comment disguised as a joke, which is really a veiled insult. I usually look at them and go, ouch, that was nasty. By making a joke of it, I've called their attention to it, but it's not an out and out confrontation. They do know, on the other hand, that I'm not going to let them get away with it. And especially if we're in a crowd of people, the attention turns back on them and not in a good light. There's a bunch of little tricks you can use and I would love to share those with you. As always, I'm just an email away. Check out my website www.sandyboucher.ca that's s a n d I b o u c h e r ca you'll find my phone number on there and you'll find my email address. I would love to chat with you. It's not going to cost you anything, so go ahead and send that email. Let's start 2010 off on the best foot possible. Have a great day. I love you. Bye bye.
