Setting Boundaries With Crazymaking Family Members; 4 Steps

Are you struggling to set healthy boundaries with family members who constantly push your buttons and leave you feeling drained? If so, you're not alone. In this podcast episode, Lisa will explore practical strategies for setting boundaries with "crazymaking" family members who may be toxic, intrusive, or disrespectful.

Lisa will discuss the importance of identifying problematic behaviors, communicating your boundaries clearly and assertively, and sticking to your boundaries even when it's difficult. We'll also explore how abandonment trauma and codependency can make it challenging to set boundaries and offer tips for healing and reclaiming your self-worth.

Transcript

Welcome to the breakdown to breakthrough podcast.

My name is Lisa a Romano.

I am a life coach best-selling author YouTube vlogger Meditation teacher and expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness Rather than living a reactive life May your heart feel blessed your mind feel expanded and your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the breakdown to breakthrough podcast So today we're talking about how to set boundaries with people that you love and why it's so difficult for some of us who have Grown up with childhood trauma to set a boundary when we're talking about a boundary We're talking about the ability to know what is right for us and what is wrong for us This is screwy for those of us who have grown up in a dysfunctional home Why because we haven't been taught that what we think and what we feel are valid We've been conditioned throughout childhood to suppress our emotions and even to repress our emotions So repression is more a subconscious process where suppression is I feel something I see something I go No,

I'm not going to think about that.

I'm not dealing with that right now or My husband comes home and he smells like alcohol and he was supposed to be at an AA meeting and I don't acknowledge it.

I suppress the fear that I feel This is very common for those of us who grow up feeling like what we think and what we feel is not important It's even stupid.

It's irrelevant and We feel guilty for noticing what we notice if you come from a dysfunctional home Then you've been gaslit by your parents maybe even siblings maybe even other family members where your reality and your noticing of what you notice is Devalued you are chastised you become the scapegoat the truth tellers and the families are those who are Really emotionally immensely beat down and who are ostracized for telling the truth for seeing what they see Now on a psychological level this has such severe consequences because it's messing with our survival it is normal and it is organic and it is necessary for our personal development our emotional and psychological and social development to feel like we belong and So when you are a child and you come from chaos and perhaps there's addiction in your family or narcissism Gambling you name it or you have an emotionally immature mom or emotionally immature dad if they're fighting all the time so many children are growing up in chaos and so many of us are dealing with the long-lasting effects of that type of chaos and We're walking around with these bleeding wounds and we don't even know it.

So how does it manifest self-doubt?

Perfectionism Anxiety depression codependency a need to please a desire to turn oneself into a pretzel need to edit oneself Walking around constantly in a fog worrying about everyone else,

But yourself feeling guilty for needing anything When you grow up in this type of a home you're conditioned to worry about everybody else but yourself and that could be Maddening because how do you then go out into the world as a young woman or a young man?

And how do you then set a boundary you can't oftentimes?

And that's why you get pushed around or that's why you settle for a job and you don't that you don't like and you don't Ask for a raise or you settle for relationships that are breadcrumb Relationships or you live in an apartment that you you don't want to live in you live in a neighborhood You don't want to live in but you don't know how to assert the self That is not your fault If you're looking around your life and you don't like what you see It could be a self issue a loss of self issue a loss of selfhood and It's not the end of the world because yourself is divine.

You can always get reconnected with yourself You can work on developing a connection with yourself.

You can work on integration You can work on healing the wounds that are responsible for this psychological break between you and the divine self Now what I wanted to do is help people understand Why do I have such a hard time setting a boundary with someone that I love?

Well boundaries are difficult.

And if you come from a dysfunctional home where you were disrespected You're not accustomed to boundary lines It's sort of like you live in a neighborhood and there are there's no property line,

Right?

Like everybody's throwing their garbage over onto everybody else's lawn.

There's there's no Marker,

There's no linear mark that says that's your space and that's my space When it comes to emotions,

There's a violation of emotional space.

There's a violation of physical space So your brother is taking your clothes.

He's ripping up your clothes.

He's hanging out with his friends He's throwing up all over your clothes.

He doesn't care.

There's no consequence You've grown up in a home where no one really cared if if you bought yourself some mac and cheese and stuck in the refrigerator And you were going to take it to work the next morning.

Your sister comes along and eats your mac and cheese There's just no ability to accept or respect That someone else is different from you and that that person is deserving of respect That person is deserving of being honored And so if you grew up in that home,

Then you don't have the data in your brain for a boundary It's just not part of your microchip.

It's not part of your data Which means that as you're growing up you could be in a relationship where you're being pushed around And you just don't have the microchip for boundaries.

I don't know what that looks like So you're going to have to learn to get that information So throughout your life,

You're really going to have to really figure that out In other words like a why do I have a hard time setting a boundary?

And b how do I develop the wherewithal to develop a boundary?

So that I can show up in my life a powerful person a real self a real I am person I am this I am that I like this.

I don't like that so setting boundaries is very difficult,

Especially with people that you love because On an emotional level on a deep psychological level at a subconscious level and even a neurological level You have been taught that boundaries equal abandonment You have been taught that boundaries equal punishment And so below the veil of consciousness pain versus pleasure kicks in and no When you feel like your inner being tells you uh-oh i've just been violated My brother's asking me for rent money again,

And he's a heroin addict And my mother's going to pressure me to give him money because i'm the only person that's working in the family The red flag comes up which is divine guidance So your brain however will override that divine guidance because it has been conditioned to fear a negative outcome for setting a boundary at a deep psychological level your Ability to feel safe has been threatened because feeling connected to these sick people and let's face it Lots of our families are sick,

But that doesn't mean that on a deep survival level at a neurological level At a physiological level.

I don't love these people and I don't want them to love me Nothing could be further from the truth and that's where we need to become Individualized that's when we need to say I know this family system is sick,

But it's not my fault.

I didn't make them sick I'm a part of a sick system.

So if you're having trouble setting boundaries with someone that you love It's not your fault So if you have any shame around allowing people to push you around you have to understand That your brain may be hijacking your divine guidance system So how can we help you once you understand that it's not your fault that it's difficult Then you stop berating yourself a lot of the negative self-talk starts to wane like it's not my fault My brain knows that I love these people Me being loved by these people and being accepted by these people is tied to my survival brain It's literally hardwired into the amygdala into the hippocampus.

It's your limbic system There's going to be a physiological change in you when you think oh,

I need to set a boundary What we're trying to do is get you to take control over that physiological change How through metacognition the ability to think about the way that you think the ability to observe how you feel Without a knee-jerk reaction It's called a pattern interrupt and consciousness can help you interrupt the pattern That your brain naturally follows and then your being changes or your being follows When you are triggered by the potential for needing to set a boundary It's really important that you understand what's happening.

You need to change the way that you're seeing this person once your perception shifts of Your inability to set a boundary everything will follow once your perception perception shifts of your place in that family Everything else will follow once you understand and have compassion for your brain Your neurology for your inner being for your edge your ego and even your super ego,

Which is the Moral aspect of you your super ego is just trying to get you to adhere To the sick norms that your family has conditioned you to believe that you need to follow In order to be a member of this sick family So you really are coming out of level one consciousness level two consciousness You're in a level three consciousness where you are actively changing the patterns When I got to a level three consciousness It was amazing because it was like wow,

Like I really do get to change the cookie recipe here I don't like that.

My mother is mean to me.

I don't like that.

She's condescending I don't like that.

She puts me on the spot in front of family members and my father shakes his head like switzerland Oh my god,

What's going on here?

Like he doesn't see that my mother is being passive aggressive and trying to embarrass me in front of my children like she's trying to Belittle me and make me feel small and that makes her feel better like no one's going to accept that Well when that shift happened in me where I thought no My salvation is myself.

My salvation is me connecting to the divinity in myself There is no rescue boat coming as melody baity says so i'm going to have to choose me And if I want to teach my children to choose them because one day i'm not going to be here to Diaper their bottoms.

They're going to have to figure this out On their own the world is full of darkness as well as it is light And so that's just a reality But if I want my children to be able to live as a self in this world Mommy was going to have to pick herself up from the bootstraps and figure this out And that meant I needed to individualize from my parents I need to needed to push them Into their own backyard and define a boundary line that said this is my yard And you don't get to throw crap into it anymore.

What's the crap your nasty comments your put downs your sarcasm You going around triangulating me against other people you telling me that i'm crazy You insisting that there's something wrong with me because I want a divorce Hugh insisting that because I have any Say at all about anything.

I define something.

I see something that I don't like That means that I am someone who likes drama quite the contrary people who are saying uh-oh,

There's a pothole up ahead are trying to avoid the family drama because if I Roll into that pothole and I get another flat tire.

I'm three hours late,

Which is going to be drama But sick families and dysfunctional families they make the person who's saying uh-oh,

That's an issue the wrong one They ostracize you and criticize you so that's the garbage i'm talking about like i'm not letting it into my backyard anymore And so what you want to do is you want to identify clearly?

What the behavior is that you want them to change the second thing that you want to do is you want to communicate it clearly?

I don't like when you're passive aggressive.

I don't like when you call me at 2 a.

M I don't appreciate you not taking care of yourself.

And then you expecting me to pay your rent I don't want you to knock on my door at 4 a.

M In the morning with your you and your buddies because the bar is closed and you want to hang out at my house Not doing that anymore.

So you want to identify the boundary very very clearly The next thing you want to do is you want to tell the person?

What is going to happen in my case when I really started to get my strength and I understood?

Oh,

I need to set a boundary with people that don't understand what a boundary is We're used to punishing me who who rally around the narcissist in the family to support them against the person who's like no more Okay,

I need a boundary with these people i'm fighting for my life here literally fighting for my life I let them know so if you yell If you raise your voice at me If I notice that you're sarcastic if I notice the put downs if I notice that you're going to start devaluing me If you're going to talk down to me if you're going to embarrass me If you are going to put me in a position where I feel like I need to defend myself in front of family members I'm out of here if you start with me on the phone click my brother today will tell you that he remembers that he could not speak to me at a point because When he was talking to me and I was doing this work,

I'd be like,

Dude,

I gotta go click He says you didn't care I said no I didn't care because the minute I heard you starting to turn And do the thing that you did which is blame shift turn the conversation around I was done and so That's what you have to do.

I have to communicate if you do this I'm going to do that All right And the fourth thing that you want to do is you want to start paying attention to yourself?

You really need to self-care.

You really need to find things that are going to make you happy You know what makes me happy is personal development work what makes me happy is philosophy what makes me happy is Working with clients what makes me happy is meditating in the woods.

What makes me happy is Spending time with my family spending time with people that I love.

I'm not a big dancer I'm,

Not a big art person who cares i'm a very introspective person.

I tend to Want to and need to spend time by myself.

So Connecting with other people is great,

But I need a lot of time to Reboot myself and so I love that about myself.

I finally accept that about myself And we have to figure out what it is about ourselves that we love and then to nurture that and stop going against the natural divine grain Nothing is more important that we get back into touch with our natural divine emotional guidance system If you come from a dysfunctional home that ability to connect with your emotional divine system has been conditioned out of you And the problem with that dear one is that you become someone in society you're easy to manipulate And unfortunately someone who has high narcissistic traits somebody who who might be a sociopath or a psychopath Is going to very quickly understand.

Oh this girl or this guy does not have boundaries They'll do anything to keep me in their life and you don't want that So you want to show up as your true self?

You want to work on boundaries you want to start identifying clearly the toxic people in your life You want to clearly identify their behavior and clearly set boundaries with them letting them know What is going to happen and then you have to stick to it?

And of course you have to self-care one major thing that I caution you to remember is that you cannot change anyone And so all you're trying to do when you're trying to set a boundary is to figure out What behavior they're engaging in that is not good for you And you're giving them an opportunity to say listen if you want to be a part of my life This is what we can do And I want you to be a part of my life because I love you But if you don't do this,

I can't have you in my life because i'm finally at a point where I matter And i'm going to put myself first And if you violate these boundaries,

We cannot be a part of each other's lives and that would make me very sad But this ball is in your court So actually a boundary is the ability to give someone you're giving someone the ability to show that they care about you And by you expressing a boundary that's you really telling them How much that you care about them and that you don't want to lose them in your life and how they take it Dear one that is up to them.

Namaste everybody.

Until next time.

Bye for now

Reviews

That was amazing. Just had a huge fight with a sibling and I needed to hear every word of that. Thank you!!

That was a lot!! Thank you! I especially like how a Boundary is giving somebody the ability to show you that they really care about you! It’s not pushing them away, but you telling them how much you care for them.

powerful talk. i am starting to see where i am not speaking up and asking for what i need with my siblings 🕊️🤍🕊️🤍🕊️🤍🕊️🤍

This was very very strong stuff. Thanks

Very, very helpful!!

Wow! You have definitely got my attention. As my dad passed away this summer… There started to be too much family drama around my sister. And it just wasn’t about my dad‘s death. This is all really hard to grasp and I struggled with boundaries for a long time, and I am finally in a good place. However, when I get around my sister , sadly she starts to yell and scream and throw blame around and lie and I am doing my best to figure out. How do I back away from this because yes, I still do love her though I cannot be a part of this crazy making behavior. I fear going to Christmas just like other family members do. Even talking to her about boundaries, even though I know what my boundaries are with her talking to her I fear as we all do will lead to another blowup/meltdown, just like Thanksgiving. Lastly, if you have any advice on how I expressed that this year, I choose not to exchange Christmas gifts with her I’m all ears. Again not because I don’t love her… Because I’ve chosen to take a step back and protect myself take care of myself, and until she can get a handle on being nice one minute and screaming at me for something she feels I did in the next moment… I need to take care of me. I hope all of that makes sense. your talks are speaking to my soul right now. Thank you.

Oh my gosh. Exactly what I needed to hear.

Thank you 🙏🏻

So helpful. I recently set boundaries for the first time with a family member & it’s not easy. Thank you.

Always gain so much insight listening to you share. Thank you so much 🫶

A jewel!! Thank you ❤️