Boundaries

Today's episode is about boundaries and what happens when we don't have them in our life. Many types of boundaries exist but we need to realise where we don't have them and where they may be stopping us from living our best life.

Transcript

My name's Nat and you're listening to The Wonder of Life.

Before getting comfortable,

Please make sure that your phone is switched to Do Not Disturb and that if you're in a room that the door is closed.

If anyone else is around you,

Ask them kindly to not interrupt you or ask them to join you.

This is your time to relax and to wonder about life from a place of peace.

Make sure you're comfortable and warm and cosy.

Get yourself settled and relaxed.

We're going to tune in to the breath.

We'll do the first breaths using only the nose.

But before taking your first breath,

Please be aware that when you breathe in with your nose,

Your stomach should inflate.

If it doesn't,

It means you need to correct it.

Breathing through the nose,

Deep into the stomach,

Will relax you.

So breathing through the nose,

Watching the belly rise and then lower is the way to do it.

Let's start.

BELL Breathing in through the nose.

Breathing out.

And out.

And again,

In through the nose.

And out.

One more time.

In through the nose.

And out.

You're now ready to wonder about life.

Today I'm talking about boundaries.

Now boundaries can be very,

Very tricky.

Now the reason we need to have boundaries in our life is so we know how to relate to other people.

We know for those people not to cross our boundaries and for us not to cross our own boundaries.

Because when we do,

It hurts.

We feel let down,

We feel judged,

Sometimes we feel abused,

Sometimes we don't feel respected enough and we don't feel appreciated enough.

Basically,

We don't feel the love when our boundaries are not respected enough.

Basically,

We don't feel the love when our boundaries are crossed.

But it's up to us to set our boundaries and to make sure that they're in place and that we fully understand what they are,

Who they're for and why we have them.

So,

There's many types of boundaries.

You can have unhealthy boundaries and healthy boundaries.

You can also have flexible boundaries,

Soft boundaries and hard boundaries.

I'll give you an example for each.

An unhealthy boundary is something that you have or don't have in place and you allow someone to keep doing the same thing.

So,

For example,

If someone's cheated on you more than once and they're definitely,

Definitely not listening or learning from the first time they did it and it's a continuation and it hurts you every time they do it,

That's an unhealthy boundary.

You don't actually have any boundaries basically and that's why they're allowed to keep doing it to you.

But if you had a healthy boundary,

You would realise that that act of cheating doesn't feel great and that you can no longer allow it.

So,

You would have a boundary in place where you would leave that person because in no uncertain terms can you continue with the way that you feel.

When it comes to your hard,

Soft and flexible boundaries,

Things can get a little bit trickier.

Now,

Let me do the flexy boundary in the beginning.

If you've ever heard of an open relationship,

You'll understand that an open relationship means that people can sleep with other people outside of their immediate relationship.

Now,

Some of you might feel that that's a really uncomfortable situation to be in and that you couldn't possibly imagine what that would feel like.

But for some people,

It's a dream.

And it means that they can create boundaries within the relationship that they can't cross,

But there are some things they're allowed to do.

And when you give someone a certain amount of freedom with flexible boundaries,

It usually turns out that that person respects you more and you get what you want out of the relationship.

But when you try and corner someone into a particular boundary that doesn't work for them,

That's when they rebel.

So,

Most men I know that are in open relationships enjoy and respect the woman that they're with more than they have ever done before because she gives them freedom.

She gives them a certain element of trust and she doesn't bust their balls if they do something because they've been honest about it,

They've respected her,

And they've been open.

And they've explained why they did it,

And sometimes it's because they didn't feel love within the relationship and that's why they've cheated.

So it actually,

Although it seems like a negative,

Turns into something really positive.

But for other people,

That might not work.

But you might have a soft boundary,

Which means that you are okay with someone flirting with someone else and that you're okay with them eyeing someone up and appreciating the other person for how they look,

But that if they do anything about it,

That's where the boundary is.

So you allow them to have that bit of freedom and to look elsewhere,

But if it comes to actually physically doing something,

That's where your boundary is,

That's where you draw the line.

It might be that if you're in a relationship and you have particular boundaries on what your partner does in terms of where they go.

Now that's quite a limiting boundary and it's not healthy to be able to tell somewhere they can and cannot go.

But if it's something that you feel is very,

Very strong,

Then you need to communicate why you need that boundary to be met,

And if it isn't,

What the consequences are.

You need to be honest with yourself.

You can't just put boundaries in place and then forget that you have them.

Because that's when you start to feel disrespected.

There used to be a lot of unhealthy boundaries in some of my previous relationships,

But I learnt from all of them,

So I don't regret them,

Even though they were painful.

I see the benefit of all of my pain in the past and how I can use it to move forward and to talk about things like I do.

But moving forward,

I too have certain boundaries that I need to work on.

What do I accept in a relationship?

What can I tolerate in a friendship?

What am I willing to do for people without getting anything in return?

And the reason being is because we often do things for people,

And most of the time we do it because we expect something back.

And when we don't get something back,

We feel hurt by that person.

But the reason that we get hurt by that person is usually because we didn't lay out our boundaries first.

It might have been that I'll do this for you,

But only if you do this for me.

If you didn't air that or communicate that to them before they did whatever they did,

You're not going to get what you want back.

And then you feel disappointed.

But that's because you weren't clear with your boundaries.

Knowing where your boundaries lie and why you have them is paramount.

You need to ask yourself,

Is that boundary realistic?

Does that make sense for me?

And is that acceptable?

Can I expect someone else to meet that boundary?

A lot of the boundaries we set are usually out of fear.

We'll say,

No,

You can't talk to this person,

Or you can't go there,

Or this person cheated on me in the past,

Therefore I think you'll do it.

And I don't want that,

So we're not going to play like that.

We're going to do it this way.

But you're not really giving the person that you're now with the chance to be something different for you.

We set our boundaries usually based on our past of what's worked and what hasn't.

So the idea of the podcast today is to sit with yourself and just think about what your boundaries are.

Just think what you accept.

Ask yourself,

Is that a normal boundary?

Am I doing that for the right reasons?

Can I really ask someone to meet me with that boundary?

Am I asking too much from them?

Am I expecting too much from them?

One of my listeners actually emailed me yesterday,

Sorry,

They Facebooked me yesterday,

And they asked me,

What do you think I could do?

I keep doing things for people,

But I don't get anything back.

I keep being left out,

And people often forget that I've done anything for them in the first place,

Or it's me that's sorted them out with something.

And my answer to that is you need to identify why you were doing things for them in the first place.

If you were ever doing something because you wanted something back,

Then usually that's the time when we never get anything back.

That's the universe's way of showing us that we were doing it from the wrong place.

It's also asking you to have a voice,

To look inside yourself and say,

Okay,

Where did I go wrong?

Do I need to help this person?

Did I say that if I help you,

You need to give me money,

Or if I help you,

I need you to do this favour for me,

Or can you invite me if I help you?

But these are all vulnerable things for us to talk about,

Attention and money and expectations.

So often we avoid them,

And when we avoid them,

That's when people don't meet us on our boundaries,

Because we've avoided setting them in the first place.

Boundaries is something I'm going to talk about at a later stage as well,

Because I'm doing a course on boundaries and a number of other things.

But I just wanted people to realise that boundaries are super important.

And if you don't have any,

That's why you'll probably feel quite hurt a lot of the time.

Boundaries can be anything in physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally,

Sexually,

Spiritually.

They're everywhere.

And it's a good idea to give yourself an idea of what your healthy boundaries are.

But you have to be really honest with yourself.

Really honest.

If something doesn't feel right,

You have to be able to say,

That doesn't feel right.

And if that other person that you're setting a boundary with can't commit to your boundary,

Then you have to let them go.

You have to let them go.

It's not an option.

You're the one setting the boundaries here.

And you want to respect yourself,

And when you don't respect yourself,

You get used and abused.

It's really important that you understand what are your final demands if someone doesn't meet your boundary.

Because if you're no longer going to talk to them,

Or you're no longer going to date them or be with them,

Then you need to be very clear about that,

And you need to stick to it.

Otherwise,

You don't have any boundaries with yourself,

And your continuation of being hurt will keep going on and on and on,

And it will never change.

Thank you for listening to The Wonder of Life.

Reviews

Nameste 🙏

Excellent

Awesome, need to listeton to this a few more times. How about family related. Boundarys?

Wow!! Great points about boundaries

Good talk but it is about romantic relationships not general boundaries, this wasn’t what I was looking for and the title made it seem more general

As someone healing from CPTSD and who has/had great trouble with setting, vocalizing, and keeping boundaries, this is very helpful. Thank you.

Helpful and enlightening. Thank you

Powerful and insightful words

Wow I wish my therapist told me this year's ago..... Thank you 😍

Thank you this is another good one that you have 🙏

I really enjoyed this. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Thankyou for the inspiring and encouraging words 🙏🏻

Yes! Yes! Yes on how to energetically & vocally create a No. thank you 🙏

Insightful and astute as always, thank you, Nat!!

EXCELLENT, Wisdom-Filled Talk ❣️🙏🏻💕

Makes good sense!

Thank you for sharing 💜

This was an excellent teaching and very clear! So helpful !