How To Set Internal Boundaries

Struggling with boundaries? Internal boundaries make external boundaries with friends, family, work, romantic partners are easier. Internal boundaries define ourselves to ourselves. They tell us what we like, don't like, how we feel, what we believe, our emotions, our spirituality. Feeling overwhelmed? DON'T PANIC. We don't have this all figured out, either. But we do have experiences and tools to help you set your own internal boundaries. We believe in you. You're doing great! 

Transcript

You've arrived at pretty spiritual podcast where we share our spiritual journeys to power yours.

Come on in.

Yeah.

Okay.

No,

Seriously,

Come in.

Okay.

Everyone.

Hello friends.

Hello.

This is pretty spiritual.

I'm Lindsay pony.

Hey Lindsay,

I'm Annie and that's Annie.

And we are going to talk about internal boundaries today.

We attempted a boundaries episode.

Maybe you've listened to it a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

Two years ago.

Wow.

And might I,

Just say,

Wow.

As much as I didn't know about boundaries then is as much as I don't know about internal boundaries now.

So get excited.

An exploration of internal boundaries,

A discovering of internal boundaries.

We are excited to talk about that.

If you're like me and just like,

I'm talking about what internal boundaries,

Of course,

You are just as frightened,

Impressed,

Astounded as I am as this internal boundaries are a thing.

My high knee has to be on fire before I start learning about these new tools and new things.

And so that's where I am at right now.

Not just a thing,

But a structure that we can build to empower ourselves.

In fact,

Getting to know ourselves on an intimate level and building internal boundaries is a prerequisite for being able to set known external boundaries that benefit us and everybody who knew it's new spiritual technology.

I am definitely going to have to watch a YouTube video to figure this one out.

Well,

At least for a pair of geriatric millennials,

Like ourselves,

I mean,

Elder millennials,

That sounds better.

It's very classy.

So definition time,

Obviously internal boundaries,

Govern how I relate to myself and what I allow to happen within my body,

Heart and mind,

All things happening within my skin are my responsibility,

Meaning my ability to respond to these.

So this will include thoughts,

Feelings,

Physical wellbeing,

Spirit and spiritual development.

It is my job to decide how I will care for each of these areas in my life.

And these are the internal boundaries that I create.

So another thing that really helped me understanding boundaries is a quote from Prentiss Hemphill and they state boundaries are the distance in which I can love you and me simultaneously.

To maintain strong external boundaries,

Which is the ability to love myself and you simultaneously in relationship,

I need to establish a foundation for them through internal boundaries.

So if you're like me,

I'm going to cultivate or create internal boundaries on this episode real time.

And in theory,

It'll empower ourselves.

Okay.

There we are.

Here we are.

Annie,

I would love to hear anything you have to say about this.

Thank you,

Pony.

I'm really grateful to be here with you.

I didn't know anything about internal boundaries until recently.

And it's really true that with my own internal boundaries,

My external boundaries are easier to set and maintain.

So internal boundaries helped me define and understand and respect myself to myself.

And so then when I'm go out into the world and how boundaries I'm not so gravelly and approval seeking and apologetic,

Like we're thinking in the context of someone invites me to do something.

Well,

I can't come at that time,

But I could help for an hour on this day or this day.

And before I might manage to do that boundary,

But then I'd send the shower of texts.

If that's okay,

Does that work for you?

I can definitely change it.

If it doesn't work for you,

Just let me know.

Smiley face,

Heart,

Exclamation mark.

And so when I have been working on these internal boundaries and I know what is true for me,

Then I don't have to apologize for the truth.

And I just want to say all of this is a work in progress.

I'm not like,

And here I am on the mountain top,

Having achieved this with perfection and I feel completely comfortable.

This is aspirational for me as well.

So also with internal boundaries,

I don't have to be so scared when other people,

Or if other people don't like what I'm saying,

Doing behaving,

As long as I know that I'm saying,

Acting and behaving in a way that's true for me,

Like right and true,

Then people are allowed to have reactions that don't have to totally derail me.

I have two quick examples of internal boundaries working in my life.

And then after in the tool section,

I'll share my tools.

So the first example is that I can value myself and I don't have to abandon myself for people I've determined are more important than me.

And then as a result,

My life gets richer,

But also people around me benefit.

So this is a really simple example,

But I felt revolutionary in my mind.

I have this narrative that my wife's work is way more important than mine.

She's the bread Warner bread.

She's the bread Warner.

Very that also is new spiritual technology.

She's the bread winner.

And I,

You know,

That's not her narrative.

She's not announcing I'm more important,

But it's something that I've decided and it's also something.

So then I get to work on.

And I recently implemented this daily two hour writing block where all I do during that time is work on my fiction novel.

I don't answer text messages.

I don't pick up the phone.

I don't make my wife lunch.

Like that's just what I do.

And on the third day I did say recently,

So this is on the third day.

I was in the kitchen getting some water and my wife was getting a really big deal call about her work that I was very interested in and I was walking by and I was hearing her starting to have this conversation.

And I stopped at the door.

To the,

The room where I was working.

And I just started listening to her conversation.

Cause I was like,

I have to know,

I have to know,

Like it might determine where we live with that,

All this stuff like her role.

And then I had this thought,

Which I'd never really had before,

Which is a,

This isn't your phone call to listen to that's external boundaries,

Right?

Be you told yourself you were going to work on your book right now.

This is not working on your book.

And even if you just listen for three minutes,

You're going to be thinking about it for 30 minutes.

Your brain's going to be in that,

Like inside that telephone line.

So I said,

Your job isn't to be a supportive wife right now.

Your job is to be a writer.

And he went in the room and shut the door.

And I was like,

I could not,

I couldn't believe it.

I was like,

I chose myself.

So that seems simple,

But to me it was really,

It felt really huge.

And then it gave me this sense of integrity because I'm like,

Oh,

I didn't abandon myself.

Oh,

Maybe what I am doing is important.

Maybe I'm not getting paid right now for this book,

But that doesn't mean it doesn't have value in the work that I'm doing.

Doesn't have value.

So then super quick,

The other example is yesterday I was in the grocery store and it was really crowded and there's lots of bright lights and there's packages everywhere.

There's tons of colors.

And I just started to get overwhelmed.

And this was like definitely a mental health thing too,

But I just started to have this panic moment.

And I was like,

Pushing this cart by myself,

Completely full of groceries.

And all of a sudden I was like,

I can't do this.

I can't be in here.

I'm going to freak out.

And I was like,

Okay.

And so with the internal boundaries where this came in is sometimes I'll,

I'm not saying that people can just magically control mental health challenges with their own minds.

But in this instance,

I had this moment of opportunity where I was like,

I can either let my mind run wild right now and I can freak out or I can use some tools to soothe myself.

And I put my hand on my chest and I was like,

Oh honey,

You're overwhelmed.

It's really crowded in here.

There's a first time you've been in a huge grocery store without everyone wearing masks.

You're not wearing a mask.

You're tired.

There's lots of other stuff happening in your life.

You have a cart full of groceries.

You're allowed to leave the cart full of groceries if you want to,

But you need to,

Can you just close your eyes?

And it was like using these kinds of internal boundaries of challenging myself,

Not to let my mind run away from me.

And then,

And also saying,

Can you use self soothing tools right now?

If it's not good enough,

You can leave.

You don't have to stay here and like freak out in the grocery store.

I did cry a little bit,

But that's fine.

Nobody noticed.

Always.

Okay.

Always good.

Shatted here.

She's just crying in the salt style.

She loves that enchilada sauce.

So it was,

It was really interesting because I'm like,

Oh,

I gave it.

It was like,

I was a toddler.

Okay.

You can go if you need to,

But will this work instead?

So that's what I,

That's what I'm working on.

Thank you,

Pony.

What about you?

What's what's up for you right now with internal boundaries?

Oh,

Thank you so much.

That was so very helpful when you were sharing and you said,

When I know what is true for me,

I,

My insights like gripped and there was like this recognition that I don't know what's true for me.

So internal boundaries.

Wow.

So just some backstory,

Cause the causes and conditions for why I'm here sometimes really helps me.

And I was young and I didn't have perspective.

And so it all got very confusing for me.

And so I just wanted to say like the reason why I don't really know what's true for me is because I have prioritized others wellbeing their wants and their needs as my sole survival tactic and baked into my patterning.

Now my habits is that I am looking outward to make sure that you are taken care of.

And this has been very subconscious.

So now that I'm getting to know that part of me,

And I've shared a lot about it on the podcast,

So I can blame my mother,

You know,

But the truth is,

Is that these things have happened.

I don't blame that person.

But what I do now is I also do this with every relationship.

It's like a,

It's a kaleidoscope now of how I look instead of like a lens instead of the lens,

It's just like this turning kaleidoscope where I need to fulfill this habit of making sure that the barista is okay.

And that my friends are okay.

I thought that other people too were like me.

And so we were all going to give up our own wants and needs and our internal,

Whatever it was that we had,

Because then we would like complete each other,

You know,

I would,

You know,

I'm intuiting what you want and what you need and supplying it.

And then you're going to intuit what I want and need and then stuff like that.

And then voila.

So this has taken 20 years minimum to begin to see and kind of untangle and to be able to look at it and get some perspective that's not just pulling me down into the mire of like,

I can't continue on.

This is too painful.

So big ups to therapy meetings,

So many things that have gotten me to this point where now I can say,

Okay,

Internal boundaries,

I need them.

Why aren't they here?

Internal boundaries being a structure that I can build within myself to learn to love myself first so that I can be the one that supplies that love that I was expecting to get from other people by completing their wants and needs.

Now I'm realizing that this is something that I am to supply.

And so some of the areas that are lacking in internal boundaries for me would be like the emotional.

So giving more to others than I have,

Giving,

Giving everything up and like really showing up to do all this kind of emotional work and caring and solving other people's problems.

The spiritual part of the internal boundaries is not prioritizing my routine.

I need meditation.

I need affirmations.

I need to do mirror work and validation work for myself.

And there's always something else for someone else that can be done that I've been prioritizing.

And then so like physical,

I've gotten in the habit of like working out,

But when it comes to stretching and then taking care of my body,

And then also recognizing that in when I am dealing with big,

Hard things which happen in this human life,

That I want to eat for comfort.

So becoming more aware of that and having an internal boundary around that right now could look like intuitive eating,

Which is I eat when I'm hungry,

Actually feel hunger.

And then I stop when I'm full.

And even if I can't do those things,

That is a blueprint that at least teaches me that that's an option.

And it doesn't mean that I follow it a lot of the time.

I'm just going,

Oh,

I'm,

I'm eating because I just want to eat right now,

You know,

That's a little bit on my own exploration of where internal boundaries could start to be built,

Or how I could prop myself up in a way with some internal boundaries in those areas.

And just to kind of wrap back around,

So I was going to talk about thoughts and feelings,

Because I think that is such a cool internal boundary area that I think before I thought it wasn't up to me,

Or it wasn't something that I could put a boundary around or like,

Kind of help support I like thinking about internal boundaries as like supporting,

Holding the presence,

I know for me that bringing in the power of presence,

Which is I am there with whatever is there is like my ideal and how I want to be and oftentimes with thoughts and feelings,

I am on one,

They are pulling me here to there,

I'm on a roller coaster,

You know,

It's up,

It's down.

And I'm really excited to see what can happen over time when I start to explore this more and get really intentional with I am the agent that is building these structure,

This infrastructure within myself,

To help myself to get back around to learning to know what is true for me and reminding myself within my thoughts and feelings.

It has been years and years of me living a different way that isn't working for me anymore.

And today I can remember and remind myself that it's okay for me to question what is true for me here,

Get more into the tools about that.

So why don't we slide on in there into the tool section right now and see how we can help ourselves with some tools.

I was making notes,

Something you said just really sparked me.

And so it's like,

Ooh,

I want to talk to her about this after the show.

Yeah,

I love that.

Another thing that you said that sparked me about not knowing how to trust yourself and that your insides clinched up about a year and a half ago,

I was having a lot of challenges around boundaries for myself and I,

But I didn't know we want to name it.

And the spiritual mentor said,

Cause I was asking her what to do.

And she said,

Annie,

Direct quote,

You can trust yourself.

And I had that same exact reaction.

My insides clenched up and I had this moment of clarity and I was,

I was like,

I don't actually know how to trust myself.

I don't know.

And it was really helpful because I didn't realize I didn't know,

Even though that was painful.

And so about a year ago,

I went and sought support and spiritual help from someone who like me had once been in this place where she didn't know how to trust herself,

But had gone through a process and learn some tools to change.

And she's been sharing it with me and I have been seeing myself be able to do things that I didn't even know were on the radar,

Or I just had never even thought of them as a thing that people do.

Cause like you were saying,

I just take care of everybody,

But then I have this expectation they're going to take care of me.

So we'll all be fine,

But then they don't.

And so then I'm resentful,

But of course I can't talk about it anyways.

So not in a hyperbolic way,

But actually this last year has been revolutionary as far as what if I can trust myself,

What does that even mean?

So the ways that I've been doing it,

Here's my tools and they're all come from other people.

I have not made these up.

These have been gifted to me.

So for me today,

Internal boundaries begins with believing that I'm a person of value and that I am equal to other people,

Period,

No matter what.

And that intellectually makes sense.

But then there's this part of me that when it comes into action,

I'm like,

They're definitely a little more important than me.

Am I a person of value?

So the more that I build this self love and acceptance,

Which had been deeply lacking for a long time in my life,

The more I sense that I am a whole person of value who is equal to everyone else that I have my own needs,

Thoughts,

And beliefs,

And that I can shape them myself before I was always kind of like,

Like how whales kind of radar bounce,

Talk off each other.

I was like,

Is this what I think,

You know,

And kind of measuring it against people I love and trust,

Like my wife or my spiritual mentor,

Like trying to understand myself by bouncing it off of other people.

And so now I'm like,

Okay,

Well what someone else believes about me or thinks that I am or what I should do that can inform my choices.

That isn't how I make my choices.

And this is very much a practice for me.

It's not like,

Oh,

I have it all figured out.

It's an in-motion thing,

But here are some of the ways that I have been shaping what this internal sense of identity is because I didn't even really know what my internal sense of identity was.

And so if I had my dome,

Not having that,

Then what are my boundaries?

I don't know.

Cause I'm not even quite sure what,

Where Annie is.

So just like pony mentioned affirmations,

We've talked about them so much on this podcast and they help.

That's all I could say while I was writing this,

My notes for this episode,

I was listening to the morning motivation affirmations by theta thoughts on insight timer.

Like I just let them play softly in the background and they just kind of fill my brain.

The second one is noticing when I'm losing touch with myself and my obsessing over somebody else.

So that's just like an awareness tool.

The third one is organizing myself.

I feel like I'm kind of chaotic and that lends itself to me feeling chaotic about who I am.

So when I'm more organized with where my things are,

Where my stuff is,

Like I feel a little more orderly,

But I've been using the time timer.

It's a free app and it's so it's really visually useful for me to time myself.

Cause I kind of lose track of time.

And then this last one,

Number four is enriching my relationship with myself by building my relationship with my higher power.

A spiritual mentor has been teaching me that when I'm tuned into myself and kind of under the umbrella of my understanding of God,

Nobody knows what is true for me better than myself.

Right?

So it's not like Annie thinking about Annie,

But it's kind of Annie getting that guidance that I was always looking for from spiritual mentor,

From my wife,

From my friends.

And I'm actually kind of channeled into it from a higher power,

But then I'm finding it inside.

I can look to everybody else,

But eventually I can come to a place where I can trust myself.

And so when I,

When I'm like,

What does that even mean to trust myself?

I need an answer to this.

What's my guidance for this.

Here's the instruction that I was given number one,

Relax.

Ha ha ha.

So just relax.

I'm like,

Oh my God,

What do I think?

What do I,

Should I do?

I don't know.

I need help relax,

Relax my body,

Relax my mind to release.

So just like,

Let go,

Just let go of that obsession,

Confusion,

Fear,

Which is a practice.

We probably have a whole episodes on it.

Three ask for help,

But to my higher power,

Right?

I'm I'm lost.

I'm I need some help and maybe my higher powers inside of me,

You know,

But just like asking that bigger source that's not human for some guidance for open.

So I've relaxed,

I've released,

I've asked for help and then I open and become quiet and then wait for an answer to come.

So maybe the answer takes four months.

So I can just keep repeating that process.

If I get really jangled up,

Relax,

Release,

Ask for help,

Open up,

Become quiet,

Wait for answers to come.

I can go through that loop a hundred times a day.

So that is the tools that I'm working with right now.

What about you pony?

What tools are you working on?

I really liked that so much.

Thank you.

I was following along and yeah,

Not only can I do it a hundred times today a day,

I need to do that a hundred times a day.

I hope I,

I hope I do.

I am dealing with a lot of life phases that happen for people.

And when you want to be of service or helpful to your family or somebody important to you it can be really what I've learned is emotional labor.

And before I thought that people's emotional labor was mine to carry.

And that means at any time when you would call me,

I would always answer the phone.

And I remember one time Annie said,

Aren't you at work?

Cause like I was at work,

You know,

And I'd answered the phone and luckily that had to happen like two times with different people where I was like,

And Annie's saying that I was like,

Oh,

I'm at work.

She said,

Most people can't answer the phone at work or don't like,

And it gave me permission and also like this other way to live,

Like another blueprint,

You know,

Like,

Oh,

I have these hard worn tracks that again,

Were like that survival that I had created that were maybe useful at the time.

And now really getting to learn about how to thrive instead of survive.

And so that's definitely the other day.

Yes.

I've been doing a lot of emotional labor that I have agreed to when I just realized I was really tired and I was like,

And so when someone said that they needed to talk about something,

I said,

I could talk tomorrow.

Yeah.

And I was for the rest of the day,

I would be like at work and I'd be like,

Oh,

Well I have a couple of minutes right now.

Like that came up so many times.

And then I got to have that experience of seeing that habitual behavior and how it was really enticing too.

And then how I would get to kind of soften and be with,

Have that presence with around these old behaviors and that I was intentionally trying to again,

Build some sort of structure within myself that was going to take care of me.

And so that's like my biggest emotional boundary that I did.

And it's huge.

It is.

It was so huge.

And going through the experience of getting to do that and seeing how much I wanted to even like sabotage my own,

Like kick down the work that I had done in that one text.

What I'm learning is that other people respect boundaries and I respect my internal boundaries.

Like I can feel that it would build.

Respect within myself.

I'm yeah,

I'm having emotions come up.

It's so real.

Yeah.

It's it's been a very interesting and very tender journey to see how long I've been living in a different way.

And now to start to really listen to my heart and who I am is I think part of the like tender sadness is like kind of grieving about how long I lived in another way.

And so I've been practicing in therapy,

Like instead of like clinching down and holding it all down,

Which is what I've done for so many years and why I think that I have some of these job problems that I have is kind of letting it,

The waves come through of emotion and like getting better at grieving was one of the episodes I wanted to do.

And it was so intense during the time that Andy and I were like,

I wasn't even ready for that.

I'm barely ready.

I'm just now learning how to like,

Let some of these emotions come up when they're actually here.

So it's really such a beautiful thing to get to do this type of work with a friend and with all of my friends here because it's real life,

You know,

It's happening.

This like spiritual journey is happening.

Some of the other tools that have been really holding me lately is a question that my Dharma teacher posed to me,

Which is so I have my hand on my heart and I'm going to share with you the question that my Dharma teacher posed.

And it's just really tender because for so long I've been not trusting my heart or even communicating with my insides.

I thought that the way that I would get love and validation was to dismiss and minimize and smush away my true like nature.

So it was a misguided,

It was just misguided,

You know,

Or it was like it was this misguided tactic.

That's how I've been looking at it.

And I think it when it comes up,

I say,

Oh,

Thank you.

Thank you for helping me when I didn't have any other tools or resources.

You did such a good job.

And now I'm going to see,

Do I trust my heart?

And the next part of that question is what stops you?

Right?

So like what stops me?

And as I just explained what was stopping me,

Then it starts to get kind of more rich and deep in there of like,

Oh,

Right.

That's that was like one of the layers of what was stopping me from trusting my heart,

You know,

And I put my hand on my heart and I really hold it and I rock it and I do deep breathing and I add this into my like meditation or whenever I can,

Whatever that looks like,

But I take time with this question,

You know,

Really under like getting more awareness around looking for the trust and care outside of my heart and not believing that I am the one that supply the love and care and validation from within myself and my heart,

My tool.

And part of this process is to get really familiar with the way that my heart contracts and expands.

So before when my heart was like,

Contracting,

You know,

Because just with the questions of like,

Do you trust my heart?

You know,

Do you trust your heart,

Right?

But for me,

Do I trust my heart when it contracts like that,

And it gets really tight.

And then when my those are messages and ways that my body is offering this moment for me to go in and be with the closed off pain that's here,

The unattended sorrows are what I have been directed towards writing about because I have some really deep soul wounds that I have propped up as okay enough that I am now going back and dismantling because I'm seeing that within these breaking these down and being with what's here is going to help me in the long run,

Learn about myself,

Help me within my relationships with other people.

And that's the type of merge before I wanted to merge with all these people outside of me,

Because I thought that merge was going to get my needs met.

But this is the appropriate merge within myself,

Where I listen to how my heart contracts and expands,

And I supply the love and need and validation and presence for myself.

That's the merge within that's really going to help me grow and be more trusting of myself and my wants and needs.

I'm not going to be trying to do that sonar,

Like looking to other people of Am I okay?

Is this okay?

I believe that this is the language of my soul's communication with me all my wants and needs and desires,

My intuition that I've abandoned and isolated in the past and I'm learning I'm hopeful to learn and I'm learning and I'm discovering that to create internal boundaries is to listen and love myself first and fully self love is the beginning of any love relationship.

Hopefully by implementing internal boundaries.

This will teach me more about self love in this process of self love because I'm what I'm finding.

I know we've done a self love episode is that I really I thought self love was a destination and it was like a one to 10 step process or something a recipe that I could get and have right and then voila,

Self love,

You know,

But it's like all these ingredients coming to form a path that I keep following to remind myself and be with this self love.

So those are my insides.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for being sweet and vulnerable and sharing pony.

Also thank you for knowing that whale talk is sonar and not radar.

Oh,

I did.

What do I know?

It just came out of you.

I was like,

Oh,

She's so wise.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

There we go.

Well,

I'm so glad to begin to learn and practice about internal boundaries.

These seem to be something that I can aspire to and use as a tool to gain more insight and clarity within myself for myself,

And then in turn the ability to love myself and others simultaneously.

What an incredible spiritual gift and new technology this could be.

Yes.

Oh,

Thank you all so much for being on this wild ride.

Yeah.

We would love to hear what you're working on.

What tools you have comment after the episode,

Connect with us on social media,

Teach us about internal boundaries.

That's right.

We really do learn from each other.

We really do.

Thanks so much,

Everybody.

Thanks y'all.

Bye.

Reviews

So relatable

This was so good that I listened twice back to back! I needed this today my lovelies. 💜

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