Boundaries

In this world of relationships and interconnection, we also need to recognize and acknowledge that we need to learn to set healthy boundaries for ourselves and others. Boundaries have to do with security, self love, and protection. Boundaries also can be taken down in skillful ways to allow more flow and connection to places that have found stagnation.

Transcript

And all of the talks that I record you can find on SoundCloud.

We're just looking,

Me and Ruth,

We're just looking at her so you can get like a SoundCloud app.

They're all free.

I have like 160 talks now,

So feel free to just use that as a resource.

Within that there's also guided meditations.

So some of you mentioned that you find me to be a soothing presence in your life,

In your meditation practice.

So feel free just to use that.

Again,

It's all just free resources for you to jump in on.

And yeah,

Your questions tonight.

What I'm feeling from them,

It's kind of things about the bridge between daily life slash normal life and meditation and practice and like how to get from the busyness of normal life into the meditation or how to take the meditation and bring it back into the normal life or the mental chatter or the behavioral things we do and how to use meditation to help those.

So all the questions they seem to be playing on that boundary.

And a couple of you even mentioned the word boundary,

So I guess we can just talk about boundaries in that sense.

That,

You know,

It's actually funny I was talking with Gabe in the car as we were coming over here and I said,

You know,

Living the kind of life that I personally live,

A life where I would say I live kind of like non-traditionally.

I was a monk in a monastery for a while,

I went to India for a while,

I'm back here for a while.

I don't work during the day,

I work at night and I'm kind of very flipped compared to the basic,

You know,

American male model of what you're supposed to do.

I don't plan on,

You know,

I don't have this whole getting married,

Having kids thing laid out in front of me.

And,

You know,

I'm living a life that involves this process of more wanting to continue to evolve,

Wanting to focus on like a purpose or a passion of kind of serving the growth of the human mind,

Human cultures,

You know.

And I want permission to keep evolving,

Right?

I have this,

I want to keep changing what I'm doing and what it looks like and where I'm at and just following kind of this flow wherever it feels like it needs to take me or wherever I let it take me.

And throughout that path,

Going all the way back to when I was a kid,

You know,

Probably it's the first,

As far as I can remember,

Like even first grade,

You know,

The teacher is saying,

Oh if you don't pay attention in class,

You know,

You'll never,

You know,

You're gonna have to be in fifth grade one day and in fifth grade,

They're good kids,

You know,

How to behave,

You have to figure out how to behave,

You know.

And then I was in fifth grade,

Oh you're gonna have to learn how to do things better,

Pay more attention,

This isn't gonna work in middle school,

You get more homework then.

Then I was in middle school,

Oh this isn't gonna work in high school,

I got figured out,

You know.

Then I get to high school,

Oh if you want to get to college,

This isn't,

You can't do it like this,

Not gonna work.

And then I get to college,

Well you're never gonna graduate if you keep doing what you're doing.

And then I graduate,

Yeah,

But you're never gonna find a job.

I was like,

Well okay,

First of all,

I was like,

Yeah you're right,

I'm gonna go to a monastery.

And then I went to the monastery,

Oh well you're never,

You know,

Just running away from life.

And I was like,

Okay,

And then I was at the monastery and then I left and everyone's like,

Oh no,

You're just running away from the monastery.

And you know,

Every step of the way,

I've had the,

I don't know,

The naysayers,

The haters,

Whatever you want to call it,

But more just the people that want to tell me what I'm supposed to do,

What's rights,

What's the social,

You know,

And even now it's like,

Oh well you're back,

So now you can get the job,

Now you should have the family,

Now you should fit into the mold.

Okay,

You've let that whole thing out of your system,

You were a monk,

You went to India,

Those ten years were gone,

But now,

Now you can become what we all want you to become.

And when I feel inside,

I say no,

It's actually not where I'm at,

Or who I am or what I want.

And I find myself having real conversations with people in my life,

People I'm in relationships with,

You know,

My mom,

Friends,

Different things.

And I often have to keep redefining who I am and what I'm doing,

And keep almost like defending myself in some way and say,

Look,

There is nothing wrong with me,

Yeah,

I am okay,

What I'm doing is okay,

It's just different.

I know exactly what I want,

I'm following my own path,

I'm doing amazing things in this world,

And it's just different.

And having to again and again and again set boundaries,

Continually reassert myself into this world and say,

Listen,

We come from the 1950s nuclear family paradigm,

Happy mother with the,

You know,

Vacuum cleaner and dinner's almost ready,

Sweetie,

And the husband's home from work,

Dear,

And the kids at baseball,

And everyone's okay,

You know.

And that was the model,

That was what was being modeled for us culturally.

And that has broken down to people are like,

Well,

Like you don't,

You know,

My sister's in New York,

She's a little older than me,

And she's like,

Yeah,

There's plenty of like businesswoman my age running around without kids,

Without a husband,

They're just,

You know,

They'll do it later in their lives.

That now we're slowly digesting the fact that it doesn't have to look like that necessarily,

But I feel like I'm even a step beyond that,

And it's like I'm living a life that's continuously changing and evolving,

So it doesn't even have to look like anything for very long.

That my life can have all of these different parts and stages and phases,

And they're all equally valid,

And they're all part of this journey,

And and it never has to eventually get into some box that's digestible for anybody.

So being able to speak my truth,

Right,

To know what I want,

To be confident in that,

To know how I feel,

To speak my truth,

To understand it,

That's called setting a healthy boundary,

Is knowing who I am,

What I want,

And communicating that,

And acting accordingly and in my integrity.

What also happens is that we have a lot of programming inside of us,

Like you were mentioning the should voices coming in.

Those should voices are not yours,

Yet those have been programmed into you probably by your parents back when,

But maybe by society or friends or something else.

I did a educators retreat this weekend actually for a group of teachers,

But a retreat that I did at that same place,

I think the last retreat I did,

This one woman came up to me and she said,

You know,

I'm so hard on myself and I'm so hard on my brother and I don't get it,

And my father passed away and I don't get it because my father,

He was so kind to us,

He never made us feel bad or like we should do things,

So what where do I get it from?

It doesn't,

I don't,

It doesn't make sense.

He never treated me that way,

I didn't internalize his voice,

You know,

And I kind of looked at her and I felt into the situation and I said,

Well,

How did he treat himself?

And she said,

Oh he was very hard on himself,

And I said,

So here you are as a kid and you see your father being hard on himself,

He's being kind to you,

He forgives you and gives you everything,

You see him being hard on himself and that's the behavior that he's modeling for you and there's a voice in you that when you're trying to relax or doing things,

You know,

You hear this voice in your head that says,

How could you,

How could you do that?

You almost feel guilty,

How can I be so lazy?

Look at how much dad struggled and suffered,

As if I'm betraying my father by taking it easy on myself,

As if I'm betraying my father by not being hard on myself,

Not because he told me that I should be,

But because he modeled that and because I feel bad not doing what he's doing,

Right?

That we continue these family,

These familial traditions,

These behavioral patterns,

It's crazy,

It's true,

That the more that I've dug into my own psyche and worked through my behaviors and thoughts and feelings,

The more I've really come to realize,

You know,

I heard some report,

It's like 80% of your body weight is like bacteria or something,

Has anyone heard that?

Something like that,

Like a crazy amount of your body weight,

Like your mass,

Is actually bacteria,

Like bacteria like runs the show and we like the other material,

It's just like little parts,

You know,

It's not as much and it's very similar that I've come to see,

You know,

About 80% of my mind is not mine,

Like 80% of my thoughts and feelings behaviors are things that have been handed down to me that I was told to leave education and that's just because I only see those 80%,

I'm sure it's actually closer to 100%,

I think eventually if you really drill down into it,

You know,

This understanding of free will and all this,

It'd be very an interesting thing to look with a,

You know,

Fine-tooth comb through that because at the end of the day the mind is conditioned,

It's conditioned to pleasure and pain and what it's told to want and the feelings and even that we think in the English language that we only have,

You know,

When I lived in Germany and I learned German,

I had all new sorts of thoughts and experiences because I was using different words,

Even that we're thinking in English,

We're experiencing everything just within this one framework,

That so much of our experience it is conditioned,

Conditioned by having senses,

A body that feels,

Eyes that see easy,

We're conditioned,

We only see colors,

You know,

From red to,

You know,

Roy G Biv,

Right,

You just see like the rainbow,

That's all that we see,

How much else is going on?

If you have cats,

Sometimes you'll see your cat,

Your cat's like watching stuff darting across the room at light speed,

If you have two cats,

You'll see they're both following the same thing and it's not like a fly or a mosquito,

It goes from like that side of your house to that side of your house,

Blink,

It goes so fast and the cats are all watching it but you can't see it because cats have conical shaped eyes and they see things that we can't,

They can see a little bit different,

Dogs can hear higher things than we can,

So sometimes your dog freaks out and you're like what,

There's nothing here,

But in the dog's experience there's a whole new set of things going on,

So we are so conditioned by everything,

By our senses,

By our society,

By our thoughts,

By the language,

By our abilities to perceive,

That we're kind of in like a bit of a box in that sense and this is like a very existential conditioning that I'm talking about,

If you want to even get into more practical terms,

You know,

Like I went to a Tony Robbins event last year,

He talked about limiting beliefs and limiting views and I mean a kind of strange example was when I went to this retreat last week,

The salt lamp that I have right here,

I plugged it in and I turned it on,

The light came on and I started unpacking my things and then the light went off and I said oh shit,

It was cold in my car and the light was cold and I turned it on and I burst the bulb because it was too cold and went from cold to hot too quick and it burst the filament or whatever,

I was like crap,

You know,

And then I pulled it out and I had an extension cord,

I put in the extension cord and I plugged the speaker into it and as I was plugging the speaker into it and I said but you know if the speaker doesn't work,

That means there's a problem with the outlet not with my salt lamp and I go I hope the speaker doesn't work and I plugged the speaker in and I pressed power and it doesn't work and I go yes it doesn't work and then I said Seth,

Why are you happy your speaker doesn't work?

Of course I want my speaker to work and I said oh actually I really want my speaker to work and I looked and the power cord it had fallen out of the back of the speaker so I plugged the speaker in and turned it on and the speaker worked and I was like okay the speaker works but then the salt lamp and I said Seth,

Instead of wishing that one thing doesn't work so that means the other thing is okay,

What is it that you really want?

And I said what I really want is for the speaker and the salt lamp to work and then I plugged the salt lamp into the extension cord and turned it on and it worked again and it was this weird kind of thing that happens that doesn't make sense why it happened but it was like this lesson and it revolved around limiting beliefs and allowing yourself to really ask for what you want in this life that we're so quick to attach stories and perceptions of what is possible and what is not possible.

We often dream small and again a limited kind of way instead of really sitting down and say what do I want fully?

What do I want to feel when I wake up or I want my life to look like?

Yeah why aren't we taking this proactive creator co-creator role in this life?

I've lived my entire life around pushing at boundaries,

Seeing which boundaries are real which ones are not and I've been amazed at how many boundaries that I've pushed at there's really nothing there you know there's a story like in India the way they cat like domesticate elephants is that when they have a baby elephant they chain it to this little tree and the baby elephant's kind of stuck and it can't get anywhere but as the elephant gets older it's still chained to the same like little thin tree but because it made the experience when it was a kid that it can't that this tree contains it it never tries again because now that it's big it would actually be able to rip that tree right out of the ground but it's already decided in its belief system that I'm not as strong as that tree and now that it is powerful it still keeps that same belief that that tree is stronger than I am and as we started off as little babies who couldn't do anything and now we're adults it's amazing how many beliefs we've kept from that time from being a baby till now from being a kid till now from being a teenager till now from being a young adult till now you know that we form opinions and views and beliefs and we hold them and we don't think to re-question them or look or to see what's going on is this real or not does this make me happy or not and the way to start deprogramming the mind the way to start working with the mind is to start looking at the mind and that's why we're here if you're that elephant and you just believe that that tree is you know has power over you and you don't take the time to look at that belief that belief will last forever the Buddha said there is nothing as intractable as the human mind he said and the Buddha is is it was a man of metaphors and similes he all all of his talks this is like that and that everything he said it was trying to paint pictures and metaphors and similes for people to understand the mind and the practice and stuff and he said nothing is in track as intractable as this is hard to move as the human mind and he said so hard in fact it is hard for me to come up with a comparison and this is the only time I've ever heard the Buddha say that so the Buddha pretty much is saying that the human mind that has decided on something and doesn't really want to budge will never be budged and if any of you are in relationships you'll know that that's true if any of you have families that you've ever had a conflict with if any of you ever use Facebook you see yeah there's people out there that no matter what you cannot budge their they don't change they don't want to hear new information they're not interested they'll block it out they turn into a turtle and close up and nothing comes in anymore that the human mind is like the best fortress that there is if it wants to be if it's in defense mode and so when we meditate when we practice this even the fact that you guys are sitting in this room together you've already taken that first step right you've left your lives you've left the busyness and the craziness and the stories that you associate with everything out there and you've come into this a neutral space but it's not even a neutral space now the space has a meaning that you've assigned it this is my place to meditate one of my teachers said that's why if you go to India you see all of the monasteries and ashrams up on the mountains yeah because first you have to like climb all these stairs and you have to get away from life you have to get away from the things you're used to you have to put in some effort and physically remove yourself from everything to then have that perspective and then be able to stop and rest that's why it's so hard to meditate when you just wake up in the morning and you try to sit on the pillow in your bedroom and you try to meditate and then after five minutes you're like you know I just want to go drink some coffee and you know and you remember that you have to do the dishes or something that it's so hard to practice in your normal environment because your normal environment isn't for stopping it's for going it's programmed it's habituated you know that's why I tell people when you do meditation please sit don't lay down if you lay down and close your eyes you will fall asleep because that's our habituation laying down my eyes closed means sleeping so anytime someone in one of my classes like stubbornly tries to make a case for wanting to lay down and meditate and you know inevitably they end up snoring like later and I'm like yeah I told you you know it doesn't work so that's why it's nice to have things like guided meditations that's why it's nice to come to spaces like this to come to groups to remove yourself you know I go to the gym every day a lot of the stuff almost everything I do at the gym to be honest I could just buy you know two 30 pound weights and two 20 pound weights and I could do everything I do at the gym at home and it would cost me a lot less than a gym membership the problem with that when I was a kid my parents bought a Nordic track if you guys remember that it was like it's like the skiing machine with things you know in their bedroom and and every time I looked in their room it was like the coat rack you know it's where all like the winter jackets were on and I see this a lot that there's all these great advertisements on TV for you know sports you know workout stuff you could have in your home I don't know many people that successfully work out at home yeah if I'm at home I will sit on the couch and watch Netflix yeah watch the bachelor reruns or whatever yeah I I find it incredibly difficult to motivate myself to do physical exercise in my home however to jump in my car drive five minutes down the road and go to the gym suddenly I'm clicked in yeah I go to the gym and I work out and I push myself and it's great and I feel great I'm so happy I did it and I know I love working out but I would not do it at home and meditation it's very similar you know when I started meditating I I understood that I understood that you know whatever paradox or difficulty so what I did was I said well I'm going to create a space in my home for meditation and I went to Home Depot and I cut out a carpet and I had us you know I put a little like you know four by four foot piece of carpet in the corner of my room with a salt lamp and a Buddha statue and little like incense thing I made myself a meditation corner with my meditation cushion and that's the place that I sat once a week for 15 minutes to meditate and that's how I started I could not meditate in my room before that I tried to sit on my bed and meditate it didn't work but when I created a spot a space for my meditation every time I sat down I could do it because I had put in effort and I was like energetically in a space that gave my brain or my mind or whatever the emotions the signal this is your space in your time to practice and that's something that I can suggest I know not everyone has that ability or has a corner but right now I do a morning practice and I do morning prayers every day and I have one specific spot in my room that I do that and it's a spot in the room that I don't do anything else in so it's still the same kind of thing it works for me find your space to do it so the way that we can change the mind is by looking at the mind right so this practice here's kind of the steps of how this works if you haven't like figured out by now kind of a progression is that we start by being very confused by being very busy our minds are externally focused out into the world all of our feelings emotions stories thoughts all the stuff that's happening out there we take one step in towards ourselves which is removing ourselves from the world and we come into this room then we take one step further in by closing the eyes closing the body down shutting everything off and then we're just with the mind the mind then is going to again try to reestablish that connection to the outside world so it's going to again try to think about things plan things worry about things fantasize the mind it's so used to running out running a muck out there that when you bring the mind back in it's kind of like freaks out it's like a tiger in a cage it's just trying to find a way through right and what you're seeing right away is you're seeing the mind you know if if you give somebody everything that they want the second that they want it they're never gonna have to reflect on themselves you know you don't see yourself if you get everything as soon as you want it then everything's just smooth and flowy and everything's fine the second there's a hiccup in that the second something's not there when you want it or the second you want something to be gone something that is there to go that's when you're faced with actually having to see yourself how patient am I how much can I forbear how good am I at letting go and trusting and being with the flow that that when you close your eyes and you sit here and you watch your mind freaking out trying to get away that's an amazing time to really look at yourself because at the end of the day like this is a pretty decent room to be sitting in right now it's comfortable enough there's good company we're doing something great for ourselves we're doing something actually pretty good for the world by being here this is something that I would say most people look up towards I went to a meditation class oh wow good for you you know it's like a good thing scene good it's good for us it actually feels good feels peaceful you're spending time with yourself this is very healthy scientifically proven healthy for your brain for your nervous system this checks all of the boxes so there's no reason that when we sit we close our eyes for the mind to want to go anywhere else everything that we need is right here this is great so why does it yeah and that's exactly the point when we talk about boundaries that's the boundary right there and that is always the boundary that this moment is always this moment you always only have just this right now can you make peace with that can you be present with that how much are you suffering by just being here now and that question you can ask yourself every second of the day in every new situation how much am I suffering by just being here how much do I resist the moment how much do I want and crave and lust after things that are not here how much have I built up a mind of discontentment versus a mind of contentment and peace this moment is the boundary because this is it we're here right now there's nothing else going on we're all here because we want to be happy right we're all here because we want peace right we're all here because we want to feel relaxed we want some answers we want to feel good that's why we're here yeah but the thing that's keeping all of that from coming to us all the things we want everything we've ever wanted is right there in front of us and all we have to do is open the door and let it in and just accept this moment as it is accept what's here the the wanting mind is such a tricky thing because the wanting mind it says if I get this thing then I'll be happy you guys know what I mean it's an if-then mentality if I can get that then I'll be happy if I can get that person if I can get that job if I can get that feeling if I can get this amount of money I can get my taxes done on time if I can get then I'll be happy yeah if then if then if then when you bring that mind into meditation you are you are instilling in yourself a feeling that this moment is not enough you're creating a perception that this moment is lacking and that you need to do this thing called meditation to get this thing called happiness and what you're doing is you're fracturing your mind that wanting is splitting your mind into two pieces one piece is this moment which is not satisfactory and the other part of your mind is a projection into the future of a of a fantasy that says that's where happiness is it's out there somewhere it's this fracture but in the mind between now and later and it's creating unhappiness now and future projection of happiness does that make sense so far meditation it's a process of unifying the mind meditation is a practice of letting things drop allowing things to be it's the greatest paradox I think that I've ever faced in my practice and it was the most important realization that I ever received so after you know ten years in the monastery the most important thing I saw was this as soon as I let go of that wanting things to be different everything was different and everything was okay that my only problem was that I was labeling this moment is not enough and projecting what I want into another moment that never came there was the carrot dangling in front of my little monk face and I was always just chasing this thing called peace if I meditate enough this peace thing will come to me later and it was actually tick not Hanu pointed it out to me first he looked at me and he said practice is like instant noodle soup you don't have to wait to enjoy it and I had no idea what he meant when he said it it took me like five years to get it and he looked at me once and he just saw my mind that clearly you could say that's me I didn't get it for like five years until another teacher Atcham Brom said to me he's like well if you're sitting to meditate and you're stressed then just stop trying to meditate and just sit here and relax and that was so hard for me to let go of control so hard for me because as I tried that my mind kept saying but but but you know but I do nothing all day and I'm not happy so what would that do for me now you know but but I need but I'm a mess but I need meditation but the Buddha said but the book said but you said in the talk that my mind kept but but it and I it was this crazy conscious process of every time that but but but I had to keep saying well I'm just gonna try for this one meditation I'm just gonna try to just sit here you know in the next but but you need to and I said I'm just gonna try but I had set a boundary with myself I'm just gonna try let me just try it just this one meditation I'm gonna try to not do anything I'm going to try to allow myself just to be in this moment fully without wanting anything else and as soon as I lay down that want my mind was able to unify as soon as I laid on that want I wasn't projecting half of my mind into the future as soon as I laid on that want everything arrived and when everything arrived I felt it I felt complete I felt whole I felt relaxed I felt peaceful because peace came when I surrendered right I had that thought a couple weeks ago it's like peace doesn't come through war war only works because it eventually forces one side to surrender to give up that peace comes through surrendering yeah peace doesn't come through me getting what I want because you're just gonna want the next thing those wants are gonna keep coming and on that very basic level a want it's a fracture of the mind you're splitting the mind into now and a projected future you can never have a fully present peaceful whole minds if your mind is split you have to reunite the mind you have to bring it all in bring the energy together and it's as simple as saying by not wanting anything and that goes against all of our conditioning since childhood about wanting and working and striving and doing it goes against everything we've ever been taught right so I'm here to reprogram your minds to give you a new conditioning that says we can practice differently we can sit here today and for the whole practice today let's practice not wanting that's it just practice not wanting I'm I don't want to meditate I don't want peace I don't want anything that's not here another way to say that is to want everything wanting nothing and wanting everything is the same thing they both result in this moment being enough so you could either want everything including every ache and pain you have and every feeling and I want all of this I want my thoughts I want everything I want my discomfort and my suffering I want it all or you could say I want nothing that how everything however things are does not matter to me I don't want anything wanting everything or wanting nothing they are both equally valid ways to bring the heart to that place of just being able to be here yeah but as soon as you want something that's not here or as soon as you want something that is here to be gone then you're in trouble then you've split the mind and the Buddha said the mind is intractable the only way that can change is if you change it you have to let that go yourself so let's say let's practice not wanting for this class let's really just practice sitting here I know my life is a mess I know that my mind is busy I know that I have all these answers that are unanswered all these problems that are unsolved yeah that there is so much wrong with me in my life and I came to meditation as an answer to all that and I'm gonna look that directly in the face and say and yet right now I want nothing I am not here to get my wishes fulfilled I am here to stop wishing yeah and we're gonna make this triad try making a new an experiment right a new kind of experience and let's see what happens let's see if it works so sitting in a position that feels comfortable that feels stable when we're ready we can close our eyes we apologize to ourselves for being such slave drivers all the time pushing ourselves and whipping ourselves and being constantly unhappy we have realized the folly of our ways so we're gonna give ourselves the gift of rest and say for the next half hour I'm just gonna want nothing I'm just going to allow everything that's here to be enough to not try to change it to not try to solve my problems I have no wants I am simply here I arrive with each breath taking three deep breaths in through the nose filling the body out through the mouth

Reviews

Excellent talk on boundaries - just what I needed to hear. So relatable and inspiring at the same time.

Thank you for your perspective of being present and being enough! I will listen again because I know I missed some key points 🙏🌻

What a great listen. Regarding past trauma, future thoughts, while living in present moments.

Wanting nothing. And wanting everything. Total gems, thank you

Wow this wasn’t what I expected, but it was what I needed. Thank you. 🙏❤️

What a great discovery for my practice. Thank you Seth. I love these.

Love these talks. Soul nourishing! Thank you Seth. 🙏🏻

Sooo interesting how my mind keep going back and forth with thoughts, made me smile and my inability to stop wanting. Wanting to use the breath to quiet my mind and wanting to tell you about it to the point I eventually stopped my meditation. 😅

Absolutely brilliant talk, greatly appreciated thanks Seth 😊

I to notes on this and my goal is to really try living in the moment and letting go of my wants and desires.

Such an eye opening and great listen! Thank you so much, for sharing your knowledge and stories with us!