Boundaries | Debbie Causey

I should get her back I am so excited to talk to you guys tonight even though I cannot see you um because of my lights here you guys are some of my favorite leaders to be able to get to speak to tonight and I'm pretty sure that you might even have a little bit of a competition for which group of you struggle with boundaries more but the truth is every single one of us struggles with boundaries and the reason I know this is because the very first time I gave this talk was in 2005 twelve years ago at a group life conference and they keep asking me to come back and do this up so that tells me we still have problems with boundaries and we still have people violating our boundaries right so I'm really excited to talk about this because I really think if you can implement some of these truths you can really have immense freedom in your life and respect from others and who doesn't want that so let's figure out do you guys have some boundary issues are you in the right spot are you listening for the right reasons have you ever been on the phone with someone that's going on and on and on and a family member or a friend is looking at you like you've been on the phone for hours do any of you have a family member that have has asked you to borrow money or better yet keep the money not even borrow it how about those of you that have family members who do not handle their anger productively anybody have that in their family or better yet metals in your parenting those are fun are some of you so busy going from one activity to the next that you can't even catch your breath sure we've got some of those do any of you ever feel like you can't satisfy anyone or that you're unappreciated or disrespected have any of you been taken advantage of or felt manipulated if you can say yes to any of those statements more than likely you have some boundary issues either you have them personally or somebody else is really trying hard to meddle with your boundaries or violate your boundaries I'm really excited because you guys filled out a survey for this talk and I read through every single one of those surveys and it's amazing what some of you are going through what some of you are experiencing with boundaries or lack of boundaries and so forth and so on so I think we've got some good Nuggets for you today without boundaries we would have chaos in this world stop signs fences doors with locks they all keep chaos out of our worlds well personal boundaries do the same thing they keep chaos out of our internal worlds and depression and anxiety and resentment even hatred for others can result from you not setting good boundaries but where do we start tonight we're gonna answer questions like how much should I help someone how can I set limits and still be a loving person can I say no to others how can I set boundaries without feeling guilty what do I do if others do not respect or in fact violate my boundaries well many of you might be wondering what in the world is a boundary and all of you had different definitions so that was kind of fun boundaries are personal property lines they are what where I end and you begin it's like a fence around you with a gate think about a personal property line around you that's what a boundary is we've got a great definition for you in your handout that I really liked it's they are guidelines rules or limits a person creates for what are reasonable safe and permissible ways for others to behave around us and how we will respond when someone steps outside of those limits boundaries determine what is me and what is not me what is mine to own and what is not mine to own as far as choices behaviors emotions but this is gonna be the most critical thing I say boundaries are for you we don't set boundaries for other people and I bet that's amazing to some of you because in what you excuse me and what you wrote in your survey it showed that many of you think that you set boundaries for other people we cannot make anybody do anything we kind of wish we could right when it'd be so much more fun to set boundaries for other people than to have to set them for ourselves but really boundaries are for you every person is an owner of their boundaries or personal property lines and if I don't have a clear sense of what's my property and what's my neighbor's property I might think that I need to help my neighbor take care of their property even to the point of neglecting my own property and how this works is it's kind of like if I have if I'm watering my own lawn but my sprinkler is pointed over to my neighbor's property and my grass is turning brown but I'm paying all this money to water the grass and they're over there you know just fine cuz they're their grass is green and nice and beautiful and mine is rotting away and so they really don't have a problem we're the ones with the problem right because we're the ones watering their grass and neglecting our own property and so therefore they're irresponsible and happy and we are responsible and unhappy so it's really important that you have a sense of what your property lines are and what your neighbors property lines are or your sisters property lines are or your father's property lines so that you cannot neglect your own property in the trying to take care of theirs that makes sense so you might be thinking isn't that selfish you know to not want to help other people well what are we responsible for I love to tell people about this because this is really easy phrase to remember we are responsible to others not for others two little words that can get us in so much trouble two and four we are responsible to others not for others we're responsible to love them we're responsible to care for them we're responsible to listen to them we're responsible to show compassion to them we're even responsible to provide community for them but we are not responsible for them we're not responsible for their happiness we're not responsible for their financial security we're not responsible for their emotional health we're not responsible for their daily responsibilities we hold the key to our happiness alone we do not hold the key to somebody else's and for some of you that is an amazing truth that you don't even realize you're doing you think you hold the key to another person's happiness when in fact you don't and the only one you hold is your own so what does it mean to not care for somebody else and look at your own property lines as far as what scripture would have us do cuz many of us don't set boundaries because we think this is something God would want us to do or in fact was something that scripture would tell us to do so let's look at Galatians 6:2 where Paul tells us carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ but three verses later it says each man should carry his own load so those seem to contradict each other a little bit so let me say that again carry to each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ but each one should carry his own load well if we look at the Greek word behind burden it means excess burden it means something you can't carry by yourself it requires more energy or resources you cannot do it alone and we want to symbolize that with a boulder it's kind of like a boulder you can't carry a boulder by yourself which in fact I made this folder so I can't in fact care is just folder but we're just gonna pretend like we can't carry that Boulder and anyway it's something you can't carry on your own it's an excessive burden but when you look at the Greek word for load when it says each man shall carry his own load it's talking about the burden of daily toil it's talking about things like a backpack daily responsibilities something you can carry by yourself something you're expected to carry by yourself it's your daily cargo or load and so a boulder would be something like somebody died they can't carry that on their own a loved one died and a backpack would be something like paying my bills that's the difference between the two so I want to have a little fun with you guys and do an exercise and I'm going to call out some of these phrases or words and I want you guys to yell out to me if you think it is a boulder or a backpack and I just want to go ahead and let you know this is hard because you guys are not as familiar with what the difference is between a boulder and a backpack so still shout it out loud be proud of yourself and say it anyway okay so starting off with buying groceries is that a boulder or a backpack good job how about if you are a victim of a crime that's good how about mental illness good wow I'm impressed how about caring for your family how about abuse either y'all are all getting this right or the people that are not sure I'm not saying any okay here's a harder one how about single parenting there you go I was waiting for that one say it loud and proud it's a boulder there are aspects of it that are backpack ish but I think our single parents would let you know it is a boulder how about surgery yeah I guess it depends on the surgery but let's say if it's plastic surgery they're on their own right but we'll say it's major surgery how about another's bad mood backpack how about household chores how about project deadlines or your children's school work how many of you have done your children's school work if you have children yeah a loved one dies yeah sickness yeah do a few more of these because I think it's really important that you get these how about your happiness how about another person's happiness mm-hmm how about another person's emotional health mm-hmm how about an accident major accident okay somebody's house burned down natural disaster you guys get the picture so if you were hiking and you came upon somebody that was underneath the boulder you would try to help them right but if you came upon somebody and your friend was there and they said will you carry my 50-pound backpack even though you have your own you would think they were crazy right each one should carry his own load it's biblical we get confused as to what is somebody's backpack though and what is somebody's Boulder and we tend to err on the side of carrying somebody else's backpack then helping them carry their Boulder and even with the boulders you don't have to choose to help that person with that Boulder I think we are supposed to but sometimes we have to solicit the help of others to carry the boulder because sometimes even two of you can't carry it alone I see this a lot with mental illness but you have to have a whole group of people surrounding a person with mental illness to be able to help that person with that particular boulder does that make sense so just because it's a boulder doesn't mean you automatically have to be the person right then and there to carry it sometimes that's not even the wise thing to do but you might want to solicit others to then in fact help carry that so we're gonna do a little self check okay we're gonna really see if you guys have some boundary issues before I tell you how to set some boundaries so we're gonna do you might have a boundary problem if okay a little bit of Jeff Foxworthy going on here you might have a boundary problem if you have a hard time saying no to hurtful people or setting limits on hurtful behavior from others you might have a boundary if problem if you have an inability to say no to things asked of you you might have a boundary problem if resentment builds on you because you are not appreciated you might have a boundary problem if you have an inability to say no to yourself ie addictions your own destructive impulses maybe even working too much eating too much doing too much Pinterest not for you guys of course TV Facebook sometimes even exercise you might have a boundary problem if you have an inability to hear no from others in a respect their limits sometimes controlling people have boundary problems you might have a boundary problem if you have a tendency to be attracted to irresponsible or hurtful people and then try to fix them you might have a boundary problem if you have a tendency to take responsibility for other people's lives especially your children your spouse your boss your family a lot of people struggle with taking responsibility for their bosses we tend to not talk about that one too much but it's true for their happiness their household responsibilities and even sometimes their schoolwork like I said you might have a boundary problem if you have an inability to be honest with those that are close to you you might have a boundary problem if you have an inability to confront others and resolve conflict productively you might have a boundary problem if you blame others for circumstances in your life and experience life with a victim mindset and you might have a boundary problem if your bosses or co-workers have have you doing way more than what's on your job description and you care way more about their affirmation then you should those are just a few so you're thinking to yourself okay I definitely qualified for at least one of those phrases so what in the world is the harm in that and the reality is if you carry somebody else's load you are going to burden yourself because you were only meant to carry a certain load and it's kind of like a levee you know in Louisiana Louisiana New Orleans is under water it's it's below sea level and so they built this levee so that when a storm would come or a hurricane would come that water wouldn't flood the city of New Orleans and as many of you know in 2005 Hurricane Katrina came about and did in fact flood the city of New Orleans and so that levee broke that levee was meant to carry a certain load and no more and so when the storms come and that that levees doing its job to try to hold back the waters from flooding when a storm comes it can't bear that load it's it's more than it can handle so the levee breaches it it causes flooding it causes havoc and destruction well boundaries are levees in our lives you guys were meant to carry a certain load you cannot carry somebody's Boulder for them you cannot carry like I said by yourself you cannot carry your backpack in addition to somebody else's backpack without you neglecting your own property and what will happen is you'll get burned out you'll get tired you'll get cranky like I said earlier you'll get depressed you'll get anxious you'll get resentful and sometimes you'll even hate another person when in fact when you're not setting boundaries the person that you should be mad at is yourself because remember we set boundaries for us not for another person so if somebody is treating you poorly or somebody is taking advantage of you or somebody is not appreciating you you are allowing that to happen by not setting a boundary for that person does that make sense but you're not only hurting yourself you're hurting the other person as well and the reason you're hurting the other person is because they are not able to experience the pain of consequences that can motivate them to change we see this all the time with individuals that have addictions their family members often times will make excuses for them the boss might call and say hey you know where is such-and-such and the the mom the sister the the spouse will cover for them because they don't want their loved one to experience pain and they don't want them to lose their job that would really be a bad situation but what's happening is you're not allowing that person to experience the pain of their consequences so therefore there's really not much reason to change not that that's the only reason a person has an addiction but it's certainly not helping to be an enabler of that addiction we do this with all kinds of things we do it with our kids school work we do it with with other people's jobs we do it all the time and what we're not realizing is we're not helping that person out because they're not experiencing the pain of that consequence to be motivated to change and so the addict is not the only one with the problem the enabler also has the problem and we would love to talk to you guys further about that if that is a situation that's in your life so saying no to others many times is the most loving thing that you can do we see this in a book called toxic charity it's also in another book called codependent no more sometimes saying no to another person and letting them carry their own load even if they're homeless is giving them the dignity and the integrity that they really deserve and they also need I encourage you to read either one of those books to find out more about it God does not enable irresponsible behavior as you can see in proverbs 16 26 and in 2nd Thessalonians 3:10 it says if anyone will not work don't let him eat I mean that's pretty straightforward and that's a rule that they they encouraged everybody to live by back then so a lot of times to figure out do I have a boundary issue I will ask myself do I care about somebody else's life more than they care about their own I'll repeat that do I care about somebody else's life more than they care about their own if the answer is yes you more than likely have to step away and set a boundary but beware because if you set boundaries it does not always cause great reactions and other people especially if you're not gonna have it or you're not used to doing it a lot of times you will get the following reactions you will get anger from other people cuz they're like what in the world she's never done this before or he's never done this before they'll blame you they'd like to try to make you feel guilty they're very unforgiving some will stop talking to you I have a friend you used to give money to her sister on a regular basis and she's Mary her sister was married and but she was giving to her sister very generously but decided at one point that that was no longer financially feasible nor did she think it was financially responsible to continue to do so so she let her sister know that she was not going to be able to do that anymore which led to much anger and discontinuation of communication for years this is the kind of reaction you will get from somebody that expects you not to set boundaries and expects you to carry your own load which was very very disheartening to this person because they were loving them and giving to them every month and they were unappreciated for it and it was extremely unhealthy so who do we need to set boundaries with for ourselves by the way and it's pretty much everybody it can be your children your boss your coworker your friend your spouse your mom your dad pretty much everyone different relationships to require different boundaries but pretty much everyone we need to set boundaries with letting them know I want to be treated a certain way and I will not be treated a certain way and it's not with an attitude like I will not be treated this way it's more of a I'm taking care of myself I'm carrying my own load and this is how you can treat me and this is how you can't treat me and if you treat me this way then I'm gonna have to do this and that's well we'll learn about that in a second on how to set boundaries so let's figure out how do we set boundaries well first of all the very first thing you got to do is recognize three things okay this is before we start setting the boundaries the very first thing you got to recognize is what is the difference between a boulder and a backpack as you look at your life and you see frustrating situations and you start to encounter man this is really bothering me or this is really irritating me ask yourself is the boulder or is this a backpack is this person wanting me to carry their their backpack it's really important that you recognize that and sometimes you need the the help of a counselor to be able to determine the difference especially if you're entrenched in in this boundary problem you might need the help of counselors some of you can just reach out to a friend and get their advice and say hey is this the boundary or do you think I mean is this a boulder or do you think this is a backpack and they can help you do that we can be so much more objective to each other than we can be to ourselves okay the next thing you want to recognize is yourself you want to get to know yourself what are positive ways you want to be treated what are negative ways you do not want to be treated what do you want from your job what do you not want from your job what do you want from this relationship and like I said this is not a entitlement this is more what is important and how is it important that I am treated as a child of God rather than being taken advantage of mistreated and so forth the third thing you want to recognize is the difference between false guilt and real guilt because so many people will try to make you feel guilty for not or for setting boundaries in their lives so you got to know the difference and so real guilt is when you have sinned against somebody and you feel guilt as the conviction of your sin false guilt is any other type of guilt if you feel guilty and you know you have not sinned then you are experiencing what I call false guilt and so it's really important that you know the difference between those two the next thing you're gonna want to do before you start setting boundaries is to recharge okay take time away from others to recharge many times your situation is so enmeshed with your family or so in such bad shape where it needs boundaries set like crazy you have got to take a break it doesn't mean a permanent break you've got to take a break you've got to do what Jesus did when he took breaks from the crowds and and walked away and proverbs 22:3 it's the prudent man sees evil and hides himself so it's even biblical to do that if you don't do this I promise you you will get burned out and you won't be able to do it anyway so you might as well make an intentional choice to recharge before you start setting these boundaries and then the next thing I want to say is pretty important do not take on more activities than you can handle if you have five different extracurricular activities a full-time job and you're doing all these different things and you can't catch your breath that's not taking time to recharge my rule of thumb if you have children is let them be involved in one activity at a time if you have four children that's four activities so that's tough but like I had four children but let only one activity at a time if it's you I would suggest one extracurricular activity at a time and maybe two non job related activities going on during your job does that make sense that's just a rule of thumb you can make your own but we try to pile on way too many activities and it causes us to be burned out alright so now we're ready to set boundaries you want to make sure that you're setting boundaries as upfront as you can from the very beginning and this is not always possible but when you can set those boundaries from the beginning as you go along and then follow up as you finish that makes sense and I gave you guys an example here of a statement that you could use you wouldn't want to use this in every situation so you sound robotic but it's it's just a good example to try if you do not blank then I will no longer be able to make myself available to you for blank we are not telling them what they can or cannot do please be clear boundaries are for you we are just telling them how we will respond if they don't accept the boundary that we've stated does that make sense so an example of this would be if you don't talk to me calmly I will no longer be able to stay on the phone my mom and I had a tumultuous tumultuous relationship she has Alzheimer's disease now so it's much different but she had borderline personality disorder and I don't know if you guys are familiar with that but it's pretty rough so there were many times that I've had to learn how to set boundaries with my family we had a very in meshed family and the reason I'm the boundaries Queen as Amy mentioned is because I've had to practice so many boundaries and most of them have been with my mom or my siblings and so there were many times when I would be on the phone with my mom and she would start yelling or she would start you know arguing over the phone and I would say okay well I'm gonna have to let you go unless we can have a productive conversation and it sounds superior but it really was trying to be productive let's let's take a break from this conversation and come back and talk about this when we can talk about it calmly because I don't want to say anything I'm gonna regret and I don't want us to hurt one another now that did not make her happy by any stretch of the imagination but it was me setting a boundary that I'm not gonna be talked to this way this is getting me stressed out it's getting me anxious and it's causing me to want to yell back at you feeling attacked so the best thing I could do was if you talk to me this way I'm going to have to hang up the phone does that make sense we'll talk about a few more examples in a minute the next thing is practice saying no for those of you that have a really hard time saying no to things practice with small things practice saying no to to minor things like volunteering for not one of these ministries of course I'd get in big trouble if I said that but I'm talking about like helping out at a at a charity or something if you've got all these activities going on practice with small things you'll get more comfortable with it say no is actually one of the most honest things you can do with somebody the Bible says let your yes be yes and your no be no being not being able to say no is oftentimes dishonest because you're feeling it inside but you're saying yes to the person and you're taking on all the stuff and you keep saying yes and it's really just hurting everybody it's funny you don't have to be rude about it though and I chuckled when I saw in one of your surveys somebody put and it was a cute saying say what you mean but don't say it mean you don't have to be rude and for some of you that are really have a hard time setting boundaries you're you're gonna tend to go the opposite direction and just be rude about it like no I'm not doing this and it's because you're not used to setting boundaries so don't go to the opposite extreme and get really mean because you're really gonna freak people out they're not gonna know what what's coming okay so what do we do if somebody doesn't respect our boundaries or they violate our boundaries if you guys will do this this seems so simple but it really can make a difference okay the first thing I want you to do is make a list of the people that are violating your boundaries so simple make a list ask yourself these questions number one did I clearly state my boundaries to this person does this person know how I want to be treated and how I don't want to be treated what I expect and what I don't expect from this person did you state the boundaries clearly if you didn't then you need to do that second question am i enabling their irresponsible behavior by carrying their backpack am i noticing hey I'm pretty much willing to carry their backpack so that's something I've got to stop doing so that's number two and then number three question you want to ask yourself about this list of people is are they chronics and chronics are a group of people that John Townsend who wrote the book boundaries refers to that are in one crisis after another and we all know people like this my mom was one of these people that it seemed like she had one boulder after another but what I realized is crisis was attracted to her and she would get herself in these situations over and over and over and it was it became where I was enabling her irresponsible behavior even by things that looked like a boulder so ask yourself is this person a chronic do they tend to have one problem after another when they ignore your no you got to follow through with your response remember how the definition was that we will respond with behavior if they don't you know accept our rules and limits you got to follow through or you can forget it it will not work so I'm going to give you a couple of this example of examples the statement is if you do not blink then I will no longer be able to blink okay if you do not stop treating me this way then I will need to leave okay if you continue to talk to me this way I'm gonna have to hang up the phone that's the one I used all the time if you continue to give me more work than I am able to handle then I'm gonna have to prioritize the work you give me and not all of it is going to be able to get done if you continue to abuse me I'm going to have to ask you to leave or I'm gonna leave these seem like simple statements they're so hard to follow through on and that is the most important part of setting boundaries is you got to follow through with what you say you're gonna do or it won't make any difference you'll do all this work and it won't make any difference and we all want to work on this together and I want you guys to be able to lean into each other and be able to find out from one another how we can set boundaries and so I really really encourage you guys to do that when I tell you once one more story about my family kind of funny but it was when I first had to start setting boundaries my parents lived about 40 45 minutes away from my husband a nice house and like I told you we had four kids and said they would just show up at our house without any notice and want to come see us and the kids and I realized you know this was causing an issue because we weren't having any notice and it was disrupting our family time and so forth and so on so of course I mentioned to my mom hey I need for you guys to call first just to make sure we're home you know make sure that you don't drive 45 minutes over here and then we're not home and so I was working with a counselor at the time and she said to me you're gonna have to follow through with this like if they come over to your house and haven't called first you're gonna have to have a plan as to where you're gonna go so my husband and I came up with this plan that if this happened which we thought surely it won't happen cuz we've brought it up to her and anyway so we came up with this plan that if they showed up that we would load all four kids in the car and just say sorry we had plans and then drive off and we had our plans all you know set and everything sure enough my parents pulling the driveway and I'm like oh my gosh here they are because I get ready with the plan I mean we're like in the middle of like making dinner or something I mean it was really disruptive to have to do this but I knew you have to follow through with it or it just is not gonna work so my husband's a people pleaser so it was really upsetting to him he's like no let's just wait you tell him again I'm like no we got to do this so we they come to the door and we're like we're so sorry you came all the way over here we have plans and we're leaving and so we get all the kids and for those of you that have kids know how hard this is you walk out the door and they're just literally like then like this stand on the front porch looking at us get in our car and drive off well let me tell you something it never happened again never and and what's funny is for whoever put in their survey that their mom says boundaries boundaries my mom would call and say well I know you want me to call first before we come over so is it okay for us to come over I mean she was very disrespectful did not like that we set the boundaries but weirdly and it really allowed us to have probably the most respect out of everybody in our whole entire family my sister would be like how come mom respects you so much or you know my brother too and it's like because I set boundaries I'm considered the harsh one you know so you got to follow through on that I promise from the phone conversations too and for some of you you've got this way worse you've got abuse going on and in addictions going on in your families and so you really got to figure out how to follow through with some of the setting of boundaries or it is not gonna work all right so how not to set boundaries first of all don't go radio silent don't avoid people so that you don't have to set boundaries a lot of people do that it's like oh I'll just avoid them and then I never have to set them don't be too rigid with your boundaries we've noticed men are often really rigid with their boundaries to the point where they're guarded and don't share themselves with others and so you don't want to be too rigid with them and so I just want to close with thanking you so much for your time I want I want to make sure you guys have learned what the difference is between a boulder and a backpack I want you guys to remember what it means to be responsible to somebody and not for somebody and I want you guys to experience a lot of freedom and a lot of respect from other people can you imagine a world where we set boundaries and we feel good and we help others because we choose to help others and we feel altruism instead of resentment or even hatred for another person or we get respect from other people or we don't experience anxiety or depression as a result of that you know wouldn't that be an awesome world I really do think if we could learn to set some boundaries the majority of our problems would disappear let me pray with you guys and then we're gonna do some case studies generally father I just thank you so much for this group of people I thank you for these leaders their lives are just so important and they have so much to give and I know that if we don't set boundaries which is in your word it's biblical that we won't be able to give to others and we won't be able to glorify you in the process and be able to minister to others so I pray specifically for each person here that they learn how to set boundaries so that they can be the best tool that you can use with everyone and ministering to others and they can experience the full life that you have come that they might experience and I pray this in Jesus name Amen

Channel: North Point Care

Views: 417

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: care network, north point community church, woodstock church, buckhead church, Gwinnett church, decatur city church, brownsbridge church, help, struggling, challenges, pain, relationships, transition, change, ministry resources, resources, training, counseling, boundaries, parents, parenting rules

Id: w7wVdLZlV3g

Length: 40min 34sec (2434 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 18 2018