Psychotherapist on How to Set Boundaries, End Manipulation, & Stop Being Pushed Around | Terri Cole

i don't even know about my boundaries i don't know if they're good i don't know if they're bad i don't know if they're too strict i don't know if they're too loose so part of it is you have to think about um where are you resentful because if you put everyone above yourself if you are last on your own list if you have a terribly negative inner voice that's so mean and caustic to you then you are literally setting the bar in your life you will inevitably attract others who agree with that low self-assessment and when you feel good about yourself live self-love you are setting the bar higher and you will inevitably attract folks who think that that is how worthy you are [Music] welcome terryco to women of impact you are the boundary boss and i want to say um thank you so much for joining because today i want to dig deep into boundaries because i feel like for us women especially to have the life we want to really go after that dream to not feel like we're getting pushed around and told what we should and shouldn't do it all comes back down to boundaries and your book boundary boss really is so um amazing at laying out all the steps in order for us to show up to be the person we want to be and set the boundaries so welcome to women of impact thank you so much for having me i'm so psyched to be here oh i love me too so where i want to start is something very unique that i've never heard about you talk about um corrupt boundary data can you actually just um tell us what that is and then we'll dive a little deeper sure this is really the the misinformation that we got growing up about boundaries so nobody talks to you about boundaries you witness them so all of us have this downloaded boundary blueprint is what i call it so this unconscious material that drives our behavior in reference to boundaries so it matters what country what culture your family system all of those things the modeled behavior that you saw growing up all of them come together to create your boundary blueprint but most people a don't know that there's a lot of corrupted data in that blueprint and b they don't even know that these downloaded schemas kind of in your mind your unconscious mind if you go down into the basement you can actually take a look at them and decide whether that is for you or not for you but usually we just go oh i guess this is the way the world is so hopefully what boundary boss is doing is giving people a step-by-step process to find out what is in your basement around boundaries i love that what is in your basement that's so good because um going to the beginning of just assessing our assumptions because i think that that's something that we just almost take for granted how do we start to assess what type of mindset and limiting beliefs we actually have in order to then say oh i can then change this or this is a choice most people will ask me how i don't even know about my boundaries i don't know if they're good i don't know if they're bad i don't know if they're too strict i don't know if they're too loose so part of it is you have to think about um where are you resentful right i have people do a resentment inventory because this will usually reveal where a boundary is needed or one that you've set is being violated or a need of yours is not being met and instead of just being like i'm angry we really are drilling down into who are you holding resentment for because that usually can tell you where you need a boundary and in reference to figuring out your boundary sort of archetype or your style i actually created a free quiz that people can take it's just boundary quiz dot com where you can go and see where where do you fall are your boundaries your disorder boundaries are they because they're too loose or is it because they're too rigid and this is something that i think that there is um a lot of myths around people are like oh you're a boundary boss you must be saying no all the time and telling people my way or the highway and i'm like oh no [Laughter] that's not it at all that is the other side of the spectrum so in particular women have a tendency to over give i mean let's be honest about how we were raised most of us were raised and praised for being self-abandoning codependents can you break that down a little like when you say that what would you mean by that well i mean self-abandoning means that i choose what i think is better for you than for me i don't want conflict i don't want you to be mad at me i'm afraid to be rejected so instead of asserting what is true for me i will abandon myself in that moment i will suck it up take one for the team i could you know there's a million things we could say about it but that is self-abandonment when we prioritize the needs and desires of others over our own right so that's the self-abandoning part but the codependent piece is so incredibly common with women because we are taught to be like we're the bridgers right we're the like producers of like life right we're the ones in the middle of all the things but when you think about what codependency actually is well usually it's over giving right it's it's really a covert or overt bid for control that is what codependency is and it doesn't look like that and i have this very high functioning group of women in my practice i've always had that demographic so when i first started seeing this this sort of epidemic of codependency and disordered boundaries and i would say oh hey what you're describing is codependent behavior and they would be like what are you nuts i'm i'm not dependent on squad everyone is dependent on me i'm making all the money i'm the one doing all the friggin things and making sure the kids are getting where they need to go and i'm like oh my clients do not know what codependency actually is and so i created a new name high functioning codependency because that is what i was when i was still super actively codependent so high functioning codependents are the women where everyone is like you're the rock right i always come to you with my problems and we're doing it all but at the expense of ourselves inherent in codependency are disordered boundaries so you cannot be codependent and have healthy boundaries because these two things are actually mutually exclusive but what is codependency it's you being overly invested in the feeling states the outcomes the circumstances the relationships of the people in your life to the detriment of your internal peace your financial or physical spiritual well-being because really elise i mean all of us are lovers right of course we are invested in the happiness of the people that we love that's not codependency codependency is when you are overly so and if you're wondering anyone watching or listening like how can i tell well if your best friend calls you with a problem i'm going to ask you to check your urgency did you suddenly start making phone calls and googling and going getting your books and underlining things like do you feel compelled to fix your friend's problem the moment your best friend called you did that then become literally your problem that is codependency where instead of being compassionate to our friend or having faith that our friend has the answers for herself we really think it's on us and really it's so much of this stems from childhood a chaotic childhood addiction abuse and really even just a very strict household religious household pretty much any household anyone was raised in could you know could really sow the seeds for codependency oh my god that was so amazing like that was so amazing because i've heard you know codependency the word thrown around a lot and so you just breaking that down was so beautiful and i've never heard it explained like that before so many of us are feeling stuck right now we have this dream and desire that we have ignored upon pause for so long and we tell ourselves that we'll go after it when when i have the time when i have the confidence and trust me i get it i spend eight years waiting for my life to change because i didn't have the confidence to do it myself but what if i didn't need the confidence to make a change what if i could have radical confidence which means not having the confidence but doing it anyway these are some of the 10 no bs life lessons i'll be teaching you in my new book radical confidence i have so many amazing bonuses so click the link below and let's get radically confident right freaking now how do we start to then pass between the the wonderful feeling of feeling needed and now we're spilling into codependency where you have a dysfunctional relationship and you're not setting boundaries well the awareness is the first step because what shifted it for me in my 20s i had a brilliant therapist who helped me see that what i was doing one of there was one of my sisters had a really like rough life so she was with an abusive guy there was all these things where i for sure thought it was my problem to fix and i was talking about it in therapy and crying and what am i gonna do right my therapist is like um excuse me so she went on to say um you know terry let me ask you something what makes you think that you know what lessons she needs to learn in this lifetime and i was like well i think we can all agree it doesn't have to be with this abusive idiot like why i mean it doesn't have to be like this and she was like i actually can't agree with that because i have no idea what your sister needs to learn in this lifetime and neither do you do you know what's really going on for you and i was like no obviously and she i said clue me and you know she said you have worked really hard to create internal peace for yourself and your sister's dumpster fire of a life is really messing with that piece so what you really want is to tie that up in a bow so you can be internally peaceful which you can't because you're so codependent with your sister what's happening to her feels like it's happening to you but it's not and i was like oh my god and when i really thought about it because prior to that i was like you know me i'm just a lover i really like to think of myself as mother teresa right like it's all from this loving place that there was so much clarity in that moment that it was really a bid for control because her messed up life was messing up my piece and she said now from that perspective now how do we problem-solve and i was like i step back until she wants help or we'll get away from this idiot and that'll help her she's like correct i step back i tell my sister hey i love you but i can't listen to you telling me the same horrendous crap every day about this guy but if you ever want to make a change i'm still your person and about nine months later she called me and she's like hello i'm ready i was like great i'm getting in my car and that was that and she went back to school and got sober and all of the things that came from that were not because of me because i centered myself in my sister's problem they were because my sister was ready to change and to grow and to commit to a different life and when you think about how narcissistic it really is or self-important to be like but i really know what you should do of course that wasn't how i meant it i didn't think i had a choice i thought i had to do it because she was my sister but this is what codependency looks like and the truth about what we're doing that bid for control really is hard so what can you do instead right that was the longest way around the barn to get back to your question which is what can we do instead part of it is your awareness right i build all of my work on these five pillars of self-mastery a transformation that i created in the first is self-awareness so you cannot shift anything that you are unaware of right that's obvious and then we move into self-knowledge like why am i this way and then there's self-acceptance self-compassion and then self-mastery but this beginning phase of awareness is really important so what does that require it requires you to become radically curious without judgment you know deepak would say become the observer without judgment and this is like the highest sort of of your own evolution that you get curious and go huh well my friend called me with a problem did i immediately jump into action or was i able to stop and say to my friend hey before i weigh in if you want my opinion because if they're used to coming to you they do want your opinion but you don't need to give it what do you think what does your gut say listen you you know better than anyone what's right for you so i'm here to brainstorm it but what is your gut like there's a way that we can trust that the people in our life um are responsible for themselves whether they know what to do or not but it's not people that we love right it's like we're managing people instead of relating to them in this love way that make sense yeah absolutely and that's so beautiful um way of framing i'd actually love to i'm so specific it's like okay what did you say so with your sister for instance everything you just said is beautiful and asking someone what does your gut tell you what are you feeling i totally understand that and now i'm envisioning a scenario which i think we all know these people where it's the same problem that repeats and they don't want to look at themselves and like you were saying with your sister where you came to this conclusion of oh i'm you know co-dependent it's not good for either of us how did you overcome the guilt because i think that's so huge when it comes to boundaries that we feel guilty that maybe we're abandoning them like in those moments if you have your sister who you love to beat and who maybe is very emotional and when you say i can't deal with this anymore or you know did you go through any guilt did you go through any worry of abandonment does she approach you with abandonment because then what did we say in those situations where we can have the strength to stick by the boundary that we're trying to lay out well all good questions and of course i had guilt because i had been such an over functioner so to actually draw that boundary that very difficult emotional boundary was incredibly hard but she knew why i was doing it and when you know i just said listen i love you and you staying in this abusive situation is too painful for me i can't continue because it is disrupting my life so much so if you want to change i'm here i love you but i can't be a part of this because it is so dysfunctional and painful and she's like i love you too and i understand now she understood and part of her i think was relieved in a way that i was going to back off and then you know she was in it for nine months before she came out of it and of course i was worried hey maybe she's never coming out of it i don't know right but it wasn't just that it was my right to not do it it is wrong emotionally to think that we have the answers for others think about it this way when i was doing all these quick fixes for my sister giving money going to help finding a place for her to live whatever all of those things what i was doing is i was lessening the the pain that would inspire her to change you were saying you have a friend who calls and talks about the same crap but never like ever changes and doesn't want to look at herself just wants to keep talking that's the same thing because you get off the phone with that friend and that friend feels lighter she's like wow elise i always feel so much better after talking to you you get off the phone and you feel like someone barfed toxic waste on you because they did so you're absorbing that energy they feel better so now the pain the suffering that would inspire them to find their own solution we are literally lessening that likelihood of them doing that if we continue to be a band-aid on this gaping wound that needs more than a band-aid right but he buys more time and as soon as i knew that me doing that was really colluding with her lowest self i was like oh yeah i'm done like i'm not colluding with the addicted part of her anymore i have faith she can get it together i really think that she can get sober if she wants to but not if i'm here you know doing all the things so she doesn't feel the pain of her choices right these are choices and i don't think addiction is a choice i mean i'm recovering myself so it's not it's no blame in that but choices right you're choosing to stay wow that's so strong and where's the fine line between then obligation and um a choice because i think a lot of us do feel the obligation and we don't realize it's a choice to then switch that well part of it is question your downloaded blueprint question why you feel obligated is it because your mother made you feel obligated because you were the oldest kid and you know you take care of your family as everything and if you don't do this then you're wrong i mean you come from a very strong culture where family is all the things being greek it's like every country culture and family system itself has all of these cultural norms of the right way to be you were indoctrinated into these beliefs and maybe some of them stay and maybe a lot of them don't and you have a choice to and you know you you yourself you're a good example because you are an outside the box thinker so people are like you don't want to having kids and you're like because i don't i want to you're able to own like hey i'm not less than because of that but if you didn't have such a strong sense of self or hadn't done the work that you've done that might make you feel ashamed that might make you feel bad or you might have kids even though you don't want to like that's how strong and how deep those um that that what we call a corrupted data runs in order to be lovable you must um behave this particular way yeah which is just simply not true yeah i definitely was told that growing up that i would end up um a wife and kit you know having um kids and i never really questioned it and so that was where like the obligation i think came in was like of course i'm gonna do it like you know my parents have been telling me my whole life until i decided that i didn't want any and i had to question that i had to set boundaries with my family because no matter how many times i'm sure many people can relate no matter how many times you may actually even say something out loud it took me time to get the courage to say it and then say it out loud and even when i did i still got people asking me even when i said i've decided to not have children i would get my family and my dad and my mom saying you know oh but you know life isn't you know worth living if you don't have children and so i ended up having to set that boundaries like can you please stop trying to persuade me because it's taking away almost the um the power of me saying i am not going to have it because it is insinuating you can now persuade me to change my mind right but this is a boundary issue so this is really it's an emotional and or a mental boundary issue so you made a decision you know how you feel you know what you think and you've been super clear about your boundary and then you have we call them repeat offenders who just keep on coming back to trample on that boundary one more time it's like the person who you say absolutely not i don't want to do the thing i'm not doing the thing i had a client who had this experience and literally as she's leaving this party or wherever she was that she had to like emphatically say no many times with this person they were like okay so why don't you just take tonight when you sleep on it and we'll talk tomorrow she's like oh my god what part of no do you not understand and that is a boundary violation because someone is forcing attempting to wear down your no that's a boundary violation change your mind after you've said please don't a boundary violation there too when you think about what we learned right as little girls what was it be good right be a good girl smile turn that frown around right don't be a troublemaker don't stir the pot and it's all about giving to others also where if you're a good girl or if you grow up to be a good woman you know what is what is embodies femininity is all about self-sacrifice all about self-sacrifice which who wants that you know that that's not what it's all about but yet it is what we learned and so when you think about boundaries think about them as a language and you wouldn't feel bad if you weren't fluent in like mandarin just because you really wanted to be right you would know oh i if i want to be fluent in mandarin here are things i need to do steps i need to take people i need a guide i literally need a step-by-step process and you wouldn't expect to be fluent after doing that for like two hours you would know it takes time this is the same thing where we always start small with everything when it comes to boundaries is that we never tackle like the boundary bullies or the boundary destroyers in our life it's like the low priority people where we just if you're someone who they get your order wrong when you go out and you normally would say that's fine i'll eat it i don't care it doesn't matter just send the friggin salad back and get the salad that you want right just just send it back because it's about you when you think about what what are boundaries these are like your own personal rules of engagement and we share them with other people because it tells them what's okay with us and what's not okay with us and that means you must know your preferences your desires your limits and your deal breakers because those are the things that not only make up your boundaries they also make up who you are your preferences desires limits deal breakers lisa they're unique to you mine are unique to me we are all so different just like our fingerprints right or our dna it's very similar most people don't know their own preferences desires limits and deal-breakers people who identify as women in particular don't know because we're so busy i can tell you what everyone else's preferences are every person in my life i know what they eat what they're allergic to what they do and don't like all the things you know when i would have um women come into my therapy practice and i would say okay like in the beginning like so what brings you joy that would just be one of the questions and they i would say honestly nine times out of ten they would say i don't know i gotta be honest i never really thought about it i'm like okay well now it's time to think about it maybe we can think about it now because they're so busy becoming an expert on all the people in their life but all of that over giving over functioning overdoing that abandonment of self that can only lead to one place which i hate to say it's like a one-way ticket to bitter land but it is because you will only be angry eventually you can do it for a long time and then you're pissed and think about all these moms like i have friends who are like oh my mom is such a martyr blah blah blah well you don't think that that mom when she was 20 was like i can't wait to grow up and be a martyr i mean right that's so true she didn't think that was going to happen yeah but it does because if you are self-sacrificing because it's a way to keep people attached to you because that's what codependency really is that is driven by fear not actually driven by love so if you're kind of being counting the stuff that you do for everyone if you feel that people are not appreciative enough of all of your efforts you want a question like am i giving because i'm afraid if i don't i'll be rejected i'll be judged i'll be kicked out of the pack like what is the fear because if you're giving from love you're not being counting right you're giving because you want to not because you're like i'm keeping score now you owe me you know what i mean right yeah i've got an amazing quote of yours um giving is love over giving is dysfunctional yeah it is and i think that you know at least part of this thing about self-love because self-love is such a um an important part of what i write about in the book like it's less of a feeling let's say and it's more of a way of life that is evidenced in your relationships your boundaries your self-care right how well you negotiate for your own needs that is what self-love is because it's it's action it isn't a feeling it's like how are you relating to yourself because if you put everyone above yourself if you are last on your own list if you have a terribly negative inner voice that's so mean and caustic to you then you are literally setting the bar in your life you will inevitably attract others who agree with that low self-assessment and when you feel good about yourself live self-love you are setting the bar higher and you will inevitably attract folks who think that that is how worthy you are but it all rises or falls based on how you feel about yourself and so i would have clients who were like looking for love in all the wrong places because they were looking for self-love in love with others and i'm like they're not the same and this place that we have every single one of us has this inside of us this place that only self-love can fill no amount of overworking no amount of love from others can fill this particular spot within us so it really is a a worthy cause to get fall madly and deeply in love with yourself and question these limiting beliefs about oh don't get a big head and if you fall madly and deeply in love with yourself then you're conceited or you're selfish that really isn't true but if you are not rocking this kind of self-love where you're taking care of yourself first you really don't have that much to give to others because what we're seeking from others they cannot provide because it is a inside job you know it's so beautiful because um i think you even said something along the lines of we think of boundaries as saying no and pushing people away but actually it's about keeping our inner peace inside of us and that was such a beautiful way of um flipping the perspective of boundaries because i do think that going back to the guilt thing that we were talking about if we can see it as this is good for you and this isn't about being mean or pushing people away but this is for your future your sanity your happiness like i just think that allows us to take a step forward if we don't necessarily feel like we have the confidence yet to set that boundary it it i think you're right and flipping the the meaning or flipping the view on that it is the most loving thing that you can ever do because what is it to establish healthy boundaries in your relationships it's really about allowing the people in your life to authentically know who you are when you're saying yes when you really want to say no that isn't being nice that's just being dishonest so how can anyone ever authentically love you if you never allow them to authentically know you i've never thought of it like that oh my god that's so amazing that's so true again going back to perspective i'm always trying to think about what are the reasons why people don't set boundaries in the first place and what is the thing that holds us back and everything you're saying in just flipping the way that we think about it to me really does allow them the space to want to do it with grace versus like for me when i was first setting boundaries i was like all right you've got to have the strength you've got to go in like a ball you're going to have to draw the hard line right and it's like because i didn't have enough confidence to set it and keep it so i thought if i go in with aggression maybe i can't be bullied out of it yeah um obviously it was a terrible strategy but it was the first thing that i needed in order to just get started and so everything that you've just said allows i think people to really get started with um without the aggression that i came in and had originally it's normal though like like what you're saying right we go from the pendulum always swings like that are they were too porous that's what we call them boundaries that are too loose and then you swing over here and it's too rigid but through time and repetition you realize that there is a healthy place in between and i think that for people watching or listening if you're like but i don't even know where to start you do though so why don't we just start with stopping the auto yes why don't we just start with that if you're someone who's a people pleaser and this won't speak to everyone but it will most likely speak to quite a a big majority of people listening if you're a people pleaser or if you sort of just are an insta yes person when someone's like can you do this or would you do this we're gonna stop doing that because we need to stop doing that so moving into um what do you do instead right and you can buy time you can literally buy time that is what you're going to do instead so you're just going to say oh hey i just need to get back to you in this period of time or that period of time i need to check with my partner my roommate whoever it is that is what you're doing because if you can stop the immediate yes it is so much easier to come back and say no if that's what the answer is so when we give the immediate yes to crap we really want to say no to then what happens oh then we find a way to get out of it we get a migraine i'm sorry i just got a migraine because i can't come right like we end up being that the person that people really can't count on because we can't deal with telling the truth and you know what if you say yes when you really want to say no no offense but you're actually not really emotionally trustworthy you're not a trustworthy person because i know my friends who are people pleasers i love them and when they say i'm definitely going to be there i think in my mind there's a 50 chance she's going to do that and the people i feel say this with are the people who when they say they're going to do something i'm like oh yeah she doesn't say yes unless she's really in i don't have to double check there's not going back and forth it's just no i have a great story in the book about a close friend of mine elizabeth and i got in touch with her i was like hey do you want to go to honduras or wherever i was going for something and she's like i know i hate it i hate hot weather i hate the sand i hate sun no but thanks i hope you have a great time like she wasn't even like oh i wonder if she's gonna be upset like she was just like no i don't like it great it didn't make me think she doesn't like me right she doesn't like hot weather that's her right and she's someone i can trust because she's not a bullshitter so you actually mention the types of boundaries i'd love to go through the categories and the types because um i think that would be super useful for people to once you said identify and now start to pass out what type of boundary they then need to put into place right so we have categories so there's categories of boundaries and then sort of styles of boundaries so the categories are we start with physical boundaries which is all about your physicality who can touch you how um how much personal space you need so think about a close talker when you have someone who's like you you step back and they step forward and you're like hey man you eventually will say something but some people don't mind a close talker right so it's again it's all very um unique to you so underneath the physical boundaries is also sexual boundaries which is what is okay for you sexually do you have unsafe sex if you don't then that's a boundary that you need to put in place and a boundary violation there is someone touching you in any way without your permission massaging your shoulders even if someone thinks you should be um flattered by the attention it's for you to decide whether that's okay or not and then we have material boundaries and that's how you relate to your things so you may you know lend your car to people you may not you may lend money to people you may not you may like your car to be very clean and if your cousin comes in your car and leaves a bunch of crap around that is a material boundary violation and there's nothing wrong with you wanting your car to be clean right and it's okay to say to your cousin hey man when you leave take your with you like you messed up my clean car i don't like that you know how i feel about my car so there's so many of us sorry in those situations just by our tongue and like okay make the mess like you dread it you know it's about to happen you bite your tongue when it's happening they leave and then you like swear under your breath as you're cleaning up yep exactly what we do is we just put it in that file cabinet right you know the file cabinet of resentment it was just another reason why cousin bob is an there you go just putting it in the file cabinet and maybe one day i'll use it but we don't forget those violations and when you can just say it it's so liberating because you're not accumulating so much resentment right because when you can't say it you are accumulating resentment then we have emotional boundaries which is knowing what like how you feel and knowing that how other people feel is their responsibility so when you have healthy emotional boundaries you're not easily guilted by others you also don't blame others for your life your choices what you've done yeah can you give us an example there because i think we um we do that without realizing well i think that anything that we're upset about like we will say this person like made me feel a particular way and the truth is people don't really make us feel we feel what we feel based on such an array of different factors now it doesn't mean maybe they did use a harsh tone with you but instead of blaming it's more about stepping forward and saying hey i'd like to make a simple request that you back up with that tone i feel like it's really aggressive and it's really hard for me to hear what you're saying when you're talking in that way so if you want to take a time out i'm happy to do that but we say something instead of being like how i feel is that person's responsibility we tell them we negotiate for our needs which is to not allow someone to talk to us in a tone that makes us feel degraded or whatever that scenario might have been right so that is emotional boundaries and then you have mental boundaries which is what you think and your opinion on things and if you have healthy emotional boundaries you can hold on to what you think even if you're with others who don't think like you who think different than you you also don't take it super personally if they don't think like you so those are the categories and then as i said before then we look at how does the dysfunction show up is it porous boundaries which means that they're too loose so in the boundary archetype stuff that's more like a peacekeeper or a pushover or a chameleon right someone who suddenly sort of just takes on the thoughts and feelings of the people they're around um so that's too loose the healthy boundaries of course are right in the middle and then over here are boundaries that are too rigid where it's like in some ways an overreaction it is the person who's like hey man my way or the highway that is a disordered boundary because it's too rigid right you can't work with other people if that is what you say if you have rigid boundaries you're way more likely to cut someone out of your life than you are to tell them what they did that hurt your feelings you're just like done with you why because you don't have the capacity really probably emotionally to work it out but it's this very um it's a reactive way of being so there we go those are the categories and then those are the types that's amazing and lydia was about to ask you what's the difference between a rigid boundary and a non-negotiable boundary that's a perfect question so let's look at what is the difference if you are throwing down a rigid boundary you are not really having a conversation you you have decided that this person did something you don't like and you're like it's like here's the extreme of what it is if a non-negotiable means that there's something that you cannot abide by in your life that it is a deal breaker right it threatens the relationship you're in when i was dating before i've been with my husband 25 years but when i was dating back in the day when i was a talent agent one of my friends was um setting me up with people and i said this is way long before there was like tinder or any of that [Laughter] i said hey i remember the days girl don't worry that's what i'm talking about i said hey i and i also don't want to date anyone in recovery now not because i'm judging because i was in recovery and i was like hey one addict in a relationship is enough for me that's my choice and she was all like i don't understand that's so judgmental why would you do that i was like hey man you don't have to understand see that's my deal breaker that's my choice and you don't have to understand and this is true about your boundaries too so people may say you shouldn't feel that way that is an emotional boundary violation right that is someone trampling on your boundaries so you have every right to have deal breakers and then we have an obligation to share what they are because if we keep our deal breakers to ourselves and our relationships then how is the other person going to know what the problem is or what what we're talking about but we also need to tell the person the other person what is non-negotiable and sometimes that means relationships end right sometimes that's what that means but at least you're not abandoning yourself in that process because in relationships where we are readily abandoning ourselves we will eventually either leave the relationship or just be miserable yeah because that's so true because when i first met my husband i just told him my non-negotiables and i told him like i wasn't great at setting boundaries it wasn't it wasn't like i had this confidence it was more oh if i don't tell him and he does it but because it's non-negotiable for me my relationship's over so set this set the relationship up for success and lay out the things that are important to you and so for me it was if he ever cheated on me i would literally be out the door he wouldn't even have time to explain to me what happened i would pack my bags and i would be out and the same if he ever laid a finger on me abusively there would just be no explanation those are my two and i just laid them out from the beginning in order for us to both know um how we can make this relationship succeed but sometimes it really is hard to set to the negotiables especially if it's like family members like when it's a partner you're going to break up with them but it's a whole different world if you set non-negotiables for parents and i have a lot of my audience ask me a lot about how to set those boundaries with parents when in fact let's answer that first and then what if someone becomes a regular offender of that well there has to be a consequence if someone is a regular offender right so in the book i teach you about a proactive boundary success plan so these are steps that we take before we have a boundary conversation especially if we're talking about our parents or siblings or you know people who you've had long relationships with so you know them you know if your father is super crabby before he has his coffee in the morning then you're probably not going to have this conversation at 7 am like you want to set yourself up to be successful and then you come up with what is that what are going to be the words that you're going to say and in the book i give you probably i don't even know a million boundary scripts for every scenario from like leaving a cult to i mean literally i hit them all so you can look in there you can definitely find something you can use and a lot of it are just sentence starters because that's what we need we need like how do i approach it you can start with gratitude right you can start by saying you know how much i love you and that's why i need to make a simple request that you when you want to come over to my house even though we're close that you text me and ask me if it's convenient because when you use the key a it startles me but b i'm dead you don't know i could be running around naked so can we agree that if you're going to come over during the day you will a ask me if it works and b not use your key now so what do you do if and this is a real this is a real situation with one of my clients that she moved close to home and the parents even though she said please stop coming over without warning they were like oh come on it's fine it's just us they kept doing it and then she told them hey if you keep doing this i will change the locks and they were like oh this ridiculous jacket angelox she changed the locks and they were not they they weren't mad mad because she had warned them and they had been violating her boundary but from that point forward she said you know you guys you could have disrespected what i asked of you and instead i had to you know spend 400 bucks to change all my locks and now i really need for you to do this and they actually did but sometimes it takes a consequence right that consequence was them not be you know jamming it in and having it not work and being like wow she's really serious about this and she was so i think that it depends on what boundary violations are happening it depends on if the family system is toxic or not these are two really important parts because if you're talking about having a narcissistic mother or anything that i've talked about about the normal and healthy way of setting boundaries does not apply if you're talking what would you do in that situation then if you do have a narcissistic parent oh step back yeah step back you know there are a lot of psychotherapists who will will say you know you can change that relationship but i've seen the damage that allowing a narcissist to be close to you especially when narcissist and again those are two extremes because if someone just has narcissistic tendencies and they're not really diagnosable they could change but you have to say hey you know whatever i'd like to make a simple request that's one way of putting it or i wanted to bring it you know get it on your radar um i wanted to talk to you about what happened last wednesday how i wanted to let you know how i felt and again when we are communicating we're always sticking to our side of the street we are so clear that we are not using you we are not pointing fingers we are not making sweeping generalizations when you talk about yourself this was my experience who can say no it wasn't i mean somebody might try but generally speaking when someone says hey this is what happened for me i'm not saying that was your intention but i want you to know that you being late really made me feel unimportant so i just want you to know that because i love you and i don't want it to keep happening right we're telling people how we feel so we're not adding stuff to that file cabinet god i love that so much and giving people words to start the conversation like it's so powerful to me because i can't get out of my own way of how my thoughts are spinning in my head i just can't and so i go okay i'm not gonna let that stop me so what are the things i can do what tools can i use in order to still set the boundaries because i know long term it's good for me and so having things like that the phrases that allow me to start the conversation is so powerful and one of the things that i started to do was saying to people that i love i'm really struggling with and this is how you can help because again i used to come in that like you're doing this wrong and like anything it's just like when you're telling someone that they're doing something wrong what are they going to do immediately defend themselves and so i had to change the strategy and find words that would help um and so that thing you just said was so beautiful in giving people that opening sentence to be able to you know start the discussion and and another thing lisa is that we never want to say to someone we need to talk because nobody ever wants to talk to you when you are i just i just scared myself if anyone says we need to talk you're like oh my god no way so you come in with those defenses already up correct of course you've warned them you've told them to put their defenses up so we love to do it in a neutral way part of the the proactive boundary success plan is visualizing it going well and when i say going well i don't mean controlling what they do i'm not talking about them i'm talking about you being the baller that you are having the courage to negotiate for what you want and telling the truth because that is where your healing is your healing is insane what i think matters how i feel matters because i matter and if other people go oh you're i don't like your new boundaries or i don't like what you're doing we learn a lot about people when we start to put boundaries in place and you will find that some people are very flexible and appreciative for the intel about you and then some people are all offended and you know you you will have data to make some decisions in your life but nothing can be more important than your relationship with yourself and that healing by standing up is just so profound i love it and you actually said um a little earlier about staying in your lane um can you talk to me more about that because i believe you give a story in the book where it's like us overstepping other people's boundaries because that's also important right if we want people to respect our boundaries and really um embrace them we need to be giving the gift that we want and so you talk about staying in our lane can you talk to me a bit about that i'm laughing a little bit because it is so classic that all the over givers right and when i was an overgiver anyone who had boundaries and wasn't doing what i was doing just like laying themselves out for anyone i would be like oh she is so entitled she is such a like i cannot believe she said no after everything i've done for her i mean that she didn't ask me to do but i'm still holding it against her so it's a great point that you bring up of how do we keep our side of the street clean which means we don't just learn how to say no we learn how to accept someone else's no and talk about that and try to have healthy emotional boundaries and not take it all so personally if they don't do what we want them to do so and this is also a process and you can say hey i'm struggling as you said i'm struggling right now with that but i respect your right to choose and if we want others to respect our right to our boundaries we have to also you know you give as good as you get we have to also be able to do that for others and i feel like especially as you're you're moving away from codependency it is really hard because codependents are you know we're like giving advice auto advice giving all around town and then we're like mad when someone doesn't take the advice that we didn't they didn't even ask us for like well if betty had just done what i said to do she wouldn't be in this house just pretend your own life codependent so we learn to move away from that but being able to accept and not center all of these things on ourselves is very humbling yeah and especially when it's someone that we love we was trying to fix them but sometimes in that fixing it makes them feel badly about themselves of course of course it does i remember a situation with my husband years ago where his rep at the time embezzled money from it was like a whole thing and i was ridiculously over the top i was calling lawyers i was going to get an entertainment laurie i was so so so so mad and i could see that the more hysterical i became about revenge and getting it from her and whatever i was doing he was becoming more and more almost like distraught and then i finally said to him hey babe how can i best support you right now because i really got like what i was doing was not it and he said you can trust that i will handle this and i probably won't handle it how you you fire area how you would handle it right but trust that i'm gonna get it done the way i need to get it done and i was like you got it i stepped off that situation and he handled the entire thing but that's a perfect example of you saying we're making the other people feel incompetent by being like i have a better idea you should do it this way that isn't how i would do it well who the free asked you it's not your life stay on your own side of the street and support the people that you love in finding their own answers because that really is love and it doesn't mean if your friend says hey i really would like your opinion it doesn't mean we never give our friends our opinion or our partners but that's specific that specific language vic my husband will say to me now okay so are you venting or am are we brainstorming like what what what would you know how can i best support you right now and i'll be like i'm just venting it's like okay good to know go like so he knows he's not going to be saying anything because i'm venting and those nuances of preferences because that's what they are that we share with the people we love deepens our into me our intimacy in such a profound way i love that i do that with my husband too because i would go into i just need to be heard and he would go into i need to fix it for you and so we would just end up butting heads and it's like hang on a minute we both are trying to you know he's trying to be sweet and kind um but i'm not perceiving it like that because it's not the the communication that i'm looking for right now in this moment yep um i've heard you say which is so fascinating about um indecisions and i never thought of it like this but i actually have a great quote of yours crippling indecision keeps us stuck in terrible situations long past the expiration date can you explain that because i never even thought twice about indecisions well indecision i've seen this in my therapy practice over and over and over when someone comes in and says you know i just can't decide what to do in my relationship i'm so torn i'm like you're not torn you don't want to know what you already know because you don't think you have the skills to extricate yourself it's so scary that it's it's almost like your mind will play a trick on you and be like well here's the pros and here's the cons another thing about staying in indecision is that it's a way to a not make decisions so you don't have to deal with the fallout of making decisions right because you're staying in the in between the holding pattern of not yes not no but there's something about that that life makes the decisions for you right so if you stay in a decision and you don't decide you are deciding so that person who would say to me i'm torn about the relationship in her not making the decision to leave that torn-ness was basically a decision to stay so i always say look at the secondary gain right which is the unobvious gain you get by staying stuck so how do we know what that is what what what are you gaining right so with that client i could say what is she what is she gaining out of being in indecision in her relationship and the question you ask to decipher that is what do i get to not face not feel or not experience by staying stuck here so in her case when she could finally answer the questions i get to not face the state of my relationship i get to not feel terrified of having a conversation i don't know how to have right i get to avoid that but then we look at but what do you lose what do you lose right and you know of course that we got to what do you lose is you lose the option of finding healthy love that you really want to be in having a relationship with yourself that isn't all about codependency so there's a lot of things but i feel like that secondary game that one question um is so powerful no matter where you are stuck in your life if you can reveal the unobvious gain you're getting unconsciously by staying stuck it makes it so much easier to get unstuck terry terry your book is so freaking amazing everything we've spoken about today has been so powerful i love bringing new thoughts new ideas new growth into my own life and so how you've broken down boundaries and really identified the trouble that we get ourselves into so beautiful where can people find you and buy your amazing book you can go to well terrycole.com you can also get the book at boundarybossbook.com i have a ton of uh bonuses that i'm still giving out for people um if you want to take the boundary quiz just go to boundaryquiz.com and get your archetype and i guarantee you at least i already know yours i'm not going to say it you're going to take it and you're going to tell me i'm curious okay that's the deal we're going to do that on instagram i'm just terry cole and i have the terry cole show which is a podcast i've had for the last almost seven years amazing guys guys you've got to go check out this book when i said i couldn't put it down there was so many like it's like old so go buy the book check out this woman she's doing fire work set boundaries in your life have the life you want don't allow people to push you around take ownership and until next time be the hero of your own life peace out guys you

Channel: Lisa Bilyeu

Views: 182,138

Keywords: women of impact, woman of impact, lisa bilyeu, tom bilyeu, impact theory, quest nutrition, motivation, inspiration, Terri Cole, Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, women, women empowerment, interview, q&a, business advice, advice for women, tips for women, podcasts, set boundaries, self-love, boundaries in relationships, boundaries in dating, boundaries at work, codependency, people pleaser, people pleasing, how to say no, feeling exhausted, feel overwhelmed, types of boundaries

Id: 4QaCHFmP08M

Length: 60min 5sec (3605 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 23 2022