Explosive Boundaries? How to Respond Instead of React - Terri Cole

well hello have you ever been in a conversation with someone and before you know it they're actually screaming at the top of their lungs and you're kind of shocked by this explosive response or have you ever had a boss who the moment they felt their Authority was threatened they start name calling and cursing at people have you ever had this experience my name is Terry Cole I'm a licensed psychotherapist a relationship expert and I am the founder of the real of Revolution and the upcoming boundary boo boot camp in today's episode we're going to be handling people who have explosive boundaries how can you respond instead of react right someone who just torches The Village how can you not get burned in that experience many of you have been writing into me from the YouTube channel and from the podcast and this is one of the things that you asked me to do a video on so I'm doing a video on it so let's start with a lot of the work that I do you guys and you know this people who have explosive personalities you're drawing these people into your life people who are trampling all over your boundaries in an explosive way but you're attracting them for a reason so let's talk about your blueprint because that's the first experience that we need to get clear about is what is your own boundary blueprint around rage and explosive anger what is your experience because if you don't understand your own history because we all respond differently when someone is an explosive personality so if you grew up in a home where someone was a an explosive personality like one of your parents then this will shake you to the core in a different way and I grew up in a home where nobody was allowed to be angry so I also am very um avoidant of people who have this who have explosive ways of um expressing themselves when they're angry or when they feel threatened so that's basically what we're going to be covering so there's a few questions that I'm going to ask you how was it was there anyone in the home that you grew up in who had this explosive way of being in the world and this explosive um either reaction to your boundaries like if you didn't do exactly what they wanted you to do um or to get their own way they used this this like very hot-headed explosive volatile way of being in relationship to you because when you can identify um where you have felt this way before and again we're always going to look at the boundary um blueprint and we're always going to ask the three cues which is let's say you're dealing with a boss who's explosive in this way you're going to ask the three cues who does this person remind me of where have I felt like this before and why is this Dynamic familiar to me and don't worry there's going to be a downloadable cheat sheet so all the cues that you need to ask yourself will be right in that cheat sheet but I just want you to think about it as we're moving through this episode today because I really want you to get the most out of it that you possibly can because the person who wrote in to ask me to do this was actually referring to a boss that she has who is super unhealthy in many ways but the way that he dominates the people in the company is by freaking out in the meetings and instead of having a conversation so she described this whole interaction that they had where had something to do with sales and the boss was saying we should cut them off stop stop doing any work on this on them right now like no more work for them and you know the people who were actually interacting with that client were like well you know we we have a few things that we can do before we torch The Village basically and she was describing that the moment that the boss felt like his authority was in some way being threatened he just freaked out started cursing and was like you know you guys are all just sitting on your asses a lazy bunch of s sobs blah blah blah um you just don't want to do the work to to figure this out you don't care if we lose this everyone get the hell out of here this meeting is over and she was like okay not only is that so stressful but of course it's not productive and so I wrote back to her saying hey also look at your own you know ask the three cu's and of course her father is a very similar personality to her boss so she started to understand more deeply that it was so um threatening to her his behavior was so because it was so familiar and when we have these unresolved wounds from childhood as an adult really you could be your adult self and yet you're still reacting like the 5-year-old or the 10-year-old of course which is not going to be like you're you know you're not going to come up with your best problem solving material when you're feeling stuck in that young age so we're handling your boundary blueprint around explosive boundary drawers and rageful people so that'll be one thing and next I want to talk to you about our natural human flight or fight response so as human beings right this was a very Primal and instinctive way that we would respond as humans and we still do to a degree to feeling threatened now you know back in the day when there actually might have been a sabertooth tiger about to bite your head off this was a very adaptive response response which means that our bodies start to prepare when we feel threatened our bodies start to prepare to protect ourselves so depending on what your experience is you may feel very threatened by this explosive boundary drawer in your life and you're going to feel some physical symptoms going on so what happens when we get into fight or flight well our our pupils dilate our um heart starts to beat faster a lot of the blood in our body will go to our limbs so that if we need to run we'll be able to if we need to fight we'll be able to we get very focused we might start to sweat a little bit we get um lots of hormones um and different um chemicals are secreted within the body and this is all I mean you know what it feels like when when adrenaline happens in your body have you ever been driving and suddenly the person in front of you just jams on their Brak and you quickly without thinking right we don't think we just respond and you jam on your break hopefully you don't hit the person in front of you and maybe you save yourself from being in an accident but now think about how do you feel physically after you've had that experience I usually feel exhausted like almost like my my arms and my legs feel like rubber or like a wet noodle kind of like I want to I've had that experience where I've actually pulled over on the side of the road way off the highway way on the side of the road but to just put my my hazards on and just breathe because I could almost feel laded like all of those chemicals surging through my body made me feel like I maybe I was going to faint you know so anyway I'm I'm talking about the fight ORF flight response to you because I want you to be a be aware that if you're feeling really threatened with these explosive boundary drawing people in your life you're having a response now what is your body doing your body is really there's only two things that we're going to do in that moment when we're really feeling threatened is that we're going to fight or flee that's it that's what your whole body all those changes the central nervous system gets involved right your brain has already sent it a whole bunch of messages about what we need to be doing right that your adrenaline glands start producing these hormones and pulsating it through your body cortisol and and adrenaline and there's a whole bunch of other things that start going going through the system your breathing becomes more rapid now now think about when you whether it's the woman who wrote to me about her boss she was having a very physical reaction because another thing with someone who's explosive is that you're always walking on eggshells you don't know what boundary either they're going to explosively cross of yours or that you somehow stepped on and you don't even you don't even know why they're freaking out but that they are and so this creates a certain amount of hypervigilance right we're in this um elevated state of awareness of danger and so I want you to be aware of this because the truth is that there's some really great um things that you can do to calm yourself down because you have to be able to make the distinction between this is unpleasant but it's not the same as someone holding a 22 to my head and your body may not know the difference so I'm going to actually share a really great um download with you from one of my best friends who is a Brilliant Energy um she's an Energy Medicine uh practitioner anyway so she's got something that's called sedating triple warmer so I'm going to share a link in our download to that for you because I use it with my clients all the time and if you haven't been turned on to her work her name is Lara from the Lara touch that is the name of her website and she just has tons of she's like me puts out a ton of free content in the world and it's really really great and I think it will really help you so I will um give you a link to that because being in this heightened state of fight ORF flight a lot is really bad for your health it's really bad for your heart it all that cortisol can make you uh hold on to fat in a way that you probably don't want to can create this crazy pop belly from being stressed all the time I read that I was like reason number one to not be in fight ORF flight all the time who the hell wants a pop belly I do not anyway moving on so we got that um hold on what else did I want to tell you guys ah so the two things so now now we have step one and two which is being aware of your blueprint and being aware of your own fight ORF flight response moving on to step three so let's say now you're in the situation with the boss you have to stay calm because this this is the reframe on it for you when that person starts to freak out I want you to imagine someone who is in the in the midst or in the in the basically their rage their fear has them in a headlock now it's unfortunate if it's your boss but that's really what's happening it's like a child having a temper tantrum so if you've ever had a child if you have any kids if you have any nieces or nephews you know that when a kid is having a temper tantrum nothing will H you there's no there's no way that you can reason with them when they've already like slipped down that rabbit hole of losing their minds you could you could be like stop or you're going to be in trouble they do not care they cannot stop so no first of all likening whoever this person is sort of to a kid because there in a almost like a semiconscious state like when they're almost blacking out it's kind of being in like a weird zombie mode or something right you can't do that as well because if two people are doing that no nothing good is going to happen so you've got to stay calm and I'm not saying give this person a pass and listen there's one set of rules if it's your boss and listen I don't think you should put up with from anybody I really don't like out of control disrespectful no I don't think you should but I also don't think you know we're not all in a position to be able to like quit our jobs or tell our bosses to f off so in your personal life though I really don't think you should put up with any so if you have a partner who's very explosive you don't deserve someone losing their mind and calling you names or being disrespectful or blaming you you really don't deserve that but in the moment in that moment while the person has already flipped that switch to rage you're most likely the the real thing we want to do is contain that situation so you have to stay calm breathe right you you can't match their energy because you know we're moving on to step four so stay calm is step three and step four is don't add fuel to the explosive fire because you don't want to torch the village of your relationship or your job of or whatever it is so just like the kid who's in a tantrum we would maybe give them a timeout so their feelings can settle now if it's your boss you clearly can't give them a timeout but but you can find a way to get yourself out of that situation right by by taking a deep breath so the way that you can effectively sort of interrupt that explosion especially if it's in your personal life is you can raise your voice a little bit and say the person's name so let's say it's a cooworker who's doing this or or a friend even right you can say Bob Bob take a time out Bob take a deep breath like sometimes saying the person's name can actually sort of somehow stop the their descent into that Rage or that Madness I I love I love making a hand signal this is me I can't do it cuz I'm holding my mic cuz my other freaking mic broke broke but you get the point you can do the timeout signal right you can do the timeout and say let's stop because no progress is going to be made right here right now right time out people if you give the timeout sign I mean everyone knows what that means no matter what they're doing right you can also say hey I'm here to be a part of the solution but not like this right to whatever whatever it is that they're flipping out about and you really have to also be aware if it if it is necessary for you to remove yourself from the situation to deescalate don't ask their permission don't ask them what they think you say I'm taking a break and I'll be back turn around and walk out the door they say don't walk away just keep walking just keep walking because staying when someone is in that state and it those other steps I just talked about are not actually doing anything staying is not good for you right so you you need to you know this gives everyone kind of a break so we can all maybe hit like the reset button on where it was but you also are drawing your own boundary that says if you become too explosive too hot or abusive I'm going to remove myself from the situation and then you have to do it consistently if it's a boss maybe we'll come up with a different way of doing it but I feel like for most of you who've written in you're really dealing with this in your personal life and then the fifth thing that I have for you and this will be my last idea is it's called the F the simple 10c count breathing exercise so it's step five and really you guys it's so simple it's just actually breathing and counting to tent that's pretty much it so let's say you walked away from that situation go somewhere where you can sit comfortably have your back straight if you can close your eyes if you have left lavender oil it would be great if you could bust that out and take a nice deep breath because it's very calming and all you're doing is silently in your mind counting your breaths very simply when you breathe in you're saying one when you breathe out you're saying one when you breathe in again you're saying two when you breathe out again you're saying two very simple your eyes are closed one 1 2 2 count all the way until you get up to 10 if you feel like that's enough then you can stop if you feel like you need another round do another round why do we do this because when you're in fight ORF flight it inspires this shallow breathing when you feel anxious you're breathing in a shallow way like I described when I almost hit that person back of their car and I slammed on my brakes that that feeling that I describe to you as being kind of faint like light headed like seeing spots a little bit that's part of that is because my fighter flight kicked in and I was breathing in a very shallow manner I pulled over so I could do this 10c count breathing exercise to get some oxygen back into the rest of my body before I moved forward so I hope that you found this episode helpful and if you did please share it with the people in your life share it on social media media get this out there so maybe the explosive boundary people in the world could look at it too and hey maybe you're one of them and if you are I'm going to do a follow-up video on this of how you can self soothe and not be that person who's exploding all the time because I know that you feel like a victim too that it's you who feels like you're in a headlock from your own rage and I don't blame you nobody has taught you and I promise you if you're willing to learn I'm willing to teach you so I want to make an announcement it's super exciting I want you guys you can click on your uh little cheat sheet below from today's episode but I also for the ladies I want you to click below so that you can actually I I created this groovy quiz so you can see about your own boundary style are you one of the six unhealthy boundary Styles like which boundary style do you fall into and then it's going to put you into my my free group and we're going to be doing the boundary boot camp challenge September 1st through the 7th we're going to be together every day in the Facebook group it's super exciting guys I'm sorry it's only for chicks that's I'm sorry it is but I'll still am doing all these videos that are totally applicable to you guys too so I can't wait for boundary boot camp challenge it's going to be so exciting I hope you guys did find this helpful and that you will use some of these tips and strategies to make your life better I hope you have an amazing week and as always take care of you

Channel: Terri Cole

Views: 33,344

Keywords: love, real love, real love revolution, terri cole, life coach, life coach nyc, relationships, communication, marriage, dating, codependency, narcissism, therapy, therapist, psychotherapy, psychology, psychologist, coach, abuse, self help, lisa a romano, growth, true love, career, success, relationship coach, life hacks, recovery, tune up tip, hello freedom, boundaries, setting boundaries, managing boundaries, work boundaries, relationship boundaries

Id: wcKxbiU58u0

Length: 19min 54sec (1194 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017