How To Set Boundaries with Difficult People

so here's a hard truth when you start setting healthy boundaries they are likely going to bring out the emotional immaturity of the people that you are setting those healthy boundaries with most often this happens most significantly with family with our parents and our siblings and that's often because they are the ones who be are being most impacted by our newfound boundaries so today we're gonna talk about why this is some things that they might do or say to try and pull you back in to get you to stop setting your boundaries why you might feel the pressure to just give up on the whole thing and what you can do about it so stay tuned this is a really real issue that comes up for a lot of us and I think you're gonna get a lot of really helpful things from this video today if you are new here welcome to our incredible little corner on the internet if you are new please do introduce yourself in the comments section below and if you're back again I am so glad to have you here either way my name is Julia Kristina and I am a registered clinical therapist a researcher a master coach and the creator of the breakthrough coaching program I have a master's degree in counseling psychology and I work to help heart center go-getter men and women breakthrough worry anxiety and self-doubt so that they can get out of their heads get into their lives and love themselves in their lives more so if you have been following me for a while you know that I talk a lot about boundaries on here because most of us don't even realize how essential healthy boundaries are for our health for our happiness for our confidence for our relationship with ourselves just for our overall like well-being in life often a lot of our problems are created because we don't have healthy boundaries especially if you are more empathic person if you are a highly sensitive person if you're a generous person if you are a caring person if you are a giving person if you are a high achiever if you're an overachiever all of these things if you are any of those or all of them then healthy boundaries are essential but the shadow side of starting to set healthy boundaries is that often the people around you will not like it so let's talk about this let's talk about why you get pushback when you start to set healthy boundaries and more specifically it often happens the most like I said with family because they've known you to be a certain way for the longest time and so if you can imagine that every family has its sort of way of being it's it's functional dysfunction and it's this system that works in this specific way whether healthy helpful or not it's just the way that it works because it's a way that it's always worked and sent out all of a sudden you've decided that you don't really want to do that anymore you don't want to be in the dysfunction anymore you want to do something different and so you pull yourself out of that kind of machine that that system that's been working in this certain way and you might be thinking I'm not doing anything to them I'm doing this for me and I'm taking care of myself why are they getting so worked up about it well it's because you have messed with the system you have pulled out of a piece out of that system and now the system has just gone totally haywire because there is a piece missing and it's almost that system is almost coming like crumbling down it's almost imploding in on itself because something has changed and the system the family you know I'm talking about your family here they don't like that it's uncomfortable for them as human beings we generally have a hard time with change let alone change that is imposed by something or someone else and you have imposed change that they didn't ask for that they don't necessarily want and so it's thrown that system into chaos it might also be that the system doesn't like the change because your family might be feeling like you are pulling away as you start to set boundaries they might be feeling like this this person's pulling away they're doing things differently we're losing them we don't know what to do we don't know what's happening we don't know what what this is going to look like and so the system is freaking out this isn't even necessarily conscious for them I'm not saying that they're sitting down and thinking about like I'm feeling really uncomfortable right now with so in those new boundaries they just know that something is different and they don't like it the system does not like it and so the system just in general wants to bring itself back to equilibrium it wants to bring things back to the ways it always was so that system it's going to fight hard to get you to come back in so that things can go back to the way they were before when the system knew what to do and how to be functional in its dysfunction so how do you get your family to understand your boundaries how do you get them on board with all of this and the hard truth is you can't at least not at first if one of the prerequisites for you to allow yourself to be able to set your healthy boundaries is that everyone around you has to be ok with them then it is gonna be a losing battle for you because like I said this is new for them they don't know what to do they don't know what is happening and so they are protesting whether conscious or not they are protesting they are not going to like it but that doesn't mean you're doing something wrong because that can really play in on us that that whole thing that whole feeling of you know if the people around me don't like what I'm doing that I must be doing something wrong but my friend that is not true that is not true the system is just trying to pull you back into the dysfunction and they are gonna say specific things and I'm gonna go over the specific things they're gonna say to you to try and coerce you to try and pull you back in to the system and I broke them down into three categories and I'm going to give you some examples you can also crowdsource you just let us know in the comments section below want some things people have said to you when you've tried to start setting boundaries and what they've tried what they've said to you to try and pull you back in and to try to get you to change your mind and to just sort of do away with this whole boundaries thing so the first category is criticism these are critical statements that they might say to you something like oh that's just ridiculous or no no no that's not how we do things around here or what's wrong with you or maybe it's something like you are so selfish or why are you being so difficult why are you trying to mess things up let me know in the comments section below has anyone ever said something like that to you when you've decided to start setting healthy boundaries and start listening to yourself and speaking up for yourself and doing things differently has anyone in your family ever said son like that or maybe it's been more on the realm of the guilt category so maybe they've said something like oh I thought you loved me or I thought you loved us or they said something like well I guess I failed you as a parent if you say anything like I don't like that please don't do that that's not okay with me I guess I failed you as a parent I guess I'm a terrible parent I guess I can't do anything right or maybe it's something like if you say no they say something like but I do so much for you or I never do that to you or maybe it's something like if I was that selfish how would anything get done or on the same vein what do you think would happen if the rest of us we're that selfish so that's our guilt category has have any of those ever come up for you when you've tried to set a boundary or you have set a boundary and this has been the response to it the next category is the ridicule category and this might be just point blank making fun of you oh you think you're better than us now oh you think you're holier than thou sitting up there on your pedestal and just like setting your boundaries and and saying yes that you're saying no to whatever you want and not thinking that you have to do anything that you just get to do whatever you want whenever you want or it's just as simple as not speaking from experience at all but oh tear goes Julia setting her boundaries again that actually came out of the mouth of one of my family members when I first started doing this work several years ago so it's not easy you are going to be tempted to throw in the towel and just say this is too hard I guess I'm a bad person I guess they're right right we get pulled back into those roles in our families where we start to think we start to make ourselves small again and put ourselves under that authority and start to think that they are right because they don't like it we become those children again instead of standing up and saying you know what like I am an adult now I am my own adult with my own life and my own choices and my own wants needs and preferences and it is up to me to connect with those and to communicate those as a responsible emotionally mature adult that is my job someone else's emotional immature response to that that is their responsibility that is up to them so again just know that they are unconsciously or maybe somewhat consciously but likely more unconsciously just trying to get you to change your mind and come back into the system to do away with these boundaries and just come back to the way you were before so that things can be the way they were before and they don't have to deal with the fear or an anxiety that comes from change from the unknown how things are gonna be what's gonna happen what they can expect how you're gonna be they don't have to deal with all that if things just go back to the status quo and if you can think a little bit like setting boundaries is like parenting a toddler I'm not calling your family that your families are all toddlers but it's it's to go with this whole behavioral this behavior modification principle that when you start setting boundaries with a toddler with a child - let's say you're in line at the grocery store and every time you've gone to the grocery store you've bought them a candy when you've been waiting in line and then all of a sudden you just decided you want to cut back on sugar you don't want your kids to be having so much sugar you don't think this is a good idea you've noticed it every time they leave the grocery store and they they're all sugared up they start acting crazy and fighting and MA and so you're like nope we're not gonna have any more candy at the grocery store and so the first time you do it the first time you're in line your child goes there just back to the way things always had they have and said can I have a candy and you say no they're gonna freak out a little bit and they're gonna push and they're gonna say no I want a candy mom get me a candy or dad get me a candy and you're gonna say no we're not having candy and then they're gonna start to get ramped up and they might even start having a full-blown tamp tantrum freaking out and flipping out because you have changed things you have changed the expectation no it doesn't mean that not buying your child candy is doing something wrong chances are it's probably doing something good for them if it's impacting their mood and their well-being and the amount of cavities in their teeth you're doing something good for them but at the moment they don't like it because this has changed because this is something that has messed with their expectation it's just their expectation if you had never bought your child candy and line up at the grocery store they wouldn't expect it they wouldn't freak out when you didn't give it because you never had so knowing that your family and just when people start to protest change it's just because they are freaking out because of that change they want things to go back they wanted the expectation that they've always had to be fulfilled and so what happens often is when there is this protest when there are these metaphorical orsten maybe even sometimes literal tantrum that happen with the people around us when we're setting boundaries is that we give in because we think we're being bad people just like the parent who gives in to the child having the having the tantrum because the parent doesn't want to be judged by other people seeing their screaming child or the parent starts to feel like a bad parent because their child's so upset even though that you they're not actually doing something wrong the child's just freaking out and being a little bit of a brat about the whole thing and so knowing that if you give in when the tantrum happens then that is just reinforcing the unhelpful behavior what you are saying is mine my my boundaries they're not firm they're not clear I don't actually so I'm gonna set them but then you can kind of say what you say and lay the guilt trips and be critical and be a jerk to me and I'm gonna buckle under that pressure and I'm gonna give in so that makes it even worse and it just makes it mean then next time you set a boundary they're just gonna do the same thing until you cave in and they might push harder and harder and harder because they know that likely if they push hard enough you're going to cave in so holding firm my friend holding firm to those boundaries knowing there's going to be pushback the first time the second time the third time maybe the tenth time they're still going to be pushed back but eventually they're going to understand that you are not messing around that this isn't just some thing you're just trying for now that this is your resolve that this is how you've decided you're going to live your life that you are going to be in charge of your own choices that you are going to be in charge of your own mind your own energy your own resources your own life they will either get on board or they will walk away it's true some people will not be able to handle you with boundaries it will bring up too much stuff in them or they will feel like if this person can't be and do an act and say and give what I want when I want how I want then I'm no longer interested in being in a relationship and if that is the truth as painful as it is especially with family then again it is like saying that they only value you for your yes and if that's the case then what kind of relationship is that chances are most people will get on board they will or at least they will accept Julia and her boundaries they will see that there's no alternative just this is the way that she is now this is these are the choices in the way that she's choosing to live now and they will adapt and adjust and I'm gonna tell you my clients and students who have taken my boundaries courses who have gone deep into this work who have made these changes made these transformations they'll tell you yeah at first it bring up this brings up discomfort it brings up discomfort internally because we're changing the way we do things and that brings up it you know opens up its own can of worms but then the backlash from the people around that brings up stuff too but every single one of them who has stuck with it who has not given in to the Tantrums they say this has changed my life I feel freer I feel fuller I feel happier I feel more in charge of my mind and my emotions and my life it is completely worth the work so stay with it my friend it's hard at first but the benefit and the outcome is completely worth it and give you a little bit of a backstory a little bit more around my own family my own journey with setting boundaries and oh yes I absolutely got the backlash got the comments got the pushback for them but I stuck with it and I said I and I stood firm in that and now it's funny because I see my own family they've seen the changes in me since I've been doing this work and a few people in my family have actually started realizing that a lot of their struggles were being caused because they didn't have healthy boundaries and so they've started setting their boundaries and they've started standing up and speaking up and connecting with themselves and living in alignment on the outside with what's going on on the inside and they are feeling so much happier and so much stronger and so much more empowered and so much freer themselves and I've had conversations especially with my siblings around this and actually I've seen my parents do it as well I've seen my mom be setting healthier boundaries and I've seen her feeling happier and freer and I've seen my siblings setting healthy boundaries healthier boundaries and I've seen them feeling better and they've also seen to be honest with you like they have been respecting my boundaries so much more so let them adapt and adjust stay strong in what you're doing let them adapt and adjust to the change it's not easy for them it's not easy for you but it doesn't mean that it's wrong it actually means that it's right so like I said if developing and establishing and knowing where your boundaries are and how to set them and what to do and all this stuff is coming up that's something that you do want to do more of a deep dive into I have a boundaries course an online course that you are going to love and get so much out of it is one of my most popular courses to date and so I'm going to put the link to that in the description below if this work this is work that you want to do more around you want to get more support and more information and more tools and resources to be able to do this to be able to stand up and stand strong and hold firm in your healthy boundaries so you can get everything that's waiting for you on the other side again I'll put the link below thank you so much for being here good for you for being willing to set healthier boundaries I hope now you feel more equipped for those of you who are like ready and maybe you've tried it before and you've gotten that push back and it's made you kind of back down and now you're like okay now it feels so much more empowered and I'm ready to do this let me know in the comments section below let me know how that journey is going let me know where you're at let me know if you are feeling more empowered Mountain now and more ready to do this I would love to hear that hear about where you're at what's been going on do leave me those comments in the comments section below like the video share it out if there's anyone that needs to hear this in your life please do share it with them and let me know if you share it so that I can thank you personally as well subscribe to the channel if you haven't already so we can stay connected and until next time happy healthy boundary setting you've got this my friend take good care

Channel: Julia Kristina Counselling

Views: 59,015

Rating: 4.9456134 out of 5

Keywords: How to deal with boundary bullies, A beginners guide to setting boundaries, boundaries for beginners, how to set boundaries with difficult people, how to set boundaries with family, how to deal with difficult people, Difficult people, Dysfunctional family, Psych2Go, Evan Carmichael, Julia Kristina Boundaries, assertiveness training, boundaries, How to set a boundary, What is boundary setting, how to set boundaries with toxic people, toxic people, Julia Kristina, Stephanie Lyn

Id: ITSyrsgP9Cw

Length: 19min 35sec (1175 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 23 2019