423 - Boundaries are all about YourSELF
Boundaries Revisited
Today, we’ll be discussing boundaries once more! This episode brings you an in-depth exploration of boundaries - a topic close to our hearts and the subject of previous episodes: 178: The Basics of Boundaries, 227: Rules and Agreements ft. Boundaries, and 372: Needs, Desires, Boundaries and More. Today, however, we go a step further. We're excited to introduce a unique tool from our latest book to help you define, refine, and enforce your boundaries!
Before diving in, let's take a moment to understand what boundaries are and why they're so crucial in our lives.
The Concept of Boundaries Unraveled
Since the 1980s, boundaries have been a focal point in pop psychology and among therapists. Everyone concurs on the importance of respecting and honoring boundaries. Yet, the clarity on their definition, purpose, and practical application often blurs. Misconceptions and misuse abound, such as viewing boundaries as ultimatums, using them as punishment, or replacing expectations with boundaries.
Our take on boundaries, rules, and agreements diverges from these misconceptions. Here's our simple breakdown:
“A rule is a behavioral limit, breaching of which incurs consequences. An agreement is a consensual decision that establishes behaviors for mutual trust and predictability. Boundaries, on the other hand, are your personal guidelines, limits, or standards aimed at self-protection and preservation of your values.”
The Importance of Boundaries
Boundaries serve as a personal advocacy tool, facilitating requests, agreements, and expression of your needs in relationships. However, they're not meant to be a solitary defense mechanism. Instead, they should function as a last line of defense, preventing unnecessary discomfort, distress, or compromise.
The frequency of boundary encroachments can be a telling sign of the health of a relationship. If you find constant infractions, it might be time to reassess, or possibly end, the relationship.
The Challenges of Effective Boundaries
Determining and adhering to boundaries can be tough. Fear of isolation, the anticipation of negative reactions, the “Fear Of Missing Out” (FOMO), or cultural and familial influences can deter us from setting firm boundaries. Furthermore, past experiences of punishment, gaslighting, or disregard for enforcing boundaries can also pose obstacles.
Recognizing and respecting others' boundaries can be equally challenging. If you're struggling to honor others' boundaries, it may reflect on your ability to respect your own. The reasons may range from misunderstanding others' needs to past experiences of boundaries being used against you.
Introducing YourSELF: A Boundary-Setting Tool
Overcoming these obstacles is possible with our boundary-setting tool, YourSELF. This journaling exercise can be revisited and revised as you evolve and develop new boundaries. The acronym stands for:
Search for recurring upsetting situations and the associated behaviors in your past. Identify patterns and behaviors you wish to change, writing at least three significant past experiences in your journal.
Empower yourself by brainstorming empowering boundaries that would make you feel safer or more stable in those challenging scenarios. Ensure the boundaries you create are entirely enforceable by you.
Live it by applying the boundary in real life and sharing it with relevant people when necessary. Record your observations in your journal to assess the effectiveness of your boundary.
Follow Up to refine your boundary, identify any shortcomings, or realize the necessity of completely redefining it. Reflect on your experience with enforcing the boundary and plan steps to make it more effective.
Remember, the acronym SELF stands for Search, Empower, Live it, Follow Up. Happy boundary-setting!
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are so excited because today is finally the day that our book has come out. Wow, it is May 23rd, and our book is officially alive and released into the world. Just watch out, it's coming for you.
Emily: You better watch out.
Jase: As you can see, I'm kooky because we've finally had the book go out.
Dedeker: This has been a three-year project, and it's ridiculous. We're so glad to be coming to the end of it.
Emily: Like four years.
Jase: Yes, we started this process in 2019. There's been a lot of ups and downs and a lot of stuff happened during this process. We're super excited about it. And To celebrate that with you, one, we have a couple of live events, one that's tomorrow. If you're not listening to this right on the day it comes out, you will have missed that. That's in Seattle. Then we have one next week on May 30th in Los Angeles, where we're doing a little book release events with signings and special merch and Q&A and discussion and community, and it's going to be wonderful. We're really excited to see everybody there. We're also celebrating by covering a topic that we've done a few times, but this time with some updates based on things that we worked on for our book, and that is boundaries. Today, we're diving back into what boundaries are. A little bit more about our special take on the difference between boundaries, agreements, and rules. We're going to discuss why boundaries are so important, and give you a special tool from our book that's out today on how to determine your boundaries, refine those and also enforce them and put them into practice in your life in the most effective way.
Emily: I love so much that we're giving all of you a firsthand look at a specific chapter in the book. That's really what we wanted to do for you today, especially since boundaries has always been something that we really enjoy talking about. That has always been a really downloaded set of episodes of ours. We did find when we were writing the book that we didn't really have a Multiamory-ish tool for it. If the two of you remember this, we needed that tool. I woke up one day like sprang out of bed and I was like, it's self. It's all about self. I think I came up with the acronym, which I haven't come up with all of them by any means. I felt good about coming up with this one. I feel it's usually Jase starting an acronym thing.
Dedeker: Emily was very inspired on this one and it worked out really well, I think.
Jase: Yes. Then we all worked together to refine it and adjust it and stuff but Emily was the mother of dragons in this particular case.
Emily: I appreciate that. Yes. Yes, I did want to shout out our previous boundary episodes, the OG, which was 178, the Basics of Boundaries. Then we had 227, Rules And Agreements Featuring Boundaries. Then we had a fairly recent one, which was 372 on Needs, Desires, Boundaries, And More. All of these serve as a really great way for us to get clear on what the Multiamory definition of boundaries are. Again, today, we're going to be talking about this specific yourself tool, which we created for the book, especially.
Jase: I love that recent means more than a year ago. That just shows you the scope of this show. Just the other day, we did that one.
Dedeker: We operate on elvish time.
Emily: When I see 300, I'm like, oh, that just happened, and 372, I'm like, oh, it happened like yesterday. But no, a year ago? Wow, goodness.
Dedeker: 372 Needs, Desires, Boundaries, And More. It's one of the most downloaded episodes that we have.
Emily: There you go.
Dedeker: It's at least in the top five, for sure.
Emily: Wow, goodness.
Dedeker: Yes, and it's an interesting testament that we've covered this so many times over the years that this is still a hot topic among ourselves and among our community as well. Not just the relationship weirdos community, but beyond. Like this has still been a topic of a lot of discussion, I would say, in the past decade or so.
Emily: Absolutely. Before we jump into all of this, I just was curious to ask the two of you what you think of boundaries. What you think when you hear the word boundaries in relation to the cultural landscape, when we think about the word boundaries, or when we hear boundaries out there in the world? Has that changed at all since we started talking about it way back in the day?
Dedeker: I think when I hear the word boundaries, I'm sorry to say I do flinch a little bit. To me, immediately I have questions about what's the context this word is being used in? What is the function of what's being labeled as a boundary right now? Is this effective? Is this not effective? Also my opinion on how to best enforce a boundary, how to best communicate a boundary that has changed quite a lot over the years. I'll get into that a little bit later. It's definitely evolved for me.
Jase: Yes, it's funny to think when we did our first episode about the basics of boundaries, I think was right as that term and that concept was already gaining some traction, but earlier on in that wave, I guess. Then we saw this whole boundary thing really take off in terms of everyone talking about it. Part of that is then people doing it badly, in my opinion, at least, right? Taking the concept and manipulating it and using it in ways that are maybe not the healthiest because it's like, "Oh, but this thing's good. This thing makes it okay to do it this way." I think we've seen that with other things as well, like relationship anarchy, I think had a little bit of that trajectory where the term gained some popularity, at least in certain groups, but then got this bad reputation because people were using it to justify just being selfish and shitty and just calling it relationship anarchy so that no one can fault them for it.
I think that there's probably some other terms we could think of that are similar in that way, but it's been interesting to see that. I think that we're now coming toward a new phase of that where I think enough people have been just burned by or annoyed by boundaries or frustrated by how people have used them, that it's like still a thing people want to know about, but people are more likely, at least in my experience, to acknowledge the frustration and the annoyance with them. I think that's why my hope is that by including that in our book and continuing to talk about it on our show, we can bring us all back to this place of let's get back to where they really matter and what's at the core of them rather than treating them like, "Oh, they're the perfect solution to everything."
Dedeker: Yes, it's funny because I don't really ascribe to, "Oh, it's the perfect solution to everything. It's going to solve all my problems." I'm also not quite the full opposite pendulum swing of boundaries are bullshit. This term is bullshit. I'm sick of this. There's still something here. The way that I've enforced my own boundaries or discovered my own boundaries that has given me so much freedom and access to joy and relative safety in my life. I'm like, no, there's something really, really good here. It's just the way that we interface with it, the way we talk about it, where things seem to get a little bit tricky. Speaking of that, let's start out by laying out a little bit of backstory, a little bit of definitions, right?
As you've been alluding to, boundaries have been a big deal. You can trace this back mainly to pop psychology starting in the 1980s or so. I think especially with social media and like social media therapists and the phenomenon of Instagram therapists and Instagram pop psychology therapy, all those things. I think that's where the idea of boundaries being this great thing has really taken off and spread. It's created this interesting phenomenon where everyone can agree broadly that boundaries are important. That they should be honored and respected.
Generally, everyone seems to be able to agree boundaries are a good thing. What's tricky is that sometimes it's really difficult to actually find a clear definition, or sometimes the definition changes depending on who you're talking to or what Instagram post you're looking at. Sometimes it's difficult to know what's their actual purpose in this situation. How do people actually utilize them in a way that's effective? I do think that the functionality of boundaries and the practice of having boundaries is where things get a little bit murky. We're all on board with, yes, a boundary is good, great. Then it's a now what I think.
Jase: Yes. Part of that is that I think, ironically, when we try to really define boundaries-- when we get too caught up in a definition. Don't worry, we'll get caught up in definitions later, but when we get too caught up in that, then it lends itself to, "Oh, well, I guess technically this meets that definition, so therefore it's good." Therefore I can use it and no one can question me. Rather than looking at what's really the purpose of this, though? Why am I using this? Am I using this in a way that is healthy for myself and is good to my partners and all of that?
Some of the ways that we see boundaries being misused or misconstrued by people in relationships include things like calling something a boundary that's really an ultimatum. It's really saying, well, you better do this, or else I leave you or don't do this, or I leave you kind of a thing. Could be something like using a boundary as just a way to demand something of a partner or to control a partner. A boundary can be used as a way to punish a partner. Again, like the ultimatum, but instead, it's more punitive.
Dedeker: Maybe it doesn't need to be said, but this goes beyond just partners, right?
Jase: Sure.
Dedeker: Boundaries used in all these weird ways with any relationship.
Jase: Yes. Good point. This could be with friends or family or whoever. Using a boundary as a way to state a preference. Calling it a boundary when really it's just a preference or a desire. Using a boundary in place of an expectation for the relationship, rather than talking about what your expectations are. Using a boundary instead to try to express that, because I think you were told boundaries are good, so therefore if I try to make this a boundary that makes it more okay for me to have this expectation or to ask for this. Something we sometimes talk about too is that boundaries can be used as a way to just not have a discussion, to shut a discussion down, whether that's a discussion with yourself or with a partner or somebody else.
Emily: It feels as though a lot of people might conflate certain things with a boundary or call something a boundary when it actually isn't that. The words' rules and agreements are thrown around a lot, especially in non-monogamous communities. I think it is one of the first things that you hear a lot of people saying as advice. Like, "Well, you have to set up some ground rules, or you have to figure out your agreements for this relationship." Things along those lines.
Some people think, okay, well I got to set up my own boundaries as well. There's a difference between all of those things. We've talked about this in previous episodes, but we also created some concrete definitions for our listeners and for those people who are going to read our book. We want to talk about what a rule is and what an agreement is. Here's the definition that we created for a rule. It is, a rule is a guideline or limit that restricts one or multiple people's behavior. If the rule is broken, consequences ensue. Interesting. That seems pretty dire, potentially.
Jase: We've talked before about this idea that with rules, there needs to be a consequence of some kind that that's built into the expectation of rules that it's like, well, sure, you could say that's a rule, but what happens if I don't do it? What happens then? It is that we often don't talk about that part. It's like if we're a kid, maybe there's some kind of punishment, maybe you have to sit in the corner or you get your toys taken away, or something like that, or if it's a rule, or I guess a law in other contexts, it's like, "Well, you're not allowed to come to this establishment anymore, or you get arrested, or whatever." That there's consequences for these things, so even though we don't usually think about our relationships that way, that's inherent in the way that we've learned to think about rules.
Emily: Yes, I think the limit part is big here because in essence, rules are potentially limiting to certain parts of a relationship, certain aspects of something that you may want to do with another person, for example. It can be a variety of things. Rules for kids, sure, parents creating rules for their kids that's to potentially limit a behavior that they don't want to see or that they don't want that child to do. It's an interesting distinction there.
Whereas in agreement, the definition we came up for that is, an agreement is a mutual decision between partners that establishes particular behaviors to facilitate trust, accommodate each other's preferences, and provide some predictability as to what they can each expect. Now, that feels a lot more collaborative than the rule. I think yes, you can create a rule together, but it's not necessarily a limit. It's sort of decision-making on two people's part or on multiple people's parts. That I think allows as this says the people involved to understand, okay, this is what we can expect from the relationship or what people's expectations essentially are.
Dedeker: Why is it important for us to lay out these differences? I need to clarify that in laying out these differences and these definitions, the point of this is not to enable, I guess what I'll call label lawyering. Where we get to into a debate about like, "Oh, this thing you're asking of me is actually a rule. It's not a boundary." Now I'm going to get into a fight with you about that and make sure that you call it the right thing. Again, it's not about being able to weaponize this, to use this for debate.
The whole point is how do we make these terms clear so that they can actually be functional, they can be simple, and they can be effective. That's the whole point of this as opposed to getting into some linguistic arguments with people on the internet. Essentially, these two definitions of a rule or an agreement, they tend to focus on either the other person in the relationship or on the people in the relationship itself. A boundary focuses on just one single person, which is you. The definition that we've come back to time and time again over the years is that a boundary is a guideline, a limit, or a standard that is established by you, applied to you, and enforced by you in order to protect you and preserve your personal values.
Emily: Now, with this definition, maybe you're wondering to yourself, why do we need this? Why do people need things like boundaries in their life? Boundaries I think are super important for a variety of reasons, which we're going to get into. First, we do want to let you know that it is important to potentially make requests and set up agreements and establish ground rules, express your preferences, things like that with your partners. All of those things are super important.
The important thing to think of there though, is you can do all of those things, and yet you're still dealing with the potential that another person is going to have different opinions on what their own preferences and their own expectations for the relationship are, and that may butt up against your own. That may be a challenging thing to come to terms with and figure out how do we both keep each other safe in this relationship. How do we keep ourselves safe in this relationship? That's where the boundary can come into play. It can really be a tool to help you advocate for yourself in the relationship.
Jase: Also, sometimes a boundary is a way for you to keep yourself from your own bad habits or your own harmful patterns that you've fallen into. Sometimes it is necessary to put systems in place that help stop yourself from continuing down a path that isn't serving you. This could be something like I keep getting in these situations where I'm being treated in a certain way, or I'm allowing myself to take on a lot of responsibilities that really shouldn't be mine, or something like that.
You've noticed that this is a pattern for yourself. Having that boundary helps you to see this, okay, something's hit this boundary point, I need to now stop this and step in and do what I've planned to do to enforce this boundary, to protect myself from that. Sometimes that is yourself. Is just yourself letting yourself be in those situations that are not healthy for you.
Dedeker: Or it doesn't even have to be necessarily about something another person is doing to you. It could be, the example I like to give is like my own relationship with social media or phone usage. It can be about, I'm going to put some boundaries on my own behavior to protect myself from myself in this particular instance.
Emily: Absolutely, this is something I deal with so much, especially in my relationship to work, and specifically, my work at the restaurants that I have worked at for many, many years. I definitely put a lot of time and care, but also it becomes burdensome at times and it just is very, very stressful. I've limited myself over the years in terms of the amount of time that I spend there and the amount of time that I think about it after the fact. I tried to really like set it down when I can and maybe limit myself to, "I'm not going to pick up these phone calls necessarily after hours because I really want to be able to take time to decompress," Things like that. Those are personal boundaries that I put into save myself from myself and that knee-jerk reaction of, "I have to save everyone nor I have to help the situation because nobody else can," or something along those lines.
Dedeker: A lot of definitions out there will sometimes make the claim that the reason that boundaries are necessary is because they're like the only tool that we have to protect us against things like people violating us, against discomfort, or distress, or having to compromise on things that we don't want to or the oft amorphous term harm, things like that. Sometimes I do think there's these definitions floating out there that sets up this world where we're just constantly under attack. We need our boundaries as this force field around us that we're constantly having to shore up. Sometimes they can function that way, right? I do think a certain amount of boundaries is protecting you and protecting your values. It's not necessarily the only tool in the toolbox for protecting yourself from those things.
Jase: Right, an analogy for that, as we always call it, it's more your last line of defense rather than the thing you should be bumping up against all the time. One analogy that works for this is it's like the bumper on your car, where it's there to protect you and can really do a good job of protecting you from killing yourself if you crash into something but you're not driving around day to day by just scraping the bumper against things to help guide you around.
Emily: Hopefully.
Dedeker: Helping people out of the way.
Jase: Right, bumping other cars out of the way, yes. The idea is that they're there to protect us and to help us and maybe to help guide us. In an ideal situation, and even, I wouldn't even said just ideal, but in your standard situation, ideally, you're not bumping up against these very often.
Emily: In relationships, this is especially true because if you're in, I think, a healthier relationship, then this isn't going to be happening all the time, you're not going to be bumping up against each other's boundaries. If you do find that that's happening, that's an interesting data point to have because you may be finding, "Hey, this is a constant conversation that we're having and that's something that I really need to look at because maybe we're simply just not compatible. Maybe the expectations of my partner don't fit my own personal expectations and we need to address that or I need to not be in this relationship anymore."
Jase: That brings us to some of the reasons why boundaries are really difficult, why it's difficult to have boundaries and to figure them out. One of the big ones is that it's hard to determine how to follow through on them. There's a couple of pieces to that. One is that, because they are this last line of defense, they're often somewhat serious in the way that you enforce them. A lot of times, that's not something people really want to do. Also, it can, like for example, if your boundary is about for yourself, trying not to be so much of a people pleaser and just letting yourself compromise your own desires and your own schedule for anyone who asks for it, that you could put a boundary in place.
The thing that's going to make that boundary challenging for you is the fact that you're worried that it's going to come across as being stubborn, or mean, or selfish, or a bad partner, or something when you enforce that. Or it might be fear that these other people are going to react negatively if I enforce this boundary like no one's going to love me anymore or value me at work, or whatever it is if I enforce this. It's understandable, it's built into the very problem you're trying to solve in that case. That same thing translates to a lot of other uses of boundaries.
Emily: There may be a fear of missing out so you sit there and you're like, "Well, I'm not going to enforce this boundary because I may miss out on some really cool new experience or an opportunity even though the opportunity might be not okay to my well being." You decide, "Well, I'm just not going to enforce that boundary." You also may have been raised in a family or you might be living in a culture that discourages boundary setting, this is very individual to each person but you may have gotten shamed in your family of origin for setting a boundary. Therefore, you feel like you can't do it in your relationships now.
Dedeker: Related to that, we can have a whole plethora of past experiences from childhood all the way up to the moment you're in right now that again, could just make it difficult to feel like enforcing or having a boundary is a good thing to do. You may have had a past experience of being punished, or gas lit, or hurt, or abused for enforcing a boundary. You may have a past experience of your requests, your needs, your preferences, or your boundaries being completely ignored or totally steamrolled by someone else. On the flip side, you could have a past experience of someone else's boundaries being weaponized against you, which I think can then serve to feed into that sense of, "Oh, gosh, if I have a boundary, that means I'm going to make the other person feel the way that I felt when someone was weaponizing this boundary against me?"
All of those examples, honestly, I feel like it's really easy to experience this with parents. That's just my personal experience, and not just my personal experience, talking to other people, it's their experience as well. That's tricky because we're in an interesting time where the bigger discussion is people are trying to figure out what boundaries are children allowed to have, what's acceptable. It's like, if your kid doesn't want to go hug his grandma, is that an okay boundary to have versus if your kid says, "No, I'm not going to do my chores today," is that an okay boundary to have? Parenting is tricky between you want to empower your kid to have a sense of boundaries, but then also sometimes need to teach your kid to take responsibility that there's things we got to do, even though we don't feel like doing them.
I do think all of us who were raised by imperfect parents trying to figure that out when we get into adulthood, I think parents of adult children also have a hard time adjusting to what boundaries is my adult child allowed to have and how do I respect them versus not? I do think there's something particular about the parent or caregiver-with-child relationship, especially as it translates into adulthood that can make this difficult. Then at the end of the day, sometimes you can just be not sure what your personal boundaries even are. I didn't even think about my boundaries until maybe 10 years ago, less than 10 years ago. Couldn't have even told you what a boundary was, couldn't have even like, was nowhere in my brain, honestly. For me, the first time I was encountering this concept, it was hard to find anything to grasp onto. You may not be even sure what they are, how you can effectively express them or even how to enforce them.
Emily: I do appreciate that potentially, the youths of today will have more of a touchstone of even understanding what boundaries are just simply because it is so prevalent on social media, not necessarily that they'll find what a good definition of boundaries are.
Jase: That’s-
Dedeker: Yeah, I don't know.
Emily: Aware of them in a way that-
Dedeker: Everyone's got a problem with some BS from their parents regarding how well-meaning.
Jase: We all get some BS, yes.
Emily: Indeed, yes, social media, parents, whatever. Additionally, on the flip side, it can be really difficult for us to acknowledge and understand other people's boundaries as well. You may have a really great understanding of what it is that you need but it may be really difficult for you to acknowledge and uphold and be okay with your partner's boundaries, or your friends, or your parents, or any of those things. There is a potential that if you are having difficulty with this, you just may not have an easy time honoring your own boundaries either.
It may just simply not be something that you're very good at yet, and that's okay, it takes practice. I'm still not very good at upholding my own boundaries and it's something that I really have to catch myself on and that I need to work on all the time. Probably, all of us do, all of us could be better at this. A lot of the examples that we already discussed can be flipped and act as examples of ways that you are perhaps not honoring or accepting or understanding other people's boundaries too.
Jase: Yes, I feel we're getting into the area that is the tricky part. This is where we have some of these challenges with people, either using the word boundaries for things that aren't, really, that really are more of a preference or a desire or an expectation or something like that. I feel like there's a few pieces here. One is that sometimes we can just feel like, "Oh, well, I know better than the other person," that maybe even if it's just subconscious, you're like, "But I know what's right. This person should be doing that." Whether that's a tendency to want to ignore what they've told you about their boundary or just not really even paying attention to that, or more likely, they've never expressed the boundary to you clearly because most of us aren't practiced at that. That's not something that we've often done.
Then there can also be this other thing where, like we mentioned before, that the boundaries, it feels like they're constantly coming up and constantly being used. In that case, it is more of this, "Am I just saying boundary to really mean I'm disappointed or what you said hurt me?" I feel like the only way I can express that hurt clearly is to call it a boundary because I've been told that when I say I'm hurt, I've been told that's wrong. Maybe by calling it a boundary, I feel like, "Well, by definition, boundaries are always good. Therefore I'm going to use it that way."
The reason why I put the story in that way is to clarify that when we talk about people using boundaries wrong, I actually think it's rarely, rarely, if ever coming from an intentionally manipulative place. It's generally coming from these desires or these fears or these insecurities about being able to express what it is that we want. Then the other piece of that is that if these really are important fundamental boundaries and the two of you just cannot accept each other's or this just seems incompatible, if that's really your boundary, that just seems like how can we have a good relationship that way?
That also may mean this is not a good relationship, that this is not a good fit. You could both be fine people, but this might not be a good relationship for the two of you. That's a hard thing for people to accept, which also makes enforcing and understanding boundaries difficult.
Dedeker: Again, the same way that you said that people who "misuse" the definition of boundaries, it doesn't necessarily always come from a super evil or manipulative place. I think, again, if someone's pushing up against your boundaries or doing something that doesn't jive with you, or that makes you uncomfortable, or if you've maybe explicitly stated to them, "No, I don't do this," or "I don't want to do this," and they still keep pushing against that, it doesn't even necessarily mean that they're a horrible, manipulative, villainous person either because this can happen in super benign situations. I think this happens all the time.
I think about I want to invite someone to a party and they say no. In my head, I'm like, "Oh, it's because they're worried that it's going to go too late." Well, if I just explained to them it's not going to go too late, then they'll know that it's okay and then they'll say, "Yes," and maybe I explained that, and then they're still like, "No, I don't want to go." Was that a situation? Did I violate their boundary by trying to convince them? I guess if I kept pushing them and pushing them and pushing them and getting really annoying about it, maybe that could be, but this is a weird "benign" situation where technically, I didn't respect their first no.
I was like, "Oh, no, they just don't understand. If I clarify, then they'll get it." This is just an example, but it's like I think these things happen all the time where we're not necessarily thinking in terms of, "Ooh, this is a boundary." That's not necessarily a bad thing. Of course, like the example of inviting someone to a party, maybe that's pretty low stakes. There can be higher stick situations as well.
Jase: I hope that that story brought to mind just that that's a very normal interaction that we have with our friends and people we care about and that we feel cared about in terms of we do sometimes push each other a little bit and that that's not bad in itself. There is a little bit of a difference too between just, "Well, no, I don't really want to do that," versus, "This is a boundary. This is something I've really spent time exploring. I will never go to parties," or "I will never go to parties with you," or something like that. I'm being a little bit silly right now.
Dedeker: You should have seen my Instagram post that I put up six weeks ago where I very clearly stated this boundary that I do not go to parties. How dare you even invite me?
Jase: The reason why I bring this up is that again, I don't want any of our listeners to get too caught up in this whole, "Oh, well, this is a boundary and I said this thing. Therefore, if they push me at all on that, they're a bad person." Then similarly, we can. If it is like, "No, this is very clear, we can also stand up for ourselves in that way too because I can think of so many examples where I haven't wanted to do something, but a friend or a partner's been like, "No, I think you will really like it," or even it's like, "Look, you've been bummed about this breakup. You need to come out to this party," or "We need to go out tonight. You need to stop moping around in your room," and they were right. That happens.
Also sometimes where it's like, "No, I still had a bad time," but that's all part of just being humans and caring about each other and having a life. I don't want us to get too caught up in these black-and-white thinking about boundaries. That's a segue into one of the other challenges is that sometimes you'll come up with a boundary and realize that it's not consistent, which is a good indication that maybe this isn't something that's fit to be a boundary like going to parties or something. Maybe you're like, "Look, I keep getting invited out by my friends and staying up too late and my work is suffering, or my schoolwork is suffering, or just my mood or whatever. I need to stop doing that so often."
You say, "I'm going to have a boundary about never going out after 10:00 PM or something," but then you find that but sometimes I want to. Sometimes I do. It's like, "Okay, maybe this one's not a boundary." That's also something to look out for.
Emily: When you do find that boundaries are just super difficult for you, in general, and they tend to be porous, or they're a little wishy-washy, or it's something that I just can't seem to uphold my own boundaries. I say I'm going to do something. I say that I'm not going to go out past 10:00 PM, but I always get roped in and I always do it just because of all the reasons that we talked about before. This is an interesting thing that can come up with those of us who are inherent people pleasers. I do this a ton. Oh my. We might put the needs of others before ourselves. We may tend to have more fawning tendencies.
A boundary that you make just ends up being really unclear and easy for other people to steamroll. There may be little follow-through on the person that it's meant to protect. That's something really important to be looking at and something that hopefully, our next part of the episode where we get into the your SELF exercise, hopefully, that can help with practice.
Jase: Yes. We're going to go on to this exercise, but first, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some of our sponsors for this show. If you appreciate this content and you want to help support us in keeping this coming to everyone out there in the world for free, there's a number of things you can do. One of them is just to check out our ads, and if any of them seem interesting to you, go check them out. That does directly support our show. Also, relevant to this episode, go buy our book or buy it for a friend if they don't have it yet.
If this seems interesting and you want the more in-depth version of this with a lot more examples, journal exercises, and things for you to review on your own, the book is a great one for that, plus all the other tools that are in it. Of course that goes a long way to supporting this show, helping us get all of this out there into the world, and like I said that we can do this every week for everyone for free.
Dedeker: Hello, and we're back, and we're finally getting to the super-inspired tool yourself. Again, just to recap, the definition of boundary that we're going to be using is that a boundary is a guideline, limit, or standard established by you, applied to you, and enforced by you in order to protect you and preserve your personal values. How the hell do we do that? Where do we-
Emily: How indeed?
Dedeker: begin? How indeed? We created the Yourself S-E-L-F. Of course, always doing the multiamory tradition of turning things into an acronym. We created this. It's meant to be used as a journaling exercise. It's meant to be revisited and revised whenever you need to update, refine, or to create a new boundary. Again, remember that when thinking about boundaries, it is all about yourself. That stands for search, empower, live it, and follow up. We're going to take those one by one.
Emily: The first one is going to be search. Now, in your journal, again, I love journaling, Jase loves journaling. I think all of us do. I always am on Jase's ass for journaling, but this is a great way to do a brain dump and sit and think about your past. In this search part of the exercise, go back and search your memories for any really painful or upsetting situation that you found yourself in repeatedly and look at what those situations represent. What happens when they occur, what behaviors from other people happen, and what behaviors happen within you, and do any of those clash with your values, your standards, things like that?
Try to really go deep into these situations, think about them, and look for those underlying patterns that you feel you want to change. What do you want to help yourself not do in the future? We really encourage you to look at broader things as opposed to just super specific acute examples. Because those specific examples may be really difficult to create a boundary for. Instead, if you're like, "Hey, I understand that I have a tendency to do this thing and it's really affecting my sleep, it's really affecting my life overall. What can I do to save myself and to help myself in these situations?"
You may have an interaction with a certain person in your life and that causes you to want to create a specific boundary tailored to that interaction with them, but as you're looking and digging and going through this exercise, you may find that there's a pattern there that that's something that has occurred before and that may occur again, those types of interactions. What we want you to do in this search is to, as you're thinking, write down at least three meaningful past experiences and behaviors that you found really challenging from others or from yourself. Do that in your journal, just to get the juices flowing here.
Dedeker: Yes. Can I throw out a personal example to take through this exercise?
Jase: Yes, I was going to suggest we have some examples.
Emily: I love that.
Dedeker: Let's see. I'm going to try to not give the game away because I've already gone through this whole exercise. I have a particular family member, and I'm not going to be specific about what their relationship is to me because I don't want to trash talk them and I don't want to out them, but I have a particular family member who whenever my mom comes up in conversation, this family member always has negative things to say. Pretty much always.
To be fair, sometimes my mom annoys me sometimes. We haven't always had the greatest relationship, but to put it through this search filter, when I'm thinking about a pattern, that's definitely something that has historically upset me, that have had multiple conversations with this person where it ends up being about trash talking my mom, and it's left me feeling depleted and upset and sometimes angry and also feeling pretty powerless, feeling like there's not much that I can do about it.
I think maybe that's a good example of it wasn't just a one-off, this has been a pattern that's been going on for a long time. It's something that's really upset me. Maybe something to even clarify here, or maybe we'll get to this in the next few steps, that there's also a person where I feel like if I told them directly, "Hey, I would rather you didn't do that," I don't think that'd be a very good conversation. I don't think they'd be receptive to it, and I think that it would maybe risk some damage to the relationship if I was going to confront it head-on like that. Hence that's why I felt pretty powerless around and feeling like I have no choice but to subject myself to these conversations.
Jase: One thing worth noting with this is that in Dedeker's example here, it's something where there's been a pretty clear pattern of this one person doing the same behavior over and over again that she's noticed and that's upsetting, and there's more of a pattern here than just this one thing. Also, you've identified that it's whenever your mom comes up at all versus, oh, well it's when we talk about my mom, I don't know, being late to stuff. It's not really your mom thing, but something like that, that it's taking it from specific to make it a little more general.
Another thing to throw out here is that for you, this could be, "I'm frustrated about this situation where this one person interrupted me, or maybe they did it a couple of times and I just got really off and upset when they did that," that you might then look back and go, "Oh, you know what? This is not the first time in my life this has happened. My dad used to do this to me, or my siblings did, or my friends at school did, or past partners, whatever."
It's trying to find the patterns there. That's kind of what Emily was getting at with the searching. Then the next step is E for empower. After we've identified some of those difficult situations and those recurring patterns, then we start brainstorming what an empowering boundary would look like. For this, think about what your own wants and needs are, how those have evolved over time, and then think about in these scenarios that you came up with in the search phase, what could have been done differently that could have helped you feel safer, feel more protected, or maybe more stable, more regulated, something like that.
It's important to remember during this step that the boundary you create needs to be entirely enforceable by you. No one else has to buy into this at all in order for it to work. That's part of what makes them powerful, is that we're not relying on someone else doing their side of it. Hopefully, through this, you'll feel empowered to stop these negative patterns and set up some safeguards for yourself against any of these existing situations that you know are bad for you, that are upsetting, that are traumatic for you. Now again, write down in your journal some options, start with three, for how you might be able to enforce this boundary. What would that look like? Come up with some different options so that then you can compare them to each other. Maybe one came to mind right away, and so I'll tell that person to off as soon as they do it.
Now push yourself. What are some other different ways? Try to come up with a little bit of a variety here so that then we can look at these and we can ask the questions, is this realistically possible to enforce the boundary in this way that I just described? Two, would I actually do it? Would I actually follow through on this? Then three, will I be able to enforce the boundary this way consistently across all situations? Not just with this one person and not just in this one situation, but universally. If I make this into a universal boundary, does this actually feel right to apply that across all situations?
Then if you find that you look at your options you wrote down and ask those questions and you think, "Well, I don't know about that," it might be a good indication that you'll need to come up with some other options or maybe revisit the boundary and try to figure out what's the throughline here? What's the core of this?
Dedeker: I guess to take my example, there's a number of different ways that I could put in a boundary that again, is enforced to my own behavior to deal with that situation with this family member. I could say, anytime the subject of my mom comes up, I could just be like, "I don't want to talk about that." I could just shut down the conversation. I could decide to do that. I could decide to just never spend any time with this family member ever again. Some situations that could be appropriate, doesn't feel appropriate for this situation for me.
What I decided to try was, "Okay, if the subject of my mom comes up A, I'm not going to give any ammos. I'm not going to engage." I'm just going to be like, "Oh, yes, mom's doing good," and then I'm going to change the subject. That was kind of what I decided is going to be, again, the thing that I'm going to do to change my behavior that I'm going to enforce on myself in order to hopefully protect me from this unpleasant experience.
Jase: I think this one's an interesting example of a place where you may also find you have a fallback where maybe that first one is, the one you came up with, which is, the way I can enforce this for myself is just changing the subject of just-- Essentially, you could phrase it as, "My boundary is I won't have conversations about my mother with this person." What that means is that gives you a little bit of flexibility in terms of avoiding that conversation is the first easiest way and getting out of that conversation quickly, but if they keep trying to pull you back into it, then maybe that's a scenario where you could take it to the next level of, "I really don't want to talk about this," or that whole, like, "I'm busy, I've actually got to go, gosh, look at the time. I got to get my hair washed."
Dedeker: In the next stage, in the live it phase, this is where the rubber meets the road, right? This is where, "Okay, I've come up with some ideas of some boundaries to try and now it's time to actually go out and use them in real life." Depending on the situation, this could be the time to disclose a boundary to someone. We used this example in the book and it was about the way that someone raises their voice during conflict.
The example we gave for someone disclosing a boundary around that was for them to say, "Oh, hey, just a heads up, I don't respond really well when people raise their voice during conflict, so if either of us starts yelling or raising our voices while we're arguing, I'm going to leave the room and stop the conversation until we can both calm down a little bit, and then we'll come back together with less emotional intensity."
Saying that already, I think is a gentler, softer way to still have a firm boundary, in my opinion, where it's not quite bludgeoning the other person by being like, "If you raise your voice, I'm going to walk out and slam the door." It's not quite that intense, but it's still firm, clearly letting them know this is what I'm going to do if I'm in this situation. Again, this is what I'm going to do as opposed to what I'm going to pressure you to do or make you do. Now, I have a controversial differing opinion about this, but before I go on to that, Jase, did you want to jump in there?
Jase: The reason why we use this particular example in the book for a time when you would want to disclose that boundary beforehand, is that if you were in an argument and voices got raised and you just walked out of the room. That's actually a shitty stonewalling type behavior to do that.
Dedeker: Your partner would be like, "What the fuck?"
Jase: Yes, you're maybe making it worse. Like you're actually just being a jerk then by doing that. The reason here is that this is your partner, this is someone who you believe has your best interests at heart and that you care about.
By talking to them about it beforehand gives that clarification of when this happens, you'll know why, and know that I'm not walking out on you entirely, but that it's because I said I would need that time to cool down and I don't want us to continue this cycle of having these types of conversations. I think that's why that one's a good example of something where it could be helpful to bring it up beforehand. Actually, if you didn't, could be worse.
Dedeker: Here's the deal, I don't think it is always necessary to have a big formal announcement to everyone in your life or to your partner or whoever else about what your boundary is or what your boundaries are. Some people will disagree with me on that, I feel like a lot of the rhetoric around boundaries out there, like this is a necessary piece. Like you have to go let the people know, but here's the thing, and to use this real life example, once I decided this is what my boundary's going to be, this is how I'm going to change my behavior. Ideally, if it's just about your behavior, again, like Jase was saying earlier, you do not need to get the other person's buy-in for it to work. If my boundary requires the other person has to do something for it to work, then like we might be talking about something else entirely.
In this case, I didn't want to go up to this family member and make this formal announcement of, by the way, whenever we talk about my mom in conversation, if you say anything that's negative, this is what I'm going to be doing. Again, part of the reason this was a problem in the first place is because I didn't feel empowered in this relationship to just make a request of, "Hey, can you not do that?" without it causing a ton of defensiveness or conflict. I feel like if I did that this big boundary announcement, it would probably end up with the same result of defensiveness and unnecessary conflict. For me, I just do it, like I just do it. Every time I have done it, I've not been 100% good at enforcing it, by the way. Every time that I have, it's been fine.
It's been great, like we switched the conversation and then we're talking about other things. Then I've spared myself-- not only have I spared myself the discomfort of having to go through a conversation I don't want to be going through, also, it didn't have to be a big fight with this person. It didn't have to be something that damaged the relationship or caused tension. Again, if this family member became super insistent and was like following me around through the house. Like trying to dump on my mom, that's going to be an entirely different situation.
That was not the situation that I'm in, and so for me, I found that this was really effective just to do it and it didn't require this big announcement. I think that's going to be different on a case-by-case basis. Of course, it's also shitty if you're like, oh, I'm going to have all these secret boundaries, and then it's going to be like a bullshit test that then when someone pushes up against it, I can be like, aha, you've activated my trap boundary and now you're a bad person. Like, that's not cool.
Jase: You can tell that Dedeker plays a lot of card-based games with the trap cards.
Emily: Is that what that was?
Jase: Metaphor? Yes.
Dedeker: Oh, that was pulling
Emily: Door trap or something?
Dedeker: No, no. Those of us kids who grew up with Yu-Gi-Oh!, that's a reference to that, that's all.
Emily: Got it.
Jase: Oh, it's in a lot of other things, like in Magic the Gathering and in Hearthstone, it's a common mechanic. Anyway, that's not the point here, or rather, it is the point. Don't lay on them as traps, but evaluate, is this something where I can just enforce this myself? Or is this something that I should have a conversation or maybe find some quick way to announce it right when I'm actually enforcing it so it doesn't feel like, oh, I just walked away from the conversation and now I'm being weird, or I just never called this person again and they don't know why. Maybe you need to do that, that might be the right answer for you in certain situations. I would say in most situations that wouldn't be a great go-to.
Dedeker: Yes. I think if you're motivated by wanting to preserve relationship and wanting your relationships to feel good, I think make the choice that's going to be the most compassionate to everyone involved. If you're in a situation where it's not important to preserve the relationship, or it's not important for the relationship to feel good, then that's different.
Emily: To bring it back to the journaling exercise for live it, after you actually go out and try out your boundary with someone. Write down what happened, how well did it work out? Did it end up being not exactly as you expected it to be? What were the behaviors that happened on the part of the other person if you had to utilize that boundary? Things like that. You can record your findings and see how well or how not well that boundary actually worked in real life. Then finally, we're to our F-section for follow up, so if you do utilize this boundary for a little while out in the real world, like maybe say a couple weeks or a month even, you can go back and check in with those journaling exercises that you've been doing.
Maybe even every single time you use it in real life, you can go back and write something down and see if things change over time. See, maybe is it time to tweak this boundary a bit or is it even time to go all the way back to the drawing board and just scrap it all together. Let's come back with a totally new boundary. Maybe Dedeker finds that every time she has conversation with this person that first, "Oh, I'm just going to try changing the subject" doesn't work, and so she's got to change it all together or do something else entirely.
Dedeker: Or, to give more like actual real-life data that I've found from this is, it's been less about, ah, it didn't work the first time. It's been more that my enforcement has sometimes been inconsistent. Like I give myself maybe a 75% of the time, and when I've sat down to actually analyze, okay, what happens that 25% of the time when I don't do this or I don't enforce this boundary, often it's because either like alcohol is involved and so, like my wits are not about me. I'm less, there's less inhibitions, and it's I guess, harder for me to remember, or easier for me to get swept up in conversation. Or times that I've not enforced it, it has been, like, if I'm annoyed with my mom and then I fall into the temptation to be like, "Yes, let's sit and rag on my mom." Then I don't feel good, it doesn't feel good still. Like, it's still not something that I enjoy, so for me.
Emily: Well, those are awesome data points to have.
Dedeker: Yes. knowing that is really important, and we'll see, like I think having that data is still relatively new to me. I'm still trying to figure out like, okay, so how do I account for that next time around? Is it just knowing that, is it just knowing like, okay, if I'm going to knock back a couple drinks with this person, I just need to be mindful or is it I need to be mindful about where I'm at with my mom at this particular moment? I don't know about that. I'm still figuring out, but again, I'm so glad that I've had the opportunity to actually try this out in person a couple times and actually get that data so I can be a really good boundary scientist, a boundariologist.
Emily: A boundary sleuth.
Dedeker: Ooh, a sleuth.
Emily: in the boundary.
Dedeker: Detective. Yes.
Emily: A boundary detective. Love that. Yes, so in this last step, it is this moment to really assess over time. See like a longitudinal study if we're scientists, and see how well this boundary worked. Then again, if you need to change it in any way or go back to the drawing board. When you're looking at this, you can write down in your journal, again, use some of the following prompts that I'm about to say. Ask yourself, did anything surprising happen the last time you enforced your boundary? What feelings came up when you had to enforce it? What reaction did you get from the person you enforced that boundary with? Have you been able to enforce your boundary across multiple scenarios and with multiple people?
Maybe this comes up in other places in Dedeker's life with other people as well. Are you finding that this boundary is too restrictive or too general, too rigid or too porous? Does the boundary rely on a behavioral change from the other person or some external change out of your control? That's a really big one to get clear on with yourself. Because again, you don't want to have to rely on somebody else to fix this issue for you.
Jase: Yes. I think this is a big one, If you find that when trying it, you're like, well, it didn't work. They just walked all over it. Like, well, okay, yes, then we need to go back to the drawing board and figure out.
Emily: That's good to know.
Jase: Okay, if this is a boundary for me, I need to find a way that I don't rely on anyone else to enforce it. You might not like what the answer is there, but it still might be the right answer. It might be, this isn't a relationship I can have, or I can't do this fun thing with this person because this bad thing happens when we do it or something like that. It's those hard conversations but the point here is to evaluate. Get those data points like Emily keeps saying.
Emily: You may also find out that this boundary isn't even really necessary anymore. Maybe there's something in your relationship that's changed over time or maybe that person got the picture and they're like, okay, this is not a place that I can go with them. I'm not going to go there. That's great. That's fine.
Jase: It is a magical thing when you make a boundary for yourself and then find that just by making it for yourself, you rarely ever have to use it because it just got you thinking and more aware of this thing in an empowering way, rather than feeling like, "Oh, well, I'm just a victim of circumstance here. There's nothing I can do about it." It's really cool when that happens and you're like, wow, I did all this work to make this boundary, and now I've done enough of that work that I don't even need to enforce it very often, if at all, which is the ideal, like we said. Ideally, you're not constantly having to bump up against these and enforce these all the time.
Emily: Finally, ask yourself what actionable steps are you going to take to make this boundary even more effective in your life so that you reach that 90%, 95% Dedeker, not just 75%?