Dana Skaggs (00:01.676) Welcome friends, whether you're out on a walk, running errands, or relaxing at home. It's wonderful to connect with you. Now today, it's going to be a little different because I don't have a guest joining us today. It has been suggested to me by several people that I record some solo episodes to kind of have an opportunity to unpack
a little bit more of how boundaries work and how they play out in our lives. And so I decided to do that. And also what I'm trying today is doing a video, although my podcast is audio, I'm going to record a video and possibly post clips of it on social media. We'll see how it works. That's also been suggested to me.
the things that have been suggested. So anyway, I thought today it would be a good idea to think about three reasons why we have trouble practicing healthy boundaries. know, explaining what boundaries are is one thing. We can understand.
what they are, we can understand why we need them and how they work. Which I covered a lot of that on episodes one, two, three and four of this podcast, which I think this one is probably episode 131 or 132. So it's been a minute ago. But if you're interested, you can go back and listen to episodes one through four. That is just me talking when I very first launched this podcast.
basically about what boundaries are and how they do work using my yard analogy. But we can still know all those things and have trouble setting boundaries and defending them. So let's just do a brief recap. If you imagine a cell and a cellular membrane,
Dana Skaggs (02:26.272) A cellular membrane has to do two things to stay alive, to stay functioning and healthy. It has to bring nutrients into itself and it also has to expel toxins. So our boundaries need to be set up in a similar way where we are pulling good things into our lives.
and we are setting a boundary and pushing out things that are toxic so that we can continue to move forward and be healthy. Now the analogy that I have given and that I explained a lot more fully in episodes one, two, three, and four of Feeding Some Flame is basically thinking about your yard, imagining one, you can think about the one you actually have or you can create one in your mind. You have your yard and in your yard are your thoughts.
your feelings, opinions, and your actions. All of these things you have a right to and you have a responsibility to manage. Now at the edges of your property is a fence and on the other side of the fence is your neighbor's yard. And your neighbor's yard are his thoughts, feelings, opinions, and actions and he has a right.
to all of those and he also has a responsibility to manage them. Those are not yours to manage. One of the major and basic common issues that we have with boundaries is we get these two yards confused. We end up rejecting and basically abandoning our own yard and we're spending all of our time in our neighbor's yard.
We're not honoring our own opinions, our own thoughts and feelings. We're not communicating them. We have abandoned them and we are spending voluminous amounts of time trying to manage how our neighbors feeling, what our neighbor thinks, how our neighbor responds, taking responsibility for our neighbors upset. It must be our fault. We get these two things confused. And you know, I was saying earlier about setting and defending boundaries and there is a difference.
Dana Skaggs (04:46.498) between the two, especially if you have had relationships where you haven't set boundaries. And so those people are not used to you having boundaries. When you start to set them, you can set them, but then they more than likely will not be respected or honored because these individuals are not used to you having boundaries. And so what happens in those cases, the people push against them.
Let me give you an example. Let's say someone has a habit, because you've allowed it, let's be honest, of calling and talking to you for long periods of time, going on and on about all of their issues and all of their complaints and all of their problems and wanting to basically dump it on you. And you could be in the middle of something very important, you could be on a deadline, it doesn't really seem to matter to this individual.
They just have their issues, they're all very self-absorbed and they want to talk and talk and talk and talk to you about all these problems. Well, if you have allowed them to do that, then let's take responsibility for that because that's what we have agency over. What we can change is our own actions. So if we have allowed this person to do that to us in the past, we've trained them to expect that we are going to do that. And so naturally they are.
So let's say that that's happening to you and you've decided that you don't want to do that anymore, that you're missing deadlines, you're not performing very well at work because you're allowing this person to take too much of your time. You're wearing down. You're wearing down physically, you're wearing down mentally, you're wearing down emotionally. You're allowing this person to just pull a lot of your energy reserves that you actually need to finish projects. You need that to be a leader at your job.
and your energy reserves are getting very, very low because you're allowing this other person to take a lot of it from you. And so you decide, you know, I think I'm going to change that and I'm going to allow this person to talk. I'll tell them, you know, I'll be happy to talk to you for 10 minutes and then I have to go. So you can set that boundary. You can say verbally, I'm going to give you 10 minutes. Now, when that 10 minutes comes up,
Dana Skaggs (07:07.264) What do you think is going to happen? That person is not going to respect the 10 minutes. They're not going to believe that you're going to stick to that 10 minutes and they just keep right on talking. You can even say, now remember I said after 10 minutes I had to go do some other things and they'll just keep right on talking.
So they're pushing back. You've set a boundary, you said, I'm going to give you 10 minutes and then I have to go do some other things and they're disrespecting that. They don't care. Their needs matter more to them than yours and they're going to push. Now here comes the defending of your boundary. Setting it and then you have to defend it. You have to defend it consistently. Now defending it does not require anything obnoxious or loud or anything of the sort.
You simply have to do what you said you were going to do and you can do it very kindly, very nicely. You don't need to raise your voice. You can remind the person, remember I said I had 10 minutes for you and I gave that to you. Now I need to go do some other things. And they're going to keep talking and you're saying, okay, I've got to go now. I hope you have a wonderful day. And then you hang up the phone. Now, if this is the first time you've defended a boundary with this individual,
What are they going to do in the next 15 seconds? Right. They're going to call you back. They're not going to like that. They're going to push against that boundary because they were using you to meet their own needs and they wanted to continue to do that. And when you set the boundary, that's going to require them to get that need of their own met somewhere else and they didn't want to have to do that. So setting a boundary and then defending it are both important.
and they're not the same thing. Now let's talk about three main reasons why we have trouble setting and defending our boundaries. Like I said earlier, we can know what boundaries are. We can even understand how to set them and how to defend them and why we should and still have trouble. This is not uncommon.
Dana Skaggs (09:30.24) Number one, maybe we don't know what is in our own yard. And so that creates a vulnerability. We become very vulnerable to manipulation because we don't really know what our own thoughts or feelings are. Remember when I said earlier that sometimes people get the yard responsibility inversed instead of being responsible and honoring of their own yard.
they have abandoned their own yard, which means they have abandoned their own thoughts, their own feelings, their own opinions, and they're over there in the neighbor's yard trying to manage the neighbors' feelings and thoughts and actions, which is not ours to do. But when someone does that for a long period of time, sometimes they lose touch with who they really are. They don't really know what they think. They don't know how they feel. They don't know what their opinions are.
Now that may sound kind of odd, but for those who have experienced it, you're nodding your head right now. Something that came to my mind was the movie Runaway Bride with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Now, for those that watched it, it was a fantastic movie and she basically had a series of fiancés and she was on her way to get married and then she would run away at the last minute.
Well, something Richard Gere stumbled across. He was a journalist assigned to find out what the deal was with this runaway bride. And so they ended up kind of falling for one another, but he said, you know, look, he went and interviewed all of the fiancees that she had. And for some reason, the subject of eggs came up over and over. And each fiance would say that
the Julia Roberts character liked eggs just like he did. He would say, I like my eggs scrambled and so does she. And then Richard Gere, the journalist would ask the next fiance, well, how did she like her eggs? And he would say, she liked them poached just like me. And this went on and on and on. And so Richard Gere approached Julia Roberts and said, I'm not interested in being in a relationship with you until you know how you like
Dana Skaggs (11:51.902) your eggs. Do you even know? And she just gave him this blank look, which I've seen before in my office with some of my patients. And so in the movie, she sits at the diner counter while one of her friends fixed up, I think it was like an eight varieties of eggs and set them on plates in front of Julia. And Julia stood there and sampled each one of those eggs to try to figure out which one she actually liked.
That's what happens when we have spent so much of our time people pleasing and focusing on other people's needs and what other people want and trying to be a chameleon and morph ourselves into who we think the other person is going to like. We essentially abandon our own yard and we don't even know what our opinions are. We don't know what our preferences are because our focus for so long has been on what the other person's preferences are.
So that is one reason why we have trouble setting and defending boundaries because boundaries setting and practicing is twofold. One, we have to be responsible for and honor and respect what's in our own yard, our own thoughts, feelings, opinions, actions, and also not taking responsibility for what's in our neighbor's yard, their thoughts, feelings, opinions, and actions. So you have to be able to do both.
And if you don't even know how you like your eggs, then you cannot very well honor and defend and respect your own yard. So that's one reason why people have issues with practicing healthy boundaries. You've got to know what's in your yard. Number two, we sometimes are absolutely petrified of making someone else mad.
Dana Skaggs (13:54.732) Well, and let me take a moment and say, I can't let this go by. And for anyone that's talked to me about this before, you know what I'm getting ready to say. We say that phrase all the time, do we not? She made me mad. They made me mad. I made her mad. Technically, that's not even possible because if we slow it down and look at it frame by frame, for example, if I said, she made me mad.
Well, she, whoever she is, did something or said something, and then I perceived it, then I decided how I was gonna respond, what I was gonna feel about it, and how I was gonna respond to that. You see, along that way, there's a fence line. Right after she spoke her words, it came into my yard. How I perceived what she said, how I decided to...
feel about what she said, how I decided to respond to what she said is all in my yard. That is me. My feelings are technically in my brain, in my body, which someone else cannot control. So no one else can make me feel any kind of way. So I just had to throw that out there. So next time you find yourself saying they made me mad or I made him mad, I want you to hear my voice. It's just like slow it down.
Look at it frame by frame. But we spend so much of our time just petrified of making someone else mad. Because what happens is that gets interpreted as rejection, which gets interpreted again as abandonment. Abandonment is ultimately at the core of many, many of our fears.
I'm afraid she's not going to like me. Why does that matter? Well, because she's going to reject me then. And why does that matter? Because she rejects me, then she's going to abandon me and I'm going to be all alone. So that's at the core of so many things that we're so afraid of. So that's another reason why people have a lot of difficulty practicing healthy boundaries is because they are petrified of the rejection and the abandonment that might happen if they don't go along, if they're not a people pleaser.
Dana Skaggs (16:14.102) if they state their opinion respectfully, which we have a responsibility to do. Okay? So that's number two. That's something to consider. Number three, sometimes we have wounded parts of ourselves. Usually these come from relationship wounds that happened in the past. Oftentimes it happened when we were children growing up, but it can be
in a former relationship along the way. And what happens is that those wounded parts get activated when we feel scared. Those parts are very strong and they will take over unless we know how to manage them. Sometimes people use the word triggered. When we are triggered, what essentially happens is a wounded part of us senses that some
pain is getting ready to happen that that wounded part went through a ways back. It might have been a year ago, might have been 15, 20, 25 years ago, but that part of us was never healed. And so that part is sensing that something's getting ready to happen just like it did how many years ago, then that part takes over. Those parts of us are very strong. Those are the emotional
parts of us. The emotional parts that we have are faster and stronger than the reasonable logical parts of our brain. We need all the parts of our brain, but in a, you know, in a shootout, what's gonna be the quicker draw is gonna be the emotional part. So that's what happens at times when people are trying to set boundaries. They have this
younger wounded part that gets triggered and comes rushing up and takes over and is just terrified. Again, it wraps back around as well to number two, to the rejection and the abandonment that might happen. know, something too that happens at times in terms of setting boundaries. And I mentioned earlier that boundaries are like, I know I use the yard analogy frequently, but also
Dana Skaggs (18:38.22) the cellular membrane, we have to pull in nutrients and then push out toxin. People, when they think about boundaries, they generally think too much about pushing the toxins out. They don't think about also pulling nutrients in and we're responsible for doing both. One of the issues that I've noticed myself struggling with along the way is
Because of some things I experienced as I was growing up, I developed a hyper sense of independence where I just felt like I could only rely on myself. My trust in other people to be there for me and do what they say they're going to do, that I could rely on them, wasn't really very good.
What happens sometimes with me, I've compared myself with some of my friends. I've got some friends that are so good at reaching out for help and saying, hey, I need this or I need that. I've noticed that that part of, I was saying earlier about the wounded parts of ourselves. Sometimes that part of me will kind of just get very stoic and very quiet and not really reach out because again,
that part is still kind of working through that and trying to figure out how to do that and how to reach out and get and pull those nutrients in. You know, we all have our issues along the way and that's an example that I have of sometimes that'll happen. But when you notice it and you have that awareness, see, because we're observing ourselves and I would strongly suggest observing your own patterns, your own thoughts and your own feelings, but doing it non-judgmentally.
Just be aware. Be aware of your tendency to do something. Don't judge, just observe. Like I just gave an example of me observing my tendency to just kind of shut down and not share, not ask for help because of my own hyperindependence, which is a kind of a trauma response with some people. And so in this case, you just need to relax and be aware of what's going on. And that awareness gives you an opportunity to do something different.
Dana Skaggs (20:58.55) And sometimes the awareness itself will give you that space to make another choice, to be able to set and defend a boundary, to be able to pull nutrients in and push toxins out. And sometimes we have trouble doing this alone and we need the help of a mentor or a coach or a therapist or a really good friend, someone that can come alongside and kind of help us get to that next level. So I hope this episode has been helpful.
to help you sort of think through maybe your personal journey of the question is why, why have you potentially had difficulties setting and defending boundaries? Maybe you know what they are, maybe you know why you need them and how to do them, but you don't really, you haven't really spent much time just kind of hovering over your personal why.
why it's so hard to put in play what you know you need to put in play. And the answer to that question is very helpful because it gives you the awareness and it gives you the option to change. I hope you have enjoyed this solo episode, which I haven't done one of these in a long time. I have several, several others in queue to do that I will be interspersing between the wonderful interviews that I get to do with these fantastic guests that I so enjoy.
and love talking to. So I hope the the rest of your day is great. I'm Dana on Phoenix in Flame.