Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. Today's episode is a little bit different because it is the audio of a workshop that I taught back in November the workshop was on boundaries with love and I was sharing also. My favorite kind of know which is the gentle know when you deliver a know It is a gentle. No, with a lot of love behind it. It actually feels really good.
Like it can feel good to give a gentle know and it can feel good to hear a gentle. No. And it can create more connection more trust and just strengthen relationships with people who are important to us. Because of the timing of when I did this Workshop, there were some questions about how to use boundaries with Family at the holidays. And so, that's why I thought it would be really helpful to share this with you.
Now, as we are in December coming into the end of the year and we are in that holiday season. One of the things I love about teaching, my students and working with my clients on having the confidence to have boundaries to know, How to use them effectively is that you will use them in your workplace but also in your personal life and I think that's just a really great thing to have.
It's really great to feel comfortable and confident in how you communicate, boundaries how you advocate for yourself, how you give feedback any of these? Contexts, it's just a great skill to have, so I won't keep you any longer. A longer you might take some notes but here we go, boundaries with love. This is boundaries with love as we get started, I wanted to share a few specific guidelines for how I want us to use this time.
So number one, please take great care of yourself and what that means is, if you want to be off camera, be off camera. If you need to be eating food, right now, you can eat some food if you need to. To get a glass of water, do that? If there is a child or an animal nearby that needs your attention? It's okay to tend to that. Like I really want you to stay connected to yourself and just know, like, what do you need in order to have the experience here at that will be of greatest
service to you. That also means that if you have a question, you can post that in the chat as we go. So is everyone, okay, taking really great care of yourself, at least for the next 45 minutes. Yeah, okay, excellent. So when I know that excellent, thank you Laura and when you know that, then we can all be more present, kind of just knowing how our expectations are, how we're going to use our time and realize people will
come and go and that's fine too. So This topic of boundaries with love has been coming up a lot both like for me in the course of my own life but also I think especially around the holidays. It's a topic that comes up in our personal relationships and also in our work relationships. And so, when I talk about boundaries, there are two ways that I find incredibly helpful to think about them that I want to share with you. And the first is thinking of a boundary as an agreement that
you make with your self. So for example, in our time here you might have this agreement with yourself in part because I invited you into it. But this agreement of I'm going to take really good care of myself while I'm in this meeting. That's an agreement. I'm going to make with myself so I'm going to make some decisions as we go based on that agreement. That's my boundary. Like if I get thirsty, I'm going to go get a glass of water. That's just how I do.
So you can think of it as that. It's an agreement that you make with yourself and what's really nice about that is, when you think of a boundary in those terms, you're not trying to get something from somebody else, you're not trying to change their behavior, you're not trying to make them feel or be a
certain way. It's just, what is it that you are in agreement with yourself about and the agreement around self-care that sense of I'm going to take really great care of myself, is so nice because then you do not require the other person to do that for you. But now I'll give you some examples more of what I mean by that, is we go. But I just want to start with this idea that it's an agreement, you make with yourself.
It is not necessarily an agreement that You tell somebody else like, hi. My name is Ken. You should understand. These are my boundaries. I expect you to adhere to them and if you don't we will have a problem right? Like that is not what we're doing. It's like oh I'd know that this is, you know this is this is my agreement with myself the other way that I found very helpful to think about boundaries especially with respect to time and what you say yes to what you
Agree to you. And what you say no to is to remember that boundaries can simply be a way of organizing your time. So, for example, if you have an open Saturday, there's nothing scheduled on that Saturday. That doesn't mean that it's available for other people. Someone says, oh, what are you doing on Saturday? Can you come help me with X y&z? You might decide for yourself. Oh, I've already allocated that time to something else. I've decided, I'm using that time for absolutely nothing.
Like, it's just a way of being organized. What is that time for? And when you think of it in those terms that also gets you out of feeling like, oh, this person has crossed a boundary because they are asking for my time and they should know that I'm already overextended. I already have a full plate. It's nobody's job to know what your energy is. It's nobody's job to know how
you organize your time. Like, you can take that full and loving responsibility for it for yourself, and then, it makes things less personal because, of course, people want to spend time with you, or, of course, people want to, you know, you to help them with things at work in your personal life, all over, of course they do. So your work is to think about, okay? What are my agreements with
myself? And how can I think about my time as like how can I just be organized with my time and then make decisions from there about what I say yes to and what I say no to. And all of this this is why this is a class on boundaries with love. We're doing it from a place of love and care both for ourselves, as well, as for the relationships that we have with
others. And what I found is that for So many of us are experienced of boundaries, arises as a response to injury or as a reaction to something happening, that doesn't feel good. And then we think, oh I'm the person is crossing my boundaries or oh, why did I not set good boundaries with that person or with that situation, or with my job? Why am I working? So many hours? I have no boundaries and I just say yes to everything. So I want to be helpful, right?
And so we often have this initial experience with boundaries as something that doesn't feel good. It becomes something that we use as a tool to defend ourselves right to like throw up a barrier or as a way to like protect, right? So boundary as defensive or boundary as protection but when we shift a little bit and we think about boundaries from this place of love, that will give us connection like connection to self and then also Others, which feels good and it expands what's possible.
So, it becomes an expansive tool rather than a defensive tool. Because when you have clarity about what you need and how you like to work and kind of what works for you, it allows you to show up feeling really present and kind of expanding the possibilities of what's, what's available. How can we do this? This yeah, like by boundary is like I know I'm home by 10:00 p.m., I don't stay out late. All right, so I can be available for this but, but not for that.
How can we do this from a place of Love That expands possibilities and creates more connection? I think one of the reasons why we often hesitate with boundaries is because it feels like we're breaking connection. It feels like we're trying to distance. It's ourselves or put like a barrier between us and somebody else and that can feel heavy can feel tiring.
It can feel difficult. But when you think about, oh no, I'm going to establish this boundary because this expands things like it expands the things that I want and it creates more connection and that feels really good, that then allows us to feel more safe to have more Trust. All of these qualities that actually make things easier. Now with boundaries also I do want to acknowledge a couple of things. One is that they can be very informed by the culture in which we live work and grow up.
So that includes the business culture, like the culture of the organization that you work in, there might be very subtle or very explicit expectations. Options about how you use your
time, for example. And that can feel like a harder situation in which to establish boundaries but also in our families, in our communities, in the places where we grow up, there can be different social norms, or different expectations around, kind of what's, okay to say yes to and what's okay to say no to. And so when you realize in your own life, It feels like setting. A boundary feels really hard for it. Feels like I'm really going to
let someone down. It feels really heavy than one of the reasons why that could be is because is there like a, a bigger cultural weight that is kind of conveying, this message of what is expected of you and it helps to be aware of that. Because then when you are establishing a boundary and you're doing it with love, you can have the understanding of why it might feel challenging, right?
And also feeling into how do I want to do this in a way that maintains connection and continues to create good relationships? If there are any questions that about what I've shared so far that you either want to either drop into the chat or if you want to come off of mute and share, I invite you to To do that as well.
My my mind started racing and what all kind of an attachment when you were talking, but I had kind of a realization about my boundary but my boundaries I have a I have a tendency to Ghost and I was thinking that It just kind of popped up for me that, oh, I think. That's because in having loose boundaries earlier and in relationships, it kind of builds up, builds up till I can't handle it.
And then I'm like, oh too much got to get out of here and that I just kind of had a realization about that as he were talking. Yeah, that is such a great insight and also very relatable, because before I before, I had boundaries before, I felt comfortable with them. I sort of do similar, I thought of it as like just absorbing, it's not a big deal, just absorb it just, you know, go a long. Don't Don't Rock the Boat.
Don't make a big fuss about it and I would Zorb absorb absorb until finally, like one small thing and I would just, I would I didn't explode often, I'm not an Exploder, I'm an imp loader. So instead of lashing out, I kind of lash in at myself because I was not wanting to have a conversation with someone directly. So I kind of lash in and then just remove myself. Yeah. So it makes a lot of sense to, and we understand like, oh, that makes sense like that was what that was my.
That was my chosen strategy at the time because I didn't know how to have a conversation. Or I didn't know how to deal with someone else's. Emotional world or my own emotional world you know. And I think to for so many of us we grow up in families where the adults also don't really model boundaries in a beautiful way and so we can learn. I guess what to expect is I just need to get along or I just need
to be a good team player, right? It's you know it's just it's not something that I think we often learn directly. And then it makes sense. That then as adults it can we just continue to use this strategy that seemed to work before like until it doesn't anymore? Okay, I have a couple examples I want to share right? Because some of this is kind of conceptual and and part of this
too is I want to help. I want to help all of us shift from oh, I kind of get it on the surface like intellectually, that makes sense and then help to drop it down into something that feels more doable. Right, and also give some more clear examples of what that looks like in practice. Because the other thing about us as humans is, we will always do first, our habit, the thing we've done before.
Even if it doesn't work because it feels familiar and it's just like this is, this is the part where I say yes and then I'm like, why did I say yes to that, right? We tend to just have to get to know patterns and habits. So I want to start to Introduce not just the concept, the concept can be really simple but how we apply it.
That's where there's a lot of nuance, we kind of want to feel our way into it and I'll actually the other thing I'll share to that that will be helpful as you think about this long term, it truly only takes a small shift to create a big change. So when you're thinking about boundaries where do you want to have them, where could they be Be better think about the easy places as well as the hard places because you'll start to practice them in all areas of
your life. And what we tend to do, especially when we're implementing a learning like this, where it requires communication with others and where it requires an awareness of yourself of like tuning in to what you need, the tendency is to stay in the habit. Until there's like a really big problem. And then we try to use this tool for the very first time with the biggest hardest challenge. And instead, I want to invite you to start thinking about what are the small like what are the
light lifts? What is a easy places where I can start to practice this and start to feel more confident in this new way of being with boundaries and also where the stakes are pretty low or it won't feel as scary. Like, there's not so much at risk, so it's a, it's a skill. It's a thing that you can practice, and as you get more familiar with it, it starts to feel easier and more like, oh, this is just what I do now for Ample few years ago actually I
was like several years ago. At this point I was starting a new job with a start-up small group of people really tight-knit team. I wanted them to like me, okay, new at the job, I wanted them to like me. I wanted to be a team player. I wanted to do a really good job, well, our team was planning an event and the manager was saying, okay, you know, you're all the things that need to happen. And I want you to come early to help us set up and, you know, bring these things.
And in that moment, I had two thoughts. One thought was, I don't want to do that because I had other plans and I wasn't planning to get there early. And the other thought at the exact same time was I want them to like me and want to be a team player. I think I need to say yes. Right. So in that moment these two thoughts and what I did was I actually kind of I raised my hand and said, oh, you know, I am not available to come early, but I can stay late.
And I'm happy to help with cleanup and break down at the end and the manager. Paused, I was like, oh, okay, great, no problem. And what super interesting is that afterwards, after the meeting, we were leaving the room and the manager kind of pulls me aside. And she's like, Kim, I just I want to thank you for saying no to me earlier and I was like oh why? And she said because I know I can trust you.
I can trust you to say. No to me, I don't have to worry that you'll say yes and then flake or that you'll say yes and get burned out because you're overextending yourself. Thank you for telling me. And it was this. Incredible realization of wow. Okay. So when I was staying connected to myself and what I needed, right? With my schedule and my time commitment, the desire of I want to be a team player but not in that. That way here's how I can help
out. I want to offer this as an alternative and realizing that for her it actually created more trust and more clear connection and communication which ultimately is what I wanted to do. It was scary at the time. I'm really glad that I chose to say that because resentment gets heavy and it corrodes trust and it corrodes our relationships and we can build it up and carry it for a really long time, but it will always get in the way. So, another example, this is from my personal life.
I'm in the best relationship of my life. If you follow me on Facebook, you have seen some of the stories but it is truly unlike any relationship I've ever been in because I am no longer trying to micromanage his feelings and And right which often to like with boundaries.
Sometimes the thing that people tell me is I'm afraid to set a boundary because I don't want to disappoint this person who means a lot to me, and I don't want them to feel bad because sometimes people receive a boundary as a rejection right or as distance. Like, I'm not with you, but it doesn't have to be like that. It actually can be a way of creating more connection and Trust in our personal relationships. Oops, too.
And one of the reasons why is when you have that Clarity for yourself around boundaries that will also make you more safe. Here's what I mean by that. So early in our dating I noticed that I tended to text and message my guy a lot more often than he did to me and it occurred to me that he might not Not know what to do with that because if I like someone, I'm just going to text you. I don't really really not good at pacing myself. It's like how are you?
How was your day? What do you want to spend time with me again? Do you want to hang out? How about tomorrow? No. How about the day after that? Like that is me. And so what happened was is I realized oh, I'm messaging him a lot. And so I talked with him and I said, hey just so you know, I've noticed I tend to message you a lot more than you message me and I'm actually super, okay with that. So just you know, I'm not expecting you to reply to every message.
I'm going to assume that if you don't reply, my assumption is not that you're mad at me. My assumption is that you just have things that you need to do and then you'll get to it later. We're just going to bring that assumption and I just wanted to tell you that's that's what I'm thinking. Yeah, and he was like, okay and what super interesting is that he ended up there was this time where he actually didn't respond to me for like three days and then he came back and wrote and
he was like, I'm so sorry. You know I shouldn't have have disappeared on you like that thinking. Amy. I'm like he probably goes to be got a little overwhelmed understandable and he came message back, it's like I'm so sorry, you know, I shouldn't have treated you that way and I said, oh wait no, I'm actually Fine. Like I just assumed like you are just taking time for yourself because you know, like you're an introvert, I'm an introvert. Sometimes we like our alone
time, you know how you doing? How's it been? And he was just like, oh, okay, yeah, good. So in that sense the way boundary works when we're coming to a boundary from love this sense of oh I'm actually I'm really okay with how we are. Like I trust you to take time. I'm when you need it because I don't know when your energy is like getting depleted and you need to pull back to recharge and I really like you and I want you to be good.
Like I want you to have what you need and it's actually better if I'm not trying to guess it's actually works better. If I just trust that you're going to stay connected to what you need. And then you're going to, you know, take care of yourself. And I'll do that for me too. Right, I'll stay connected to what I need and I'll take care of myself. So, for example, there have been times when I said, hey, like, I had a really, really hard day. You know, are you free tonight? Can we hang out?
And he has texted me and he said, I'm actually not available to get together but I could FaceTime you a little bit later if that's okay, or how about we meet tomorrow for coffee, right? So again, like holding that connection to. Where am I at? Like, what do I need? Let me take love. Responsibility for that. And from there, make a decision about what happens next and how we're going to be together. And what's interesting. Now, it's been like five years. We text each other probably
every day now just like freely. But again, there's not this expectation of. Hey, if I messaged you, why didn't you message me back? There's never that there's always this kind of generosity of spirit, like, I'm assuming you're taking care of yourself. And I also, To offer some like simple language that can help you to convey a no with a lot of kindness. A lot of love and a lot of
gentleness. So if someone that you care about asks, for something of you, whether it's your time or whether it's like, some something of you might be like, somebody wants to borrow something that is really precious to you. And, you know, it would help them but you really don't feel comfortable releasing. Seeing this beloved object to this person. One of my favorite ways of saying no I am a gentle.
No to that I am a gentle. No, I had a friend of mine who was coming to San Francisco. This was was this, this was like mid pandemic, so maybe 20 21 or so and they said, hey, I'm going to be in San Francisco. Co can I crash at your place? And I thought about it and I was like, I am a gentle know I'm really enjoying my solitude. I would love to see you while you're here but that won't work. Gentle no helps to convey like that sense of love and kindness and connection.
As opposed to the alternative of like, yes, you can come and I will be secretly resentful and trying to hide it the entire time, which becomes burdensome, it only works for so long. I managed for 45 46 years, this new ways better. So, starting to learn the language, right? When you feel safer being connected to yourself? What is it that I need? What is my agreement with me? It can be around anything with what is my bedtime. Like my agreement with myself is when I'm tired, I go to bed.
That's it right? Can be around work things it can be around family. Things agreement with yourself first and then offer the boundary from love with connection. And when we do it early and often it makes everything easier, I'll share one more example that comes to mind because sometimes to is boundaries. It doesn't require you to tell anybody else what they are which is really nice because you're
not seeking. Science from someone, you're simply making decisions for yourself that will affect the relationship. So, I used to think that, when my mom called I had to answer because that's what good daughters. Do you answer the phone? When your mom calls seems simple, right? It's like yeah, you're like, yes, that's exactly what you do.
But one thing I noticed was that if I answered the phone, when I was like, walking to the bus, or if I was not in a good mood, then the version of me, My mom, got she got me feeling impatient, kind of exasperated like yeah, what do you want? I don't have much time, right? Like she did not get a really great version of me. We did not have a great moment when I show up in patient. And one day I realized, you know, what, when I see the call incoming, I can send it to
voicemail. It doesn't mean, I don't love her. It doesn't mean I don't want to talk. With her, it just means that I'm going to need a minute to kind of get into this space for us to connect. I want to be present. I want to be like the best version of me with her just because that feels better to me. And I don't need to tell her when to call me and not call me, I can just decide and then she
would call send it to voicemail. I've listened to the voicemail, make sure everything's okay, no emergencies, right? And then I could either just text back like, hey, Sigh you called, I'm on the bus, you know, I'll ping you when I get home or I could just let it sit until I felt like I was in a place where I'm like, I feel ready to have a great conversation with my mom and it made the relationship feel better without having to give her any rules.
Hey, don't call me between now. And then just like, oh yeah, like you just do you. I will take responsibility for me. Like what? I sometimes think of the opposite of boundaries is hoping and coping like I I hope that everything goes the way. I need it to go and if it doesn't I will just cope I will just manage right as opposed to having a boundary which is 0.
I'm going to have some clarity about myself and I can communicate that from a place that feels good hoping and coping we can kind of do silently but it really doesn't work on the long-term having Clarity with boundaries and having boundaries with love is a much more sustainable practice. Will require a little bit of a learning curve.
So we want to be aware of that so that you can practice and start to feel good about it and then start to use them in all kinds of situations, any questions. Yeah, we see your hand. Go ahead. Okay, so you mention like oftentimes the boundary doesn't have to be straight like you have a rule like you know what your bag, but it doesn't have to be stated. So I'm thinking in the situation. Ian where I'm like, always holidays?
I coming up. I'm always like the organizer of big family events but I'm kind of like tired. Like my yeah. So like so this Christmas is like okay, I don't wanna organize anything, like come up with whatever I like you guys want us to fight like I'm, you know, whatever as so. Like, do you have a like a Of saying that's because it's kind of weird to like I was just like, gonna okay, how about? I just leave the group chat goal, but it's kind of like that assumed coucher, right?
Which I kind of helped set up is that they are. I feel like they're all looking at. If you like to come come up with something. And at that moment is like or do I like announce my boundary? But is also kind of awkward. So like how like do you have any what What are your thoughts around? That is such a brilliant question. I know you are not the only person who has stood like a situation like that. So I'm very glad that you asked that question. So, yes.
So the pattern in the past has been that. You are the one to point. Do the, do the event planning for the holidays, right? Yeah, yeah. Take initiative proposed. Something like get people together. Get people excited. It's like I said, yeah. So now we've got a couple of options one is and I love that you're thinking about this ahead of time because there's kind of already a momentum where people are just going to look to you like, but you always done that,
right? That's kind of a default expectation but it's okay. We're going to drill. We're going to do something new this year. I'm going to do something new and especially because it's still November, right? So this is the perfect time to begin to notify people. That things will be different this year. And I see a couple of options for you. One is, you can think of it in terms of passing the torch, right?
Like to the Next Generation or two including someone else and be like, you know what, I've been the one that's typically organized these things. I think this year, it is time to hand that, you know, keep the tradition going and handing this to somebody else. So you can do it either, kind of like direct delegate. Jen like who I want to. I want to nominate this person to do it.
You can think of it in terms of extending the tradition, like it's now time for someone else to take the tradition. You can also simply say, you know what, this year I am not going to be available to do the planning and the getting people excited. I'm not I'm not going to be
available for that. And you might say, either, just like I am tired or you might just say you know what I really want to invite Someone else to take over this year, I'm not going to be available for that and it's like from this place of love and realize, you know, people might feel like what's happening, what is going on? That is not what happens. The tradition is that you do it and you know, the response is like not this year we're doing something new this year, it's
going to be great. I don't know what it's going to be someone's going to do, it's not going to be me. So bringing the The gentleness to it, offering yourself Grace because you're the one who feels awkward first, right? Nobody knows. Anything is different. You're the one who feels awkward, you're like, what are they going to do? What are they going to say? So offer, some compassion to yourself, of course, it feels
weird. And also realizing, you know, of course, people are very comfortable, letting you do it. It's been wonderful for them. It really works for them to let you do it and it's okay for things to change. Yeah. I like the second option. Yeah and it's yeah it's going to be initially a little bit awkward but Just like, showing up with that love and gentleness consistently in innate response I guess.
And not like go to the people-pleasing again and though I would do some of like you know, like just sticking sticking with it. It requires some sticking to us while. So I don't like just be with that awkward - I guess. Yeah, little bit initially. Yeah, you can think. Gov it to like, growing pains, like, when we're doing something new, it can feel awkward and uncomfortable, but that's also like a sign of growth.
And it's something in this sense, you can think of it as something that you are you are doing on behalf of your family, right? Letting things change and be different can actually be wonderful. And actually I think oftentimes in families, we can get into kind of a rat or a routine but when we become very Tensional about handing, over responsibility, for about changing, the expectations, and the roles.
We do that intentionally with a lot of love and that lets us do it in a Cell much like easier gentle way. Because the alternative is that we build up resentments until the final straw and then it comes out in a way that feels reactive and like not good, right? So, it's so So helpful, when you get in front of it you can do it with a lot of intention and Care. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. I also want to share that I do.
So I also work with people one-on-one on applying this stuff in their life in their personal life, in their professional life. I do have spots available starting in January so if you want to talk with me about working together, How that works, what that looks like all the details. Then the next step is to book a consultation which you can do from my website. Kim nickel.com will find a link there to my calendar and you can
schedule a time. So we can talk about what's going on with you and what we'll do together to get you to the place where you're so much more comfortable and confident. So I didn't want to share that with you as well. Alright everybody thank you so much for being here with me. Enjoy your boundaries use them With love and I will see you later. Hey, before you go, if you like this podcast, please leave a review. Tell me why you listen and what has helped you?
Thanks so much. I'll see you next time.