50. Boundaries: Another Way to Show Unconditional Love

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hi friends, welcome back to the podcast. I am offering you a different way to think about boundaries that I think might really resonate with all of you. Because what I have come to learn is that most of you listening to this podcast ⁓ a ton of compassion in your heart. You are helpers, you want to make the world a better place. ⁓ one of the things we often struggle with is how to do that and also take care of ourselves. ⁓ to be for others without being against us. ⁓ So today I want to offer you a different way to think about boundaries. And what I want to do is I want you to start thinking about boundaries as another way to show unconditional love. Because in our culture, we often treat these two things like they're total opposites. We think unconditional love means always being available, always saying yes, always accommodating what other people need. And the more we do that, the more that we love. And we think that boundaries means distance or rejection or pushing people away. But what if the opposite were true? What if healthy, reasonable boundaries were actually one of the clearest expressions of unconditional love? That's what we're going to explore today. And before I go any further, I want to clarify something that often comes up here. And that's the difference between a healthy boundary and what I call toxic individuality. And toxic individuality is not what I'm talking about here. toxic individuality is this cultural message that says, I don't need anyone. ⁓ Everyone else is problem. I'm going to prioritize myself above all else. ⁓ And I say, call it toxic individuality. And sometimes it's just a wound, hidden wound we haven't healed, a attachment disorder we haven't worked through. ⁓ And so I want to name that and hold so much compassion for those that sort of separate themselves from others because they are scared to be vulnerable, scared to be seen, scared to connect with others because what if they get abandoned and all of those things that might come up with folks don't to ⁓ show they really are and let themselves be fully seen and fully ⁓ there's two to think about toxic individuality. There are the wounds that have not healed. ⁓ And then the sense of ⁓ it's all about me and only me and I only care about myself. ⁓ And that's two things are different, but they both show up as ⁓ really strong ⁓ and they show up again as emotional walls, avoidance or a lack of accountability in relationships. ⁓ That is ⁓ healthy independence. that is is deep wounding. It's deep disconnection ⁓ and healthy are the opposite of that. Healthy boundaries allow relationships to exist in a very sustainable way. They create clarity around what behavior works, what behavior does not work. And when boundaries are present, relationships often become much more respectful, much more stable, and definitely sustainable. In fact, there's been research that's been published that shows that people who are able to communicate, like say what their boundary is, but also, enforce a healthy boundary, experience higher relationship satisfaction, and lower emotional exhaustion. And by the way, burnout, of the main components of workplace burnout is emotional exhaustion. So when you are able to really hold, honor, respect your reasonable boundaries, you are likelier to not burn out because boundaries prevent something that slowly starts to destroy our joy. It starts to destroy our relationships and that's resentment. Boundaries prevent resentment. Okay, let's talk a little bit more about why boundaries matter. So most of us think that boundaries are only when something is already going wrong. When something is going wrong, holy smokes, I need to interrupt this ⁓ I need to set a boundary. So when someone keeps interrupting us or someone keeps asking for more than we can realistically give or someone keeps crossing the line, but boundaries don't have to be reactive. And I think that this is key here. Boundaries don't have to be reactive. They can be proactive. They can simply be a reflection of your values, of how you choose to live your life. And a good place to start identifying where you might need a boundary in your life right now is to start looking in your life and saying, okay, well, what is it that I value? What is it that I want to protect? Maybe my kids are at a stage right now where I really want to be around them a lot. So maybe what I want to protect is quality time. In fact, I recently heard this quote, how does how does a child spell love? T-I-M-E with time. And so maybe you're at that stage where you want to spend that quality time with your young children or with elder parent. ⁓ so that might be a good place to start when you think about what is it that I value and that I want to protect. ⁓ way to think about where is a good place to set a boundary is to think about ⁓ Where am I currently experiencing frustration? So what really frustrates me right now? Maybe it's when my mother-in-law shows up unannounced over and over again, or it frustrates me when my husband walks in when I'm in the middle of a bubble bath and I'm trying to take quiet time asking me about laundry or asking me some silly question, or it frustrates me when my meetings get scheduled during time that I had already blocked off. So frustration is just information. It tells you where your needs are not being met or your needs are not being honored. So in order for boundaries to work, two things need to be present. So number one, you have to create the boundaries. So you have to identify what is it that you're trying to protect. So think about boundaries as something that you're trying to protect. Maybe it's your heart, your sacred energy, the people that you love, ⁓ whatever it is you're trying to protect. Okay. So create first, you have to identify what it is that you want to protect. So have to create the boundary. And second, this is the hardest part, you actually have to enforce it consistently. And this is because if you're not enforcing your boundary, if you're not respecting your boundary, no one is going to do that either. No one is going to respect a boundary that you don't respect for yourself. And this is where most boundaries fail because creating the boundaries often the easy part. Saying, I'm not going to take meetings between this time and this time. That's the easy part. But enforcing it becomes really uncomfortable. Why is it uncomfortable? Because for some people, setting a boundary can feel really scary. It can even feel dangerous. Our nervous system might not be comfortable saying no because maybe we grew up in environments where speaking up was not okay, where it meant that you were being disrespectful, where you always had to people please, where you always had to say yes to be the good girl or whatever it was. And our nervous system evolved to always be available. to always say yes, to always be accommodating. And so it can feel really uncomfortable to set boundaries. I've been practicing boundaries for over 10 years, and there's still some times where I feel that little bit of discomfort in my body when I have to say no to something or someone's trying to schedule something and the only time I have available is my protected time. So, and I wanna protect it, so I have to say no. And that still can feel really uncomfortable sometimes. So I just want to name that for everyone listening. Have compassion for yourself if it feels uncomfortable. You're not the only person. It feels uncomfortable for a lot of people because it doesn't feel safe to us yet. If this is brand new to you or if you're new to practicing it, it's going to feel uncomfortable, especially if you're someone who identifies as being helpful or being reliable. or if you're part of a culture where like they talk about you gotta be a team player or you gotta be a good leader. So if you have fear of rejection or you have the sense that safety only comes if everyone can like me, if you're a pleaser for example, then it's gonna feel really uncomfortable in the beginning. But I promise you that the more and more you practice setting them, slowly, little by little, the easier it becomes because you'll set them and your nervous system will start to understand that it's totally safe to set. And just to give you a little bit more compassion, if you're someone that struggles with boundaries from an evolutionary perspective, you all know that we have been wired to survive and we have been wired to do that as efficiently as possible. And part of that survival wiring means being accepted by our social groups. So if we set a boundary and we're concerned that someone might get mad at us or disappointed, our nervous system will overreact. It will think something is dangerous. ⁓ thing that I want to just leave here for all of you is that ⁓ your nervous system does that, when that discomfort shows up in your body, don't make it mean that something has gone wrong. That's not what's happening. It's just that that part of our brain is so sensitive, it will turn on for anything. ⁓ even when we're totally safe, it will still turn on if we sense a threat. So just know that setting boundaries, especially if we're afraid that we might disappoint someone or somebody might get mad at us, will feel uncomfortable in the beginning. And that is why I think it's really important to think about it as another way to show unconditional love, unconditional love for yourself and unconditional love for anyone else. Anyone else that's going to experience what happens when you set a boundary. Because you start enforcing a boundary, there's a very high likelihood that someone's going to react. ⁓ used to getting you all the time, having you available all the time, ⁓ the person that drives everybody home. You're the person that always picks up the slack. You're the person that always picks up the shift. ⁓ the person that always says yes. ⁓ all of a sudden you start slowly walking that back, what's happening is you're disturbing the dynamics that were there before. ⁓ people might get like annoyed or they might roll their eyes or they may sigh or like any of that might happen because the dynamic that was there before is now being disrupted. It's not because you're doing anything wrong. It's just because what they knew to be normal is now changing. So they have to adapt to this new dynamic and they have to adapt to the dynamic. And this is where unconditional love really shows up. I'll tell you as a female, and a Latina, first generation Latina, boundaries is not something we ever talked about. never, everything was about, you know, ⁓ present, always available. You show up to every family event. You're there from the beginning till the very end, even if that ends at two in the morning. ⁓ you're always present. Boundaries is not something that we did. And so when I first started setting boundaries, it felt really uncomfortable, And that extended beyond ⁓ my family extended at work too, it felt uncomfortable to set boundaries. And what I started realizing is I can set a boundary and maybe my aunt might not like it or maybe my cousin may not like it and that's okay because I get to love them anyway. You can allow the reaction to exist without trying to control how they think or feel. I think a big one here, especially if you grew up as a pleaser, as a people pleaser, is to really understand that your safety is your safety and your safety is not dependent on how other people feel anymore as an adult. Because as a child, some of us created people pleasing tendencies and we were so good at attuning to the emotions of others around us because our safety depended on it. Whether we were fed, hugged, shown love, depended on how other people felt. So we got really good at reading the moods of people around us. And now as an adult, that's kind of a superpower. We can be super in tune to how other people are feeling around us. And it's really important to catch yourself when you are feeling resistant or afraid because you're catching somebody's mood to say, okay, I know that that's just my pleaser being hyperactive and over exaggerating my safety based on their emotions, but I am safe even without controlling how other people feel. without controlling how other people feel I am still safe. And this is where unconditional love comes in. So let's say you're setting a boundary and now your sister gets mad at you because you don't answer her phone call every time she calls or she's not available. You know you're not available every time she needs you. And now she's getting upset with you and that's okay. You can tell her, hey, that's okay. In your mind you can just think I love her anyway. She's gonna get upset and I love her anyway. So let's just, let's work through some very specific examples. Let's say, this one is one that one of my clients had recently. So let's say you have a mother-in-law who's very well-meaning. She lives nearby and she comes over all of the time, day, night, weekends, without even, she doesn't call without announcing and she expects you to be there, to be available, to open the door, to like spend all this time with her. And sometimes that's tough because You're about to walk out the door to get all your kids to soccer. You're about to go to the grocery store. So you have all these things to do. And it feels really uncomfortable when she shows up. So let's say you set a boundary where you ask your mother-in-law, hey, before you come over, please call me or text me so that I can be waiting for you or I can let you know if this isn't a good time. So your mother-in-law may not like that. She might get really upset. She might feel rejected. She might feel like you're trying to control her. And when that happens, you have two choices. You can try to manage her emotions by essentially giving in. Try to manage her emotions by making her happy, by abandoning your boundary. Or you can remain in integrity with who you are, with yourself and what you need. Ask yourself, is this a reasonable boundary? Is it reasonable that I just ask that she calls her text? before. And if the answer is yes, and you can really feel that in your body, yeah, that seems like a totally reasonable boundary. Then you can allow her to have whatever reaction she chooses to have. And you can love her anyway. You don't have to hold on to any oversensitivity, over responsibility for her emotions. You're not responsible for that. That is unconditional love. Unconditional love means This is my boundary and even if you don't like it and even if you're upset, I love you anyway. Unconditional love does not mean you have access to me 100 % of the time. It means that your love for someone is not dependent on whether or not they agree with your boundaries. I love you and please call me before you come over. And that's just it. You don't have to resent her for being upset about it. You don't have to resist that she's going to be upset about it. You don't blame her for making you feel guilty. If you choose to feel guilty, take ownership over that. You're an adult. That's your choice. Or you can choose. You can say, this is not unreasonable. I'm not out of integrity here. I'm not saying she can't come over. I'm just asking for one simple thing. And you simply accept that reaction and continue loving her anyway. And something interesting is going to start to happen over time when you start to respect your boundaries consistently. People adapt. People adapt because they begin to see your patterns and they begin to respect your patterns. They don't have a choice. If that's your pattern, then people will expect it and they will start to learn to adapt to it. And truthfully, some people may not. Some people may be really angry or upset. They're not gonna wanna be your friend anymore if you're holding a boundary that is disrupting their dynamics. It's disrupting what they used to get from you. If they're no longer having equal access to you and that was making their life easier and now they don't have that, they might be like, well, what the heck? And so you've got to decide, are those the type of people that you want to have in your life? here's the thing. What I've started to learn is that there used to be this ⁓ where like everybody would email me all the time for work. ⁓ then we went to text message and people started texting me all the time. I'm like, hold on a second. Just because text messaging exists and because you have my phone number, it doesn't mean I'm gonna be available to answer you instantly every second when it's not an emergency. I'm gonna treat my text messages the way I treat emails. If it's not an emergency, I'm not getting back to you right away. Like if I'm in the middle of a task and you're texting me because you don't have the patience to wait like a couple minutes for an email response, that's not my problem. Like your emergency is not my problem or your hypervigilance or your urgency. ⁓ If it's in true emergency, of course I'm going to answer. it's a true emergency, of course I'm going to respond. But it feels like almost like an encroaching of like a time or boundaries. It feels kind of unreasonable for people to text if it's not urgent or emergent, because all of that takes away from my focus, my productivity, my creativity, my own well-being. So once I stopped responding to text messages, like instantly, people didn't text me anymore. people just would email me and would wait for their response. And I'm super on top of my stuff. I respond to all my emails within 24 hours. Like I am very reasonable and I'm very reliable and I'm also reliable and then I'm gonna hold onto my boundaries. Like I'm reliable knowing that like if you text me and it's not an emergency, you're gonna just have to wait because it's not an emergency. I'm not gonna just respond to your text just because you texted. So this one feels a little bit like, You have to have full faith in yourself and full faith to believe that you are doing the best that you can. And what you will start to realize is that the boundaries that you have will help people know how to treat you. They will teach people how to treat you. And again, some people will adapt, most people will, but not everyone will. And that's going to have to be a decision that you make. Some people are going to resist your boundaries for the rest of your life. And when that happens, you still have a choice. abandon your boundary to control their emotions or try to make them feel better or be an integrity with yourself. You can't control every person's thoughts, every person's feelings, every person's behavior, but you can control your response and you can control how and who you choose to offer your unconditional love to. You can choose to still love them anyway. One of the reasons boundaries actually, I think in my experience, increases love and relationships is because, again, they're going to prevent resentment. Resentment grows when we repeatedly, over and over again, ignore our own needs. When we constantly say, I'm sacrificing, I'm sacrificing because it makes you feel morally superior, makes you feel good, or maybe that's just what you were taught. But when that happens over and over again, you're just going to experience resentment. ⁓ I think what is one of the most important things here is when you start saying yes, but you actually mean no, when we tolerate things that slowly start to drain us, all of the research from relationship psychology, including decades of work from the Gottman Institute, who I just love so much, shows that all of that unspoken resentment is one of the strongest predictors of relationship breakdown. When you are not being honest with yourself, when you are betraying your own needs, by constantly saying yes to things and allowing things to drain you, that's not good for anybody. You will eventually burn out and that burnout is gonna cause a breakdown in your relationships. So boundaries prevent that resentment from accumulating, which actually protects the relationship long-term. So when your needs are being respected, your emotional capacity will expand, you become more patient, more compassionate, more generous, and more loving. So the next time you feel uncomfortable enforcing a boundary, remember this simple phrase. I love you and I cannot do that right now. Or I love you and no. Or internally, you might say this to yourself. This is what I would say to myself. I love them no matter how they react. I love them no matter how they react. This is my no and I love you anyway. This is my no and I love you anyway. That's unconditional love. Not because you allow everything, but because you choose to love someone without trying to control them, to control their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions. So boundaries are not rejections. They're just clarity. They're a way to show self-respect, unconditional self-love. And when you practice them with integrity and love, they don't diminish love. They help you expand it because now you're more whole. Your energy is more is able to be shared because you can expand that energy you have because you're not draining it. And when you honor your own well-being, you create more space in your life to love the people around you, to love them more full, to love them more free and without resentment. And that is one of the most powerful forms of unconditional love there is. All right, sweet friends, I will see you next time. Adios.