Hello and welcome to dating, marriage and divorce conversations where we analyze, navigate and troubleshoot all stages of your romantic life. I'm your host, igor Meistelman, a divorce attorney turned relationship coach. Hello everybody, welcome back to the show, and today we're going to be doing our season finale of the relational self journey and, of course, if it's finale, the goal is to see what does this mysterious, almost unreachable state of existence one can reach when it comes to relational self. I mean, can I really have this vibrant, awesome life with another human being where we are both celebrated, where I feel truly seen, where I feel acknowledged, where I feel I can appreciate who you are, value and cherish your strengths, even when they are better than mine or different than mine? And I simply live in a state where it's not competition, it's not one of us has to win and one of us has to lose, but rather we're both celebrated, we're both cherished, we both matter. What tools will we need in order to be on a journey towards this healthy relational self, and what obstacles we have to overcome, besides what we've discussed in the previous episodes, such as my childhood wounds, how I carry my past with me into the present, what all stands in the way now, in the here and now, and so today I want to talk about three terms that I have mentioned previously, but they are such a prevalent dominant force in all relationships and all interactions, and I think the more we could really wrap our minds around them, understand their place in our lives, understand how we interact through them, the more we can understand what needs to be removed, what needs to be worked on in order for me to activate and live out my healthiest, most powerful relational self. And so the terms we're going to explore today are boundaries. What are boundaries? How do they work? How do we create healthy ones? What does it look like when boundaries are trespassed upon enmeshment? What is enmeshment? How does that work? How is it different from boundaries? And ultimately, the ultimate tool, self differentiation, how this tool can catapult us into healthy ranges of living with others, working with others, raising our children.
Speaker 1:Let's take a closer look. So, first of all, boundaries, because in some ways it might be one of the easier ones of the three concepts to discuss, and I always like to turn to analogy of real property. If I have a house and you have a house and we live on the G, send lots Well when you're playing football or catch with your kids and the ball falls close to my house and you decide to come over and retrieve your property and I start yelling and I say to you you're trespassing, get off my land. I don't know if any of you have neighbors like that. Hope not.
Speaker 1:And the question is what's happening in this moment? Well, what's happening is that the neighbor clearly is implying that there is a well understood black and white boundary that exists between our properties and the moment you walk into mine or I walk into yours without permission, we call that trespassing. And because the boundary is so clear, because it's written down or there was a survey that was done we know exactly at which point I'm coming too close to the boundary line. I know exactly at which point I've either gone too far or I have room to play with, and so boundaries begin to serve a really healthy role in knowing where I end and you begin, and vice versa. That's why, when people like to loosely use these words crossing boundaries has taken place, or I feel violated because you've crossed the boundaries it gives us such an easy indication of that this space is no longer safe space for me, or my space, that I understood to be mine alone has now been encroached upon, and I demand that you step back into your own space and how much in relationships it's so important to navigate, define, bring clarity to. Where is that space? Where are the lines, where are the demarcations that let me know that here's a space where I could live, exist, swim in and be myself, work on myself, explore who I am, how I want to be, what I want to work on for the future, and how you are interfering with that by crossing those boundaries. And so the more we can define our boundaries in relationships which could be literally physical boundaries, such as please don't use my toothbrush without my permission or don't just walk into the bathroom while I'm using it, knock on the door and ask, okay, if I come in. It could be from anything as simple as that type of a physical boundary or an emotional boundary. You keep telling me what I'm feeling. You keep telling me what I'm thinking. Knowing the more complicated analysis, I would explore and share how that translates into gaslighting someone, telling somebody else what they're thinking or what they're feeling. I know you better than you know yourself.
Speaker 1:Very unhealthy trespass into bound into somebody else's space and crossing over those boundaries and a cousin, if you will, of the boundary violation is the concept of enmeshment. Now, enmeshment is essentially an idea that was actually born out of system therapy by somebody named Salvador Mnuchin, and he really was a pioneer and explored this idea of what happens in our family systems. It's one thing if I lived on an island by myself and I don't interact with anyone except coconuts, but if I'm living with other human beings, then we bring into existence a system and different systems function differently. Some systems are oppressive. We call them closed systems.
Speaker 1:Typically, it's when family has a secret. No one is allowed to share that secret. Or oh, we don't talk about that, even though the elephant is right there in the room sitting staring at all of us, but we don't talk about that. It just sort of lives next to us, side by side, and sort of travels through life with us, but we don't talk about that. It could be secrets related to abuse. It could be secrets related to violation of certain cultural boundaries and rules that we've established, but we don't talk about it, even though it lives right there with us.
Speaker 1:And so enmeshment enters the scene when family members become emotionally entangled with other family members. Of course, the primary relationship will be a husband and a wife or a parent and a child, and that enmeshment creates all kinds of complications. There's now emotional reactivity to one another because we're so intertwined, because I'm not okay until you are okay. Listen to the third line I am not okay until you are okay. That is a classic enmeshment scenario versus I see that you are in distress, my world is still okay and therefore I can show up to you from this healthy space to be with you, to share in your distress, to ask how I can be of help to you. But my world does not have to become this regulated. My world doesn't have to fall apart just because you are struggling. Another typical example of enmeshment along these lines is I am upset that you're not upset right now because something happened to me and I also want you to be upset, and if you're not upset, I'm not okay.
Speaker 1:For example, in enmeshment, my world and its well being is completely or very much entangled, intertwined and defined by you and your experiences, rather than being defined by me and my own experiences. And within family systems all kinds of funny things could be happening. There could be subsystems. All of a sudden, these two siblings are gaining up against one parent or these siblings don't talk to another sibling Parents make all kinds of what we call alliances with other family members against other members. All of these are classic examples of investments that, as a result, create horribly toxic, resentful and often or lead to sometimes abusive interactions. Because, after all, I'm only okay if certain things take place, including if it means you need to be hurt in order for me to be safe, and so, all of a sudden, relationship can take on really dark ugly, unpleasant interactions all because I needed this to affirm my own significance.
Speaker 1:So how do we walk away from all of this unhealthiness? Well, the way that process can begin is with a very powerful tool that we call self differentiation and, as the term implies, self differentiation means my ability to differentiate meaning. Can I say where you end and I begin? Now, it will be very hard and possibly even counterproductive if I attempt it to figure out where I begin by only looking at where you end, because you're your own person.
Speaker 1:Some days you're angry and some days you're loving. Some days you're distant and cold and some days you're super affectionate, to a point that I'm confused by your behavior. But all of that can simply be stopped. It's like pulling a plug out of the wall and just removing all of that energy, which also translates to confusion, misunderstandings, resentment. In return, all of that can come to an end if I simply pull the plug out of the wall and say you know what? I can't really control your world. I can't really know at any given moment exactly where you are, who you are, how you view yourself at any given moment. Because, who knows, maybe you walk to the house right now grumpy and that happened because the clerk in the supermarket was nasty but I run to right away, say oh, I must have done something wrong, instead of stopping and just simply saying you're going through a hard time, this doesn't have to do with me, you are going through a hard time, it's your own experience, independent of my own.
Speaker 1:So therefore, what should we do? What muscle do we need to continuously train? We need to train this muscle of self differentiation, and the starting point of it is I am made in an image of God, I have a unique soul, and that soul exists independent of anyone else. You cannot define me, you cannot produce and imbue me with my own sense of worth, feeling of belonging, feeling of meaning, purpose. Only I can do this for myself and the more I can remove any of this in the measurement, where I define myself through you and instead I have my own strong sense of myself, independent of what anybody else thinks, and I can validate myself.
Speaker 1:And I don't need you to approve me, to tell me that I'm okay, so that I could feel that I'm okay. I can take the time to self-soothe, so if anything's going on around me that is frustrating, upsetting or disappointing, or you've done things that are hurtful, I could simply focus on myself by being with myself and saying I'm going to be okay, we're going to be okay. This doesn't have to define me, which is why a self-differentiating person is not seeking agreement. I don't need you to agree with me. I don't need you to approve me. I am seeking understanding. I would rather understand your world and I'm looking to see if you understand mine Rather than me trying to see. Can you tell me that I'm okay? Am I okay? Please tell me that what I've done is acceptable. That's a measurement Me needing you to approve me and to tell me that I'm okay. But if I simply say you know, I hear you disagree with me and you know what, that's okay. You're a different person and I am a separate person. We can have two opinions and still be friends, still be spouses, still be parents and children together. It's okay for us to have different opinions without wondering oh oh, is there something wrong with me? Do I need to change something about myself? And the more I can process this and practice it, the more I can arrive in a significantly healthier place within myself.
Speaker 1:I want to share with all of you a such a beautiful quote from Bernie Brown. Bernie Brown is a very famous person, psychologist, who really spent most of her career as a research scientist in the realm of mental health, and she has a found core in one of her books. True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you could share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging does not require you to change who you are. It requires you to be who you are. What an unbelievable quote and so much wisdom packed into just these two sentences. True belonging does not require you to change who you are. It requires you to be who you are, and this is exactly why I find that the most vibrant, happy, dynamic and meaningful relationships are where it's two people who celebrate the uniqueness and the differences of each other, who respect the boundaries and limitations of the other and don't seek the other to morph, become something other than they are. They simply can love who they are and they feel that they are loved as they are.
Speaker 1:Now you might ask me so this? Doesn't it become stagnant? Is there movement? Do we change? Do we become something? And here's the cool secret, and it's almost paradoxical. It is precisely when I feel completely accepted, embraced and loved as I am that I experience an energetic motivation to become more than what I am. And this completely bears out in our biochemistry, in the body. Because think about this if I right now feel criticized by you, I feel judged by you, I feel rejected and not accepted as I am, my body will activate stress hormone cortisol, it will put me into fight flight mode and I will now be consumed, spending my time surviving the moment rather than in experiencing a safe, comfortable space within myself where all of my biochemical system is at peace. I'm relaxed and then I am simply able to activate a natural desire for curiosity and for wanting to ask the question on my own what more can I do for myself, for my spouse, for my children? I cannot ask those questions when I am in survival mode. I can only ask those questions when I am at peace and my natural desire that God placed in all of us to be curious, to be in a joyful state of inquisitiveness. I cannot access that state if I am in survival mode, but that state is waiting, dying for an opportunity to come out and express itself when I'm in the place of serenity, peace, relaxation.
Speaker 1:And the biggest mistake we make when we are unmatched is we demand, we seek that our spouses do things for us, prove their love to us, prove their worthiness, and all we're really doing is driving them until that unhealthy place of survival, rather than availability, to grow, blossom with us. So when we sit down and say time to draw healthy boundaries by me defining who I am, what I want, asking you to do the same and then share our lists, understand each other so we can understand where the boundaries exist, then we sit down and we look at our measurements, try to understand. Where have I been craving your approvals? Where do I need you to tell me I'm okay? And without it.
Speaker 1:I am dysregulated, I am shook up, I'm resentful and, as I understand, those lists say okay, what would my healthy self, differentiated self, look like? How can you be celebrated and I be celebrated at the same time as we go through those steps and pull them all together? When we then come back to our relationship, we're in a joyful, relaxed state where we're seeking connection, not because I need you to approve me. I'm seeking connection because it's our time to celebrate our uniqueness and something we're building together that greater than ourselves. Thanks for joining. Thank you for joining us today. For questions, comments, topics you'd like to hear more about, or to try our 24 week relationship challenge, email us at relationship reimagined at gmail.