Boundaries + Shifting Friendships + Perspectives

In this episode, host Karianne Jean talks about a perspective change she recently felt regarding setting & holding boundaries for herself & those around her. She expands on how those perspective shifts have influenced her experience with changing dynamics in friendships & other relationships.

Transcript

[00:03] Karianne: Welcome to Grounding Elevation, the podcast for open minds and open hearts to dig a little deeper and ascend a little higher on a quest to tap into our limitless potential mind, body and soul. I'm Carrie Ann Jean, mom, wife, daughter, sister, artist, writer, learner, rebel, entrepreneur, psychology enthusiast. I have a deep passion for self improvement that has sent me down many roads of growth and learning and unlearning. I believe that God, universe, whatever you call the highest power, the source from where we all have come from, it speaks and it all but yelled at me to do this podcast. This is my leap of faith in spite of my insecurities and self doubt and humanness. So here we go. Join us weekly as we embark together on a Grounding Elevation. Hello. Welcome back. Thank you so much for being here. So today I just want to touch on briefly kind of a realization that I had and like a perspective flip. I personally have a tendency to take on as much as probably more than possible because I, my instinct is to help. My instinct is to save and protect and fix and shield people, if you will, from discomfort. And I, for most of my life have been willing to sacrifice my own boundaries and not even have any boundaries in order to keep the peace, make other people happy, shield other people from discomfort or pain or know. My go to is I can do it, I'll take it on. I'd rather, I'd rather put too much on my shoulders than inconvenience someone else. And I think a lot of us women do that and empaths and just people that love people. You know, sometimes I can in my mind play it off as, you know, just loving people. Well, like I want to be there for people. I want to be there for everybody. I want to show up for anybody who wants to be shown up for, right? Anybody that's in need of any kind, I want to help. And you know, over the course of the last few years, I will say that I have had a tendency to, I've had to work on my boundaries. And the difference over the course of the last couple years was the birth of my daughter because for me, I have no problem putting myself on the chopping block, you know, taking it, whatever, I can take it, I can take it, I can take it is my general disposition. But when I have someone else to protect, like my child, love of my whole life, I realized that my loosey goosey boundaries can easily negatively impact her as well. And so I had to learn how to have boundaries, how to establish them, how to enforce them, and how to try Harder to not overextend myself because I have someone who relies on me 247 now, right. When you become a parent, you know, anything that you give to others, there's going to be, you know, not to say that you can't give to others when you're a parent. That's not, not what I'm saying at all. But if I were to overextend myself, the care and attention that I would normally just not give to myself or other people, like there's someone who's always needing my care and attention and always needing me to show up as close to my best self as I can. And that, that's important to me. And I've had to reprioritize that. Showing up as my best self for her is the top priority. And what's left I can give, right? What's left after that is what I can give to other people, Shield other people, save other people, whatever it is, you know, help whatever it is I'm trying to do. And so that's been a tough repriority, reprioritization, because for someone who has never enforced boundaries, because the only person that really needed me like that was myself. Right? You're there for yourself, for your spouse, but they're a grown human being. They only need so much to have an innocent being that relies on you for everything. You have to learn to establish boundaries. You have to learn to enforce boundaries and establish boundaries that you may not have ever done before. So for me, that was like, that's been. Still is a learning curve to say the least. But what I had the realization of is not necessarily surrounding. It's not necessarily surrounding like friendships and stuff. That's like another, it's kind of another sector. But I found that when my daughter was a newborn, my inclination was to shield my husband from any discomfort or inconvenience that came from the fact that you have a newborn, right. Our girl, as wonderful and perfect as she is, was not a great sleeper, to say the least. It did not come easy to her. It was not something that she just, you know, some babies just sleep great and that's it. That was not our experience. And I would find myself like, stressed trying to make sure that he didn't wake up so that he, you know, still got all the sleep and I took every night and I was running on like, you know, two hour stretches of sleep at a time for months, just driving myself into oblivion, for lack of a better word. If you go long enough without sleep, you start to find the limitations of your physical abilities and your mental abilities and your emotional abilities. And I always had this sense of, like, trying to protect him. And like, it's not. It was not fueled by him at all. It wasn't like, hey, I need you to make sure that this baby doesn't wake me up. Or like, it was totally not on him. It was me trying to make sure that he didn't have to adjust or change or encounter the sleeplessness that I was encountering so that he would feel good for work and he would feel good, you know, he would feel okay to, you know, continue to provide for us and all that stuff. And it sounds nice. It sounds like, oh, how sweet of you to take all that on and to, you know, care that much and to put that much thought into, you know, your husband's wellbeing and all that. Yeah, it does. It sounds nice. It sounds nice. But what I was actually doing was a disservice because the reality is that when, you know, something as life altering and life elevating as the birth of a child, everyone has to grow. And for me, I was like, I need to grow as a mother. I need to increase my capacity as a mother. I, you know, I. If I don't get any sleep, then whatever sleep I get is going to be enough and it's going to be fine. You know, that's like my, that was my mindset. And what I realized is that everyone has to grow. Everyone has to increase their capacity when it comes to the birth of a child. And it's. It's different, right? You know, the way moms have to grow is. Is different than the way, you know, dads have to grow. But, but everyone has to grow and adapt. And that, that's just a small example. But what I was doing was I was sheltering him from the growth that was meant to be his. Because if it wasn't meant to be his, then it wouldn't have been his situation where he has a brand new newborn baby who's not sleeping for many, many months. So in my mind, I was, you know, protecting him, but what I was protecting him from was the growth that was meant to be his. He was meant to grow. He's meant to evolve. He's just as capable to increase his capacity for lack of sleep and for all the other things that come with becoming a parent as I am. And I did not have this realization at the time, you know, of course, but being pregnant with our second baby now and just, you know, trying to sort out the details of how we're Going to handle, you know, night times and bedtimes with two babies. One who still needs help and needs attention to go to sleep, and a newborn who I hope. I hope is a great sleeper, but who knows? So I didn't have this realization until I was thinking about my worries and my fears about bringing a new baby into our life and into my daughter's life, her becoming a big sister. Um, she's two and a half. She's very mature, she's very capable, very independent in many ways, but still is a toddler and still needs her mama. And just trying to. Trying to pre figure out in my head how there's gonna be more of me. And my initial thoughts were, how do I keep this from impacting her life too much? How do I shelter her and protect her from having to sh. Share me too much or having to change, you know, the way that her routines flow too much? And how do I integrate a new baby into her life without it disrupting her too much? And, you know, at the same time, you know, how is there going to be enough of me to go around and not inconvenience my husband again? Too much? And it wasn't until recently I had these thoughts and I realized that growth is born from a little bit of discomfort. And sometimes it's a lot of discomfort and sometimes it's just a little bit. But a lot of times discomfort is needed to evolve and to grow. And by trying to first of all, pre plan when it's not possible really to pre plan because you don't know. There's too many uncertainties. You don't know how anything's really gonna go. You just have to take it a day at a time. But that's my brain. My brain likes to pre plan as much as possible. But for me, having this realization of what I'm really doing is trying to shelter them both, my husband and my daughter, the growth that's meant to be theirs. Because my husband is meant to grow into a father of two, and if that wasn't his destination, then we wouldn't be bringing a baby into our world in a few short months. And my daughter is meant to be a big sister. And I have known that in my heart of hearts, my deepest heart of hearts for ever. I've always known that she's meant to be a sister. There was never a time when I thought, this child is meant to be an only child. She's a leader. She needs a pack to lead. And this is the beginning of learning how to be a leader and how to be a sibling and be a team player and be part of a family unit and a team. And there are going to be so many lessons throughout her life that she's going to be blessed with because she has a sibling. And the integration, the transition of bringing another baby into our world is going to be bringing another baby into her world and how that changes her world and how it changes her rhythms and her routines and how things go. And while I'm of course going to be so mindful of facilitating as much of a positive relationship as I can between her and her sister, I also can't shelter her from the growth that's meant to be hers. And part of that growth is a little bit of discomfort and is change, which she's not a huge fan of. But, I mean, I'm not really either. And how do we become better at something that we maybe aren't a super fan of? We have to do it. We have to practice. We have to have experiences. And trying to shield her from experiences that are meant to be hers are one pointless, because I can't shield her from. From the growth that's meant to be hers. I can just drive myself crazy trying to and beat myself up trying to. But also, it's not doing her a service. It's doing her a disservice to shelter her and shield her from the growth that's meant to be hers. And the same goes for my husband. It's not my place to shield him from the growth that's meant to be his. And I am one person, and my capacity will expand and I will be able to show up in whatever way I need to. But I also have a partner, and I need to allow that. I need to allow a partner and a team work. And that means relying on him for some things that maybe I don't rely on him for right now, which will breed his expansion and his capacity. And it was just a perspective flip that needed to happen within me, and I found it to be so profound and so helpful. So I wanted to come on here and share it. I think a lot of times we sacrifice our own boundaries to. In the name of protecting and shielding others. But how often are we doing that with other people? Right. This is the example that kind of brought the perspective to light for me. But how often do we do that? How often are we. Are we sheltering our loved ones or our friends or our family from the growth that's meant to be theirs by sacrificing our own boundaries and carrying burdens that we don't need to carry. You know, if you set a boundary in place with friends or family, it invites them to rise to that occasion. Another thing I wanted to touch on when it comes to boundaries is how I saw a huge shift in friendships after, during pregnancy and after the birth of my first baby. And I noticed that, you know, once you start creating a family of your own, your capacity for helping others, showing up for others. I love to overextend myself. It's, it's, it's like a passion project. I love surprising myself with what I'm capable of doing. And that can be positive and negative, but it's something that I've often done in relationships and in friendships. Just kind of going above and beyond for people, which is great. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with going, you know, big for the people that you love, your friendships, you know, being invested in them. That's wonderful. But what I found was that, you know, when you become a parent, I heard a lot from other people that, oh, you know, your, your friendship circles change when you have kids because, you know, it's, you know, your patterns change and the things you do change and things like that. And, you know, I'm not a. Your lifestyle changes. I'm not a, like, go out and party person. I really haven't been in like over a decade. So I figured, oh, well, you know, all the things that I do with my friends now, like the friendships that I have now, I could do with a kid because I'm not like a partier. I don't go out all night. I'm not a drinker, I'm not a clubber. I don't go out to bars. Like, none of those things are things that I do. I don't really surround myself with people who do that either. But I did notice a huge shift in certain friendships. And it wasn't because we were in different phases necessarily of our lives. I mean, some of that might be true, but I found that a lot of the people that were in my orbit when I was overexerting myself and doing the most for them and everyone I could possibly do the most for, when I couldn't do the most anymore and when it wasn't me that was showing up to be helpful or to do necessarily, all of a sudden, I didn't feel like I was a priority friendship for those people. And I found it to be so interesting because when you, when you have kids, it forces you to create boundaries, right? If you're now responsible for taking care of Another human. And that's the most important thing. So when you're. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, my number one priority is showing up for my kids and kids. That's so weird because there's going to be multiple. But thus far, the most important thing to me was showing up for my girl, for my baby, for Camila, showing up for my family. And whatever's left over is what I can give to other people. And I have a tendency, I think, too, because that's. It was. My inclination was to over give and over exert. I surrounded myself with people who wanted me to over give, and it was in their best interest that I over gave. And they were on the receiving end of that. And I noticed that when I didn't have that same capacity to give anymore and started realizing that maybe that's not the healthiest thing for me. Maybe I need to learn that it's okay to just be. And there are people that are happy to be in my orbit, not because I'm doing something for them, but because they just like to be around me and they just like to have me around, which is like a. Kind of a really hard concept for me. I found that, like, a lot of friendships just kind of went away. And it's sad because I don't. I like to hold on. You know, surrendering is hard. Letting people go is hard. Realizing that maybe what you saw in the friendship wasn't what. What it was, if that makes sense. You know, you. I felt this pressure to do because they probably wouldn't want me if I wasn't doing something for them. Those are. Those are really hard concepts to come to terms with. And also, you know, sometimes it's just a season thing, and sometimes certain friendships just aren't meant to last. They aren't meant to last. They're meant to fizzle the way that they fizzle and, you know, your lives go in different directions, which is a hard concept for me. And if you listen to my episode on my primal question, that will make a lot of sense. But I did realize that by not having those boundaries before, I was. Not only was I not serving me, because I was attracting people into my world that really did only want to be there because I was doing something for them, and not because they just wanted me around because they enjoy my company, but also by not holding certain boundaries in friendships in general, we aren't allowing the other person to rise to the occasion. And when you do hold a boundary with friends, and when I say hold boundaries, this is not Like a conversation like this is just like I typically would overextend myself in X, Y or Z way. And I'm not going to do that. I'm just not doing it. And it's not a lot of times, it's not even a conscious choice. You just don't have the time or the brain capacity. When you have an infant or a toddler, you know, you're raising little kids. When you prioritize your well being and maybe you're not always constantly the one reaching out to friends, you know, far and wide, you start to see, okay, well, if I didn't reach out, who would reach out to me? You know, if I wasn't involving myself because I'm doing something for this person or whatever, would they still involve me? Would I still, would I still be welcome to be involved if I wasn't doing or planning or whatever, helping in some way? Right? By living in that way and holding those boundaries for yourself, one of two things will happen. Either the other people will rise to the occasion, which, like in my situation with this realization with my family, like with my husband, like when I ask something of him, he rises to the occasion. Like giving him the opportunity to rise to the occasion is just as important for his growth as anything. Giving him the opportunity to show up, the opportunity to rise to the occasion, the opportunity to grow, increase his capacity, evolve X, Y and Z. I need to give my daughter the space to rise to the occasion, right? I can't shelter her from the growth that's meant to be hers. In that same way, when we hold boundaries and friendships or with, you know, other family members, we are giving them the opportunity to evolve and to rise to the occasion and to grow. A lot of times when we are, when we aren't sheltering the people that we love from, you know, some discomfort by taking on more than we need to take on ourselves, we are allowing them the space to grow and we're giving them the privilege and, you know, wonder of growth and evolvement and you know, their own evolution, we're giving them their own opportunity to evolve. And sometimes in a friendship situation, a lot of times, maybe even in a family situation, depending on your situation, but sometimes we set a boundary with friendships and they don't rise to the occasion. They don't show up the way you think that they would or they should or whatever, and they might just, that friendship might just fall away. And that's okay. You know, allowing people to not be in alignment with you is okay. And the more in alignment we can get with ourselves, you know, the more, the more we can set those boundaries. If people do fall away or, you know, the tides change and it no longer works for them to be in friendship with you for whatever reason, that's just making room for people that do align with you in that way, right? Like, I came to a realization like, you know what? I need to do less. I need to just do a little bit less. Because my capacity for giving to anybody besides my daughter and my family is just a little bit less. And I feel a pressure to perform and to help and to show up and to do. But maybe that's just in my head and nobody really expects that of me. So by setting that boundary for myself, I realized that there were people that expected me to do and to be into X, Y and Z or that had intentions, you know, that very much showed their true colors as far as, you know, who they are as a human being. So by setting those boundaries, it not only served me by making, you know, the people that fell away or that fizzled out, making space for others, making space for people that are in alignment, making space for people that do belong in my orbit and that, you know, that are part of this new chapter, new phase in my world, but it also is serving them because they now have the space to, you know, fill. Fill that friendship spot with someone else that's more in alignment with what they want and their goals and their level of convenience and their world. Right? So though it sounds glamorous and though it sounds so giving and kind and selfless to have no boundaries and overdo and over give, it's not serving others or yourself as much as we'd like it, we. As we'd like to believe, or as much as I'd like to believe, at least. So I just wanted to share that perspective shift that I had with you because it kind of shook me and reframed a lot for me. And so I thought, my fellow empaths, my fellow givers, helpers, fixers, savers, you know, my fellow lovers of people, maybe we can love each other and ourselves a little better with this perspective shift and be able to align with, you know, the people that are meant to be in our orbit a little better with this. With this kind of shift in perspective. So I hope this was helpful to you. It's just the musings and the things that go on in my mind. If you are enjoying this podcast, I'd love for you to subscribe so you'd never miss an episode. And when our season one wraps up pretty soon here. You will be in the know when season two launches in 2025, so I love you. Until next time. Ciao.