Boundaries - the Importance of Internal Clarity

Just Aliza and Karen today while Jenn is recovering from surgery. Today we needed to process setting boundaries that work for us. 

We touch on: 

• People can't respect your boundaries if you don't set them for yourself
• The energetic impact of having clarity on your boundaries for yourself
• When we are clear on our boundaries, we no longer need to justify what we are asking for - we can simply ask
• Do we have to have an experience with an unstated boundary being crossed to get clarity
• Clarity allows us to show up in relationships and enforcing boundaries in executive mode rather than in survival or emotional mode (and executive mode is much more effective)
• Boundaries can become clear to you in real time while you are seeing it crossed
• Setting boundaries don't have to have judgment associated with them - what doesn't work for you might be desired by someone else
• How our flimsy boundaries are based on people pleasing and putting other people's comfort and desires ahead of ourselves 
• The role of intuition and tending to our body and internal cues in gaining clarity in our boundaries
• The role of the resounding yes in understanding our boundaries
• Boundaries within ourselves about the expectations we have in relationship
• The sacred pause and its role in understanding boundaries

Chapters

00:00 Setting Boundaries in Midlife
03:57 The Power of Personal Boundaries
09:24 Clarity and Communication in Relationships
16:19 The Good Girl Phenomenon
22:14 Finding Peace with Boundaries
25:44 Embracing the 'No' in Our Lives

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We would also love to know what is on your mind. If you were to join us, what would we be talking about? Email us at messymidlifepodcast@gmail.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok @messymidlifepodcast.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Real women.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Real talk.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Real messy.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

This is Messy Midlife.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hi, and welcome back to Messy Midlife. Hi, Carol.

SPEAKER_03 0:14

It's so good to see you, Elisa.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

You too. So, you know, I think I wanted to kind of jump right in today because something I've been thinking about a lot. And I think we've discussed, you know, off-camera and just in our text and a lot of stuff with family. And I know that a lot of my friends are going through this too is how do we sit in our boundaries? Like, how do we create the boundaries that actually serve us? Right. Like this is maybe a piece of the selfishness that comes in midlife of really focusing on ourselves. But I think that this is something that comes up for a lot of people at this time. And I think, you know, probably times throughout our lives that we didn't really think about it in the same way. But I know for me, it's coming up in a very, very clear way right now. And I've been thinking about, you know, the boundaries that I need to set or that I want to set with certain people in my life. And it got me thinking about my first experience that with that really when I didn't really know I was setting boundaries. And it was, it was a while ago. It was in my early 30s. I was, I think I was in my last year of medical school. And, you know, my mom and I have always had a relationship where sometimes it can feel like tiptoeing around feelings. And it definitely, I mean, it's evolved so beautifully since then. But, you know, back then it really felt that way. And I remember I had lost some weight. You know, and in my family, when you lose weight, it's like the best thing that could ever happen. It's a celebration, balloons, like, you know, bells. It's like nothing else matters, right? Getting into med school pales in comparison to losing weight, graduating at the top of your class of medical school and getting a residency that you want, like pales in comparison to losing weight. Um and uh so I had been home visiting, I'd lost some weight and been back to my parents' house or you know, where I grew up visiting. And, you know, hurrah hurrah. And went back to school. And I remember feeling like really nervous about being asked about it, right? Because being away, this is you know, before FaceTime existed. This is when iPhones first came out, right? And I remember being really nervous about being asked about it. And of course, I was on the phone with my mom one day. And she said, Oh, so how's your weight? You know, and instead I was kind of panicking because I knew, well, I thought I knew that if I didn't say what she wanted me to say, there would be a follow up, right? It would be, oh, Lisa, I didn't mean anything like that. And why do you always, you know, I thought it was gonna be um, you know, the dramatics. And I just said, you know, mom, this is something that's like really personal for me and something that actually get makes me worry having to report back on it and can cause some anxiety when I'm thinking that I have to kind of prove myself in that way. And her response was like, I could have never imagined. She was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you feel that. I totally support you, and I'm just asking because you know, I want to show support for you, but you just you tell me from now on when you want to share. You let me know. And I was like, what is what just happened?

unknown 3:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

It was like the first time in my life, honestly, like in my early 30s, that I had actually stated what I need and set a boundary for myself. And I think what I realized from that is people can't respect your boundaries if you haven't set them for yourself. Right. So I think before I had wanted my like my mom to just psychically know that she, you know, shouldn't ask about that. But I hadn't decided that for myself, nor had I stated it, but I hadn't even decided that for myself. And that was the big kind of aha moment for me is I don't have to tell my boundaries to everyone. I don't have to say, this is my boundary with you, but I have to know it for myself and I have to like implement it with myself. And just doing that, I feel like not to be too woo, but like energetically, people respond to that.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

Well, you know, you came to the right place for woo, because all I can think about, all I can think about as you're telling me this story is the moment you decided that for yourself, it's like you shifted into another dimension. And even your mom's response was so different than what you expected, right? It's like you magically deciding that boundary for yourself magically shifted everything into a whole new universe, a whole new experience of your mother and your relationship with her.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

And I don't want this to be overshadowed by the woo, but that was a very courageous thing for you to know. Thank you. These boundaries, even just recognizing them for ourselves, are hard. It's challenging to imagine our realities in a different way because it can feel really scary in these really big relationships.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Yeah. And I think it's like I call like I call that up in my mind, right? Like I remember back to that when I find myself in situations now where I haven't had good boundaries, right? And so that's something that I have been really working on recently in my life with I don't have to say, I'm not doing this, this, this, you can't do this, this, this. I'm saying this is how I want it to be. This is what I'm going to allow for myself. This is how I'm going to kind of foster myself being treated.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

And it makes it easier too, when something does come up, to then be very clear, right? It's like if I know what I am willing to reply to, what I am willing to respond to, what I am willing to take in from other people, then it helps me when something does come up to say, oh, this isn't it. Absolutely not. And be very clear about that. Because I think sometimes with enforcing for a lack of a better word, you know, and standing up in our boundaries, it can feel like we have to justify them to other people or to the people that we're putting that boundary up for. And I think when we're really clear for ourselves, that justification goes away. You know, it's just this is how it is. Noah's a complete sentence, right? Um yeah. But, you know, I think this, I was talking with a really good friend this weekend about that too. And, you know, with her, it was like with her daughter, you know, who's in her 20s, and having those boundaries with her daughter, with how she'll be treated. And I just it, I just think it's something that comes up for us as women over and over again. And so, you know, I was thinking, do we all have to have this kind of experience to show us that before we're able to do it? Or can we realize, oh, this isn't working for me? I need to figure out what my boundaries are. And they can, you know, even in a loose way.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm I'm remembering something I read recently, and it and it's aligning with this aspect of boundaries, which is there's so much content out there about boundaries. And what you're highlighting is more about the internal declaration of the boundary, the clarity around what my need is and how that is going to look in different relationships when it comes up. And what I read was differentiating between how we show up in survival mode versus emotional mode versus executive mode. And what I'm hearing from you is really that executive mode. Like when we have that clarity and that alignment about something that feels really true and grounded, we can show up in that executive mode.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

But so often, and I am totally guilty of this because these are really gray areas that feel uncomfortable, especially when dynamics have been playing out with the same narratives, with the same people for a really, really long time. When we don't have that clarity around that boundary for ourselves, we don't claim it, then we show up in survival mode or emotional mode. And we're it's really ineffective because we don't have the clarity.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yeah. And that's when we're trying to justify and validate what we're feeling and why we're feeling it, as opposed to just saying, no, like this is not, this is not what I want. Yeah. Or mind reading. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

You you've mentioned that. I don't remember if we were chatting this time or before, you know, expecting that they should know this. And it really what that is, and I've also experienced that. I'm too uncomfortable because I actually don't a hundred percent know and I'm not a hundred percent committed to what my need is with the clarity necessary to be able to communicate it from that place, that executive mode.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Well, and sometimes you're figuring it out as you're having the conversation, right? I mean, that was a big thing with for me the first time doing that with my mom was I didn't know what I was going to say. Right. But I I figured it out in the moment. And I think the big thing was I wasn't overly emotional. I wasn't taking it as kind of an attack on me, right? I was able to say pretty calmly, like this is just how it makes me feel. And I think maybe that's, you know, a bigger piece of this is in setting boundaries, we have to be clear in how we feel and clear about expressing how we feel. And I think that that gets really muddled a lot of times as women, right? Like, we're not typically taught from a young age to like stand up and say what we believe. Or encouraged. Yeah. Certainly. Yeah. I mean, I was I was lucky. I had a like a really amazing dad who who really did encourage that, right? He really raised, I mean, both of my parents raised three very, very strong and independent women. But I think in general, that's why it feels like sometimes like we're wavering, like we don't know how to do it in a way that doesn't feel like those emotions and those feelings are pent up and it's all coming out, right? Because we don't have a lot of times have the practice of doing it on a regular basis. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

And I I love that perspective of ownership of your experience because it's honoring that the person with whom you're having this conversation, honoring that what they're saying may be fine in a different exchange with another person. You're not saying you're wrong, you're saying that doesn't have a place in our relationship because we want to feel good and we want to connect respectfully. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

I think that I was just actually just about to write this down so I didn't forget, but I think there's a component of it that can also come from the people-pleasing side of things, right? Like, so I think for a long time I thought that me stating what I needed was going to like hurt somebody else or upset somebody else. And um I had an experience with that in the not too recent past, it was probably five or so years ago, five and a half years ago. Um, and an ex-boyfriend who I had recently split up with, it was his 40th birthday. And a mutual friend was saying, like, oh, you know, we're gonna do this beach party, you should come. And I was like, I don't like outwardly, I was like, okay. And internally, I was like, I don't want to go. But I don't want to make him feel bad that I don't go. My sister was actually here at the time. My sister, Bretty, and I remember telling her, like, you will you come with me? You have to come with me. And she was like, Why are we doing this? Right. I mean, she's always had pretty good boundaries. She was like, Why, why are we doing this? Why are we going to this? And I was like, I don't know. I just like I have to, like, you have to come with me. And so I was on the phone, uh, I think it was on FaceTime actually with my therapist, and you know, I was telling her about this. And she said, Aliza, you are really pissing me off right now. You are not going to that. And I was like, oh my God, yeah, I'm not. Why am I doing this? I'm gonna go be uncomfortable so that someone else isn't someone that treated me poorly. I'm worried about making them feel uncomfortable or sad, like because I'm not going, but I'm gonna make myself do that. And so I literally, as I was on the FaceTime with my therapist, texted my friend that was planning it. I was like, oh yeah, I'm not going. And she goes, Oh my God, what happened? And I said, Oh, nothing happened. I'm just standing up for myself and I don't want to go. Like, done. So I think there is that, like thinking about that, I'm I'm realizing in real time as we're talking that I think a lot of it does come from that pleasing everyone besides ourselves, making sure everyone else is okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Even if we're not. Yeah. And putting other people's comfort and desires above ours.

SPEAKER_03 14:49

Yes, yes. Yeah, I I this comes up so much for me personally, and it comes up quite a bit in sessions as well. Um, and we label it as the good girl phenomenon, you know, that the good girl is always tending to other people's needs and preferences and making sure everybody is comfortable and following all of these social norms and expectations. And the messy midlife is the time when we are called to break through, break through to the other side of freedom of that. And the process is really, really uncomfortable. And I like your example because it's even though it sounds so straightforward, I know how absurdly complicated it is to be in that situation. And that's the easy example, right? Now apply that to family members, apply that to partners, to children. It it gets really convoluted really, really quickly. And what I love about how we're looking at this today is that this is not about them. But that's the good girl dilemma, is that everything we have been trained to always look outside of ourselves for guidance on our own behavior. And this is a complete flipping of that script to bringing our attention inward. And even that, even if we're not setting boundaries yet, just the process of shifting our attention from being externally driven to internally driven can be really uncomfortable. So that might be the starting point for a lot of people. And sometimes it is still for me, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Well, it's like the listening to what we know. And like I think part of that kind of good girl conditioning is also it teaches us not to listen to what we actually know internally, right? Like we don't pay attention to that. Because I do think so many of us, if we really actually like tuned in and paid attention to like what our emotions and what our bodies were telling us, we would have a pretty clear answer. But I think part of that good girl conditioning and that people-pleasing way of being is to ignore that.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Right. I mean, I think a lot of us have done that too in all different types of situations and relationships. It's like, you know, that something isn't right. But it's easier and it keeps the peace to just kind of keep going with it. And I think that's one of the things that really has shifted for I know us in the midlife and the paramenopause, and that can make it feel messy, is that we're not just going along with that anymore. We're not saying, I'm going to give up my comfort so that somebody else can have theirs.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Right. And I think that that there is a big part of that that is listening to ourselves. I think that we as women, and this is a you know, broad generality, but I I really do believe that we as women have so much, so much there in terms of like our intuitive capacity and our intuitive reasoning, right? And I think we're starting to wake up a little bit and listen to that. I think that's what like kind of the fucks falling away, we know, to some degree is like, I'm not gonna listen to the outside noise. I'm not gonna listen to what everyone else thinks about things. I'm actually gonna listen to what I feel and I think about things. And that's where I'm going to live from. That's where I'm gonna move from, right? Is that place of internal knowing as opposed to what's going to make everybody else more comfortable.

unknown 18:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Yes. It reminds me of how the times when I have taken that courageous step and communicated it in relationships where it came up. Because I'm with you in that I thought boundaries were about expressing to the world what is right for me. But it's really more about I know what's right for me. And when somebody is not in alignment with that, I can gently, lovingly let them know that that isn't in alignment with me. And if that doesn't work for them, then that doesn't work in the relationship. And if it's important to them and they can align with it, then we can continue a relationship. And it it reminds me of the quote by the the poet Prentice Temple, who said that boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

Yeah, because we're not letting go of what is important to us, right? And it makes the relationship better because we can show up as our whole selves by honoring what is important to us.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yeah, I think it's like you know, it's part of like thinking about when we think about what is right for us, right? And trusting our voice and trusting what we know, right? If it's something I've really been working on is like if it is not a resounding yes, then it's a no. That has been my mantra lately.

SPEAKER_03 20:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

And I even like little thing is like I was scheduled for a hand surgery for a carpal tunnel, and I was it was at the end of April, and I was getting really worried about it. You know, I just like it felt I was anxious about it. I didn't know, I just felt like, oh my god, can I take on one more thing right now? And I realized like this isn't an absolute yes for me. Like, and helping me, like helping me understand like this isn't, I'm not clear that this is a yes, made it a lot easier to say no for right now. It's not no and memories through this, but it's like the rush of feeling like I have to do this by April 30th and have all these things in place in a very like busy time in my life, it's not the right thing. And there are other ways that I can manage that that don't feel as huge for me right now.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Yes, yes. Something as small as that surgery and something really, really big. Like my relationship with my mom is something that um has been obviously a part of my life forever. In the Mexican community, connectedness to it's a very matriarchal society. Connection to the mother is is very important. And my mother has shown up in the absolute best way that she can, given her own history. And has done a lovely job of it in many ways. And I always longed for a deep connection with her that is not the type of person that she is. And it has taken me the majority, well, all of my life up until very recently to be willing to accept the fact that that's not something that she can do. If it's not a resounding yes, has been something that I've really been leaning into with the frequency of communication with my mom. And, you know, I went through a period of grieving the fact that we are fundamentally really different in a lot of ways. And in other ways, we're very, very aligned and very similar, but it's just expressed differently. And so I was the one calling. I was the one, you know, making all of the efforts that I felt were expected of me. And also in an effort to build a deeper connection that just wasn't really happening in the way that I wanted it to. And so from a day-to-day perspective, being able to say, it's okay. It's okay that it's not a resounding yes to call her every day. You know, calling her multiple times a week is what feels like a resounding yes. And it's been wonderful for me. All the while, on a bigger scale and a bigger picture, healing within that relationship, I've shifted from a primary mission of deep connection with her towards love and appreciation for who she is, what she brings. And that boundary had to happen within myself. You know, and perhaps she was also setting a boundary by the fact that knowingly or not, you know, that she just can't do that level of connection because that's just not who she is. And so finding peace with that within myself has been very liberating. And just going back to that, if it's not a resounding yes, it might feel really uncomfortable at first. And it and it did for me. Um, I've I've also utilized that same test, if you will, with some really big issues in my life, you know, some life and death issues, and I mean, complicated. And even in those situations, it's at least something to consult, right? And the for right now, love that. I love adding that because it takes a lot of pressure off. Maybe it's just today. Tomorrow might be different. And I can ask myself that same question again, tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to be this like absolute finite decision, but it's turning into tuning into what feels right for me right now. Yes.

unknown 24:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

And not having like these huge swings, right? It's not like we're not, we're not changing who we are and like how we live our lives day to day. But it's like those small things do make a difference. With I think also building up our confidence to know that. Right. Like it's when we are not used to listening to ourselves and listening to what feels right, and we're just doing it, can take time to really understand what is a yes for me, what is a no for me, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:15

Yeah. And asking that question can just provide that sacred pause, just enough of a break, of a breather to remember, right. I may still decide that this is what needs to be done because not everything feels amazing of the things that we have to get done, especially with children. But I matter too. And if this is consistently not a resounding yes for me, then perhaps I need to look at alternatives. Yeah, I need to like dig deeper on that.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah, I think it tells us a lot about ourselves too, right? Like, why are we why are we saying yes to things that are a now?

SPEAKER_03 25:52

I think we covered that. Yeah. The good girl phenomenon, the people tweaking. Yeah. And undoing all of that. That's where we are right now together, thankfully.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

So, anyone, any of our listeners, we would love to know from you what are times when you've said yes when you wanted to say no. Let us know.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

Yes. All right. Next time, everyone. Thanks, everyone. See you next week.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

If our messy is your kind of messy, we'd love for you to rate, review, and follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

We'd also love to know what's on your mind. If you were to join us, what would we be talking about? Email us at messy midlifepodcast at gmail.com or message us on Instagram or TikTok.