Stop Performing Love: Boundaries, Belonging, and the Adoptee Heart

For most of my life, I thought having no boundaries made me a good person. Easygoing. Loving. Available. The truth? It just meant I was showing people exactly how to walk all over me. And it was slowly costing me my body, my peace, and my sense of self.

As adoptees, our relationship with boundaries is rooted in survival. We learned really early that saying no could mean rejection or abandonment. So we became people-pleasers, fawners, hyper-vigilant readers of every room. We made ourselves easy to keep — and we abandoned ourselves in the process.

This week, we're getting into the real work of reclaiming boundaries — not as walls that separate us, but as the bridge that lets real love in.

In this episode we cover:

• Why I had zero boundaries for most of my life — and the moment my body said "enough"
• The story of the ex who took the profit from my house sale (and what it taught me about money + worth)
• Why boundaries are a joining, not a separation — and the reframe that changes everything
• The 4 boundary pillars: emotional, physical, material, and time
• Why fearful-avoidant adoptees especially struggle with boundaries in romantic relationships
• The fear underneath every lack of boundaries — and why "no" felt like a survival risk
• The 4-Step Boundary Identification Process you can use anytime you feel that "off" sensation
• A beautiful listener question from Naiya about parenting non-adopted children while still healing — and what "performing love" really costs
• A guided somatic practice: locating the "off" feeling in your body before you ever say a word

A quote from the episode:

"It is not your fault that your boundaries were disrupted. But it is your responsibility to reclaim them now. That's where the freedom is."

The "Dear Claire" Segment

Healing happens in community when we find that empathetic witness to help us hold the weight of our stories. This space is a collective healing journey, and I want to walk this path with you. Do you have a question about a relationship trigger, a core wound, or a manifestation block?

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Transcript

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So for most of my life, I thought having no boundaries made me a good person. Like easygoing, loving, available, the one who could be counted on to never make a fuss. And what I didn't realize until much, much later was that I wasn't being good. I was being a doormat. And it slowly was costing me my body, my peace, and my sense of who I actually was. Today we're going to talk about boundaries, why they're so hard for us adoptees, especially in romantic relationships, but also in our friendships, our family, and our relationships with ourselves. Why saying no felt like a survival risk for so many of us, and the reframe that absolutely changed how I see boundaries, they're not walls, they're actually a joining. So I'm going to walk you through a real practical framework for actually setting boundaries. And I'm also going to answer a beautiful question from a listener named Naya about parenting the next generation while also still healing yourself and what performing love really costs. Like none with other people, with myself, with my time, my money, with my body. None of it. That's how I would justify it, you know. But underneath all of that, you know what was really going on, I was just really terrified. I was so afraid that if I had a need, if I said no, if I asked for something, that I would be too much, too needy, and people would leave. So as an adoptee, that fear wasn't just random. I'm sure you can relate. It came from somewhere really specific because somewhere very early, I made this quiet deal with myself. This is the manual that I learned about relationships, about attachment. Like if I don't need anything, they'll let me stay. If I'm easy, I am safe. And if I'm grateful and stay small and um stay the good girl, I get to be kept. So what I really did was I built a whole life around having no boundaries. And I called it being loving. I called it being the good daughter. But here's the thing about no boundaries. They don't actually keep you safe, they just slowly erase you. And we're going to unpack all of that today. Okay, so let's get into the framework. What is a boundary actually? I like to think of a boundary as the imaginary line that separates you from other people, and specifically is separating your feelings, your needs, and your personal reality from theirs. And boundaries actually show people how you want to be treated. Like they're the manual you give the world. This is who I am. This is what I need to remain in this relationship with you. And here's where I think most people get this wrong, especially in American culture. We tend to see boundaries as a separation. Like, oh, I'm putting up a wall, I'm building a fence, stay out, stay over there. You can't come in. Right? So boundaries get this kind of cold, defensive energy around them, you know. But that's not actually what a boundary is. A boundary is a joining, not a separation. I'm gonna just let that land for a second because this reframe actually changed everything for me. Because when I express my needs and my feelings and my personal reality to someone, I'm not pushing them away. I'm actually letting them get to know me, the real me, not the performing version, not the easy-going version, not the doormat me, the real me. Okay, I'm being my authentic self. And the people who can love the real me, those are the people I'm meant to keep close. And the people who can't, well, the boundary is just doing its job. The boundary is boundarying, it shows me the truth about people. So a boundary is really an authentic expression of yourself. It's saying, This is who I am, this is what I need, and this is my reality. And I trust you enough to be honest with you about it. That is not a wall, that is intimacy. And here's something else I really want you to hear. When you're feeling out of alignment in your life, when you're feeling burnt out, you're feeling resentful, exhausted, feeling like you're kind of just disappearing. How I felt for many, many decades. Almost always, if you go inward and look, what you're going to find is that there's some area where you're not holding healthy boundaries with other people or maybe with yourself. So boundaries aren't just about other people, it's not about just shutting them out and saying no all the time. They're how you stay in relationship with yourself. Alright, so I want to tell you a story that really illustrates what I am talking about when having to do with boundaries. And it's kind of embarrassing, it's very vulnerable, but I'm gonna share it anyway because I know a lot of you are going to relate. So years ago, I had a house. I had this townhouse and I owned it for like over 10 years, and I raised my daughter there, and it had um a really nice neighborhood, and um really loved it. I had put so much work into it, like so much sweat equity, so much money, um, so much of myself into renovating this place and just making it mine. What I ended up doing, I moved out of the townhouse kind of towards the end of you know when I owned it, because I had moved in with my ex and um I rented it out. I thought it was a great idea, and so I rented it to this woman and took a big chance, and it I kind of got screwed because she wasn't she turned out to be not the best tenant, and I had to do a lot of um like recon. I had to, you know, fumigate it because there was mold, I had to um fix a number of things in the house. So I invested a lot of money and a lot of time to getting it ready to sell. And when I sold it, um, right around that time, I had been dating this guy for maybe a year. We go and put in all this work together to sell the house, get a realtor, and the house sells, and you know, I made pretty good profit. All the money that I poured into it for you know over a decade, it finally paid off. And then he comes in, and without really asking me, without us sitting down and having a conversation around money, around selling the house, around boundaries, and what was his, what was mine, right? He kind of just took the money and put it into our joint account and acted like it was just ours now. So he kind of like split it. And like, what's mine is yours, what's yours is mine, no big deal, right? Yeah, so here's the thing in that moment, my body knew something was off, like immediately. I felt it in my chest, I felt it in my gut. Oh, I felt this kind of unease that I couldn't really name at the time, but I didn't say anything, I never set a boundary. I didn't go, hey, wait a minute, that's actually my money from my house that I bought, and you just walked in and took half of the profit. That was before I met you that I had worked on for over 10 years, right? So I never said, Let's talk about how we want to handle this. I just let it happen. Because somewhere in me, I was so afraid that if I asked for what was mine, I would be selfish. If I asked for what I needed, I would be ungrateful. And if I asked for what I was feeling was mine, like if I set a boundary, I would be the difficult one. And he might leave me. So what I did, I traded my financial boundary for the illusion of being kept. And that relationship eventually ended anyway, and I lost so much more than just the money in the process. Now, looking back, you know what I see now? Um, I see that my body was telling me the truth from the very first moment. That kind of unease in my chest. That was information, it was my own internal guidance system saying, like, this is not okay, you need to speak up. But I didn't have the framework, I didn't have the tools, I didn't know how to listen to my body, and I was scared shitless. Let's just be honest. I never learned the skill of standing up for myself ever since I was a little girl. Like, um, all the times when I faced um, you know, bullying or racism or unfairness or people just picking on me. I never learned how to stand up for myself, and I never learned how to set a boundary, you know, and I didn't know that saying nothing was actually a boundary that I was setting, and this was a boundary against myself. And so today I'm gonna give you the framework that I wish I had back then. Okay, let's break down the four major areas where boundaries show up in our lives because you really can't fix what you can't name. And the first one is the emotional boundaries. This is about how much you take on the emotions of other people. Like, are you the one who walks into a room and just immediately reads everyone's mood? And you are just um reading everyone to see if you can make them feel better, and it feels almost responsible, like you are responsible for making them feel better, right? That was so me, and I was so attuned to other people's emotions that I kind of just lost track of my own, and that is a huge boundary issue, especially for adoptees, because so many times I just remember in order to keep that connection, to keep the attachment with somebody else, I had to abandon myself in order to do that. All right, the second one is called physical boundaries, and this includes your body, your personal space, your comfort with touch, intimacy, and like all of that. Do people get too close? Do they touch you in ways that don't feel right? And um, do you say something? Or do you just kind of grin and bear it because you don't want to make it too awkward? So I have another story, and this one was one of the times when I remembered um one of my big boundaries were crossed, and I couldn't name it at the time. But what happened was I decided when my daughter was like one year old, or maybe even six months, I decided that I was going to get CPR um certified and I think first aid certified. So I went through this company and they sent a CPR instructor to my home and gave me a private class. Okay, so it was the only option because I had a baby. I couldn't really I couldn't really figure it out in order to go take a class somewhere else. So I was like, this is great, they're gonna come to me. And so what happened was he was he was not a good person, I can promise you that. Um, he took advantage of me being a very young single mom. There was no one at home with me and my my daughter, and she was kind of like sitting next to me or sitting in my lap, I was holding her while he was giving me the instruction for becoming CPR certified. And so, you know, he I I kind of noticed that there was like a personal space invasion, and I was like, he kept getting closer and closer, and I was feeling a little bit awkward, like it was off. I didn't know what was what was off, but I knew something was off. And then before I knew it, he had his hand on my leg, and he just was resting his hand just like on my thigh, and I was like, whoa, like I felt like these like shocks going through my body. I was it was like a a fire alert, you know, like get out, get out, get out kind of thing. My nervous system was so upset and it was so dysregulated, but I said nothing, I did nothing. Um, I probably didn't even hear anything that he was saying. I was like literally frozen. It was a trauma response. I know this because it's happened many, many times to me, and this is how my nervous system just responds. So I froze, and um thank God that nothing else happened, and he didn't um take it any further, but he probably saw like the the look of fear on my face and was like, Okay, she's not into this, right? Um, but that was a huge boundary crossing. Yeah, um, I knew that it was wrong, but yet I could not say anything. So if I were to listen to my body today, I know that I could set a boundary when needed. Back to the boundaries. Um, there's two more types. The third one is material boundaries. So this is your stuff, this is your home, your money, your belongings, your resources. And this is where so many of us get tripped up. Like in my house story. We let people take what's ours because we are afraid that asking for it back or saying no, it will cost us the relationship. And um, that was just something that it was so I was so fearful of that at the time. Like I could not use my voice, I couldn't even say no. And you know what I shared in a previous podcast episode is that I know that when you are unable to say no, like vocally say no, and set a boundary, sometimes your body will learn to say no for you, and it can manifest into chronic illness and disease, and the trauma gets stored in your body. So these are so many ways that I learned that um, yeah, my body was taking on, it was keeping the score for me. Let me share the fourth and final boundary, and this one is time boundaries. And this isn't just about how much physical time you spend with people, it's also about how much real estate they take up in your head. Like, how many times have you just realized that like someone because of what they did to you or what they said to you, they are just like living in your head rent-free. And like, how much time are you spending ruminating about someone, replaying the conversations over and over again, worrying about what they think about you? That's a time boundary issue, too. So these are the four boundaries: the emotional, the physical, material, and time. Now let's talk about why adoptees specifically struggle with all four of these boundaries, because this is also so important. Our boundary issues are not random, okay? They're really tied to our attachment style, and they're tied to what we saw and experienced growing up. What we learned about attachment and love and so forth. So if you're anxiously attached, you probably saw some inconsistency in your caregivers. Uh, so you learned to have no boundaries because boundaries were equaled conflict, and conflict equaled abandonment. Like you thought, if I pushed back, they might leave, right? So you became the person who never pushes back because you always had to keep the attachment, you had to keep the proximity. So that is um just kind of in a nutshell what you might have experienced if you're an anxiously attached person. If you're a fearful avoidant, which I talk a lot about, especially in the last uh week's episode, you saw what I call inconsistent consistency. Uh, like someone was there, but they were checked out. Like maybe they were dealing with addiction, they were working all the time, maybe they were going through their own trauma, or they were just emotionally absent. So you learned to become hyper-vigilant, you learned to read the room better than anyone else, focusing entirely on what was happening outside of you. Um, because you thought that if you could learn how people were going to react, you could somehow control the situation and make it better. And in the process, you completely lost touch with what was happening inside of you, your own needs, your feelings, just gone. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, I know. I have experienced that as a fearful avoidance. Out of all the attachment styles, fearful avoidance struggle with boundaries the most, especially in romantic relationships, because we're constantly oscillating between wanting someone close and being terrified of being too close, like you need to get away. So our boundaries are kind of all over the place, and we don't know what's ours and what's theirs, and we can't ask for what we need because half the time we don't even know what we need. Do you recognize that? Yeah. Let's talk about the dismissive avoidant. That's where you saw consistent unavailability. So you learned to rely on no one, you kind of raised yourself. Instead of building the boundaries with other people, uh, you just build walls and you learn how to soothe yourself with creature comforts, things like TV, alcohol, shopping, food, video games, whatever it is. You just learned how to become your own little island. So, whichever style resonates with you, please just hear me. Okay, your lack of boundaries is not your fault. It's a learned response to what you survived. But now that you know that, it does become your responsibility to do the work. And that's where we're going next. Okay, so I want to name something that I think is really important. Underneath every lack of boundaries is a fear, and usually it's a really deep one. Like when I think about why I couldn't set a boundary with that X about the house money, it wasn't that I didn't know what was right. I knew. My body knew, but underneath there was this fear that almost felt like primal. Like if I speak up, I will be abandoned. If I have a need, I will be rejected, and if I disappoint him, I might lose his love, right? And for adoptees, this fear has recycled back further than most people's. Because somewhere very early in our lives, we got the message, sometimes spoken, sometimes not, that being kept was conditional. So a boundary felt like a real survival risk, like literal survival. My nervous system thought if I set this boundary, I might actually die. There's that fear, and that's not being dramatic. That's actually how the body remembers, okay? It's like literal survival. So when you're trying to set a boundary as an adult and your body is just freaking out, you're not weak, okay. Want you to know that you are not weak, you're not bad at this, you're just kind of bumping up against some old, old wound that doesn't know it's safe yet because of the way that we are conditioned. Our nervous system was conditioned to feel this way. And some of the messages that we picked up kind of get in the way. So some of these messages might sound like you are a burden, you're ungrateful if you have needs. Boundaries lead to conflict, and conflict is unsafe. If you have needs, you're taking from someone else who needs more. You're rude if you ask for too much. Do any of these land for you? So here's what I want you to do if you're feeling stuck. If there's a boundary you know that you need to set and you just can't get yourself to do it, please don't just push through, you know, and ignore the way that you feel. Ignore your body signals. That's not how the nervous system works. Okay. I know that there is a saying, you know, people say if you're afraid to do something, just do it anyway. Do it with the fear. But sometimes that can cause the programming that we have with our nervous system and our subconscious to get even more and more fearful. So instead, what we're going to use is something called exposure reprogramming. And I want to go a little deeper here because this is genuinely like one of the most powerful tools I've ever used as an adoptee who wanted to set boundaries and get over this fear of setting my boundaries. And I think it's going to absolutely change things for you too. So I want to give you the science first. Your subconscious mind, it can't tell the difference between a vividly imagined experience or a real one. And let's just let that land for a second because this is huge. When you vividly imagine something, like when you see it, when you really see it, you really feel it in your body, you hear you hear what's being said and maybe sense the emotions of it, your subconscious experiences it as if it's actually happening. The same neural pathways fire, the same emotional responses get encoded, and the same nervous system updates start to take place. That's why athletes use visualization. Like some of the top Olympic athletes, they spend hours mentally rehearsing their performance because they know that their subconscious, the mental rehearsal counts as real reps, as as if they actually did it. And we can use the same principle for our boundaries. You probably think I'm crazy, but let me explain. So if the thought of saying no, like to your mom feels terrifying, if asking your partner for something feels impossible, or maybe if telling a friend that you can't make it, it literally makes you feel nauseous. You don't have to start by just doing it. I'm not gonna just push you off the ledge with all of this fear, okay? I'm not going to just hope that you land on your feet. But what I am going to do is help you by starting to imagine it. So what we're gonna do is close your eyes, picture the scene, see the person you need to set the boundary with. Feel yourself standing in your body, watch yourself open your mouth and say the words. Hear your voice, calm, kind, and clear. And then most importantly, feel the relief afterwards. Feel the freedom, feel the I'm still here, and they didn't leave me feeling. I want you to practice this in the mirror. Practice saying it to your dog, say it to your plants, practice with your laboo-boos, practice writing it in your journal. Whatever you need to do, just practice this visualization. Okay, you're gonna do this every day, two minutes, five minutes, whatever you have. Um, and here's what's gonna happen your subconscious is going to start to believe that you are a person who can set boundaries, that you've done it before, that it was safe, and that you survived it. And then when the moment finally comes in real life, your body will already know what to do because you've already practiced it like hundreds of times, not just in real life yet. So, this is how we reprogram their survival response. Not by forcing ourselves to push through the terror, but gently teaching our subconscious this new story one rep at a time. Because no is also a complete sentence, and you don't owe anyone an explanation for protecting your piece, but you might need to teach your body that it's safe to say it first. So we work up to it. Okay, so let's talk about the framework that I promised you. Before I get into it, I want to give credit to where it's so deserved. And the framework comes from the brilliant work of Thais Gibson and her integrated attachment theory work. She's the founder of the Personal Development School, and her teachings on attachment, on boundaries, subconscious reprogramming have shaped so much of how I have learned to work with clients today and see a lot of success and personally learn to move closer and closer to more securely attached myself. So if you're interested, I'll link her in the show notes. And if you already haven't found her work, you absolutely should. She is amazing and brilliant, and I have learned so much from her. Okay, so the framework is called boundary identification process. There are four steps. Step one, identify the feeling. So when you start to sense that something is off, that ick feeling, that unease, that creeping resentment, instead of just shoving it down or distracting yourself or numbing out, stop and ask, what am I actually feeling? And you want to ask yourself, where is it in my body? Am I feeling it in my chest, in my throat, in my belly, wherever it is, just locate it and notice it. Okay, we're not trying to fix it, we're just noticing. Step two, identify why this hurts so much. So once you've named the feeling, ask yourself, what is this trying to tell me about a core wound? Like, am I feeling disrespected, unseen, dismissed, used? What is the deeper meaning here? And because the feeling is the surface, the wound underneath is the real information. We are like, you know, going down into the well and pulling up that bucket slowly with full of water, but that is drawing out the core wounds and the messages about ourselves and why we get so triggered. Okay. Step three, identify the need. So you want to ask yourself, what do I actually need in this moment to feel safe, to feel respected, to feel like I'm taking myself into consideration. Like in my house story, what I needed was for him to ask me, to talk to me, to respect that the money was mine, and that was what I was needing in that moment. I just couldn't access it at the time because I was so flooded with fear. All right, let's go on to step four. You want to express and negotiate. So now you actually communicate it with kindness, but assertively, clearly, and here's the magic ingredient that makes this actually work. Validate first. So you might say something like, I know you love me, I love our connection, and I need to share something with you. Because when this happened, I felt this way. What I really need is this, and are you willing to do that with me? So you're not coming in hot, you're not blaming, you're not making them feel wrong, right? You're just stating what you feel, you're stating what you need, and you're stating what you'd like to ask for. That's the negotiation. And here's the thing: people can absolutely say no to your boundary. Yeah, they can, and that's information too. Because the right people, the people who actually love you, are going to be willing to meet you there, okay? They're gonna see the value in meeting you where you're at, and the people who can't, well, like I said earlier, the boundary just does its job and it shows you the truth. Okay, so this brings me to our listener question of the week, and this one really, really moved me. I have to be honest. So I got a submission form from a listener named Naya, and I think so many of you are really going to relate to this one, especially if you're an adoptee parent. So Naya writes, as an adoptee, learning to parent a non-adoptee is a new horizon because I don't have the personal experience to pull from. I felt quite separated from my adoptive parents for so many reasons, but my children don't seem to feel that way. As the kids grow into adults, I am curious about what the next steps in parenting will look like and how I can keep supporting them in the way they want to be supported. And then she shares what comes up in her body. She says, I feel like I'm alone in the constellation of emotions and all the stories. And the story her mind tells her, she writes, is I'm not enough. I have to do something to get love, to get approval and attention. Yeah, I feel that too. I've been there. So what she said that she needs to feel safe, she writes, I need the lowest common denominator of love and happiness to be solid and deep in the foundation. I need to stop performing and just be and accept the healthy connection of my family and allow myself to experience belonging. Naya, wow. First, thank you. Thank you so much for sending this question to us because what you're describing is something almost no one talks about, and this is really, really important. Um, so I'm just gonna reflect back what I'm hearing first. You are parenting children who don't carry the relinquish the relinquishment wound, they didn't experience the early separation that you did, and that adoptees experience. They have a um continuity with you that you didn't have with your adoptive parents, and there's something both beautiful and disorienting about that. Like you're giving them an experience of family that you yourself didn't have, which is incredible, and also you have no map for it. And what you said, I have to do something to get love, get approval and attention. Naya, that is the adoptee survival pattern in its purest form. Okay, right? We learned early on that love wasn't just given, it had to be earned. So we performed, we achieved, we were good, we were grateful, and we did things to be loved. Maybe you can relate. Um, and here's the heartbreaking part: even when our kids love us unconditionally, even when they're not asking us to perform, our nervous systems don't fully know that. So we keep doing and doing and doing and giving and giving and performing because somewhere inside we're still that little girl who learned that love is conditional. So, Naya, I want to just say that this is actually a boundary question, um, but not the kind of boundary that you might think. Okay, this is an internal boundary, a boundary with the part of you that learned love had to be earned, a boundary that says I don't have to perform to be loved by my children, they already love me, and I just have to let myself receive their love. And I want to slow down here for a second because internal boundaries are something we don't talk about enough, and so for most people, when they think about boundaries, they think about boundaries with other people, right? Like telling someone no, asking someone to stop, limiting your time with someone else. These are all external boundaries, but the internal boundaries are different. Internal boundaries are the limits that you set with yourself, with your old pattern, with the parts of you that learn to survive in ways that don't serve you anymore. And honestly, Naya, internal boundaries are kind of the hardest to learn about and set because it's not about saying no to someone else, it's about saying no to the old story that's running inside of you. Say no to the voice that says that you have to earn love. The voice that says, Don't get too comfortable, they might leave, right? That voice that says keep performing or you'll be too much. But that voice is a part of you that needs a boundary now. So let me actually walk you through the framework using your situation because I want to show you how this works on an internal boundary, also. Alright, step one, we're gonna identify the feeling. So, Naya, when your kids love you and you feel that pull to do more, to give more, perform more, pause and notice. What is the feeling underneath? Is it tightness in your chest? Is it like a fluttering of anxiousness in your stomach? Is it a racing thought of I have to do something? Just locate it. Where is it in your body and just notice it? Okay, step two. You're going to identify why it hurts. So once you've located the feeling, ask yourself, what is this telling me about an old wound? And Naya, you actually already named it for us. The story is I'm not enough. I have to earn love. That's the wound. That's the part of you who learned love wasn't just given freely. That's not a flaw, that's an old protection mechanism. Okay, that's your core wounds talking. So step three is when you identify the need. So now you're gonna ask yourself, what do I actually need in this moment to feel safe receiving love without performing for it? And you wrote something so beautiful in your submission. You said, I need the lowest common denominator of love and happiness to be solid and deep in the foundation. I need to stop performing and just be. So, Naya, that is the need. You named it perfectly. You need to be allowed to just be, to just exist in the love without having to earn it. All right, and step four, you're going to express and negotiate. Now, this usually this step is about expressing the boundary to another person, but for an internal boundary, the negotiation is happening inside of you. So this looks like talking to that performing part of you, saying out loud or in your journal or in your head, darling, I see you. I know you learned that love has to be earned. I know you've been working so hard your whole life, but this love right here, this love from your kids, you don't have to earn it. You can just receive it. We're going to practice that together. And Naya, that is the boundary. That is the boundary with the part of you who's still trying to earn what's already yours. So let me give you a few more practical things that you can do this week and uh take with you from this podcast. Number one, the performing just has to stop, okay? Not all at once, bit by bit. And I want you to try this. The next time your kids ask for something, instead of immediately doing more, doing better, performing the perfect mom, just pause and just be and just sit with them. Have a conversation, maybe ask them what they actually need from you. Don't just assume what they need. Because here's the thing: your kids don't need a performance, they just need you, the actual you, the authentic you, the unperformed, imperfect, real you. Okay, that is who they're asking for. And number two, ask them how they want to be supported. So you said it yourself in your question. You're curious about how to keep supporting them in the way that they want to be supported. Naya, just ask them. Like, sit down and ask, what do you need from me as you grow? What do you wish I would do more of? What do you wish I would do less of? You're going to be amazed at what comes up, and you're going to model something so powerful that healthy adult relationships are just built on real conversation, not assumption. And you're going to show them vulnerability, okay? You're going to show them that it's okay to not have all the answers. Like you can be their mom and not have it all figured out, and that's okay. And what this is going to do, this is going to open up more communication with you and your children because they're going to see you as someone real that they can come and talk to, and they're going to trust that that you will listen to them. Um, this is so important. I just want to say that this is something that I've used in my own personal relationship with my own daughter because believe it or not, I have struggled with some of the same things as you, some of the same boundary and um internal boundary issues. And um, I really learned that I just needed to be vulnerable with her, and when she got to be old enough, I just would sit down with her and I would ask her, you know, like what do you need from me? And what do you mean, what do you need me to change in the way that um you know I parent you and what's not working, and you know what's working. So we would have these conversations, and um, and I started to share a little bit more um real bits and pieces of me, like when I struggle with addiction, I actually let that um I let her in and I shared that with her, and I didn't do it to burden her because I that was one of my fears. I didn't want her to have to take this on, um, especially if she was young. So I waited until I felt it was the right age. And um when I started to share these really honest, vulnerable bits of myself, something magical happened, and she told me that she started to realize that she did not have to be perfect, she did not have to have it all figured out, and it was part of life, and so by me just opening up to her my vulnerability and sharing that and asking how could I be a better mom, it really helped her to um trust me and to uh share more with me, and it's just taken our relationship to the next level. So that is something that I just wanted to bring up because when sometimes we think about boundaries, we think it's just saying no to people, saying, If you do this, I'll leave, or you know, whatever we have done in the past, and that's not it at all. When I learned about boundaries, they were so beautiful. And um, when I was able to really work on my own internal boundaries, it opened up all of these beautiful um lines of communication and moments that I could be present with my daughter, and um yeah, still working on it, but I wanted to share that with you. All right, number three, let's practice receiving because I think this is the deepest layer of what you're describing. You said that you want to allow yourself to experience belonging. Naya, that means you have to let love land, and for adoptees, that can be terrifying. I know I have this fear of accepting love because I feel that if I accept it, then I might lose it, it might go away, right? And because letting love in means that we have to trust that it won't disappear, which everything in our nervous system tells us it will. And so what we have to do is we have to practice, and I want you to practice this. So when your kids show you love, when they hug you, when they call you, when they say I love you, when they include you in something, just pause, maybe put a hand on your heart and silently say, I'm allowed to have this, I don't have to earn it, I am just allowed. Give yourself permission and let it in. And this is where the visualization piece comes back in. Use the exposure reprogramming work that we talked about earlier. Vividly imagine yourself receiving love from your kids without performing. See yourself sitting with them, just being not doing, and feel what it's like in your body to just receive. I want you to try this every day, even just for a couple of minutes. Because remember, your subconscious doesn't know the difference between vividly imagined and real. So you can actually rewire this. Because here's what I want you to actually hear your children loving you the way they do, without you having to perform for it. That is the healing, that is the experience of belonging your younger self never got. This is the inner child healing work and the requirement. Parenting, okay, and you're getting to receive it now through them. Isn't that so beautiful? You don't have to be enough, you already are enough. You just have to let yourself believe it. So I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you, Naya. So much love to you and your children, and thank you for writing in. Um, because I know that this will land with so many other listeners. Please keep us posted and let us know how you do. All right, much love to you. Before we close, I want to give you another tool. This is a somatic tool because boundaries are felt in the body before they're ever spoken. And if you can learn to listen to your body signals, you're so much better equipped to set these healthy boundaries when you need to. So I want to take you through a short practice just for a few minutes to help you locate where the boundary information lives in your body so you can start hearing it before it becomes resentment or burnout or the thing that you regret years later. Okay, find a comfortable seat and close your eyes if it feels safe to do so. Let's take a nice deep breath in through your nose and let it out through your mouth with a soft sigh. One more in through your nose and let it out. Now I want you to think of a recent moment when something felt off. Maybe someone said something to you and you brushed it off, but it kept bothering you. Maybe someone asked you for something and you said yes, but a part of you really wanted to say no. Maybe you spent time with someone and walked away just feeling drained, but you couldn't say why. Okay, pick a moment, don't overthink it, just let it come to you. And now I want you to bring it into your body, not your thoughts, your body. As you remember that moment, where do you feel it? Is it in your chest? Is it a tightness in your throat? Maybe it's in the pit of your stomach. Or is it tension in your shoulders? Or is it the heat on your face? Wherever it is, just locate it. You don't have to do anything about it. Just notice where in your body that off feeling lives. This is your boundary signal. This is your body trying to tell you something. And it has been trying to tell you this your whole life, maybe. Now, place your hand on the spot where you feel it, and just rest your hand there for a moment and breathe. Take a breath into that space. And silently I want you to say to that part of yourself, I hear you. Thank you for telling me, and I'm going to start listening. And exhale. Take one more breath in. Pull it into that part of your body. Say, I hear you. Thank you for telling me. I'm going to start listening. And exhale. Nice. And when you're ready, open your eyes, come back to yourself. And one final affirmation that I want you to take with you is this. My boundaries are not my walls, they are how I show people who I actually am. And the people who can love me, the real me, are the ones I'm meant to keep close. Alright, everyone, thank you so much for joining. Um, next week we're going to dive into coping mechanisms and like talk about the unhealthy ones that we use to deal with all of this: the numbing, the people pleasing, the overdoing, staying busy, and we're gonna learn how to swap them out for healthier ones. So follow the show and subscribe if you don't already do so, so you never miss an episode. And um, if you want to submit a question, just like Naya did, the Dear Clare Google Forum is linked in the show notes. I'd really love to hear what you're navigating through. And thank you once again to Naya for your honesty and your courage. And thank you, every single one of you, for being here with us on the Dear Clare podcast. Before we close out today's episode, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you. Thank you for showing up for yourself today and for having the courage to do this work. Remember, healing isn't just a concept, it's a practice of reclamation. And to make sure that you never miss a step on this journey, please hit subscribe to the Dear Care Podcast. This ensures that you'll be the first to know the moment a new episode drops. It's also a sign of a commitment to yourself and for committing to doing the work on your journey. I would also be so grateful if you could just take 60 seconds to read and review the show. In the world of podcasting, your review acts like a lighthouse. It helps us reach more adoptees who are looking for this space to heal their attachments and find their way home to themselves and bring more joy and peace into their lives as well. Remember, this is a conversation, so if you have a question about your relationships, about your core wounds, about your manifestation journey, please submit it via the link in the show notes. By asking your question, you aren't just helping yourself. You are empowering every other listener who is likely struggling with the exact same thing. I'm so honored to be on this path with you. I cannot wait to do more of this healing work together. This is the Dear Claire Podcast, and I'll see you next time. Much love.