Boundaries and Saying No Kindly

Boundaries and Saying No Kindly

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[00:00:08] hello, hello, and welcome to Don’t Cut Your Own Bangs, the mini series. Put down the Panic, A Kinder Guide to Stress. This is our final episode, y’all we’re here, we made it. And it is perfect timing because we are in the throes of holiday season. The holiday season is upon us. And man, do we need to put down the panic because we deserve calm without having to earn it?

[00:00:34] That’s what we’ve been talking about this whole time, and that’s what we’re gonna wrap up with. Question for you. Does the word know ever get stuck in your throat? Do you say yes when you’re screaming no inside, or you shoot off a text reply quickly just so you don’t forget to respond, and then you realize, oh.

[00:00:53] I’ve committed myself to something and I didn’t put it in my calendar, and I don’t know how many things I’ve said yes to, or is it just me? No, I don’t think it’s just me. We’ve all been there or we all are. There you are not alone. The, the finale of this mini series is all about boundaries, because keeping your stress low or in a manageable range is arguably easier, safer, more sustainable, and better for us all around than constantly trying to recover from it or recover from the deep.

[00:01:23] Sizzling fry of burnout. Today we are gonna be talking about how to say no without feeling like a bad person and maybe even feeling good about saying no. And for those of you out there who are recovering people pleasers, that is possible. So stay tuned. Here we go.

[00:01:39] Why does saying no feel so hard? I think we all have maybe a different relationship with communicating No. Or with communicating with clarity. But I think that saying no, a clear no or a even a full embodied yes, getting to the truth of what that is, the deeper layer of that is what is your relationship with yourself as it speaks to being needed by others, disappointing others.

[00:02:12] And are you a lookout to see who you need to be first kind of person or are you a look within to discern. What feels right within you before speaking kind of person. And I think depending on the situation, whether it’s business, personal, family, those dynamics are fluid and they can change based on the relationship, the stage of life you’re in, the stressors of the world or the stressors of your life.

[00:02:37] I have gotten a lot more comfortable saying no since having kids, but that’s also because there’s just less of me to go around. All of these factors of life are important to take into consideration. But for the purposes of this, and for you as you’re listening to this episode, is to really think about, is this true for you?

[00:02:56] Would you rather fake a medical emergency than just say no to the holiday party, to the trip, to the, just wanna pick your brain over coffee, the school bake sale. Like, would you rather fake a medical emergency than just saying no? I think some people would. I think that’s oftentimes why people will over they don’t just say no.

[00:03:19] They really have to paint a picture. A really elaborate, detailed picture of, I’m not just sick, but like, here’s all my symptoms and here’s photos of me sick. I’m not just I’m on my way to the er. Here’s photos of me racing in the car. We, there’s this fear and feeling that we have to prove the reason rather than say no.

[00:03:38] And if we really look at what that is on the deeper level, on the other side, what we are wanting to safeguard against is somebody else’s disappointment in us or somebody else’s. Just disappointment in general. So don’t, don’t be mad. Don’t have a feeling about this.

[00:03:54] Don’t be upset because I’m giving you all of this evidence. These are all the reasons why I can’t. It’s not just that I don’t want to, which is true. It’s not just that I can’t, which is also probably true too. It’s that all of these reasons, it’s not me. And when we do that dance, we like tap around the truth.

[00:04:14] It’s uncomfortable. It’s not only is it uncomfortable for the receiver because they’re having to sort of like be barraged with all of these details they didn’t ask for, it also is exhausting for the performer, for the person who’s in the role of Don’t be mad. Don’t be mad. That takes a lot of energy.

[00:04:31] the other thing that’s important to be noted in this context, that there is a cultural script, especially for women to be pleasing and to be polite, to be pretty. There’s all those annoying P words, pretty polite, pleasing, to be a good girl that in that conditioning, whether it’s. Breast explicitly, or it’s been implicitly infused into how we move through the world and this isn’t only specific to women by any means.

[00:05:04] Trust me, I have worked with many male clients. I’m also married to a man who has his own relationship , with people pleasing. But however, it’s informed and however it becomes adopted by us on some level. We believe we are responsible for how other people feel about us and. To say that that’s not true, almost always creates a record scratch in a session with a client or even a conversation with someone.

[00:05:30] The record scratch is not because it isn’t true, but that is not part of our cultural conditioning. For many of us, and especially if we think about attachment style, I’m gonna get put on my therapy hat for a minute. When we think about attachment styles. I’ll give a little context for what that means. So essentially from birth to two years old and from two years old to roughly five years old, there’s different stages of development and the attachment you have, whether it’s disorganized, organized, anxious, or avoidant, or confident or secure, depends on how the primary caregiver of your life responded to you, met your needs as you were developing as a.

[00:06:11] Infant and a small child, about five years old. And so for an anxious attachment style and there’s different, um, I have heard. Many different interpretations of the same concept. So the language you may have heard before might be a little different. Just for example, I just finished listening to Elizabeth Gilbert’s book All the Way to the River.

[00:06:30] She briefly touches on attachment theory and even the, the language, not the overall definition, but the labels of like anxious and avoidant. I think she called it insecure, insecure. She maybe even used a different word, but the point is that there are different iterations and interpretations of this concept, but I think you’ll get the point.

[00:06:48] Once I make it so an anxious attachment style, they are essentially, can they become more attuned to to tapping into the needs, the emotional needs of the people in their environment to figure out who and how to be. So if somebody’s upset, if somebody’s sad, if somebody’s, . Bristly prickly, about to pop off with their temper.

[00:07:11] I’m gonna move into my world and I’m gonna figure out who I need to be and how I need to be in order , to navigate this world safely or to navigate this environment safely. And this is, again, this is all happening. It’s very, very young, young stages of development. This is like pre-verbal in, in many ways, prem memory and avoidant attachment is.

[00:07:30] There was so much inconsistency in either presence or how somebody showed up. So either somebody was absent a lot, not there at all, or I couldn’t trust who you were gonna be when I showed up. So I did. I tuned out. I didn’t tune into the environment because I didn’t feel like I could trust what was happening in my environment.

[00:07:50] So an avoidant attachment style, their instinct would be more to lean away. Anxious attachment style is more likely to lean in. What do you need from me? Who do I need to be for you? And that’s a really cursory, very rudimentary explanation, but that gives you a rough idea of when you hear this. I say that more to highlight the reasons why it’s hard to say no is because there are reasons.

[00:08:15] There are reasons. I think it’s so easy to oversimplify or, to, to put people into boxes and categories so quickly. And the more context you can add, the more compassion I think you have access to. My point is if it’s hard for you to say, no, there’s a reason and we’re gonna work on it, we’re gonna get you there.

[00:08:31] It’s okay. So. If you are maybe a recovering people pleaser, maybe there’s a little bit of codependency in the mix, in your family of origin, maybe you have a little bit of an anxious attachment style. There’s this visceral feeling that the way people feel around you as you move throughout your environments is your responsibility.

[00:08:52] You are in charge of what that means. And so then when they hand you a harmless. Invitation to some event on your only day off in the two hour window where you get any peace and quiet, and they hand you this invitation to this very high energy, high need. Oh, there’s a costume. Oh, and there’s a baked good you need to bring.

[00:09:15] Oh, and don’t forget for , the donation that we’re also going to do for the, all of these conditions that in their world are very well intended. And you get handed this invitation and it doesn’t feel like an invitation. It feels like you’ve been handed a firing hot, cast iron pot, and you’re holding it in your hands without oven, MITs, and you just wanna throw this pot somewhere, but you don’t know what to do.

[00:09:35] And you just like, yeah. It’s like, yeah, wait. Oh no. What have I done? That is what we’re talking about. And there’s a lot of other expressions of this, but when it’s hard to say no, there’s a reason and we’re gonna figure out. What that is and maybe help you feel a little bit bolder, a little bit braver and a little bit safer to say the nos you want to actually say no to and say, leave space for the yeses you want and to say yes to.

[00:10:00] something to remember as we move forward in this conversation is that boundaries are not rejection, they’re clarity. , Boundaries are often, simplified and misnamed as only being No, and what a boundary is. It’s really not about what you say to the other person, what boundaries truly are. It’s this like sacred contract between you and you.

[00:10:26] I. Play this game with myself all the time. There’s a past version of me and a future version of me, and I’m in conversation with them all the time and stay with me. ’cause this actually isn’t woo, it’s more like emotionally grounding. So if the past version of me, let’s say Danielle from three days ago knew she was gonna need more space to record a podcast, edit it, produce it, market it.

[00:10:51] So she added a little bit more space for herself today in her calendar three days ago, knowing she was like, oh, you know what? That’s probably gonna feel really crunched and tight and stressful for me. So I’m gonna make myself unavailable to other social engagements.

[00:11:06] I’m gonna eat my lunch at home. I’m not gonna go out to eat ’cause I don’t wanna waste time in the car. ’cause I know that that’ll make me feel tense if, if I get stuck in traffic, like I’m gonna do myself the favor and block out that time. That’s Danielle from three days ago. Danielle today, sitting in her calendar, sitting in her day knowing she’s got this buffer.

[00:11:28] She’s got this playroom of like, oh, okay. I actually got through my project a little faster than I thought I would, so I’ve got a little bit more room to maybe add a walk in that I wasn’t sure I would have time for what I do in those moments where I can take a deep breath because of something I did in the past that set me up for success today.

[00:11:47] I thank me from the past. Thank you, Danielle. Thank you for taking care of us. Thank you for giving me that extra time because you knew I’d probably feel stressed and you were right, so thank you for that. And I’ll also talk to future self like, Hey, hey girl, I’m setting you up so that next week when you have that thing, you know exactly what you’re gonna wear and you’re not gonna be stress sweating in your closet trying to figure it out that in its own way, it may not sound like a boundary in the way that we think about it in relationships, but I knew my relationship with myself was that I am not going to put the pressure on me.

[00:12:21] To have to fit things around this very important project. So I’m gonna make this commitment to myself and make myself unavailable for this chunk of time before. And this chunk of time after a boundary is a commitment between you and you. So how that would play out within a relationship. I will not allow myself. To be put in a position to feel this way. I will not put myself in a position to feel stressed, flustered, or overwhelmed ’cause I have the capacity to change my schedule. And so I will. So it’s a commitment and an honoring of the commitment between you and you and, we’ll talk about other examples of how that would play out , but I like to highlight that because boundaries, it’s not just a no or a firm like Finger Wag.

[00:13:05] Like, mm, I’m gonna tell you what you can and cannot do to me. No, no, no. It’s. This is what I will and will not do for myself. Remember, boundaries are not rejection. They’re clarity.

[00:13:14] So you might be thinking, well, what if all these things I’m saying yes to were things I really wanna do? And that is also possible. Sometimes we have a lot of really good options. You’re like at a delicious buffet and everything looks amazing, and you’re like, I don’t know. I want the dinner roll and I want the slice of pie.

[00:13:31] I just want, I don’t know why I’m thinking about like MCL cafeteria. That’s a real throwback. Anybody listening who’s ever been to an MCL cafeteria that was like. The coolest thing when I was a kid, little side note with my grandma, that’s where she would take me for lunch. She would take, she would pick me up from school early.

[00:13:48] We would go to MTL cafeteria and they had all the desserts first, and then they had all the breads and all the rolls. So I had my pie and my jello and my dinner roll, and then I got my fried chicken and all my other stuff. But sometimes you’re standing in front of a buffet line and everything looks good and you’re really hungry.

[00:14:06] That can also be the situation. As we’re moving into this holiday season, you have friends’ birthdays, you have kids’ parties, you have school, like, oh my gosh, anytime I get to see Logan doing something adorable at school where she’s just bouncing around in some outfit she doesn’t normally wear, it’s charming as hell and I love seeing that stuff, but it’s also thinking in the energetic toll that goes into the planning.

[00:14:33] Organizing, getting there, getting back, everything else that needs to happen in my life that I’m still committed to, in addition to these new holiday invitations. There’s not just the buffet, it’s every, that’s life happening around the buffet. So we’re gonna talk about the cost of saying yes too much.

[00:14:52] When we say yes to everything, what that means is if everyone gets a yes from me. There’s nothing left for me, and overwhelm will creep in because if you think of your energy like a bank, I like to think of my time, not just as my time, but an energetic exchange. So there’s money in the ETM machine and I make deposits, and then I also make withdrawals.

[00:15:18] And so every time I’m saying yes to someone that is a withdrawal, I’m giving them the chunk. Of the deposit of my time. And every relationship, every commitment has a different energetic requirement, but also some exchanges will also fill my cup too. Thinking of myself like that, this is an energetic exchange, it makes the time on the calendar not feel so much like the time on the calendar, but the time it takes me.

[00:15:49] To warm up and rev up into something or recover after. , I like to think of all of those things because in the times where I haven’t, and I’ve said yes to everything, because it technically, like a Tetris game could have slipped in a 15 minute, a 30 minute, a two hour slot on my calendar. By the end of the day, I have no fuel left in the tank.

[00:16:12] I am completely depleted and drained. I’m running on fumes or metaphorically, I’m broke down on the side of the road.

[00:16:19] What we’re wanting to acknowledge is that sometimes you’re saying no to something that you would like to say yes to. It’s just a matter of I don’t have any more fuel in the tank. There’s no more cash in this ATM to give, not for lack of wanting, but truly for lack of ability or an energetic toll because.

[00:16:38] You don’t wanna run yourself into the ground in order to meet everybody else’s needs ’cause there will be a cost to you. There always is.

[00:16:47] If setting boundaries is something that you would like to practice more gently, I have created the Treasure Journal, a seven part guided journal and meditation series designed to help you reflect, reset, and listen to yourself before burnout sets in. And if you’ve got kids in your life, wrestling a walrus for little people with big feelings is a playful tool that can help them.

[00:17:09] And you name and navigate your big emotions without shame. Both links are available in the show notes and stick with me because before this episode is done, there’s a special gift I’ve been saving for you that won’t be shared anywhere else that will help you get through the holiday season with maybe just a little more fuel, a little bit more energy in your tank.

[00:17:29] So we’re gonna practice. Maybe you’ve been listening and you’re like, Danielle, these concepts are great, but what are the actual words? And I can tell you that almost every conversation I’ve had with clients about this very thing, they’re like, cool. Great. Super great. Okay, so I believe you. I’m with you.

[00:17:48] Now what? What do I say to the person? What are the words? And while I don’t think scripts, especially therapeutic model scripts . that sounds to me like you have some big feelings. You can tell when somebody’s new in therapy ’cause they start talking different.

[00:18:04] You don’t want to necessarily move through your life living it scripted. However, I also understand that when you’re standing in front of somebody who’s asking you something or you’re holding your phone and you see the message and you’ve read it and now it’s been marked as read and they know you’ve read it and you’re like, oh my God.

[00:18:22] I don’t know what to say. What do I actually say? Sometimes having a script helps. It’s just true. We’re gonna talk about three different versions that you can copy, paste for your specific scenario. You can try it out and will hopefully make this a little less tense and a little less edgy when you’re lovingly passing on or accepting invitations to things.

[00:18:44] Setting boundaries. Let’s start the first character is your polite and firm character. Thank you for thinking of me, but I can’t commit to that right now. Ooh, ooh. That sounded, um, that sounded very proper. That sounded like something that maybe Gwyneth Paltrow would say, thank you for thinking of me, but I can’t commit to that right now.

[00:19:06] obviously. This is a script. And you know what? You can revise Reedit rewrite. You can add your own flare and personality to it. What I’d like to think about with the Polite and firm is, the most simple form of that is no thank you. Just no thank you. There’s other scripts coming, but something to keep in mind too is less is more.

[00:19:27] Less is more. I think the amount of detail that you offer or the amount of personal anecdotes that you share, that also depends on the intimacy of the relationship. So if you think about the relationships on the outer , on the outer edges or periphery of your life, the, people you hardly know, very loosely connected acquaintances or people that you like, but maybe you’ve only met one or two times. As we inch into the holiday season.

[00:19:55] So too, are we spending more time with relationships that we have a lot of intimacy and shared history with, and family loved ones? I would say the closer the relationship, the tighter the inner circle, there’s probably more room to shade in details that you wouldn’t otherwise share.

[00:20:11] I don’t ever mind offering close friends a more detailed context. When I need to step away, and because I’ve been practicing this and getting it wrong, but also practicing this for so long, I have almost all of my friends I can say something to the tone of this, listen, today, Danielle really wants to say yes to this, but she has no idea how she’s gonna feel in two weeks at your actual event.

[00:20:37] Are you comfortable with this being a maybe or. Flat out, I love you so much and I want to see you, and there’s just no thank you. I can’t do that. I think however, casual and however much information or the level of honesty you wanna offer, gauge the type of relationship you’re working with here.

[00:20:59] And that doesn’t mean be less authentic, it’s actually more about honoring. The truth of the relationship. You have somebody who I’ve had two conversations with, I don’t need to give context to. They haven’t really earned that from me, but I can still be polite and I can still be firm. Again, polite and firm.

[00:21:18] That works great. You can also be polite and firm with people that you know well, but we can also try a gentle redirect. I don’t have the capacity, but here’s another option that might help.

[00:21:29] Now this I think, is a really good entry point for people who are so used to saying yes, because I wanna give you something, but I’m not gonna give you me, and I’m gonna say, in the world of burnout, recovery in the world of burnout prevention, this is still a W. This is still a win. Now, long term. Is it our responsibility to provide a solution to everybody’s problem?

[00:21:54] Maybe not, but that also depends on the relationship. If we’re talking about in a workplace, and this is a colleague or a boss, you may be in a situation where having something to offer is ultimately better for the relationship. You have to decide this, but a gentle redirect. I don’t have the capacity.

[00:22:11] But here’s what I can do or I won’t be available, but here’s when I am available. Sometimes it just feels nice , for yourself and for the other person to say, it’s not that I don’t wanna do the thing, I just don’t have the capacity to do the thing. But here’s an option for you.

[00:22:27] I love this one. And then the last one is a flat out, no. And I haven’t used this one a lot. I’m gonna be perfectly honest with you. I haven’t used it a lot, but I’m working on it. And no or no thank you. That’s it. No is a complete sentence. No, thank you. I always like being polite. I mean, there’s nothing wrong.

[00:22:50] You’re not losing anything by being polite, but no, thank you. I do that all the time for like email requests that, that, like when people just wanna drop in my inbox and make requests. No thank you, or I just don’t reply at all. But again, choose your own adventure, gauge your energy.

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