How to have boundaries with challenging feelings

I recently read a quote from a contemporary poet (and very interesting guy if you’re into all things Irish) named Pádraig Ó Tuama that really spoke to me: 

In Irish when you talk about emotion, you don’t say, “I am sad.” You’d say, “Sadness is on me” — “ta bron orm.” And I love that because there’s an implication of not identifying yourself with the emotion fully. I am not sad, it’s just that sadness is on me for a while. Something else will be on me at another time, and that’s a good thing to recognize. So it’s good to know it, but also good not to use a kind of a language that says that this is the everything.

This concept gives weight to the idea that emotions are fleeting.  They may be strong or weak, they may feel hard to pin down at times, but they are always changing.  When you wake up in the morning you may feel groggy or hungry or overwhelmed by what the day has in store.  But do you continue to feel that exact same way throughout the day?  No, not generally.  Maybe you hear something funny at work or you see someone you haven’t seen in a long time at the store on the way home.  These experiences cause us to feel certain emotions which are obviously temporary.  And yet when it comes to the emotions that are harder to navigate (anger, shame, sadness, embarrassment, overwhelm, etc) it often feels as if these emotions or feelings hang on a lot longer and so we want to push them away.  Nobody wants to “be angry” and so it’s quite easy to instead say “I’m not angry, I’m fine” as if for some reason being angry is bad or negative.  If we reframe the way we look at emotions to being something that is “on us” for a time, it might make it feel more acceptable for us to stay with the challenging feelings long enough to learn how to navigate them without succumbing to the desire to push them away without exploring what is behind them. It feels almost easier to navigate anger or overwhelm when the anger is “on us” rather than defining us.

Take a few moments to think of a time when you had a challenging emotion “on you” and how it felt.  How did you navigate through it?  How long did it last and was it noticeable after it had passed on by?  Think about the concept of feelings being on you instead of feelings defining you and how that changes (or doesn’t change) the way in which you view yourself.  

For the whole quote and for more info about him, click HERE or to schedule a free wellness consultation with me, go to MY SCHEDULING PORTAL and click on New Client.

MIndfully,

Meredith

How to hold personal boundaries and learn to say NO

At some point in time during therapy, almost every client I have ever worked with has struggled with navigating boundaries. Whether its when I’m counseling a teen, or an adult, or even during couples counseling, I have processed boundaries with many clients. Sometimes the boundary work is in regards to their own boundaries towards others, sometimes it is learning to have boundaries with themselves, and sometimes it’s around the reaction they are having to other people’s boundaries. I want to talk today a little bit about the first concept, setting and keeping your own boundaries with other people.

So what exactly are boundaries? In a nutshell, they are limits. Limits to what you will put up in order to keep your physical, emotional, and mental health in check. It’s pretty easy to say no to something that is beyond your physical capacity, if someone asked you to pick up and move their car with just your bare hands it would be funny and you’d easily say no. It’s a little trickier when it comes to your mental or emotional capacity because even though you “can” do something, doesn’t mean you want to or should do something. When is it ok to set a healthy boundary or to say no to someone? The answer is whenever you want to.

An analogy I use with my clients when discussing boundaries is the idea of a stop sign. Picture a big red stop sign with the word NO on it and envision that it represents your boundaries. Obviously you can say no to anything, but it feels a little aggressive to simply say no to everything without some further thoughts about how we want to handle various situations. So instead lets change that red stop sign to a green one and change the word NO to the words “Go, but on my terms”. Why does that matter? Because when you agree to something on your own terms, you are protecting your mental and emotional health from developing resentment about bending your boundaries.

For example, lets pretend your neighbor asks you to help them clean their gutters and shows you that they already have the ladder set up. You see the ladder and know you are not comfortable climbing up on that, but you also really like your neighbor and don’t want to say no to them. You have the time to help them and you’d like to help them, but what are your personal boundaries in this situation? Maybe you say to them that you’ll hold the ladder steady and help them with the task, but that you are not going up on the ladder. You’ve said yes, but on your terms. Likely your neighbor will respect that and appreciate your help. If you said an outright NO, how would your neighbor have responded and would you be OK with that? What about if you said yes you’d help them and then found yourself up on the ladder despite the fact that you really didn’t want to be up there, how would that have impacted your friendship the next time you say each other? Holding to our boundaries leaves us in the best place to maintain the relationship and not build resentment moving forward, even if saying NO or YES in the moment may have been simpler.

Take a moment to think about your own life and where you hold boundaries and where you do not? Are there spaces in your life where you can recognize that you are bending your boundaries to please others, and you know it is at the expense of your own emotional health? Regardless of whether you have an interest in making adjustments in these areas, can you spend some time identifying them and making a mental note of them?

Need help setting those boundaries? Find a counselor and get work on building that green GO sign. Click HERE to schedule a free consultation.

Mindfully,

Meredith