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.

A beige and neutral colored photo with text regarding when it is ok to say no such as when you are busy and when people expect you to say yes.

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

Green and white graphic with four ways to grow resiliency, also listed in blog post.

Resilience is one of those words that people toss around a lot when bad things happen, but what is it and how can we create it in our lives if we feel we are missing it? Often the term resiliency is used when discussing someone who has experienced something traumatic or challenging and who appears to have come through the experience unscathed. Almost as if their inner organic quality of being a resilient person is what allowed them to avoid any impact from the trauma. We say things like “Well, her house burned down and her dog ran away and her best friend moved across the country, but she seems fine” as if this woman is so strong that she can sustain these experiences unscathed due to her resilient nature.

That is certainly one way to see it, but according to The Merriam Webster Dictionary, resiliency is defined as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”

Recover from or adjust easily. That little phrase right there is the meat of this concept. Resiliency does not mean that challenges have no impact on us, it means that when we are impacted by challenges, we can bounce back or adjust course to suit the new situation we find ourselves in. It means that after her house burned down, she found a new place to live and understands fire safety in more detail now, but doesn’t stay up all night in fear of another fire. Or that her dog did run away, but she made a concerted effort to find him by posting on social media and hanging flyers until he was located. And that her friend did move away, but they were able to maintain their connection via technology and planned a few trips to see each other next year. It’s not that she is unscathed from these experiences, it’s simply that she was able to pivot and recover from each in a way that made moving along in life accessible. I think the word “easily” throws a bit of a wrench in the whole concept, but it can be subjective and what is easy for someone else might feel differently to you.

So what are tips, how do we become this resilient woman who travels and finds dogs and has no fear of fire? Here are 4 ways to kick start your resiliency:

Take care of yourself, and maybe someone else too. Have you eaten some food, drank some water, moved your body, or gotten some fresh air today? Maybe take a warm shower or listen to some music that speaks to you. Taking care of ourselves in various ways helps us maintain the strength we need during the stormy times. It also helps if we share some of that care with a pet, a houseplant, or even a family member. Taking care of ourselves and others is the number one way to maintain resiliency.
Let go of the control a bit. It is hard to do in the moment, but often times when we feel overwhelmed, we are reacting to feeling out of control. Take a moment, find the pause button, and think about whether having control of the current situation would really make that much difference in the grand scheme of things. For example, you are sitting in traffic and are going to be late to an important meeting. Ideal? No. Something that can be adapted to? Absolutely. Rather than getting yourself worked up and upset, maybe pull your car over to the side or find a local coffee shop and call in to the meeting. Apologize for the situation, offer to pick up some pastries, and proceed with the meeting. Adapting to the situation creates a sense of control in the brain which then allows for the resiliency to grow.
Set yourself a goal. Whether it’s a new workout goal, a financial goal, or something small, setting a goal and working towards it will create the environment for resiliency to thrive. Not all goals are as easily attainable as they may seem when we first start our journey on them and learning to adjust and learn along the way helps train us not only to reach our goal, but also to develop resiliency along the way.
Understand that change is part of life. It would be lovely if everything always stayed the same and we had no need for anticipatory anxiety in our lives ever again, but that is not reality. Jobs change, health changes, people move away. It is very easy to look at change as a scary and unpleasant experience, but what if we just shifted that mindset slightly. What if we acknowledged the scary part, but added in the idea that sometimes change might be good. Or interesting. Maybe even preferable. And we won’t know until we at least try it out. Rather than sticking with an “I don’t like change” mentality, try adjusting that just slightly to a “Change is a challenge for me, but it’s not an insurmountable one”.

Everyone on this planet recently navigated a global pandemic, and regardless of what your experience with it was or how you feel now two years after it started, the fact remains that somehow you did in fact pivot your life a bit to deal with the changes and challenges it presented. Would you view your resiliency as growing during this time or being tested in new ways where you found yourself struggling more? Take a few moments to ponder your own resiliency and how you have recovered and adjusted at various points in your life. You may find that you are MUCH more resilient than you realized. Not sure how to go about working through this concept? Find a counselor, we are eager to help people build their resiliency and lead happier and less stressful lives. Or click HERE to schedule a free consultation with me.

Mindfully,

Meredith