Hey it's Tay with Mom on the Spectrum and today I'm coming at you with a question
direct from the comments from xoxoleony: "How do we balance respecting our boundaries while
also encouraging growth?" That is such a great question and I can't wait to unpack it with y'all.
First off if you're new to my channel, if you could hit the red "subscribe" button
below this video, that helps me out so much, and I hate asking but it's just one of those
things... if I want to keep creating videos for you, the subscribers help so so much. So
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it just means that you'll see new videos that I post on your Youtube homepage whenever you
log onto the site. Thank you so much for doing that! Let's talk about this question that we got
from the comments. I want to say right off the bat... the fact that you're asking this question
is a great sign. I think that asking questions about our growth... it shows so much of where
we're at. The fact that you're aware that setting boundaries can conflict with personal growth,
that's really really intuitive of you, and I think a lot of us neurodiverse people,
we're very aware of how our minds work and we're thinking about it constantly. So when I saw your
question I was really excited to unpack that more. And not to get too meta, but what I'm learning,
the older I get, is that sometimes the answers ARE the questions. So I want you to just sit with that
a little bit. If you are in the same situation of "how do we balance these two things?" keep asking
it in whatever situation you're in. But because I also love concrete answers, let's dive into a
couple of things that have really helped me start to understand the relationship between boundaries
and growth. Let's kind of set the stage for what we're talking about. Let's say that you
decide in order for you to feel taken care of, you need to limit your social interactions,
so you set the boundary of one social interaction per week. Well, then a co-worker decides to throw
an out of the blue get-together that you think you might want to go to. So how do you take
care of yourself when you know: if I push it too much and I do too many social things this week,
it might result in a meltdown or a shutdown? You know going to that social event, it might help you
grow in your relationships with your co-workers, it might help you grow in your ability to interact
socially in small groups of people, or you might feel like you have needed to set a boundary
in relationships and spend less time with someone who hasn't been that great of an influence on you.
How do you balance that with the fact that they might need to be in your life? Maybe they have
another role. Maybe they're a co-parent. How do you deal with those types of relationships?
This type of question is really important and one that each of us will probably run into at
least once in our life. So I'm going to share with you today a couple of the things that help me as I
process these tough questions. You might have your own experiences and I'd love to hear about other
things that have worked for you. Let's start with number one. Yes it's a little cheesy and you might
have found out by now that sometimes I'm a little cheesy in my videos. 1. Listen to your body.
Number one, listen to your body. Along with learning that sometimes the questions are the
answers, which is so meta, I'm also learning the answers are oftentimes super simple. Our
body has so much more information than we could ever know. I mean it's constantly just giving us
feedback about what's going on in our environment and in our mind and in our heart and our soul.
So many things. Our senses, they are all giving us information all the time. I live in America.
Super fast-paced, super busy lifestyle, and I think that the need to spend time by yourself
in solitude is completely overlooked. But that's a very very important skill that can
give you great insight and wisdom about where your life feels the most meaningful. Tuning into your
body regularly is very important. I would say, and I can only say this from my perspective as
an autistic female but judging from what I have viewed of the other species, neurotypical humans,
I feel like we might even need the introspection MORE. I don't know if that's a fair statement to
say but I'm going to say it anyway, because we're processing so so so much. Spending time regularly,
I would advise in the morning and in the evening, where it's just you...Meditation is a wonderful
thing. I know that can be super frustrating. I'd love to do maybe a video series on meditation.
You can start meditating one minute a day, two minutes a day... You can set a timer on your phone
and just turn everything off, close your eyes and listen to the sound of your breathing. You
can breathe in for three and out for five. That's a great place to start. And listen to the sound of
your inhale. Listen to the sound of your exhale. You can also think about... where does the breath
start and where does the breath end? I'm getting too far into my meditation series already. I
love talking about meditation. Meditation is a practice. It's not anything you ever arrive
at. One day you might do it and the whole time you're just thinking about how hungry you are
or that weird thing that you said in your last conversation, and then the timer goes off and
you're like, "Oh I didn't do anything!" Meditation is the practice of learning how to "be."
There's not a right or wrong way to do it. It's just continually coming back to that practice. So
I want to encourage you, first off if you haven't meditated or gotten still, try it one time a day,
maybe for a week. See how that helps you access how you're really feeling and what you really
need. It can make a really big difference, especially when you incorporate that practice
into your life on a regular basis, which is something I'm still learning how to do. The
second thing that I wanted to share, which goes along really nicely with the first
of tuning into your body, is creating a safe place for yourself. So if you're constantly
putting yourself in situations where you know you're going to be strung out or overstimulated or
possibly encounter a meltdown or shutdown, you're going to stop trusting yourself at some point. So
you're going to feel on edge, you're going to feel tired, you're going to feel a little bit angry,
because you haven't created a safe place where you feel like you can be yourself. This is a concept
that's kind of new to me. Once I grasped the idea of this, it really hit home. Whenever you can,
start teaching yourself that you're going to say "no" to things that are overwhelming to you.
You're going to say "no" to spending time with people who wear you down, and those practices of
saying "no" can be very small. You can decide not to respond to the text messages that you have on
your phone because you need to close your eyes and take a 20 minute power nap. You can say "no" to
being the field trip sponsor on your kids school trip. There's all kinds of little things that
you can say "no" to that, over the course of time, will help you say "no" to bigger things.
Cultivating an environment where you can trust yourself to take care of yourself is a really
really important thing that starts with very very small tiny baby steps. I mean, really,
saying "no" could even just be like, "No, I'm not going to work until 5:30 today, I'm gonna stop at
five." And I promise you if you start making those tiny decisions you can make a little bit
bigger decision and a little bit bigger decision until finally you start getting into the habit
of really knowing, "hey here's my limit and I'm gonna say "no" and I'm gonna stop before I get
uncomfortable." So many opportunities open up to you after you start learning to trust yourself
and I think you'll find that when you say "no" and operate out of a safe space where you have enough
energy to do what's in front of you, I think you might find that you start becoming more open to
trying new things or you start becoming open to having maybe an extra social hangout here
and there because you're protecting your energy you're protecting your life force inside of you,
and you're teaching yourself, "Hey, I'm gonna keep you safe." That's so important. Number three:
Communicate. Number three: Communicate clearly. I definitely think that there are
times in my life where I'm more open to pushing my boundaries a little bit. My needs have been met,
so like I've taken care of my hygiene, I'm well rested, I've eaten well,
I've exercised, I've been drinking water. When all of those things are kind of in order,
I feel like I have a lot more energy to give. I promise this ties into number three: communicate
clearly. There's gonna be sometimes when, just no, you know? An opportunity is in front of you,
a new opportunity and you're like, "No, I do not have the energy for this right now."
Listen to those cues. So when you don't have the energy, communicate so clearly. I've said this in
another video but Brene Brown has said, "Clear is kind and unclear is unkind." It's totally
okay to talk through your thought process with people. You might have plans with or people you
have a friendship or relationship with who you're trying to communicate a boundary to. You can say,
"Hey, I know we've had this thing on the calendar. I've really been looking forward to seeing you.
It's been a long time. I just want to let you know I didn't sleep well last night. I'm having kind of
a brain fog day where things aren't really making sense and I'm considering, you know, it
might be better for me if we reschedule." Talking through things like that, you can even say like,
"I'm not sure. I might feel more up to it tonight, I just wanted to let you know today where I'm at
this morning, so that you're not surprised if I feel later on like I might need to reschedule or
cancel." That is a skill that takes practice as well. I know that might be kind of nerve-wracking
to think about doing that, but I promise once you start doing it, I mean the people you want in your
life are going to respect that. The people that don't respect when you say, "Hey, this is what
I need. This is the kind of day I've had. I'm not able to do the thing that I originally thought I
was gonna do." You want people in your life who are gonna say, "Oh, okay. I care about you. I
hope that you get the rest that you need and I'd be happy to consider doing this another time."
I think we all probably know that there are times when we are more open to trying something new and
there are times when we're definitely not. So when you're not, communicate clearly. You can come up
with a backup plan. I know one time my husband and I, we had a game night planned over at our
friend's house and we took separate cars. Whenever we were planning on going, I was excited about it.
And then the day of, I hadn't slept well. That's always like a major trigger for me when I don't
sleep well the night before. It's a snowball of sensory upset for me. So my husband and I ended up
taking separate cars so that he could stay later and I could peace out as soon as my body was like,
"This is all the talking and socialization that I can handle." I think you'll be surprised that
you can come up with some pretty creative ideas for how to have a Plan B. Sometimes you can just
flat out say, "Hey, I over-planned. This is more than I thought that I could do. I thought it'd be
okay to have this coffee together today but right now I'm just, for whatever reason, I'm not feeling
great and I think that I need to go home." You don't have to give a reason. You don't have to
give an explanation of why you feel a certain way. And the people in your life that you want in your
life are going to accept that. I just want to give you the freedom to be able to change your plans,
to be able to have a backup plan and in all things to be able to communicate clearly,
which does take practice but... baby steps, baby steps. Sometimes there might be no way
out. Let's say that your kid has a choir concert and there's no way you're going to miss it. It's
so important to your kid and you're going to be there. You didn't sleep well the night before,
you're on the verge of a meltdown. What do you do? If it were me, I know that I'm going to this choir
concert because it means the world to my daughter, right? Maybe... can I sit on the back row? Can I
be the first one out? Can I fill my purse with fidget toys and wear my headphones? Are there any
other opportunities to hear this performance? If you run into a situation that you absolutely have
to participate in, something work related or with your kids, do the bare minimum. So maybe, conserve
your energy for what's needed most: making your kids feel loved, seen, supported, and then at the
school function maybe don't talk to the other parents. That's just... we have to make some
changes, you know? We have to consider... maybe... don't thank the teacher. You can thank the teacher
the next day with a card or the next week, whatever. I think just doing the bare minimum
when you absolutely can't avoid a situation and then making changes for the future. So
based off of this event, how can I prepare better for the next choir concert or the next unforeseen
business meeting that pops up? So always using the information that you have from your experience to
help you plan better for the next one. And then RECOVER, right? So if you have to go to something,
make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to recover. Something that I'm learning... I
know for me, time alone, time under my weighted blanket, lots of water, more sleep, exercise...
those are all things that can help me recover after I have been way too over-stimulated and
done too much. And then lastly I want to leave you with a question to think about. So in these
types of situations where you're presented with an opportunity to grow, to try something new...
is your desire to participate based off of your own wishes? Is it something that you would like
to do and learn more about and grow from or does it stem more from what you feel like other people
are expecting of you? That's something that's really important for us on the spectrum to always
be thinking about because the world in a lot of ways is set up for neurotypical people, and a lot
of expectations that are placed on us are based on neurotypical standards. So whenever you can,
identify that, "Hey, am I feeling pressured to do this because it's something that I
should do or is this something that I genuinely am interested in and feel would add value to
my life?" I want to leave you with that. Thank you again so much xoxoleony for this
comment. I loved the idea. I've been so happy to see all of the comments. I feel very seen
whenever I read y'all's comments. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, there's other people who have the
same experiences as me!" So I love hearing your feedback. I'm really appreciative of the support.
I know that there's a lot of internet trolls out there but y'all are awesome and thank you so much
for watching. Keep the video suggestions coming. I've got a suggestion from Jared that I'm going to
work on soon. Jared asks, "How can we prioritize self-care and protect ourselves from burnout from
caring for other people?" That is such a great question, so I'm excited to explore that as well.
Again, if you like this video, if you could give the thumbs up, make sure you SUBSCRIBE
and I will see y'all in the next video! thank you so much for watching! Bye.