- Hey everybody, happy Thursday,
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but let's jump into today's question.
"Katie, as you know, I work a lot
"and study part-time outside of work hours and weekends.
"I'm doing it like that as I'm paying
"for my degree myself," awesome,
"without loans to start with
"and my parents haven't supported me financially
"since I was 15.
"But, it makes it hard because I obviously
"earn a lot more than friends my age.
"Some are students who don't even work
"or barely work at all.
"Others work in low-paying jobs
"because that's all that they can get,
"and so sometimes, I'm way too nice to them
"in regards to a lot of things,
"but in this context,
"buying them things and helping them out
"when they sometimes need it.
"However, there have been a few occasions recently
"of people saying that they need help
"and they'll pay me back, but I'm still waiting.
"One has been about a year now,
"and I just constantly find that I'm fighting
"with myself over it because I want to help,
"and most of the time, I'm able to help,
"but it starts to get to the point
"where it feels like they're taking advantage of me
"and are only friends with me
"because of stuff like that.
"So, I just don't really know how
"to get around all of that, yet another case
"of constantly fighting myself.
"Ugh."
I really like this question because I think a lot
of us struggle with boundaries with people
and feeling walked all over or taken advantage of,
and there's quite a few components I wanna talk
about with regard to this,
but I wanna start with boundaries.
And I know a lot of you just hid
behind a pillow and are like,
"Please stop talking about it.
"Boundaries, what boundaries?
"I don't even know what that means."
If you don't know what boundaries mean,
boundaries are things that we communicate
to others in our life to let them know
what's okay and what's not okay.
This can be what expectations they can set
for us or what they can expect from us,
all of it needs to be clearly communicated.
And that's where most of us struggle
and wanna hide behind a pillow
because we can fear conflict.
If done properly, boundaries can be set up pretty easily.
For example, if a friends asks me
for 50 bucks, I can say to them,
"Yeah, I can loan it to you now,
"but I'm just gonna need you to pay me back
"by this date."
If that date rolls around, I've already told them
that it needed to be paid back by that date,
and I can say, "Hey, remember I told you I need
"that 50 bucks by this date?"
If they don't pay me back or they say,
"I need a few more weeks," you can say,
"I told you I needed it by now.
"It's not okay.
"I have bills to pay, too,
"and this is really difficult for me."
That's laying a boundary down.
You could even go as far as to say,
if this isn't the first time, you could say,
"This is why I don't like to loan friends money,
"it makes it really hard on me."
And again, we're kind of owning our own boundary.
"It makes it hard on me," which is true.
"I don't like it," true.
"This is why I don't usually do this."
Again, we're saying, "This is what I told you
"and this is why I asked for this, okay?"
So, don't think that boundaries have
to be extremely confrontational where we come out
of nowhere and they maybe don't know why we're even saying
what we're saying to them.
We can do it in the moment,
we can do it when they ask for a favor,
we can do it when we're, you know,
getting together and something comes up similar to it.
There's a lot of ways
that we can approach certain situations
that involve boundaries in a very soft,
not-so-intensely-confrontational way.
And if you're worried,
you can always practice ahead of time.
You know, I always say write it down
and practice on your own because then,
we can kind of figure out how it is we wanna verbalize it,
what feels true to us, and how we would normally talk
to friends and family,
and then (sighs) take a breath,
and go in and do it.
Because, trust me, boundaries not only help us,
the ones who set them up,
but they also help the person
that we're in a relationship with
because boundaries are there to keep everybody
in that relationship safe and make sure
that each relationship is build off of trust,
love, and mutual respect.
Now, the second thing I wanna talk about
is the fact that people using us for money
or manipulating us to get things from us,
whether that be more power, like,
if they're looking to use us to get advantage at work
or if they're wanting to take advantage
of maybe resources we have, like a trip we're going on,
things like that, whatever it may be.
If someone's manipulating us
and using us to get something,
that's a toxic relationship
and I would encourage you to, first,
try to address it with them.
And you can say something to the effect of,
"You know, I often feel like,
"you know, you've been asking me
"for a lot of favors and it feels a little unbalanced."
I know that many of you may not
feel comfortable saying that,
but if this person is continually taking advantage of you,
I think it's good practice to try
to communicate what we're feeling
and hope that they can understand,
and say something like, "Oh, you know,
"I didn't even realize, I've just been really stressed out
"and I'm so sorry, and I'll work on it."
A lot of times, that's the response,
but if not, or if we don't feel we're able
to communicate that to them,
we're gonna have to distance ourselves.
We're gonna have to say no
when they ask for those favors,
when they ask for more money,
when they ask to take advantage of something that we have.
It's ours, we have the right to say no,
and we have a right to get into
and out of a relationship at any time.
In a relationship like this, when we feel used,
when we feel like someone's taking advantage of us,
we have the power to stop it,
and so I'd encourage you to notice,
to think about your relationships,
think about people you do favors for,
people that you spend time and energy on.
Do you feel like it's mutual?
Do you feel like you could ask them
for the same things and they would 100 percent say yes?
If the answer's yes, that's a healthy,
wonderful relationship, but if not,
it's something we need to talk about with them,
talk it with our therapist with, possibly,
practice verbalizing and potentially,
if all doesn't work out, end the relationship
because no one deserves to feel manipulated
or to feel walked all over.
We all deserve the right to have healthy,
happy, loving relationships.
And the third and final part of this question
that I want to address is self-worth and confidence.
I truly believe that a struggle to set boundaries
and to properly communicate
what's important to us comes from lack
of self-worth or lack of self-confidence.
And the ways that we can work on that
is all an inside job, and I say that
because a lot of people will say,
"Well, people in my life have been mean
"and they have said bad things."
We cannot control, unfortunately,
what other people say and do,
and I know that sucks 'cause people can
be total assholes, but we have to work on it inside,
meaning we have to say nice things to ourselves.
I always talk about the importance
of self-talk and that is super important
when it comes to confidence and self-worth.
So, notice.
Notice what you say to yourself.
If it's all nasty things, I want you to argue back.
I want you to do that thought,
you know how I talked about, like, thought tracking?
Writing down the things that you think all the time,
and then arguing back with a positive voice.
You can pretend it's me,
you can pretend it's your best friend
or a loved one, someone who would say nice things to you,
I want you to argue back in that voice.
And also, spending time around people
who are loving and supportive.
If there's a few people in your life
that are always telling you positive things
and being super encouraging and supportive,
spend more time with them.
Lessen the time you spend with people putting you down
and increase the amount of time you spend
with positive people because it is contagious.
Hearing someone say nice things
and feeling good about a situation,
having someone affirm that is so wonderful,
and we can just feel like a million bucks,
and so I would encourage you to do that.
Spend less time with the assholes
and more time with the nice people because overall,
we really only want our life filled with nice people.
Am I right?
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But, as always, those are were just my ideas
and my comments, what do you think?
Let me know because with your experience
and my expertise, we get the best result
and the best information possible.
Thanks for checking back,
and I will see you next time.
Bye.