The second most common obstacle to setting boundaries is the belief that a boundary is telling the other person what they need to do, so
Let's take a better look at how to set boundaries in a way that actually works
Setting boundaries is about taking action within your realm of control if you're trying to change another person-you're focusing on
Changing something that you have no power over. It creates a sense of powerlessness.
And I think that's why a lot of people feel frustrated about boundaries for example: "You can't talk to me that way"
I mean is that true? I mean of course they can talk to you that way...
Now there might be consequences for them doing it,
But they can talk to you that way. A real boundary is saying what you're going to do in response to their behaviors.
Let's use an example from my treatment center experience. So I once had this client who arrived in treatment and for three days
She didn't talk,
Eat or take her medicine. Now after a couple days we were all feeling pretty worried and the staff came to our weekly meeting
Basically in a panic saying "You have to do something!" "You have to make her eat"
Now what were our options?
We couldn't force food into her mouth and move her jaw up and down. That's not going to do anything.
We could threaten her say "If you don't eat then we're gonna punish you later"
Or "If you don't eat bad things are gonna happen to you". What were our other options. We could throw a little fit
You know I could scream and yell make a big scene about it, but again
She would always have that that choice of whether or not she eats
Now the more anxious we get the more likely we're gonna be doing things that aren't intentional and try to be more and more
Forceful. And the problem with that is if the deeper problem with most people
has nothing to do with the surface behavior. If the deeper problem is about anxiety or
Self-worth then the harder we force the bigger the problem is going to be. So with this client
She was feeling really scared and looking for some control in her
environment and the more we forced it upon her the less likely she was going to be able to resolve that need for safety and
Self-control. Now remember all these different options that we could talk about in that staff meeting
were probably going to make the problem worse. Why is that? Well the more we push on someone else the more they're gonna push back
The harder we try and make our child to do something
The less likely they're gonna want to do that on their own in the future.
And now I'm not saying that we just give up and let our kid or our employees do whatever they want
Research shows that laissez-faire parenting meaning just kind of letting kids run themselves is just as harmful for kids as
Authoritarian- harsh parenting. The type of parenting that creates the best results is high love high boundaries.
So you had high expectations, and you're also fostering that in this environment of love and support
So how do we set boundaries if we aren't focusing on telling someone else what they need to do?
Boundaries are about saying what you will do. They often involve an if-then statement like "If you don't eat your food
Then you can't have ice cream later"
I'm not necessarily saying that this is the only approach or the best approach to the not eating this situation
But it is
The basic idea behind it is we have to think of boundaries as being about saying what we are gonna do and the action we
are gonna take in response to a situation and
Part of this is just acknowledging that everyone around us has their own agency. They have the ability to choose what kind of decisions
They're gonna make, and trying to force them to change is going to backfire.
When adults interact and try to set boundaries they often try to convince someone else debate with them or
Change how that person is treating them perhaps
They demand that the other person treat them differently.
Regardless of the exact approach all of these different styles are attempts at getting the other person to change which creates a powerless
Feeling for the person who's trying to set that boundary
So let's talk about a few steps to setting good healthy assertive boundaries
This topic is continued in the next video how to set boundaries part two
Check it out to hear what happened with my client and learn specific steps to setting boundaries in different situations
I hope this was helpful. Thanks for watching and take care!