- It's funny, I didn't learn boundaries until I was,
I had my second son,
and something wasn't right.
I knew it.
It was like I had my first kid,
and it was,
I was normal.
And the second one,
I was like, "something's off,"
and I went to the pediatrician,
and I was talking to her and she said, "You know,
"it sounds like you have post-partum depression."
and I hadn't heard that before.
I didn't really even know what it was,
and I remember, like oh,
and I remember just tears streaming down my face
as she said it.
Have you ever had someone, like, acknowledge something
where you're like something isn't right.
And I remember running to my car,
and one of my friend's mom was a counselor,
a Christian counselor in town,
and she said, "You need to call somebody,
"because there gonna need to walk you through this."
And so I remember leaving a message
on her voice-message when I was sitting in my car,
and I knew if I didn't do it that moment,
I wouldn't do it, because here I was,
a minister, and ministers don't get help, you know?
We are help, and we don't, and I knew something's off,
but I don't go to a counselor.
That's not really what we did back in the day
and so I remember leaving a message for her,
and she called me back, and she said, "Come in tomorrow."
I thought she was being nice.
I didn't know there was a difference
between post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis,
and they really want to see you quickly
so they don't hurt your child.
(laughter)
So I ran in, and, yeah.
They were like, various.
So I walked in, and she asked me some questions,
and I'm like, "okay, yeah, this, this, this, this"
and she said, "Well, do you wanna hear what I think?"
And I said yeah,
and she said, "Well, out of the 14 different points
"of post-partum depression,
"you have 13 of them."
And I remember just crying,
and I said, "Well, what do you want me to do?"
'Cause I'm a leader!
And leaders go, what do you want me to do?
What do you want me to do? What do you want me to pray?
She said, "I want you to go home and get a couple"
"night's sleep and then come back and see me"
and so I did. I did that and I started to kind of
walk through this, like trying to get healthy
and about six months into my counseling,
she said, "Do you want to know something?"
and I said, "Okay" and she said,
"I want to be honest with you. Are you sure?"
I said, "Okay" and she said,
"You would have been in here sooner but the baby, you would
have been in here later,
but the baby got you here sooner."
I wanted to punch her
- Wow
- Because I was like, "No, the baby got me in this room."
"It wasn't me."
And she said, "You have no ability to understand how to"
"protect your own environment. You're a church kid,"
"and church kids seem to be like, in charge of everyone's"
"experience of them and making sure everyone is"
- Yep
- Oh wow
- "happy with them."
And so she said, "If you will spend a year and a half"
"with me, I'll teach you what Godly boundaries look like"
and she said, "But you have to be here every Friday."
"You're going to sit with five women that are influential"
"women in the city."
"You're not allowed to know each others last names,"
"or what church you go to, but I'll sit and I'll teach"
"you how to do this."
- [Taylor] Wow
- I sat for a year and a half and I learned the power
of a boundary,
and boundary wasn't just a, "I don't want to do it".
Boundary was protecting what was most important to us,
and what God holds us responsible for,
so my life boundaries have been critical
to walk me out of a depression but also to keep me safe,
to be on the road with my kids,
so boundaries isn't just a word I throw out.
- Like what?
- So what is one of your boundaries?
- Things like this:
God holds us responsible for three things.
I didn't know this.
She's like, "What is going on?"
Our choices, our feelings and our attitudes,
- Mmhmm
- And that's our yard and our yard has this little fence
around us, and it's not a cement prison.
- Okay
- It's a space that we have, that we nurture and monitor,
and some people come around and you have that
crazy mother-in-law that's like,
"You shouldn't raise your kids like that"
and she said, "Her yard is too close to yours" so you
move her yard a little bit further out and you begin to see
that this yard is yours and if your kids are under 18,
they are in your yard, and so you get to help them
trace their choices and their attitudes and their feelings.
But things like this, how you choose to respond,
says everything about you and how I choose to respond,
says everything about me.
I did not understand that concept.
- Yeah
- It was, "If you're mad at me, I'm responsible"
"and I will sit and talk to you
"until you're happy with me."
- Yeah
- I didn't understand that so I was exhausted,
trying to keep everybody okay with me
- [CeCe] Everybody
- So things like that
- [Taylor] Wow
- [CeCe] Oooo
That had to be
- Are really critical so I had to start to learn
and then realizing that um, that my experience
was my choice.
You've said that before but like the power of choice
I think, as a minister, and then as a minister's kid,
I didn't understand the power of choice.
I felt very powerless to what was the right and wrong
in my life, rather than what God called me to be
in the space that I was filling,
and so I realized that the idea, you know,
that you made me mad.
No, I'm not that powerful.
I'm not powerful enough to go inside of you
and choose anger.
You did that.
- [Taylor] Right. Wow.
- And things like that, that I had no concept for.
I thought you made people mad.
I thought you made people happy.
I thought I was responsible for that and once
I started realizing I didn't hold any of that,
that it was like a mirage of power,
- [Lisa] Yep
- Once I realized that what was happening internally,
my choices, attitudes, and feelings,
were all in my world, things got manageable.
When we have healthy space and boundaries
- [CeCe] Mmhmm. Boundaries.
- Things get manageable.
I can monitor that.
I can do that well.
I can't monitor your choices, your attitudes
- [Lisa] Right
- or your feelings, because I have no power to
go inside of there and make that choice.
- [Taylor] Yeah
- So that was critical for me and to this day,
I call it my yard
- [Lisa] I love that imagery
- And I'll say, I'll think to myself,
"Is that in my yard or is that not?"
How you think about me right now is not in my yard.
I'm not powerful enough.
If that hurt you, then you'll have to be powerful
enough to come tell me.
(faint music)
- Hi everybody.
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