BOUNDARY BOSS by Terri Cole- The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and (Finally) Live Free. 

 

Do you ever say YES when you want to say NO? Do you prioritize other people’s needs or desires above your own? Do you often feel like you should be doing more in all areas of your life? Are you overly invested in the decisions, feelings, and outcomes of the people you love? Are you so resistant to asking for help that you end up doing most things yourself? If any of these questions resonate, then you, my dear, are one of my over-functioning, over-giving, totally exhausted, sisters. You’re also in exactly the right place. 

How can you possibly know what no one ever taught you? You now have to prioritize your own feelings. You are doing something that 80% of the population will never do. 

At the heart of every single client’s distress is the same problem: a lack of healthy boundaries. Which in turn will lead to oneself burying your true feelings. 

The Boundary Blueprint are ways of relating to others that are influenced by what you learned growing up, including how you were raised, what you observed in your family of origin, and the societal norms of your greater culture. This learned behavior is not your fault, but figuring it out now is definitely your responsibility. 

You need to clear out your “basement”, which is your unconscious mind. Your basement stores beliefs and experiences that you’ve neatly tucked away and then promptly forgotten (at least consciously). Basement junk shapes your life in ways you’re not entirely aware of. You may act against your best interests or better judgment. After the fact, you might think, What the hell was that? You may ignore your intuition and the signs from your body in an unconscious effort to avoid discomfort. This is called being human. 

Establishing, communicating, and maintaining healthy, vibrant, and flexible boundaries make it possible to have a deeply satisfying life. Without great boundaries, it’s impossible. Yes, you will have to slow down and step out of the well-worn grooves of your comfort zone to know, express, and protect your authentic self. 

Often, unhealthy boundary patterns are rooted in a confusion about what’s actually your responsibility. For example, we may think that someone else’s distress or conflict is ours to fix, when, in fact, their emotional experience and problems are definitely theirs to deal with. That’s their side of the street. This book is all about you and your side of the street. 

Protective Boundary Plans are necessary strategies for shifting from reactive to proactive boundary behavior. 

Boundary Destroyers- are narcissists and other difficult personalities

Throughout this book, you will be getting in touch with your inner child, the part of you that did not get her needs met in childhood. Unresolved childhood injuries negatively impact our current relationships. When you recognize that the little kid in you might be activated so you can release the old reaction and choose a response from the grown up you that is in your highest good. It is called the 3R’s (Recognize- Release- Respond). 

Patience and self-compassion are good companions as you go through the process of freeing yourself from deeply embedded, self-sabotaging attitudes and behaviors. 

If you feel disrespected, undervalued, or taken for granted, that simply means it’s time to rewrite your instruction manual, setting the bar higher for yourself and everyone else in the process. You can totally do it. To set you up for success, I encourage you to create a safe and cozy space in your home where you can attend to your internal space. I call this sacred space the Zen Den. Your zen den is the perfect spot to meditate, journal, and do the integration exercises, which you’ll learn more about below. 

Your mental health and emotional safety are your responsibility and must always be your highest priority. 

The cost of bad boundaries is immense. It leads to conflict-ridden, imbalanced relationships, a lack of agency over our own time, and general malaise. You got time for that drama, mama? 

One massive obstacle to flexing my boundary muscles- I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I HAD A CHOICE. 

The reality of knowing and expressing our true selves is much more complex when bad boundaries have been our historical norm. Bad boundaries are exhausting. They create dramas that suck our time and energy. 

Ineffective communication skills lead to weak or disordered boundary skills. Often, the most powerful rules in families are the ones that are not explicitly stated. Humans, even little humans, are wired to minimize exposure to perceived danger. My childhood training taught me to automatically read people and scan situations to assess the threat level to avoid conflict. Anyone’s anger could be threatening. 

You begin to ignore gut instincts. That strategy keeps you safe from disapproval and can ease a primal fear of being kicked out of the clan if you dare to upend the unspoken rules. Many times you have an unhealthy communication style, disordered boundaries, and questionable coping techniques. 

To become a successful Boundary Boss, you must allow yourself to feel all of your feelings. This starts with becoming aware of the ones that you’d rather not experience. 

In adulthood, the unhealthy boundary patterns continue. They continue with you becoming a master of indirect communication, using sarcasm, eye-rolling, and an occasional hostile lie, such as, “I’m fine!”

Ineffective communication skills lead to weak or disordered boundary skills.

Internal boundaries refer to how well or how poorly you regulate your relationship with yourself. Do you listen to your own needs first? You need to be passionate about self-exploration and personal improvement.

Consciousness is always the first step. We can’t heal what we’re not aware of. 

When discussing self-care, it means to give yourself plenty of space and support. From moving from a modus operandi (MO) of doing to an MO of being. 

Having tough conversations before you are truly equipped is not the winning formula here. Learning to change deeply ingrained patterns takes time. 

Use your awareness to recognize and name your true emotions. Then, honor them. The first act of being a boundary boss is an act of radical self-care. 

You are royalty. Treating yourself like the queen that you are means developing an unwavering ability to know, honor, and protect yourself, instead of abandoning yourself. 

Boundaries have 5 general categories: physical, sexual, material, mental, and emotional. They also come in 3 types: rigid, porous, and healthy. 

Physical Boundaries: your body. Who has permission to touch you and how, plus how much personal space you require. 

Sexual Boundaries: What level of sexual touch is acceptable, as well as where, when, and with whom it can happen. 

Material Boundaries: How others may (or may not) access your material possessions. 

Mental Boundaries: You first need to know what you believe in. Healthy ones mean you can listen to others with an open mind, even if you disagree, while holding on to your core beliefs. 

Emotional Boundaries: You alone are responsible for your feelings. Healthy emotional boundaries prevent you from giving spontaneous criticisms or unsolicited advice. 

Disordered boundaries are undermining their best efforts to be happy, healthy, and successful. 

High functioning codependents (HFC’s) are guided by a belief that to be worthy they need to handle it all. It means that they feel overly responsible for the feelings and actions of certain people in their life. One thing is for certain, to become a high functioning codependent, your childhood was, in some way, dysfunctional. That leads to behavioral patterns of over responsibility that can be tough to break. For HFC’s- helping, fixing, doing, and saving are an ingrained, unconscious compulsion. 

When it comes to personal transformation, you’ve got to name the dysfunction to change it. At its root, codependency is borne of a primal need to survive, to ensure safety and love. In making yourself helpful or even indispensable, you might be unconsciously attempting to ensure that you won’t be rejected. Self-awareness is your best tool for detecting when your sneaky, die-hard codependent tendencies are what’s motivating you. A choice and a compulsion can feel a lot alike, but they are not the same. When it comes to being part of another person’s solution, if you can’t say no (for whatever reason) that’s an HFC compulsion. 

You don’t need to prove your worth by over-giving. You are worthy simply by virtue of being alive, uniquely and authentically yourself. When you assume you know what’s best for the other person, you are unconsciously trying to control the outcome of a situation that ultimately is about the other person, not about you.

Not being aware of the underlying emotions that might be fueling your HFC behavior, especially when you feel compelled to “fix”, is pretty common because codependents tend to be cut off from their own internal experiences. So when a loved one is upset, the impetus to offer up a solution comes from an instinct to avoid conflict and minimize pain, namely your pain. What the person is really saying is, “your pain is causing ME pain, so I’ll tell you what to do in an effort to stop feeling this pain.” Compulsively fixing happens to carry a major side benefit: we get to avoid dealing with our own emotional experiences. Yet the answers you seek and the solutions to your problems are always- and only-within you. 

Resisting the urge to solve the problems of others is imperative for intimacy and healthy relationships to thrive. There are so many ways to respond that don’t involve you being the savior. Next time the fix-it urge strikes, try pausing and taking a deep breath. Wait for the urge to pass and listen instead of jumping in with your suggestions. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on hearing what’s really going on with the other person. You’ll miss out on knowing their specific feelings and thoughts because you are too intent on staying comfortable yourself. It can be very difficult to watch people you care about struggle, but creating space for their unique responses is akin to creating space for them. 

Emotional labor is “emotion management and life management combined. It is the unpaid, invisible work we do to keep those around us comfortable and happy”. Emotional labor is the unseen and under-acknowledged work that drains the crap out of us. 

High-functioning codependents may find themselves believing they are acting out of love, when in reality, their dysfunctional behavior may be driven by fear. For one reason or another, many high-functioning codependents learned in their early life that to receive love, nurturing, or approval, they needed to do more than just be a kid. 

At the heart of personal boundaries is the courage to tell the truth. For high-functioning codependents, a large obstacle to truth telling is being disconnected from authentic feelings. 

Unpacking the inherited beliefs that took root in childhood is critical to living with full agency. This mostly unconscious material has been informing all aspects of your lived experience. Without consciousness-raising and behavioral change, we repeat what we saw and intuited in our earliest years. 

Your parents also unconsciously absorbed a boundary blueprint from their parents. Boundary blueprints, like family recipes or traditions, tend to get passed down through the generations. The most important aspect of this excavation process is really grasping that someone else designed your Boundary Blueprint decades or even centuries ago. Bringing hidden material up from the basement (your unconscious) into the main house (your conscious mind) lets you see it and change it. 

Emotional Resistance fuels self-sabotage. Clients come in, enthused by the prospect of change, yet they stop short of taking the actions required to achieve their stated goals. Emotional resistance helps us avoid the discomfort that conscious personal transformation can provoke. 

Their model of ignoring, denying, and then exploding is common in families where there is abuse, addiction, or straight-up ineffective communication. Your VIP section represents that sacred place in your heart, mind, and life and is (or should be) reserved for those connections that add value- to enliven, nourish, and energize you. Your VIP section is based on your values, your integrity, and your deal-breakers. 

Does spending time with someone energize or deplete you? Do you look forward to it or secretly kinda dread it? What relationships feel like an obligation rather than a choice? The answers to these questions should inform the amount of access you permit to you, your life, your energy, and your precious time. Staying stuck in dysfunctional patterns zaps your life force. YOU get to decide who gets the distinct privilege of being in your life.

Saying yes without much thought is the result of lifelong conditioning. Often, when agreeing in the moment, we allow ourselves to be pressured, not realizing that we might end up feeling pretty pissed off down the line. 

Repeating boundary patterns was inspired by Freud’s theory of repetition compulsion which can be described as “The desire to return to an earlier state of things”. This is based on the idea that humans seek comfort in the familiar, even if it’s painful. Figuring out how your past is interfering with present-day situations and relationships is actually a relatively straightforward process. We simply follow the thread of our feelings to connect the dots from present-day conflict to historical injury. Your present response is being fueled by unresolved pain or feelings from a previous injury. Can you see how this would compromise and complicate the crap our of decision-making, effective communication, and your ability to establish and maintain healthy boundaries. 

Connecting the dots between current challenges and unresolved conflicts or injuries from the past can help you make more informed choices and decisions. 

Understand the difference between your preferences, desires, and deal-breakers. You need to be on a path of making decisions that are rooted in your truth. Know that if you have a deep seated belief, your unconscious will always be scanning your environment for evidence to support your claims. 

Your comfort zone is a prison. This is the moment to step outside if because that’s where everything you truly want exists. We are expanding your perceptions and then following up with new behaviors until that new pattern of being becomes a new neural pathway and your new normal. 

Fear of change is actually a fear of loss. We lose the familiar to enter the unknown. But with a mindset shift, we can experience change as more exhilarating than terrifying. 

Internal Boundaries dictate how you interact with yourself. Understand that when you make a promise to yourself and don’t follow through; you’ve abandoned yourself. Self-abandonment is one of the main symptoms of damaged internal boundaries. Our family of origin sets our standards for boundary health. You feel peaceful inside because you trust yourself enough to take care of you. 

Slow down and create more internal space with mindfulness and meditation. 

Change-back Maneuver- reactionary and almost always unconscious, the change-back is an attempt to resist change and reinstate the status quo. Whether the change-back is expressed with words or behavior, the intention is the same: to undermine whoever set the boundary or stated a clear desire for change. 

When our family of origin expresses displeasure passively-aggressively using sarcasm or teasing, the result is the child becoming overly compliant in adulthood to avoid conflict. 

When you change the boundary dance in an established relationship, you may encounter a change-back maneuver. This is an unconscious attempt to resist change and reinstate the status quo. 

The boundary script goes as follows: state the issue (“I would like to talk to you about…), state your feelings (“i am frustrated”), make a simple request (say what you need in a casual nonconfrontational way- “i’d like to make a request that in the future), suggest an agreement (“can we agree…”).  A shared agreement is a way of engaging and enrolling the other person to take equal responsibility for the success of the new boundary dance. 

As with parenting, the success of adding consequences depends heavily on your follow-through. 

Your healing comes from having the courage to ask for what you authentically want regardless of what the other person does. Breaking the chains of high-functioning codependency and disordered boundaries takes grit. 

Look out for boundary bombs, which are forms of self-sabotage that derail your best efforts of creating, maintaining, and enforcing healthy boundaries. 

If you walk away from setting a boundary feeling anxious or otherwise unsettled, I recommend instituting a 48 hour rule. Wait two days before taking your boundary back. After the waiting period, it is extremely unlikely you will still want to reverse it. 

The Gray Rock method is essentially becoming bland and unreactive. It will make you become less of an interesting target. Boundary destroyers aggressively seek your attention to fill their inner emptiness. Any charged emotional reaction will replenish their supply. But if you’re boring, they get bored too- with you, which is just want you want. 

First, recognize that there’s a problem. You can tell because you feel a bodily sensation that doesn’t feel good-like a knot in your stomach or a constriction in your chest. Body wisdom may be a signal that there is external conflict, but it will always be a signal that there’s internal conflict in you. Body wisdom is your built-in alarm system, alerting you to the fact that you’re not comfortable with whatever is transpiring or about to transpire. Turning in to your genuine, inner experience gives you important data that you can then use to identify the problem. 

Second, release any historical charge from an old injury or unhealthy influence from your Boundary Blueprint. You may find yourself reacting to an ancient wound, especially if you feel yourself getting upset. You may also find yourself rationalizing another person’s behavior, wanting to make excuses for them, instead of focusing on what’s true for you. Listen, a boundary violation is a boundary violation. Whether the other party intended to hurt you or not, if their behavior feels harmful to you, you still have a right to speak your truth in the here and now. 

Third, respond in a way that feels mindful and clear. 

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