#13: Why Are You Putting Up Walls? Women, Boundaries, and Connection

Welcome to Beyond Bitchy, mastering the Art of Boundaries with Vicky Tidwell Palmer. Do you think of personal and relationship boundaries as harsh, rigid, or bitchy, or do you feel clueless about how boundaries work? Whether you think boundaries are bitchy or baffling, we will give you a fresh vision of personal limits as a source of freedom and liberation. Every week Vicky shares expert information about how you can master the Art of Boundaries so you can get the space you need and the connection you crave. Hi this is Vicky Tidwell Palmer and welcome to episode number 13 of the Beyond Bitchy podcast. I dedicate the first episode of every month to the topic of women and boundaries and this one is called why are you putting up walls? If you're a woman who has started taking a deeper look at your relationship to boundaries which I consider to be a vital part of any person's overall self-care, you've probably experienced fear, hesitation, pushback, resistance, or even outright hostility about the boundaries you want to set and in this episode I want to normalize that experience for you and address some of the concerns and questions that come up as you begin to create or up level your personal and relationship boundaries and before I talk about the specific issues as they relate to women, I want to review a key concept about the way boundaries work. Although personal and relationship boundaries are often viewed from the no perspective meaning from the perspective of putting up walls or putting up limits of some kind where there is a no, there is always a yes. So as a simple example when you get invited to an event or a function of some kind and you don't want to go to it and you decline the invitation or you say no which is congruent for you meaning that your insides what you think and feel and your outsides, your behavior and your action when those are matching, you are saying no to the invitation and at the same time you're saying yes to whatever else you want to do and it doesn't really matter what that is, there are millions of other things you could choose to do but the point is is that every no that any of us make or say to anything also contains a yes. So there's always this yes no dynamic or a limit freedom dynamic happening in all kinds of boundary work and really of decisions of every kind and I really count decisions as an example of boundaries because decisions are about our preferences and her choices which are about the limits that we want to set around ourselves around our activities about how we show up in our life. So if you remember in one of the past episodes I gave an example of a fence and a playground and this is a story that came from Greg McEwen's book Essentialism and briefly the story was about a school that didn't have a fence and so it was in a busy metropolitan area and because of that the children were told to really stay close to the building and not essentially utilize all of the space that they had because of the concern, the appropriate concern and fear that the teachers or staff had about them getting too far away from the building or too close to the street or whatever the particular situation was and so at some point in the future they decided to build a fence and when they built a fence what they discovered is that it exponentially increased the area where the children could play so whereas before maybe they had to stay you know several yards away from the actual boundary line or from the street they were able to go right up to the fence and even lean on the fence and they were still perfectly safe. So I love this example because it is such a concrete one about how boundaries simultaneously create limits but they also create space and this is why boundaries are often referred to as a source of freedom or a source of liberation and the reason I want to review this fundamental about the way boundaries work is that it's going to help you when you're feeling either unsure or hesitant about the boundaries you're attempting to set or you're getting resistance or push back or other people don't like the boundaries that you're trying to create and they're letting you know. So I want you to imagine a world and of course this is not a real world it's going to be a very utopian world as you'll see in a moment but I want you to imagine a world where people only say yes to what they truly want to say yes to and they always say no to what they want to say no to and again this is never going to happen but for the sake of understanding where I want you to be coming from when you're thinking about your own boundary work and also the boundary work of other people this is a very helpful imaginary place to go to think about that. So if everyone is only saying yes when they mean yes and they're only saying no when they mean no including you here are some of the things that you could expect if that were the case. So the first thing is you would have clarity about exactly what you want to spend your time on and what you don't and you would also know exactly what other people want to spend their time on and what they don't. You would also know exactly where you stand with other people and this goes both ways obviously. You would know where you stand with them internally meaning what you think and feel and how you want to behave or act around them but you would also know the same about other people so you would know where you stand with them in terms of their thoughts and their feelings and their actions as they relate to you and interacting with you. You would also know exactly what your intimate partner wants and doesn't want and this is huge. You would know exactly what they like and what they don't like that you would know exactly how they want to spend their time and don't want to spend their time and they would know all of that about you because both of you would be sharing essentially your reality with the other person which includes choices, preferences and limits. Another thing that you would be able to expect in this utopian world is that you would never experience your own resentment or another person's resentment about doing things that you didn't want to do because you said yes when you really meant no or because another person said yes when what they really meant was no. So how many times can you think of where you agreed to do something or go somewhere, participate in some way and you really didn't want to do it. And the resentment that happens as a result of that or, and I think this one can sometimes be even worse, when someone in your life says yes to something that they really wanted to say no to and then the entire time they're engaged in like if it's an activity or an event they're miserable and so in some ways it can be miserable to be around them and you've probably all experienced this where you in retrospect you wish they had just said no because it would have been more enjoyable to be by yourself for example than to be with someone who is sitting in their own unhappiness and their resentment because they really didn't want to do what they said yes to. The other thing that you would be able to expect when people are only saying yes when they mean it and only saying no when they mean it is that your insides would match your outsides. So I refer to this earlier in terms of being congruent. So whatever you are thinking and feeling that is represented in your behavior and then you would also trust that everyone else that you come into contact with is also congruent so that their insides and their outsides are matching. So of course all of this is utopia. This is not going to happen but I want to share with you because it makes the point about how boundaries as they're expressed in terms of our own choices and our own preferences can be a profound source of not only clarity but also connection. and why is that? And this is so hard for most people to understand about boundaries. Like, what do boundaries have to do with connection? But think about it this way. If I care about you, or if I love you, and I know what you like, I know what you enjoy, I know what your preferences are, and I also know what you don't like, or what your preferences are not. I have a road map to much greater enjoyment and intimacy with you. Essentially, I know how to please you. I also know things that displease you. And if I choose to, I can choose not to do those for my own reasons if I don't want to displease you. And then, you know, this gets complicated too, because as you hear that, you can also see the potential for people pleasing. But I want you to put that aside for now. Because think about it in a world where you're also being congruent. You will not get into people pleasing because you are really acting from a place of your own authenticity. And so if I know this about my intimate partner, for example, and I have this kind of road map based on knowing their own choices and preferences. And if you know, or if my partner knows the same about me, then just imagine the greater intimacy and enjoyment that is happening in a relationship like that. Because the alternative is neither one of us knows what the other one is thinking or feeling, or at least in some respects that we don't know. And that diminishes not only our intimacy, but it also diminishes the enjoyment that we can experience with one another. And I hope that you really see how that works. So I want to share a simple story with you just to illustrate the consequences that can happen when your insides are not matching your outsides or you're not being congruent. And this is something that happened in my life about four to six weeks ago. I was in New York. I was in Manhattan for about four days with my husband. And my husband is a big jazz fan. And he wanted to go to the Blue Note to see this particular musician. It's actually several musicians. So we went together. And if any of you have ever been there, you'll know that the Blue Note, like so many spaces in New York City, it's a very small, kind of long, narrow space. And of course, because it's a music venue and they're in the business of making money, they try to cram as many people as they can possibly cram in there. And so we got inside and they're a very well oiled machine. And they were, you know, being very efficient in trying to seat us. And so they offered us a particular place to sit. And my husband didn't like the particular seats that they offered us. And he wanted to be a little farther away from the stage. So he said, you know, can we sit, sit back here? It was just not that far, but a little farther back. And my whole perspective and kind of my whole vibe about doing this with him, because it was more important to him than it was to me. So I was just kind of going with the flow. And when he said that, I said, sure, but almost immediately, I realized that that was not my authentic choice. Because when I looked at the situation, I realized that the seats that he wanted to put us in were going to put us in an area that was very even more cramped than it already was. The seats we were originally offered actually gave us some more space. And I didn't want to be back there farther back and kind of hemmed in. Because what they would do, I mean, just to give you a picture of this, they would have like eight seats at this very little small table that really should probably not seat more than six people. And anyway, it was just so cramped. And I don't, I really don't like to be cramped. But anyway, and it all worked out in the end. But what started to happen to me, as soon as I sat down in this new seat that I didn't want to be in, is that I immediately started to just feel uncomfortable because I didn't really want to be sitting there. I also started feeling very territorial because there were some seats near us that hadn't been taken yet. And I didn't want anybody to sit in them because, and I would be even more cramped in there. And so I started to feel uncomfortable. And then I started to feel kind of angry. And then I started feeling a resentment, which resentment is essentially victim anger, like somehow I was a victim of this situation, which by the way is a lie because I made the choice. I agreed to do it. Now, in the midst of all of this, can you imagine or just ask yourself, do you think I felt more or less connected to my husband? So that's a no-brainer. Obviously I felt less connected to him. And eventually I told him, you know, I really didn't want to do this. And we had a whole conversation about it. And in the end, it worked out perfectly fine because the two seats in front of both of us were empty for the entire performance. And we had all of the room that we needed. But it was another reminder to me around how important it is that in the moment, and you know, obviously sometimes when you're sort of caught off guard, or you're sort of a deer in the headlights in a certain situation, you may not be able to kind of drop down, I really recommend into your body to get more information about your choice. You may not be able to do that very quickly in the moment. But as soon as you realize that whatever the decision was didn't work for you, I really encourage you to change it. You know, you always have the right to change your mind. But I share with you this story because it's a really simple story, but it illustrates, I think, beautifully how when we don't express our true desires, or we don't express a limit, or we don't essentially say yes or no, when we mean yes or no, it has this ripple effect of negative experiences for us, even in our body and our nervous system. And it creates this disconnection between us and other people. And sometimes if this gets really bad for a person, meaning they live most of their life this way, you can literally walk around being resentful and bitter about everything. And I'm sure that most of us know people like that. So I want to give you some examples of how I've seen this show up for women and ways in which they're getting pushed back or they have hesitation or fear around their own boundary work. And then I'll talk about sort of the solution or the fix for that or how to have a mindset change around these kind of issues. So one question that I get a lot from people and primarily women is they want to know how can I express a boundary or how can I phrase a boundary to another person in a way that they will not have a negative reaction. So I'm just curious to what you think when you hear that question because really the answer to the question is there's nothing that you can do. I mean, this question underneath it holds the presumption that we could actually control another person's thoughts, feelings and behavior by how we choose to do something. And we just do not have that level of power or control. And so when you're expressing a boundary and again, just going back to sort of boundaries fundamentals 101, there are only two ways to create a boundary. One is when you let another person know what it is that you're intending to do and the other is when you make a request for the purpose of creating an agreement with another person. So let's look at the first example in terms of phrasing. Let's say and I use this example a lot because it's just such a simple example. But let's say that for whatever your own reasons are, you've decided that you want to sleep separately from your spouse for some period of time. And you want to say that to your spouse in the most relational way that you can. So you might say something to them like right now you and I are really having a lot of conflict or whatever it is it's going on. You know, there's some things happening in the relationship right now that are creating a lot of discomfort for me. And what I know about myself is that I'm going to feel more comfortable if I sleep separately from you. It's really better for me. And frankly, it's better for us if for a period of time, which I'm going to say is going to be for the next three nights. I'm going to be sleeping in the guest bedroom. That is a very relational way to express a boundary that you have the power to create yourself. What your spouse does with that information and the response that you get is 100% out of your control. If you express your own boundary in a relational way, then their response to you is 100% on them. I have to say too that even if you don't express it in a relational way. Like even if you said, you know what, you're such a jerk, and that's why I'm not going to sleep with you for the next three nights. That is not a relational way to put it, but the truth is that the person listening to that, if their own internal boundary is working really well, they will actually respond to you in a respectful relational way, even in the face of you being rude. Now, what I just said there was really a PhD level of boundary work that most of us are not capable of, but it illustrates the point that none of us is powerful enough to orchestrate the kind of response that we would like to have. Okay, I also do, before I move on to the next example, I want to give you a relational way, an example of a relational way to make a request, because in terms of this, the overarching question, which is, how can I phrase my boundary in such a way that I don't get a negative response? That's why I want to give you the second example. So, if I want to make a request of another person, like let's let's stick with the same example where I want to sleep separately from my spouse, but what I want to have happen is I want them to sleep in the guest bedroom. It would sound very much the same, I could say, you know, because we're having a lot of conflict right now or because of the discomfort or the level of conflict that we're having in our relationship right now, it's going to work better for me to sleep separately from you. So, what I would like, what would work best for me is if you would go and sleep in the guest bedroom, is that something that you're willing to do? Now, of course, there's a whole other series of things that could happen as a result of that request, but for the purpose of our covering this here today, I want you just to hear that as an example of a relational way to make a request. What the other person does with that, how they respond to you, is 100% on them. And if a person has a negative response to that or says, you know, why are you doing that or why are you putting up walls or why are you, you know, creating more distance in our relationship or whatever? Actually, that's a change of topic and I would advise you not to go there, but their response is not a result of what you said. Their response is based on what happened to them, what happened to their own brain, their own thoughts, their own emotions as they took in what you said and they processed it. So, going back to this question of how can I phrase my request or state my boundary in such a way that the other person is a positive rather than a negative reaction? It's out of your control. And what's on your side of the street, what you have power over is that you express yourself in the most relational way possible. Please don't do it perfectly. None of us are going to do any of this perfectly. You do your best and then you let go of the outcome. And you also understand and know that this is what you can expect when you start changing the way that you're doing boundaries in your own life. You can expect that people are going to show up differently in a so-called negative way but also in a positive way. Okay? So, here's another example. You wonder whether you're on the wrong track because the person you're trying to establish a boundary with is unhappy or angry with you. And this is very much related to the first example. But let's say, you know, you do the, I'm sleeping in a separate bedroom boundary, which you have 100% power to create. And the other person is pouting and they're stopping around and they're telling you that you're building walls and they're doing all this and you start to dutch yourself and you start to think, oh, you know, if I was doing this right, then they wouldn't be doing this. So I must be doing something wrong. And again, what I encourage you to do is go back to your authentic experience. Your own authentic needs once and also remind yourself of your right to, in this case, sleep in a separate bedroom if that is what you choose to do. And provided that you are being relational, provided that you are being authentic and congruent. And also, let's look at intention here for a moment, too, because your intention, and by the way, if you're being authentic, you really don't need to worry too much about intention. But if your choice, for example, to sleep in a separate bedroom came out of a desire to punish the other person or a desire to control them in some way, thinking, oh, you know, if I do this, then they'll do that. That's another example of delusional thinking. None of us really has that much power or control. That's a whole other issue. But what I'm talking about here is when you have checked in with yourself and you know exactly what you think and feel about the situation, you're clear, you're grounded, and you're doing what you need to do to take care of yourself. All of that other stuff that's going on with that other person that is about them, and it does not mean that you're doing something wrong. And frankly, it could mean that you're doing a lot right. So I tell people all the time when you start up leveling your boundary work, you should expect people around you to not be happy with you. And that's often a sign that you're on the right track. And eventually that will all level out because you'll get better at it. You'll also get better at not taking their pushback as being that you're doing something wrong or caving in when you get pushback. It just gets easier. So please trust me on that. The other thing that comes up in this one, this one really, it kind of breaks my heart sometimes when I hear this one. But sometimes a person who is improving their boundary work or they're learning about boundaries for the first time, their spouse will tell them some version of, you know, these boundaries that you're setting, it's really driving a wedge between us. And it's, it's driving us farther apart rather than bringing us close together. And are those say things like, you know, we're in couples therapy, but these boundaries that you're setting, it's, it's really just making it, it's slowing down our couples work or you're driving me away with your boundaries or whatever. So often I believe that this kind of pushback frankly is manipulation. It is an attempt to get you to be different so that the other person doesn't have to deal with whatever's coming up for them. And again, I want to really underscore here that this is assuming that what you're doing is authentic and congruent and that you're coming from a place of authentic personal power, which I talked about in the last episode. So if you didn't listen to that, I encourage you to listen to that one. It's all about power, but I'm assuming that you're using your power appropriately and that you're being relational. And if all of that is in place, I want to give you a different way to look at it. So let's say that your spouse loves to go to the movies, to go to the movie theater. And in their ideal world, they love to go like once a week or let's say that you all as a couple have had a habit of every Saturday night, you go to a movie, you go to the movie theater and you see a film. And as you start to do more boundary work and you really start to pay more attention to your reality and your preferences, what you realize is that you don't really enjoy it. Or maybe you like to go, but you would really only rather go once a month instead of every week. So something that he's really, you know, excited and enthusiastic about, but often you just find yourself bored or just irritated. Okay. And you just decide one day it's something that you're not willing to do anymore. And so you tell your spouse, you know, I've been doing this with you for, we've been doing this for five years. And what I've realized is I really don't enjoy going to the movies that often with you. So I'm willing to go, you know, once a month, you know, twice a month at the most, but I just am not willing to go every week. So you're, you know, you're welcome to go by yourself. That doesn't bother me at all or, you know, you can ask a friend, whatever you want to do, but I'm just letting you know that starting, you know, now I'm only going to go with you one or two times a month. And this is a really simple example. Most of the time, you know, especially in the work that I've done with partners who have experienced chronic infidelity, a lot of times these are very high level boundaries like being sexual with the spouse. And those are serious examples that are worthy of discussion in their own right. But for the sake of being able to understand how I want to give you a reframe and a mindset shift about this, I want to give you a simple example. So on the movie, let's say that your spouse says, well, you know, I don't know why, why you're doing that. And now we're not going to be together as much as we used to be. And you're just creating more disconnection between us. And I thought we were working on our marriage. And we're in therapy. And you should do this with me because now you're just building what you know, on and on and on. So let's really look at that. Because what the partner is saying is she's telling, we'll just assume it's a woman in a man, that she's telling him what she enjoys and what she doesn't enjoy. And if you take the emotion out of it and you think about love and care for another person as we want them to be happy and we want them to be doing what they want to do, obviously, as long as it's not hurting us or exploiting us or something like that. But this is not one of those examples. If we truly loved a person, when they express a preference like that, we might feel disappointed. We might be like, wow, you know, I really enjoyed that when we went to the movies together, but essentially a healthy person who loves another person would say, oh, wow. You know, if you don't really enjoy that, I don't want you to be going and doing something with me that you don't enjoy. And I really want you to enjoy your time. And if you don't enjoy your time in that way, I'm so glad you told me and it is not a problem at all. So do you see the difference there? Because the other response, the pushback response, the response that doesn't respect the limit, the preference, the choice that you're making is about the other person. It's about, well, you're not doing what I want you to do as if that's the highest value here. It's a very selfish perspective. And if you just think about love as a concept or an experience, why would we want a person that we love to do something that is either outside their value system, that they don't enjoy, that maybe they hate doing, that maybe makes them profoundly uncomfortable, that's not a necessity, like going to the dentist or something, why would we want that person to do that if we truly love them? And I want you to let that sink in, because this is something that I have found is very common for women when they start setting boundaries in relationships. They are accused of putting up walls of creating disconnection, but the truth is, the disconnection comes when the other person does not want to accept your limits. Because again, I want you to keep in mind if you truly care and love for another person, what you want for them is their happiness and their health. And of course, this is what I'm talking about right here is not easy, and most of us are extremely challenged around that whole concept. And when I say things that make them happy, I'm not talking about, you know, I can already hear some, especially betrayed partners, I can hear their voices in my head saying, yeah, but what if he wants to act out or I'm not talking about those things, I'm talking about things that are healthy, that are very appropriate activities for a person to be doing. We want the people we love to be engaged in things that make them happy and healthy, because number one, we love them, but number two, they're more enjoyable to be around. People who are engaged in what they want to do, and they are lit up by their own activities and things that they're excited and enthusiastic about, those are people you want to spend time with. So I really want you to let that sink down into your awareness and to really embrace that, especially when you get pushed back from your spouse. So today, we talked about this whole concept of why are you putting up walls about women and boundaries and how that relates to connection, and we talked about some of the consequences of when you don't tell another person what your own reality is or what your limits are, and really the kind of space and freedom, but even deeper than that, the connection and the knowing of another person that can happen when your insides are matching your outsides, when you're congruent, and also having some tools whenever you do feel that fear, that hesitation, resistance, or you get pushed back. So next week, in episode number 14, I'm going to return to my series that I'm doing on each of the steps of the five-step boundary solution process, and we're going to pick up with step four, which is taking action. And if you'd like to get all five steps so that you can work through the five-step boundary solution yourself, hop on over to BeyondBitchie.com to get a free five-step boundary solution clarifier. It's a downloadable and fillable PDF that you can use for any boundary issue you're working on for yourself or in your relationships. So until next week, I invite you to embrace the power you have to create the boundaries you want to create so that you can get the space you need, and the connection you crave. See you next time. Thanks for listening to BeyondBitchie Podcast. Head over to BeyondBitchie.com for show notes, the BeyondBitchie blog, and other resources to help you master the art of boundaries. Till next time, remember, boundaries aren't bitchy.