#14: Taking Action! (Step 4 of the 5-Step Boundary Solution)

Welcome to Beyond Bitchy, mastering the art of boundaries with Vicki 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 Vicki 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 Vicki Tidwell Palmer and welcome to episode number 14 of the Beyond Bitchy podcast. This week we're returning to our deeper dive into the Five Step Boundary Solution. And this episode is part four of a five-part series on each of the five steps. The Five Step Boundary Solution is a process I created for identifying, creating and maintaining healthy, personal and relationship boundaries. If you'd like your own copy of the Five Step Boundary Solution, Clarifier, a fillable PDF that will walk you through the Five Step Boundary Solution process, you can download a copy on the show notes page for this episode or on the homepage of BeyondBitchy.com. I also want to share before we get started that I am excited to announce that Sherry Winston will be joining me in an upcoming episode to talk about, well, you know, there's so many things Sherry and I could talk about, but I think that what we're going to cover and I'm hoping to have her back for multiple episodes, but in the first guest appearance, I want to talk to Sherry about sexual boundaries and specifically around negotiating sexual contact and probably we'll get into some of the finer points of consent. And I don't even want to go there now because I would end up talking about it probably for 15 minutes, but let me just tell you a little bit about who Sherry is. She's a holistic sexuality teacher. She's the founder and executive director of the Intimate Arts Center and the author of several books, including Women's Anatomy of Arousal. Sherry also happens to be a boundaries enthusiast and it was actually one of these incredible moments that she and I had when I was doing some work with her. I've been doing some really some coaching with her around several topics, but we were talking about boundary work and I mentioned to her because she didn't really know anything about my work and I mentioned to her about the five-step boundary solution process and she shared with me that she had actually created her own system of identifying and creating and establishing boundaries. And I've looked at it and it's really fascinating that she and I connected and that we have that in common. There are not a whole lot of people, frankly, even on the planet who have that much interest in boundaries that they would create a system like that and so for the two of us to have made the connection, it's just really incredible. I'm very excited about having her as a guest in an upcoming episode very soon. And if you're joining the podcast for the first time, I highly encourage you to go back and review episodes 10, 11 and 12. And the reason is that in those episodes, I covered the first three steps of the five-step boundary solution process and that will help you to get a foundation for these steps and also to orient you to where we are here in step four. And step four of the five-step boundary solution process is called taking action. And if you remember from episode number 12, when we talked about identifying your power center, which was all about figuring out, where do you have power? Because if you don't know that, then it's going to be really hard, if not impossible, to know what to do or how to take action. And so the four possible actions based on what you identified in step three would be that you either do what needs to be done because you have the power to take action. So you do what needs to be done in order to create the outcome that you want. And again, the outcome was what you identified in step two. And the second option would be to ask for help. And just as a refresher, the difference between asking for help and making a request of another person is that when you go to ask for help, it's usually kind of like research that you're doing or you're gathering information of some kind. You need something additional in order to get to the next place that you need to go. But it's a little bit different than making a request of another person. One of the major differences between these two is that when you ask for help, you're going to someone who actually has the capacity to give you what you need and you don't need an agreement from them to either make something happen or to make something stop happening. So that's the second option is to ask for help. And then the third option is that you make a request of another person. And really of all three of these are all four of these. That is the most challenging and we're going to go into detail about how to do that and what are best practices for making a request of another person. And then the fourth option is to do nothing. And this is when you are powerless and I'll talk more about what to do, you know, sometimes when you think about powerlessness, it seems like that there's not really anything to do. It's not necessarily an action step, but there are some things you can do and I'll talk about those. So when thinking about taking action, it's helpful to know the difference between several concepts and I want to talk to you about those concepts because if you don't know the difference between these, it will cause even further confusion and sometimes heartache and frustration and maybe even conflict. So the first two concepts I want to talk about and distinguish are contracts versus expectations. So you have to know whether or not you have a contract with another person and another word for contract is agreement, but you need to know, do I really have an agreement or a contract with somebody or is it just an expectation? So to understand these better, I want to read you the definitions. So the definition of a contract is when you have a written or spoken agreement. An expectation is when you have a strong belief that something will happen in the future. And one of the reasons it's so important to understand the difference is that a lot of times people confuse agreements with expectations. So a simple example of that would be that if you told somebody, like let's say that you knew that you and your best friend were going to be going to a party or some kind of event. You both had planned to be there and you told your friend, yeah, you know, I mean the party starts at seven, but I, you know, I have something else to do or I have to work late that day or whatever and I'm going to be there at eight thirty and you tell your friend that and somehow and let's just say that your friend says, oh, okay, and that's it. They don't say anything else, they just acknowledge that they heard you. But somehow in your mind, you develop the expectation that your friend will be there at eight thirty. So you have to ask, is that an expectation or an agreement? And of course, I, you know, gave it away because I said it was an expectation, but I want you to think a little more deeply about why that's an expectation versus an agreement. If you had an agreement with your friend, it would sound something like this. I'm going to be at the party at eight thirty, will you meet me there when I get there? And the other person would say, yes, that's an agreement. But if you just tell someone something, but you make up in your own head that they're going to do something then that is an expectation. And the reason that this is so important is that if you make up that you have an agreement or a contract with somebody, but really it's just an expectation that you made up, you're going to be disappointed at a minimum and probably frustrated or even worse, depending on what the expectation was, what the topic was, and other factors. So it's important to know the difference between those two. At another set of concepts that I want you to know the difference between our demands versus requests. And I like to think of this one on a continuum. You know, if you've been listening to the podcast so while you know that I love continuums, the reason that I do is that it really helps us to get out of black and white thinking. And there's something about the human brain that really likes to divide things into black and white, good and bad. When you think about a continuum, there's always three parts. There are the extremes and then there is the middle. And most of the time when we're talking about a continuum, the extremes are the places we want to avoid. And then the middle is that healthy place that we really want to kind of hover around that midline in the middle. So in terms of demands and requests, the continuum here is that on one end of the spectrum, we go about getting our needs met in a very passive way. And one of my favorite examples of that is that if you're in a room and let's say you're at your house, and it's warm or it's cold or whatever's the temperature in the room, but you don't like it. And rather than say, would you mind turning the air up or down whichever one it is, you say something like, wow, it really is hot in here, or it sure is cold. That's a very passive way of going about getting your needs met. So that's one extreme. And then on the other extreme would be a demand, which is you would tell the other person what to do. Go over there and turn the air up or go over there and turn the air down. And that's not a relational way to talk to another adult person. It's really not a relational way to talk to anybody. But I want to just give you some definitions to make this even clearer. That a demand is a forceful statement in which you say something, you say that something must be done or given to you. And a request is an act of asking politely respectfully or formally for something. So the request is in the middle between being passive in order to get your needs met or demanding or telling another person what they're going to do. And then lastly, I want to talk about the difference between an ultimatum and a non-negotiable boundary. Because this is an area that really goes to taking action because sometimes the action that you're going to take is you would express to another person a, for example, a non-negotiable boundary. And so a very serious non-negotiable boundary might be something like if you are unfaithful again or if you gamble all of our savings away or something like that, then that's a deal breaker for me and I'm going to leave this relationship. Those are examples of non-negotiable boundaries. And non-negotiable boundaries are often confused with ultimatums. And I want to reach you the definition of an ultimatum. Ultimatum is a final demand or statement of terms. The rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relations. I'm going to read that again. A final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relations. Now, when you think about the non-negotiable boundary that I just expressed, we'll just use the gambling one as an example, we'll say that the non-negotiable boundary is that the person is saying if you gamble our, and we would really need to be way more specific than that. So let's say that this person had a specific account. We'll just say that it's a savings account. And the non-negotiable boundary might be if you empty our savings account again and spend it all on gambling, then that is a deal breaker for me and I will not be able to stay in this relationship any longer and I will file for divorce. That's a very clear non-negotiable boundary. When you hear that, it's easy to think of it as an ultimatum. But I want to make some distinctions between them. And the truth is they can sound very similar. But what I want you to see is that when you express a non-negotiable boundary to another person, you are letting them know what you plan to do should something happen or not happen. And it's very different than a demand. 'Cause if you go back to this definition of an ultimatum, the first three words are a final demand. And when I expressed that non-negotiable boundary, I was not making a demand of the other person. I didn't say you can't do that. I didn't tell them what to do or not to do. I just let them know this is what I plan to do should such and such occur. And the other difference between ultimatums and non-negotiable boundaries, a lot of it has to do with intent. So many times when someone issues what's thought of as an ultimatum, like you have to do this or you have to do that, sounds very much like a demand, of course. If the intention is to control, to get a certain result from another person or it's coming out of a place of being very highly activated or triggered, it's really not a non-negotiable boundary because as I see it, a non-negotiable boundary is a boundary where the person is very clear. They're actually very grounded and they're very certain. They're 110% certain that if this thing occurs or doesn't occur that this or whatever action that they plan to take, that they really do intend to take that action. And one of the other reasons that this is so important is that sometimes if you express a non-negotiable boundary to a person exactly the way I just expressed it about gambling, the other person may say to you, why are you giving me an ultimatum or you're giving me an ultimatum? And it's really in my way of seeing it, it's an attempt to kind of negotiate out of it or maybe to shame the person into changing it or to pressure them or I mean, it could have a lot of different purposes and it's usually just coming from a place of fear. But I just want you to be clear about the difference so that if you are ever in a position of expressing a non-negotiable boundary, which would be part of step four, then you would know the difference between these two. So in terms of taking action, the third option which is making a request is usually the most difficult. And so I want to talk about that and then I will go back and just explain each of the four options again to review them. But the part about making request is so challenging to most of us that I want to drill down and talk about what are best practices for making a request of another person. So when you want to make a request of somebody else, the first thing you want to think about is that you choose a time, and this is especially if it's an important request or if it's something about a very hot button topic or something that is challenging in a relationship and usually when you're making a request of another person, it fits into that category. So it's helpful to choose a time when both of you are relatively calm and there are not a lot of distractions. So when you make a request of another person, you want to lay the foundation for the request being successful. And so this is a first step to take where you wouldn't do it in the height of an argument necessarily or when the person is not really available to be attentive or present to what you want to say. It's also helpful to notice your own state, meaning the state of your nervous system. So do you feel anxious? Do you sense that you have a rapid heart rate or anything that is assigned to you that you might not be calm enough to have a productive conversation because if you notice any of those, it's probably better to wait until another time where you're feeling a little more calm or grounded or centered. It's also helpful to ask the other person if they're available to talk to you about something important. So this is sort of a mini-contract where you'd say, "You know, there's something I'd like to talk to you about. Are you available to talk about that?" And that in itself actually is a request and we'll get to this in a moment, but you need to be prepared to accept the other person's "no" or maybe their need to delay and have the conversation later. And speaking of no, you need to be willing to take no for an answer and schedule another time to talk if the person isn't available to talk to you when you ask them. And sometimes if you're really kind of fired up about something, it may be hard to accept that. But I promise you, if you wanted to be successful, it's best to contain that. Again, that's an example of boundary work so that you can have the conversation when both of you are in more of a place where it can be successful. And in terms of actually asking a person for anything, relational questions or a request sound like this, you could tell them I would like whatever it is that you would like them to do. And it could be as simple as I would like you to take the garbage out every Tuesday or I would like you to let me know if you're going to be more than 10 minutes late. played or I would like you to refrain from cursing in front of the children, whatever it is, I would like fill in the blank, would you be willing to do that? Or what I would like is, and fill in the blank, is that something you're willing to do? Or would you be willing to? So all of those are some version of, would you be willing to do this? And that is a relational way to make a request. A lot of times the way we go about making requests is we say things like, why don't you do such and such, which is actually not a request, and it's actually not even a real question. It's again, it's an indirect way of going about getting your needs met, or sometimes it's an expression of your anger and your frustration. And the last thing that's an important thing to remember when making a request is that you want to keep in mind that your highest intention is to be intimate with your partner by sharing who you are, and that you're wanting to rebuild connection and trust. Now, this is specifically true in situations of making a request with your intimate partner, but no matter what their relationship is, whenever we go and make a request of another person, first of all, it's a very vulnerable thing to do, and we typically don't do it with a person that we don't have an intention to either maintain or create a deeper connection with. And you know, they're really simple requests that we might make in our daily life, but those are usually not the ones that require the most effort or where we tend to kind of go off the rails. So those are dues, meaning you know, best practices for making a request. And then I want to talk about some things to avoid when you want to make a request. It's really helpful to avoid making a request when you feel highly activated or triggered. So we talked about that in terms of best practices, but to wait until you're calmer. And another don't would be to not present your request when you feel that you have to talk about the topic right then, and you can't take no for an answer. So again, that's about being very highly activated, highly triggered, being in a elevated sort of negative state in terms of your own nervous system. Or another don't is to persist in talking to the other person when they say that they're not in a good place to talk to you. So this is another thing that we do sometimes when again, we're highly activated and triggered is that the person letting us know, no, I really can't or don't want to talk about that right now, but we just keep on basically harassing them to talk about it. And another one very closely related to all of these is to insist on resolving it immediately when the other person wants some time to think it over. So let's say that they actually listened to your request and they took it in, but they're not yet ready to give you an answer. It's something that may be pretty important that maybe it's a big ask and they need some time. And if they ask for time, if they say that they want to get back to you later, then best to practice your own internal boundaries and say, "Okay, I will be patient and wait for your reply." This is a good time to review what is another person's rights when they receive a request. And this has to do with when you make a request of another person and also when another person makes a request of you. You essentially have three options when you're being asked for a request. And the obvious first one is that you agree. So the person makes a request like, "Would you be willing to let me know if you're going to be more than 10 minutes late coming home from work?" And you say, "Sure, I will be happy to do that." The second option is that you don't agree to the request and you say, "No, that's really not something that I'm able to do." So sometimes there might be a really understandable logical reason why the person can't comply. Or maybe they just don't want to. And frankly, especially in intimate relationships, close relationships, it's very important that when you don't believe that you can comply with your partner's request, it is far better to say no than it is to kind of know in your heart that you can't do it. But you say yes to go along to avoid a confrontation or to temporarily sort of get that person off your back. And remember, and this is so important, I don't know who said this, but it's such a great, re-quotable expression, which is if you can't accept another person's no, then their yes doesn't mean a whole lot. So for example, if you harass a person or just sort of poke or prod them until they give you the answer that you want, which is usually a yes, then when they actually do say yes, it really doesn't mean as much because the person essentially in the context of that kind of dynamic, I don't want to say that they're a victim and they cannot say no, but it's helpful when you're the one making the request that you'd be willing to accept the other person's no. So that when they do say yes, you can receive that as their real authentic answer. And then the third option when receiving a request is that you can negotiate an alternative solution. So going back to this example of would you be willing to call me or let me know if you're going to be more than 10 minutes late, the person might say, you know, 10 minutes is a little bit, that's kind of a tight timeframe for me. And so I can't do 10 minutes, but I would be willing to let you know if I'm going to be more than 15 minutes late, would that work for you? And so that is a negotiation. And it's important to really, especially when you're the person receiving a request that you check in with yourself and you find out, okay, am I really willing to do this or do I need a little wiggle room here or do I need to negotiate some other option? And again, that third option of negotiating an alternative solution is far superior to saying yes when you know that it really doesn't work for you. Okay, so I want to return just to refresh you once more about what the four options are in terms of taking action. And remember that these are based on what you identified in step three as your power center, because whatever you identified in step three, for example, if you identified that you have the power to create the outcome, then in step four, that's the action step you're going to take, or if you discovered that you're going to need to make a request of another person, then you know that the third option of making a request is the action step that you're going to take. So the first option, you do what needs to be done to create the outcome that you want. So let's say, since we talked about non-negotiable boundaries earlier, if you've come to the realization that you have a non-negotiable boundary in your relationship and you're ready to share that with your partner, then you would just share that with them. There's nothing really more that needs to be done. You have the power to do that and you can do it. I do suggest, and there's so many examples of what this could be. It could even be a boundary with yourself where let's say you want to get to bed earlier or you want to limit your sugar intake or something like that. When you have a boundary like that, that you want to set with yourself, I highly recommend that you put some kind of accountability in place. So if there's a deadline, you write that down or you make a plan to do it. And even better than that is you tell another person what you plan to do and maybe even make a plan to follow up and let them know if you followed through. Or sometimes this is very common when people are in 12-step recovery is that they will get an accountability partner. So if it's something like you want to make sure that you follow through on a certain action, you let that accountability partner know this is what I plan to do and when I do it, I'm going to follow up with you and let you know. And the second option, which is to ask for help. So again, that might be something like I need to meet with a certain type of expert or professional to get more information, to research my options, whatever that might be. And again, I really do suggest accountability around this. I've seen many people who, you know, they're in a really difficult situation in their marriage. And maybe they are, they have minor children still living at home and they're really on the verge of filing for a divorce, but they have a lot of anxiety around what that's going to mean in terms of visitation or co-parenting. And in those situations, really the best thing to do is to go meet with an attorney and get a consultation because what you need is more information. And so that would be an example of asking for help and it's the kind of action that is sometimes very challenging to take because a lot of times people see that, that specific action as a step toward divorce. I don't really see it that way. I see it as gathering information, but again, it can be helpful to have accountability either with a friend, an accountability partner or a therapist that you intend to do that and give yourself a deadline. And then the third option on taking action is that you're going to make a request of another person. And we covered how to do that, what the best practices are. And I mentioned this in an earlier episode, but I highly encourage people in long-term intimate partnerships, especially if you've gone through a really difficult situation like infidelity or even if you haven't, I think that keeping a couple's journal, an agreement journal, can be a really good practice. And so the way that looks is that you can just get a simple notebook and college or couple's agreement journal. And when you make an agreement of any kind, you write the agreement down in the journal. You put the date down and you both sign it so that there's clarity and a very clear there's an understanding of what the agreement is when you made it. And of course, you can later on revise it. But one of the reasons I recommend this is that it is very common for people to make agreements. And maybe four weeks, you know, four months, six months later, one or both people either don't remember the agreement or they have a disagreement about what it really was. And it's helpful to have that as a record to go back to and to refer to. And then the final option when it comes to taking action is to do nothing. And like I said before, do nothing can sound like a non-action. But in truth, there are things that you can do if you are truly powerless over creating the outcome that you need or want. And as I often say, this can be a spiritual step because letting go, accepting powerlessness is often an invitation to people to connect with their higher power, to release, to let go. And you can even if prayer is or letting go or releasing something to your higher power is part of your spiritual or religious practice, you can simply do that. You can just say, you know, God, I'm giving this to you. I'm powerless over this and I'm going to turn this over to you. And you could also ask for help to accept powerlessness because sometimes powerlessness is extremely difficult to accept. And if you notice that you're wrestling a lot with your own acceptance of powerlessness, you could ask your higher power for help, you know, help me to accept powerlessness because when I struggle, when I, as Byron Katie says often, when I argue with reality, I miserable 100% of the time. This is so true when it comes to accepting powerlessness. Okay, so those are the four options in step four of the five step boundary solution process, which is taking action. And those four options are based on what you identified in step three, which is where does your power lie. And if you're working along with me in the five step boundary solution, clarifier, you can go there now and work on step four. Or if you haven't yet started a clarifier, you can go over to beyondbitchy.com to get a free five step boundary solution, clarifier. It's downloadable and fillable PDF that you can use for any boundary issue you're currently working on for yourself or in your relationships. And next week, I will cover the fifth and the final step of the five step boundary solution process, which is evaluate your results. Ideally, your boundary work was successful, but if it wasn't, there are still specific steps that you can take to course correct, to get more clarity about an agreement or to know what to do next. If a boundary was broken or violated, and we'll cover all of that in step five. So till next week, I invite you to embrace the power you have to create the boundaries you want so that you can get the space you need and the connection you crave. See you next time. Thanks for listening to BeyondBitchy Podcast. Head over to BeyondBitchy.com for show notes, the BeyondBitchy blog, and other resources to help you master the art of boundaries. Till next time, remember, boundaries aren't bitchy.