#39 - The Listening Boundary Part 2: How It Works

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 39 of the Beyond Bitchy podcast. So for regular listeners, you might notice today that I am not 100% on the health scale as is evidenced by my voice. I am getting over a cold that was gifted to me a few days ago by my dear husband. And it's probably worth noting here, we'll take a little sidebar here for a moment to talk about boundaries and illness. So I plan to do an episode in the future just on boundary violations with regard to the four primary boundaries of physical, sexual, talking and listening boundary. But what I want to say about it today is that it is a boundary violation to expose another person to your illness. Now to be fair, there are some cases in which you cannot avoid that. So like in the case of my husband, he really could not avoid exposing me to his colder flu or whatever it is. On the other hand, I have had a low grade fever within the last 24 hours. And that being the case, if I decided to go into my office and see clients and sit in the same room with them for an hour or two hours and not be transparent with them about the fact that I had had fever and frankly, I would never go to the office in that circumstance. But if I did not share that with them, that would be a boundary violation. And I think that, especially I can talk about a U.S. culture, we're really in denial around this. And sometimes it's even a badge of honor that you drag yourself to work when, you know, you have a hundred and the three fever and you're coughing and hacking so much that you can't even have a ordinary conversation. But anyway, I just want to mention that because I think a lot of people don't realize that exposing other people to illness without their knowledge and, you know, in situations where you can't help it. Obviously, if you go to the doctor about it, they know that you're not well. But I think you get what I'm where I'm going here. All right. So I appreciate you bearing with me today as I get through this with my less than optimal health situation. So this episode is part two of the listening boundary. And my thinking is this will probably end up being a three or four part series because as I've said before, this is the most complicated of the four primary boundaries. And if you missed part one, which is episode number 37, I highly recommend that you go back and listen to that episode, which covered some general yet important information about the listening boundary and in this episode, we're going to go straight into the heart of actually using this boundary in practice in real time. And I will, as always, try to give you a lot of good examples, you know, I've heard from many of you that the examples are very helpful, which I find is true too, that you can talk about an abstract concept like boundaries, but it's helpful to use very real life practical examples. And I try to use ones that I think that most of you won't be able to relate to so you can follow where I'm where I'm going with it. So I want to start by reviewing with you the definition, especially if you didn't hear episode number 37. And even if you did, it definitely bears repeating. So on the most elementary level, the listening boundary is about how we take in, how we filter, and then ultimately how we respond to incoming information. When you're listening boundary is functioning at a very high level, meaning you have great listening boundary skills, then you have developed these abilities, which I'm going to talk about in depth in this episode. The first one is the ability to listen to another person with curiosity and objectivity. Okay. That in and of itself, I'm sure most of us realize how difficult just that one thing is, you also have the ability to filter what you're hearing through your own reality, meaning you're listening and you're also aware of your own reality at the same time. You also have the ability to not take in as true for you anything that is not true for you or anything that you have a different perception about, and I'll be saying a lot more about that as we go along. And the last primary listening boundary skill is that when you're not sure whether or not something that you've heard is true for you or not, you have the ability to either ask a clarifying question or questions to get more information or maybe you're comfortable just simply accepting that there is no way to know whether what you've heard is true or not. And sometimes that's the case because there are things that we could just cannot know, period. None of us. And when it comes to using the listening boundary, I want you to keep in mind that it's used not only for what other people say to you, so verbal communication, but it also applies to written communication, which we have much more of today than we had even 20 or 30 years ago. So that would include emails that you exchange with other people or texting. And you know, I will say that the faster that the platform allows you to be in terms of responding, really the more dangerous it is in terms of using both the listening and the talking boundary, that's why it's not generally helpful at all to talk about anything of any importance by text, always better to have a phone conversation or an in-person conversation. And last time we covered what I called the pre-work for the listening boundary and I want to briefly review that here because as I said, you know, the listening boundary is absolutely the most challenging of the four primary boundaries. And so most of us need as much information and help around this as we can possibly get. So first of all, remember, you are not going to do this perfectly, you're going to mess it up. So let's just assume that from the beginning, I want you to do this listening boundary thing as imperfectly as you possibly can do. And second, when it comes to the listening, well, when it comes to listening in general, it's so important to remember that except for situations where you're learning a new skill or you're otherwise collecting objective data or knowledge in an educational type setting, you're listening to others during interpersonal interactions in order to know or to understand that other person better, which is often lost on us during interpersonal communication. You also need to have beginning skills of being able to access presence or objectivity or listening like a reporter. So that is this capacity to really be able to drop as much of your own preconceived notions and your busy mind in order to be fully present with what you're hearing. You must also accept that every single person has a right to their perceptions, another difficult idea and concept, which I'll talk more about later. We also talked about in episode 37, some of the pitfalls when using the listening boundary which are that, you know, maybe you come to every single interaction, well, not you may, you do all of us do this. We come to every interaction with our own history, including our own trauma, our vulnerabilities, and all of this impacts our ability to listen and it impacts how we take in information. There's also this very human need to be right and the habit of listening to other people scanning for what is wrong with what they're saying or what we disagree with. So these are habits that most of us have when it comes to listening. So let's dive further into how to use the listening boundary. The foundation for using the listening boundary well is, as I mentioned before, is to listen with curiosity and the intention to know the other person or to know the other person better. And this can be more or less difficult depending on the importance of the topic to you and the person that you are interacting with and, of course, the closer the relationship, meaning if it's a spouse, a family member, or a close friend, the closer the relationship, the more challenging it's going to be to use the listening boundary well. With someone that you don't know very well, it's much easier. And so starting with a foundation of curiosity, interest, or at the very least, being respectful when listening is a good start. And again, it's not always easy to do, especially in long-term relationships where you might believe that you already know what the person is going to say, or you assume what their motivations are, or you have other preconceived ideas in advance about the interaction that you're getting ready to have. Now, that doesn't mean that you throw out all of your history with that other person that you throw all that out the window. All of that history is useful information, especially if you're dealing with a difficult person, you know, someone who is in active addiction, or maybe they're a narcissist, or they're otherwise an unscrupulous person. And at the same time, we don't do ourselves or other people, any favors, when we come to interactions with important people in our life, believing that we already know everything there is to know, and that there is no point in truly listening to what the other person has to say. So that all speaks to that. The foundation for using the listening boundary well is to have that attitude of curiosity, the intention to know the other person, and at the very least, being respectful. And speaking of boundary violations, you know, there aren't very many listening boundary violations. However, a couple would be, if you, for example, if someone's talking to you, and like one-on-one, like let's say you're at a restaurant, you're having lunch together, and the other person's talking to you and you turn your head and you just look around the room for an extended period of time. And when I say an extended period of time, I'd say more than about 30 seconds, unless you're looking for, you know, the waiter or something like that. But anyway, the person's talking to you, and you're essentially looking away, or you roll your eyes, or you know, you do like a big yawn. I mean, there are ways to be disrespectful while listening, and it's important to not do those if you are attempting to be relational while listening. So once you've got the foundation of listening out of curiosity, interest, and with respect, you will be noting internally as you listen one of three things, as you listen to what the other person says. So the first one is you might notice that what you, that you have the same perception as the other person. So you're noticing what you have the same perception about as you listen, or you notice what you don't have the same perception about. Or lastly, you determine whether or not you need more information about what you've heard in order to decide whether or not you have the same perception, or whether or not it's true for you. So the last one of the three is you're just not sure. So it's either true for you. You have the same perception, not true. You don't have the same perception, or you're not sure you need more information. And I want to take a moment here to say a few words about the concept of, quote, not true for you, especially the word true. Each of us needs to have the humility to accept that our perceptions are true for us, but they are not true with a capital T. So it's like relative truth, but it's not absolute truth. For example, just because you believe that another person is rude, or they're acting inappropriately, or they're not being kind enough in your opinion, or maybe maybe they can do no wrong in your eyes. Each of these is a perception. And if you asked another person about the same person or situation, they would probably or likely have a different perception than you about one or many of your perceptions. So that you, they probably would not be identical. And that's what I mean when I say that when using the listening boundary, you must continually keep in mind that your perceptions are your truth with a small T, they are not the truth with a capital T. And this really, I'm going to say that again, because this is one of the places where people have the most difficulty around the listening boundary. When using the listening boundary, you must continually keep in mind that your perceptions are not the truth with a capital T. Your perceptions, you have a right to them and they are true small T for you, but they are not the truth with a capital T. So let's talk about each one of the three options when using the listening boundary. So, you know, it's probably obvious that when you agree or when you have the same perception as the other person, they say something to you and you have exactly the same perception, that is the easiest of all. You have the same perception or what they say is also true for you. So let's say that you and your spouse are getting ready to make a big decision like buying a car or moving to a new home. And if your spouse says, I think that we should buy such and such vehicle and that is exactly what you thought and exactly what you wanted to do then no problem. The two of you have the same perception. So obviously this one is by far the easiest of the three. The second possibility is when using the listening boundary that you hear what the other person says and you don't have the same perception that they do. This is the most challenging area when engaging in the listening boundary, when what you heard is not true for you. Many of us actually feel threatened when our significant other or another important person in our life has a different perception than we do. Sometimes about even very simple, unimportant matters. And that is again why the listening boundary is so challenging, ideally when what the other person said is not true for you. You don't take their truth in as your own reality because if you do, you're going to have feelings about it and your feelings will be unpleasant because the thought that they're based on and remember your emotions are almost always 99.9% of the time they are based on your thoughts. And the reason you're going to have these unpleasant feelings when you take in somebody else's reality that's not your own is because those thoughts are based on something that you actually don't agree with. It's not your reality, it's not your perception or truth. So what do you do when you have a different perception as the other person? I highly recommend that when you don't have the same perception that you start with assessing or determining how important this whole issue is to you. For example, if you're talking to a friend and they say how much they hated a movie that the two of you just saw together and you actually liked it a lot, it's just not that important. I mean, if you're curious and you want to know why they hated it, which would actually be a great way to get to know the other person better, you could ask or you might just say, well, that's interesting because I really liked it that you also have to be mindful of what your intention is and saying that and I'll talk about that a bit later. But this is one of those things where it just does not matter that your friend hated a movie and you liked it. So at a maximum, you might just be curious and have a conversation about it and it's a decent exercise really because sometimes when we have these sorts of conversations, we learn something not only about the other person, but we may be presented with or exposed to an idea or a way of seeing the world that we otherwise wouldn't have been aware of. But again, it's not mandatory. So let's say that this is a mid level issue. It's kind of a moderate issue. It's something that involves a more intimate relationship or a more hot button topic. So let's say you're talking about money or politics or religion with a family member. Well, you get to decide how much or how little you want to engage about it. You might disagree and you may choose or not choose to say anything. In situations like this, it's extremely important to think through what you believe will be the possible consequences or outcome of your decision to express yourself, express your differing perception, reality or truth. You know, all of us are free to choose to engage about these things and it may or may not be worth the effort or worth the consequences of doing so. And you may choose not to do it because of that. Some people have the mistake and believe that if they disagree with someone or someone disagrees with them that they need to defend their position or they need to express themselves. And while you are absolutely free to choose to do that. I believe it's best to ask yourself first, "What is your intention in expressing your belief?" And then based on what you know about the other person or the situation, what you think the likely result will be, if you want to express your opinion solely for the purpose of putting someone in their place or embarrassing them in front of other people or maybe trying to write a wrong that that person did to you in the past, it will be much more relational and respectful in the long run to just let it go. And I have to add here, I know that this can be sometimes very, very challenging, especially for people who may not have a really strong sense of themselves or they maybe doubt themselves a lot or they just have a high need for whatever reason to defend themselves. Because you know, what I've found over time is that it can be sometimes way more powerful not to respond than engage in verbal combat. One of the hidden benefits of doing this is that the other person is, well, if the other person is being offensive or difficult, when you don't offer any opposition or resistance to what they're saying, it's more likely that they will see their problematic behavior or what they've said for what it is because they're not presented with any opposition. There's no struggle with you. There's no fighting with you. So essentially, the person is left to sort of struggle with themselves, which in my opinion is optimal. Now, there are some issues where having a different perception as the other person absolutely requires further conversation. For example, if you and your spouse have differing opinions about parenting your children and most parents do, that is something that although you can each acknowledge differing opinions, you will likely want to continue the conversation to come up with a mutually agreeable solution or plan about how you want to handle that particular parenting issue. This is a situation where using the five-step boundary solution clarifier can be very helpful. And if you're not familiar with the five-step boundary solution clarifier, it's a step-by-step process that will walk you through the boundary setting process. And the reason it applies to this situation is that coming up with an agreement is a form of a boundary. And so what you could do is both of you could do a clarifier independently of each other and then bring them together and discuss it. So the clarifier that I'm mentioning is it's a downloadable PDF worksheet that you can use as I said to help you walk through the boundary setting process. And you can get it on the BeyondBitchie.com website or in the show notes for this episode. So in this particular case, it would be helpful in coming to an agreement about that parenting issue. So the final of the three options when you're listening is that in response to what you have heard, you're not sure or you don't have an opinion or you need more information. Some examples of this might be if a person says something about another person and you don't know whether or not it's true or they may be talking about some kind of complex issue, you know, regarding science or politics. And you just don't feel like you have enough information to have an opinion or maybe you really just don't care about it one way or another. So when you don't have enough information to determine whether or not you have the same perception or whether or not it's true for you, it may not matter. And you just let it go like when someone's talking to you about a topic you're not familiar with or you might need to ask a question. For example, if the person says something that you just simply don't understand, obviously you would need to clarify what they meant. Or maybe your spouse says that she thinks the two of you should help a friend out and you're not aware of what's going on with that friend and you want to hear more about why she's making the suggestion. So you ask questions in order to determine whether or not you share her opinion or a perception that the two of you should help out. So those are just some examples when you get to when the third option of you're just not sure comes up. So again, the three options are I have the same perception as you or this, you know, it's true for me as well. Or it's not true which again is the most difficult one or I need information which may or may not be important or even something that you care about and you get to determine that. So I want to move on and talk about some of the challenges with using the listening boundary of which there are many but I want to highlight a few. So the first I want to mention is that you may have passed trauma or you may even have a mental health issue that causes your listening boundary to be consistently weak or wobbly. Now in terms of trauma, if you grew up in a family where your listening boundary was repeatedly violated like you experienced a lot of verbal emotional abuse, it's going to be challenging for you and I'll talk about this in a minute. Issues of a steam meaning how you feel about yourself will matter a lot because as I'll talk about in a minute, if you struggle especially with feeling one down you will struggle and that and usually that's a trauma issue you will struggle with the listening boundary. In terms of mental health issues, you know, narcissists for example have a notoriously weak listening boundary because they can't take in information that doesn't shine a favorable light on them and sometimes they're actually so delusional that they cannot take in other people's reality. People who struggle with emotional regulation have trouble with the listening boundary. For example, the most extreme case of emotional dysregulation is having borderline personality disorder. People with emotional regulation issues or BPD and I'm not saying those are synonymous but BPD is just an extreme form. They're usually highly reactive to thoughts or opinions that don't align with the reality that they need to maintain in order to feel okay about who they are. And in cases like this, the person takes in most everything another person says as true and has negative thoughts and then of course negative feelings about it. Even a simple matter like the restaurant you prefer to go to is taken very personally to the point that it becomes a major issue about how much the other person cares about you for example. And in cases like this you'll need to do more work around making the connection between your thoughts and your painful feelings. Another way of putting it is that you're balancing thinking with emotions. So for example, if a friend says that they prefer restaurant Y over restaurant Z and your thought is she thinks that I have bad taste in restaurants or if you prefer restaurant Z you think well if I was really important to her then she would choose the restaurant that I want to go to. So if you believe these thoughts you're going to have some painful feelings. If this is a problem for you I recommend that you start tracking the thoughts that you have about what others say especially when they result in what feels to you like outsized responses relative to the situation or the person. I mean if you obsess for days after a casual acquaintance cancels lunch with you you can bet that there are many many thoughts along with some painful emotions that are causing your obsession and your response which have nothing to do with the person who canceled lunch or even the fact that they cancel lunch because you know I mentioned this in prior episodes but absolutely worth mentioning again this skill and tool of the least pathological explanation. And for people who struggle with emotional regulation or these types of very toxic repetitive thoughts learning least pathological explanation and learning how to apply it in every situation where you notice that you are having a very outsized response or you're becoming obsessive or ruminating about another person's behavior is to simply ask yourself what is the least pathological explanation for what they did today because of what's going on with me and my health. I had to cancel an appointment later this afternoon and it wasn't with a friend but the person that I canceled this appointment with could have thought oh you know Vicki doesn't like me or Vicki I mean it's almost endless what people can come up with and I'm sure all of us can name many things we've made up about why people do what they did but the truth is the reason that I canceled is because I had a low grade fever last night and I didn't want to expose someone to an illness. Now that could be an example of least pathological explanation or it could just be there's something happened in their schedule and they needed to cancel and the main thing I want you to get about using this tool of least pathological explanation is that you need to identify an explanation that has nothing to do with you. The truth is that pretty much everything other people do is 100% about them and the more you can start to see how impersonal what other people do is the happy area will be. I promise it's not easy to do but it will change your life. So another challenge to the listening boundary is when you're generally not aware of the thoughts that come up as you're listening. If you're more focused on what you're going to say rather than observing your internal responses, both your thoughts and your emotions as you're listening, if you're not doing that as the other person speaking, you're actually not in the present. You are in the future. You're thinking about what you're going to do when they stop talking. And in that case, you will need to do more work on strengthening your ability to be present, to be aware and as detached as you possibly can be as you listen. So I talked about this in episode 37 using a skill like what I called the reporter, which was something that I learned from another therapist friend that I knew several years ago. It's a skill called the reporter where it can help you to stay in more objectivity and curiosity and interest just like if you were a reporter. And so if you want to learn more about that, you can hear that in episode 37. You may also struggle with the listening boundary if you have challenges around staying true or trusting your own reality. So staying true to or trusting your reality. If this is a problem for you, you will take in most of what people say to you as your truth. And like we talked about before, when you do that, when you take in information is true. That is not really true for you. You're going to experience painful emotions. Difficulty trusting your reality or staying true to it happens often in situations where a person grew up in a family that didn't validate their reality or where there were a lot of secrets, family secrets, or people just didn't talk about important matters or events. You may also struggle to honor your reality if you've been or you are currently in a relationship with the narcissist or someone who is inactive addiction. Because narcissists and people in active addictions are master gas lighters. And if you have a person like this who is regularly in your life, there's going to be a lot of fogginess, fuzziness, smoke and mirrors. And you will probably start to have challenges around trusting and honoring your reality. And lastly, you know, anyone who is chronically one up or one down will not have a highly developed listening boundary. A person who is one up or believes that he or she is better than other people will automatically assume that what they're hearing from the other person is less important than what they think or what they believe. And this is, you know, a narcissist or a very arrogant or grandiose person is that those are all examples of a one up person, a person who believes they are better than other people. And a person who is one down will be very vulnerable to taking on the reality or the perceptions of another person because they overvalue other people and they undervalue themselves. And they're right to have their own beliefs, thoughts, opinions. If you struggle with a steam particularly being one down because, you know, let's face it, people who are one up, they usually don't feel like they're struggling with the steam because sadly, it can feel really good to be one up. But particularly for people who struggle with being more one down or feeling less than, I recommend paying more attention to your self-care and learning as much as you can about boundary work. Self-care, since the message to yourself that you are worth taking care of and boundaries, which I also see as part of self-care, protect you from allowing other people to treat you as though you are less than or second class, which again, sends the message to you that you are one down. You know, when people ask me, how can I work on a steam? This is a very common question to ask, and it's a difficult one to answer. You know, there are things that you can do to get more information about where you are on the esteem, continuing meaning, you know, on one extreme being one up or on the other extreme being one down by just tracking yourself, you know, checking in with yourself throughout the day, whether or not you are feeling better than or less than another person. And that is great information, but it's hard to think about, well, what would I actually do to give myself into that middle balanced area, which is, I'm okay, you're okay, which is, I see myself as not being better than or less than another person. And I believe that self-care and boundary work can go a long way to helping with that, for the reasons that I mentioned before, that you are sending a message to yourself, I am worth taking care of, and I am also worth protecting, which is something that most of us didn't get enough of, especially in our childhood and family of origin experience. All right, so today we've talked about the specific steps to take as you are engaged with using the listening boundary, which, you know, I didn't even mention or think about until just now, but, you know, this is a boundary that we use a lot in our daily life. So not only is it challenging, but it's a often used boundary. So we talked about the specific steps to take, which are listening with curiosity, deciding whether or not what you heard was true for you or not true for you, or if you need more information. And we also talked about the challenges, challenges in using the listening boundary and how to strengthen it. In the next episode in this series on the listening boundary, I'm going to talk to you about some additional tools that I think you're going to find interesting around tools that you can use that will support and strengthen your listening boundary. And also, I think that you'll have some fun with. So until next week, I invite every one of 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 BeyondBitchy Podcast. Head over to BeyondBitchy.com for show notes, the BeyondBitchy blog, and other resources to help you master the art of boundaries. Until next time, remember, boundaries aren't bitchy.