Welcome to the Living with Empathy Podcast: a podcast that gets us thinking about how we feel towards ourselves and others. I’m your host, Miriam Otero.

 

















<figure class="
sqs-block-image-figure
intrinsic
">
















</figure>









 

Today’s episode is one we don’t talk about nearly as much as we should. What is it? BOUNDARIES. YES.

This is an area where I have personally had to do the MOST work throughout my life. I am by no means perfect at it, but it’s something I’ve put a lot of energy into especially these last five years and that’s why I wanted to talk about that today.

What’s a boundary? Why do I need to set boundaries with others?

So, why would one have to set boundaries and what does that even mean? To put it in the simplest way, boundaries are the line in the sand. Boundaries are the expectations you set for how you want to be treated. Usually, the hardest part about setting boundaries is enforcing them, often because you don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings. And this is where most of the struggle often happens. 

Why are we bad with boundaries? Everyone has a different root cause, usually stemming from early childhood, and I highly recommend finding a licensed therapist to help you do that work if you have no idea what I’m talking about. For me, it’s been one of the best investments I’ve made in myself. It’s helped me to develop healthier relationships with my family, which is where most of my own boundary work has taken place, but it’s also helped me with new people as well. 

So, while I’m not a therapist and can’t dive deep into each listener’s past to find the root cause of all your boundary problems, I can approach it from a coach’s perspective. 

As a coach, I coach people with situations they are dealing with in the here and now. We look at the thoughts behind the actions you’re currently taking and make modifications to your thought process to then change your results. I thought I’d go over some common themes that come up in my coaching practice and as a teacher. So, I’m going to list the three most common types of people you end up having to set strong boundaries with.

The person who is just trying to help.

This one comes in different forms. Maybe you have a family member who always shows up unannounced, wanting to help out. This could look like a friend who is constantly trying to get you to go out and meet someone because according to her, “You’re just too smart and pretty to be single.” The parent who jumps in to solve their kids problems before the kid has a chance to try it on their own or makes suggestions to the teacher on how they should run their class. Obviously, these are just examples and exaggerated ones at that, but I’ve heard enough of them to know that they exist. 

These people mean well, they really do. What they don’t understand is that their “thoughtfulness” and you can’t see me, but I’m putting it in quotes, can feel a bit intrusive. That’s why this one is usually the hardest one to set boundaries with because we know they’re just trying to be helpful, but we don’t want to hurt their feelings, but the interaction always leaves us feeling frustrated or even angry. So, what do we do?

The first thing to realize here is what the situation is triggering. When your friend is trying to set you up on dates, does it make you feel like they think you’re pathetic for being single? Or if you’re that teacher getting feedback from a parent, maybe you’re already doing the best that you can at your job, and this just feels like you’re falling short. It’s always good to get to the bottom of our frustrations first.

The next thing is to think of other reasons why this person may be doing this that have nothing to do with our triggers. This is where empathy comes in. Maybe the family member coming by feels lonely and covers it up by coming by to “help out.” Maybe the friend trying to get you to go out and meet someone hasn’t gone out in a long time and uses your single life as a way to kill two birds with one stone. More often than not, people are coming from a good place even if the execution is way off. 

The third step is about having an honest conversation. Start with the end in mind. What’s your goal for the conversation? What do you want both of you to take away from it? So often we’re consumed by our desire to be right that we forget about our desire to understand. I’ve had many a conversation like this in recent years and the first few times, it was awkward, but eventually it does get easier. Focus on the facts, not your feelings. Sometimes, it’s much simpler than what we thought. 

The person who doesn’t want you to change.

One pattern that comes up regularly in client sessions is where the client describes a friend they’ve had for many years. The client will come to me about some action they’ve been wanting to take, but mention that this childhood friend thinks it’s a bad idea. 

When we work through things and work through what their own thoughts are regarding the situation, they often find that they’ve been holding themselves back because they don’t trust themselves. Even if a bunch of other people have encouraged the change, this friend’s opinion holds so much weight, that they often second guess themselves and don’t act. 

Say for example, you’ve always wanted to study abroad. You’ve looked at programs, you’ve figured out how to make it work with your school schedule, and everything is coming together just fine. Then you tell your best friend about it, but she starts to throw in these little comments like, “Wow, Italy is really far away. What if you get homesick? I mean, I know you’ve been studying Italian, but do you really think you can get by with what you know. I’m not trying to scare you, but I heard the metro there is pretty dangerous.”

What is happening here? Maybe it’s their own fears and limitations they’re projecting onto you. Maybe you have spent every summer together and studying abroad would interfere with that. We can probably say that the childhood friend isn’t intentionally trying to hold her friend back, but often, there are some people in our lives who don’t want to see us change because it changes the dynamic in the relationship or they project their own fears onto whatever decision we’re trying to make. 

If you’ve tried to address the situation or the pattern itself and the person hasn’t responded well, that’s when you have to decide whether you’re going to continue moving forward living life for yourself or to please this person. 

The person who wants you to solve their problems.

This one SUCKS, especially for those of us who want to be helpful friends or family members. When I started doing boundary work, I realized I had some major problems with this one in particular. I saw a tweet that perfectly described my situation:

Parents be like, “I’d like to introduce you to my emotional support eldest daughter”. 

As the oldest of three daughters and as a first-generation Mexican-American, my parents often turned to me when they needed help with my siblings, chores, translating, etc. I got into the habit of seeing something that needed to be done and just doing it before being told to do it. Over time, this has had some negative consequences in my life because I often take on that which is not mine to take on.

I’ll give you a personal example of what this looks like. A couple of years ago, my younger sisters were going through a rough patch with one another. Each of them would call me to complain about the other and as the older sister, I tried my best to mediate the situation, but it went on for months. 

Here’s the thing, their goal with talking to me was to take some of the load off of themselves, but never to fix things with one another. As the oldest, I’ve always been the person they’ve turned to when they needed to talk, and I’ve always been happy to do it. 

Except this time! It was SO DRAINING. I finally realized I had to take care of myself and that even though it bothered me they were mad at each other, it wasn’t my job to fix it. Just because I rolled out of my mom’s uterus first, doesn’t mean that automatically makes me problem solver number one. In the end, I told them I loved them both, but I wasn’t going to be the middle person anymore. Eventually, they worked it out ON THEIR OWN. 

I AM good with problem-solving and great when dealing with other people’s emotions, so naturally, people come to me when they need help with that and maybe that’s the case for you too. And there may be times when people begin to seek you out ONLY when they need you in this way, without ev