Boundaries: The Difference Between a Wall and a Door. Part 1
I have to admit, I am a people pleaser in recovery.
Even after 5 years of practice, I would still say that I am in recovery from being the “yes-(wo)man”.
When I first began to learn about boundaries, in college, I kept feeling like I was pushing people away, disappointing them, or making others not want to be my friend.
I’m a lover and helper by nature. Growing up, I saw how my mom would consistently put others before herself. She would always make it a point to commit acts of kindness and favors for others- not just around the holidays, but all year. She volunteered in many local clubs to make a positive impact in our community.
Seeing this at an early age caused me to take it on as my own- “this” being putting others before myself.
I would always help the teacher pass out papers, I would volunteer at local fundraisers or participate in activities with Girl Scouts. Even as a third-grader, I was a peer mediator on the school counselor’s behalf to help friends sort out their dramatic 3rd - 5th grade social lives.
Being a team captain on athletic teams also had me take on the helper role. Slowly and unconsciously I was being groomed deeper and deeper into this persona.
What I didn’t realize was that I was beginning to measure my self-worth based on the amount that I was helping others.
If I wasn’t showing up for them I would let them down, in turn, having me equal less than or not enough. Most specifically this began to impact my relationships; romantic, platonic and familial. If I wasn’t dropping my school work at any given moment to help a friend navigate their falling apart relationship, I was a bad friend. If I wasn’t losing sleep over how I could help my Dad heal and get better, I wasn’t a good daughter. If I wasn’t putting my lover before my needs, I was a bad partner.
People pleasing became a pattern. And an unhealthy one at that.
During college was when I began my journey into therapy and deep healing work. There is a laundry list of tools and practices I learned throughout this process. I could write an entire textbook on it all. But for now, I am going to share a small dose of what I have learned relevant to boundaries over the past decade.
1. When I am saying yes to someone else,
I am saying no to myself
One day on the comfy blue couch in my therapist’s office, I was given a giant nugget of wisdom. I don’t specifically remember what we were talking about as far as context goes, but I do know that I was feeling out of alignment.
I was saying yes to clinical, studying and class. I was saying yes to athletics, friends, and a significant other. I was saying yes to extracurricular clubs and spending time with my housemates. I was saying yes to partying multiple nights a week. And I even said yes to early mornings in the gym on top of it all.
I was completely exhausted. The yes to humans was burning me out emotionally. The yes to partying and workouts were burning me out physically. And the school part itself: clinical hours, study time, group projects, and class was burning me out mentally.
It wasn’t until one day that my therapist brought this to my attention: every time you say yes to something, you are saying no to yourself in a way.
I sat there in confusion. I cocked my head to the side like a puppy and asked, “What do you mean saying no to myself? All of these things are me. I am saying yes to me. I’m saying yes to the process in which I have to go through to become my next self.”
She artfully paused like she always does and responded with,
“Every time you say yes to partying, you are saying no to recharge, sleep, and rest time. Every time you say yes to that late-night friend having a breakdown about a silly boy, you are saying no to your studies therefore you fall behind and become stressed.”
I sat there, slouched, with a wrinkled brow in deep thought.
Her perspective began to slowly sink into me. I nodded gently and said,
“I think I get it…wherever there is a yes, there is a no on the other side of the coin.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“Maybe I need to start checking myself at each crossroads, at each decision, and see what I am really saying yes to. And what I am really saying no to…”
She asked, “how are you going to do that?”
“Well, I suppose with practice. Just like when you play basketball you do drills to strengthen a skill set. Or in academics, you do flashcards to get better and stronger with the terminology. So, with this, I could just practice paying attention to the “yes”, “sure”, and “okay” words. I could pause and take note. I could observe and then ask myself what is on the other side of the coin that I never pay attention to.”
This practice unfolded and lead me to #2.
2. When I am saying no to others, I am saying yes to myself
After practicing for a few weeks, I began to notice that there were so many multi-sided-coined moments!
Both macro and micro moments throughout my days. Some moments where the sides of the coin were something simple like, do I want to eat a banana or a pear?
Other moments were more impactful to the larger picture. One decision could change the trajectory of the day or the week. One yes could influence my experience with my academic timeline, productivity capacity, or sleep. If I said yes to bar trivia on a Thursday, I would be saying no to cleaning my room, reorganizing my notes, and hot yoga. Waking up the next day after trivia would be a significantly different experience than waking up after selfcare.
As I tracked and practiced observing the yes and the no, I began to notice that I say yes a lot…which also meant I said no a lot…but to myself, without the words leaving my mouth.
My actions said no to me multiple times a day. I was REGULARLY doing things against my best interest…and didn’t even realize it. I also observed that I wasn’t asking myself what I wanted with the options at hand. I wasn’t providing myself with the opportunity for my desires to weigh in on my decision.
This felt sad to me. The fact that I was never watching out for myself- both for my desires and best interests. I dove deep into a rabbit hole of open-ended questions seeking perspective.
I began pondering the question: who I was living this life for?
If I do not have health, what do I have?
Although I want to support my friends, can I provide them with the help and guidance that they really need?
If I am investing all of this time and money into my education, shouldn’t I give that more love and attention if it is important to me?
Which relationships are authentic in my life? Which are true and important? Who are my acquaintances versus homies? What’s the difference? What amount of time and energy goes into each friendship?
I wanted to say yes to me. I began to realize that I deserved the yes. I deserved the highest quality of life that I could create. But in order for me to do that I would have to use my no…out-loud…in real life…to others.
I knew that this is what I needed to do, but it felt hard. I deeply believed the stories in my head about letting others down, being a disappointment and potentially creating negative impact.
In order to begin a practice of using my no, I created a metaphor in my mind to ease into it and away from the negative narrative I created and believed. I related this flavor of consent with exercising in the gym.
Here’s how I see it:
When you are stepping into the gym for the first time, you don’t walk up to the squat rack and start squatting 245 lbs. Your musculoskeletal system isn’t prepared for that. So instead, we start from where we are at, perhaps with body weight squats or a low weight. Over time, with regular use, that muscle group grows. We begin to feel stronger and confident with different motions and exercises because of the strength gained.
It felt impossible to pick up the heavy barbell of no and start throwing that weight around. I needed to start small to build my muscle and strength. I didn’t feel confident to begin using it everywhere, all the time, with no problem.
I felt uneasy. My voice shook. I wasn’t confident.
I didn’t know how to articulate my desires in an artful way to prevent negative impact and feel seen, simultaneously. I didn’t know how to present my no with care. If I did create a negative impact, I had no idea how to ask for that impact and receive their answer without taking it personally.
I felt like a mess.
As the process can sometimes…
Instead of hardcore hitting that metaphorical squat rack, I started small.
My roommate and I had (and still have) an incredible relationship where I felt comfortable enough to tell her what was going on, and how I wanted to practice moving forward with consent. She was in full support which aided in creating a perfect opportunity for a practicing context.
She would ask me if I wanted to join her and a few friends for dinner and I would ask myself what I wanted, only to discover that I wanted to stay home and cook the food I already bought. In order to say yes to myself, I had to say no to her. “Liv, that sounds really fun! I’m going to pass for tonight though, I’d like to cook the food I bought in the fridge. Thank you for the invite and thinking of me.”
She responded with a simple, “okay, no problem, sounds good!”
I was shocked.
That was it? Sounds good? The world didn’t crumble? She didn’t become upset with me or disown me? It was all good?
WOW. OUR FRIENDSHIP INTACT AND I GOT WHAT I WANTED!!
In small ways, I continued to practice exercising my no muscle.
When people asked me to join a study group, come to a club meeting, come to have drinks randomly on a Tuesday- I would ask myself, then follow with the use of my no or my yes.
I began to realize that it is true; when I say no to someone else, I am saying yes to myself.
3. What saying “no” can really be about: showing them where the door is, not building walls to keep them out
As I mentioned, when I was first entering people pleasing recovery, I believed the story that boundaries were mean, selfish, and kept people out. I told myself that by creating boundaries and using my no, I would slowly be building walls against others brick by brick.
I didn’t want to keep people out with a towering grey stone castle wall with a moat built around me. What I really wanted was for others to continue to feel welcome and to keep reaching out, but instead of walking straight in, they would simply knock on the door first, and ask if it was a good time to come in.
Without boundaries aka doors, people walked all over me. They didn’t know that they were doing it, and honestly, at first, I didn’t realize either! They were treating me the way that I taught them to. They interacted with and asked me for things like they always had. People would reach out when they needed help because they knew that I was up for it and could be a beacon for them in difficult times.
But, I was changing and growing which meant the way I let others connect, relate to, and use my time was also going to grow and change.
It was time to reteach others how to treat me- what was okay and what was not.
I started with communicating what was going on in my world to my closest friends. I wanted to explicitly share my vision and desires with them so they could hold space, patience, compassion, and encouragement for me.
Especially when I was stumbling at first.
Knowing what was going on in my world gave my friends the ability to check in on my progress as well as hold me accountable for being true to myself, even when my voice shook.
Making a shift into healthy boundaries is a healing process in itself. Having people you love, trust, and respect on your side can create a much safer place to practice. You can build your strength there so that when you are in a context with greater pressure, you can rise to the occasion and still uphold your no.
Sometimes as humans, when we are going through something, we stay quiet and keep it to ourselves. Internally, we might tell the story that our friends or family members are already going through their own stuff and don’t need to carry ours too.
From my point of view, I think sharing what is going on in your world is showing them that you are carrying a heavy suitcase that you are ready to put down and begin to unpack. By sharing that, you are not asking them to pick it up and carry it for you. Rather, you are explicitly sharing your experience so you can be seen and understood.
One important point I feel called to share with you about boundaries/doors is that you may not be a no, rather, a not right now. In my experience, setting the boundary of not right now wasn’t as difficult but still twisted my heart a little.
Allow me to share an example.
I was sitting at a library working on a project and my phone buzzed. It was a friend calling me. I ignored the first call to remain focused and not get derailed by conversation. A few minutes later she rang again, I answered in case it was an emergency. My friend was in a pickle and wanted assistance. I DID want to help my friend in that moment, but I was in focus mode, it wasn’t a good time for me to help my friend navigate her predicament. Right off the bat, I knew that I was a no to helping her in that moment, but I was a yes to connecting later today or even tomorrow.
In order for me to show her the door I needed to share with her what was going on in my world. Here is what I said to her, “It sounds like you’re in quite the dilemma, I really would love to hold space and show up for you in this, but now isn’t a good time. I am in workflow and need to stay here until I finish this project. Is there a good time to call you back tonight or tomorrow to talk about this?”
What I did was say yes to myself and no to listening to a friend…right now. My boundary wasn’t a wall, keeping her out and never being available for her. My boundary showed her where the door was, she knocked, and I said it wasn’t a good time.
As people pleasers it can be one of our biggest downfalls to let people release and unload all of their stuff onto us. They don’t ask for permission, and we don’t set the boundary. It happens all the time.
This was one of my biggest points of growth with boundaries.
Some days I don’t have the capacity to be there for a friend mentally or emotionally. Some days I genuinely struggle being human and doing human things. For me, I do want to support my loved ones, but some of those days I simply cannot show up the way I usually can. It has been important for me to communicate that with people.
With this practice, I have also learned how to ask for permission to share what’s going on in my world or get guidance. I will ask for their consent before I unload anything. It sounds something like, “Hey I have a lot going on right now and would love a sounding board. Do you have the time and headspace to be there for me right now, or would a different time be better?”
Did you notice that I also gave them an out accompanied with my ask? I do this because I know how much my friends care about me and how a lot of them are people pleasers too. Many of them are in a different place in their people pleasing recovery and may not have the capacity to say no to me. I like giving them an out. I also don’t want them to feel force or obligated to listen to me if it simply isn’t a good time.
All in all,
This is a practice. Something that we get to play with each day. A muscle that we can strengthen with each use, large and small.
I have found learning about boundaries as a people pleaser needs to be done in small doses. Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the thought of it, and instead of taking in the new practice, I ignore it completely. I don’t wish for that to be your case, that is why I have decided to spoon feed these concepts to you in small doses.
Be sure to keep your eyes and heart open for part two of boundary setting.
I can’t wait to share with you the helpful sentence stems that I have learned throughout this practice. How to communicate my yes and no with grace, articulation, and most importantly- truth.