Safety That Comes From Within

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Dear listeners, there is a version of safety that we talk about often. The kind that lives outside us, in relationships, in spaces, uh in uh daily routines, we build with others, right? And but but there is another kind which is quieter and often overlooked that actually lives inside. It is the one we create when we stop waiting for permission to protect our own energy when we learn that saying no can actually means saying yes to something deeper. And today we are talking about what it takes to build that uh internal sense of safety and how healthy boundaries are not walls but uh doorways into a life that feels more like ours. Right. So hey day listeners, welcome back to another powerful episode of Heavy Mind Healthy Life. I'm your host, Avik, and this is the podcast all about practical tools, real conversations every day ways to live with more clarity and ease. So whether uh you are here for the first time or you have been listening uh for a while, I'm really happy that you are here with us today. So uh today's conversation is uh I'd say is one that I have been actually looking forward to because it gets something like many of us struggle with, but not but do not always uh name out love. Yeah, and we have very lovely guests with us today, so please welcome Barb Dangle. So welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Thank you so much for having me, Adak. I'm really grateful for the opportunity and happy to have this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Amazing, amazing. So uh Barb, like I definitely want to start with like uh uh

Boundaries Are Not Cold Walls

SPEAKER_01 2:06

I mean kind of I'd say you can say it's a misunderstanding or maybe misconception. So when people think about boundaries, they often picture something a kind of uh rigid.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

So so what is the most common misunderstanding that you see when it comes to what a healthy boundary actually is? So anything you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, so I think some of the myths and misconceptions about boundaries are absolutely that they're rigid, that they're like walls, that you have to be cold and bitchy, that you're not gonna be helpful to people, that you become selfish, and all of those things could not be further from the truth. But I will say one caveat. If you are in danger from violence by another person, then you need a wall with that person. So that kind of a boundary would be like harsh and like a wall. But 99.999% of boundaries are not that. And in fact, when we have healthy boundaries, we are actually able to have more authentic and intimate relationships with people because we tell the truth about what's okay and what's not okay with us. And, you know, like frankly, sometimes when we start being, you know, you know, telling the real absolute truth with uh with people around us, sometimes we do lose some people. I know for me, I did lose some friends, but it's not because I had like a altercation or a confrontation with them. It's because I was the kind of person who did all the work and the friendship. I did the reaching out and the texting and the social arrangements and all that stuff. And I started to realize this doesn't feel good to me. So I stopped reaching out to them. And that meant because I was doing all the work, the relationship faded. So those kinds of things can happen. And then also, if you have someone in your life that is really dysfunctional or toxic, you might actually want to spend less time with that person. So um learning how to have healthy boundaries is really like the process of building boundaries is really about getting to know yourself. Because what I hear from people all the time is well, I don't know what my boundaries are. And you know, welcome to the club. But part of the process of building boundaries is determining what is okay and not okay with me. What do I want, like, need, and prefer? Where do I end and other people begin? Where does my responsibility end and other people's begin? And then once you start discerning that, then you start acting on that. So if you find that, you know, you actually prefer to be with small groups of people socializing and don't like to go to giant parties, then you stop going to the giant parties and you have more time to get together with smaller groups of people and have more intimate conversations, right? So, you know,

Standards, Limits, And Self-Knowledge

SPEAKER_00 5:12

that's just a basic example. And the other thing, like the way I define boundaries, Avic, is there's standards that you have for your life and then limits that you set for yourself and other people to uphold, support, and promote those standards, or the way I think of it is like the values that you have, the things that are important to you in your life. And when you start living your life, honoring things that matter to you, your life is going to be better. And you're gonna have a lot more energy and a lot more joy in your life. Because, like for me, one of the reasons I have more energy is because I do more things that fuel me and less things that drain me. But also I'm really just running my life. I'm not doing all this mental and emotional labor for other people or about other people that I was doing before. I would do a lot of like problem solving for people that didn't even ask me to solve their problems, or like thinking about okay, if I do this, then what is he gonna think or what is she gonna think? And I just don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Got it, got it. So I mean like when someone has lived without clear boundaries for a long time, maybe. Um what shifts first, like when they start to practice that again.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah, so that was me. You know, I was in my 50s when I I got into 12-step recovery for codependence, which is where I learned to build boundaries. And like, let me be clear, I learned to build boundaries sort of vicariously through the 12-steps. It's not like someone sat me down and said, hey, we're gonna build boundaries. And frankly, I didn't even know that I was doing that. I was that these were called boundaries. I just was so unaware of what boundaries were. And it's it's really like asking yourself questions like, what do I want or need in this situation? And like I had never asked myself that stuff, Abbott. And and also, just because you ask yourself that doesn't mean you're gonna know, but keep asking. And then once you do think, oh, okay, I really don't like, I'm just gonna keep using that example of like the giant large parties. It doesn't mean you're gonna give yourself that thing, but you keep asking. And then eventually you will be able to do that. And as you start to honor yourself more, this is where you know, I talk about um building healthy boundaries is really about creating a sense of internal safety. And so the reason I talk about internal safety is because was because what most of us do, everybody out almost everything we do is because we want to feel safe in some way. And humans are like we are community animals, right? We though there are humans that live as hermits, it's very unusual. And the worst thing you can do to a person is ostracize them. So a lot of times the way that we feel safe is by either

External Approval Versus Internal Safety

SPEAKER_00 8:29

some like someone approving of us, uh, having a level of prestige, having a title, having a certain car or a certain office, like the corner office or a certain brand of something, or a house in a certain neighborhood, or a reputation, or something like that. Which means ultimately that we're way more invested in what other people think of us than what we think of ourselves. And what we're trying to do is feel like secure. And the reality is you can't build internal safety by focusing externally on the external world, on other people and what they think. So it's like, I need you to approve of me. And if you approve of me, then I'll be okay. But I have to do so much work because there's not just one other person besides me that whose approval I want. There's, you know, potentially millions of people. And so I have to do all this work to please those people so that maybe I can get a measure of safety, where instead I could reduce the amount of effort to a fraction of that and work on really approving of myself and taking care of myself. So internal safety is I know that I'm not going to abandon myself. And what I mean by abandon myself, Avik, is let's say that I decide I'm not going for this big party that I always go, and my friends start to ridicule me. Abandoning yourself is allowing their difficulty to determine what you do. You feeling like maybe embarrassed or something like that. So internal safety is I may still feel embarrassed or I may hear their ridicule, but I don't use that embarrassment or their ridicule as like a directive. You've done something wrong and you have to fix it. I understand that this discomfort I have inside of me from these difficult feelings does not mean I'm in danger. It's it's because I'm breaking an old pattern that I have these feelings. And so, you know, I'd like to take a moment to talk about like two different types of discomforts. Is it okay if I do that right now? Sure, sure. Okay. So if you have been doing things that don't feel right to you, or if you grew up with, I grew up with um what I now know as intergenerational family dysfunction. So I had all these dysfunctional coping mechanisms. So if you are doing things um and you feel uncomfortable because they're not really authentic to you, or because they come from your dysfunctional patterns, it feels uncomfortable and it's probably just gonna get worse over time unless you do something drastic and it's never ending. Just that discomfort goes on and on

Two Discomforts And Why One Ends

SPEAKER_00 11:38

and on and on. Unfortunately, that discomfort is familiar because you know where that's gonna land because you're you've been doing it for decades. Well, let's contrast that discomfort of dysfunction with the discomfort of growth and change. When you start trying to do something new, like saying, you know what, I don't want to go to those big parties anymore. And maybe you get pushback from your friends, or maybe you feel guilty that you're betraying someone, or maybe you feel embarrassed that you're trying to meet your own needs for the first time. That discomfort is there because this is new behavior and it's foreign. It's not because it's bad or wrong or dangerous. And if you keep doing it, it will no longer be foreign. It will become familiar and it will no longer be uncomfortable. And it's on the other side of that discomfort, which is going to end. There is the peace and serenity of a life lived on purpose and well lived. So you've got, you know, you're going to have discomfort in your life. So you've got the discomfort of dysfunction, which is never ending and getting worse over time, or the discomfort of growth and change, which is finite. It will end at some point because you'll get comfortable with it. And on the other side is an authentic life where you have a lot more peace. So, what most of us do is we choose the discomfort of dysfunction because it's familiar. Even though it sucks, it's familiar. And, you know, I know for me, when I started setting limits with people, when I started reaching out for help, I would feel like even thinking about it, not just doing it, but thinking about it, I would feel like I'm going to die. You know, like my life was under threat. And that really has nothing to do with the present moment. It has to do with the past, you know? And so I'll I'll stop there because I could go on about that for a long time. So, you know, I'll turn the mic over to you since you're a host.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah, that's definitely good. And I mean, uh, this is such a I'd say it's really, really an important distinction because um like boundaries are not about building the walls, they are all about at a knowing where you end and someone else starts.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So uh yeah, I mean it's it sounds very simple, right? But in practice, especially for people who uh have learned to keep the peace at all costs, yeah. I I I feel that awareness can feel radical.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah, you know, speaking of keeping the peace, so what that means is you're keeping the peace for other people, not for you. So the conflict is still there, it's just internal, it's not external. So you're uh people avoid external conflict and create internal conflict. So what they do is they say yes, for example, to things that they don't really want to do. They do it and then they get resentful, they spend maybe weeks thinking about why did I do that?

Resentment As A Boundary Diagnostic

SPEAKER_00 14:53

I or or maybe I can't believe they keep asking me to do this. Like that was me. Excuse me. Like I was a volunteer holic. So that meant people always came to me because they knew I was gonna say yes. And I would think, like, oh my God, why does she keep asking me? She just asked me for the 15th time. Well, she asked me for the 15th time because I said yes 14 times. I I we teach people how to treat us. A lot of times, we're teaching them, treat me the same as you always have, treat me the same as you always have. But when we start building boundaries, we're reteaching them and us new ways to treat ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yep. Exactly. That's amazing. And um, I definitely don't want to talk about um the everyday part, like uh our everyday life, day-to-day life. So what I think, I mean, what does a lack of boundary actually look like day to day? Like um, I mean, if I say like how does it show up in ways that you might not even recognize, also.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Yeah, I think um resentment is probably the number one indicator when you get resentful that maybe nobody listens to you, everybody depends on you, you can't depend on other people, you're the one that always has to clean up the messes, you know, you're the one that has to tie things up and finish things off. You know, in the workplace, you're the one everybody comes to um to get things done or to solve their personal problems in the family. You know, you're the go-to person, you're the problem solver, and no one is there for you. So resentment is like it's like a diagnostic tool. If you have a lot of resentment, resentment, it's very likely that it's either time to set a boundary or shore up an already existing boundary that you've kind of let go. So I would say resentment is probably the number one indicator. Um, if you feel completely drained all the time, if you are doing things you know you don't really want to do and you feel like that's just the way it is, you know, those are really good indicators. Um, if you are in a relationship with somebody and you're more invested in their well-being than they are, and you're putting more effort into their life or into your relationship with them than they are, that's I call that a rescue mission. And that those are indications of poor boundaries. And listen, I know all this from personal experience because all the things I'm telling

Pushback, Repeating Yourself, Staying Polite

SPEAKER_00 17:47

you about, that was me. And and I also want to reiterate, I was in my early 50s when I got in recovery. And it was probably by the time I was in my mid-50s where I got like I felt like I had really healthy boundaries. So it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter how long standing this pattern is, you can change. Like change is possible. It's scary, but you know, as I said before, the scariness will go away as you keep practicing it because it's scary because it's unfamiliar.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

I agree. I totally agree with it. And um like what about when things do not go smoothly? Like when someone's at the boundary and it gets kind of pushed back on or yeah, so kind of yeah, yeah, very common question.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

What do I do with pushback? So, you know, it really depends on the situation, but you know, for most people, like I do want to say when people push back, there's a whole host of reasons. It could be they don't believe you because you've never had a boundary before. So they're kind of testing, like, is this real? Like, do you really mean this? It could be they forgot because that you've never done this and they're just learning just like you are. It could be they have really poor boundaries, which means it's even more important to stand strong in your boundaries. And so, you know, this is why getting to know yourself matters because it's a lot easier to stand strong and firm in a boundary that you really believe in. It's a lot easier to show up for yourself and follow through for yourself when the boundary is about something that's important to you, like your well-being. You know, when you keep going to large parties that, you know, maybe they, you know, activate your nervous system or you maybe you're socially anxious, or you know, you don't like loud noise or something like that, you're you're exposing yourself to things that are harmful to you because you're afraid of what other people think. And so it's your well-being that you're talking about. So, like the the like for most of the time, the best thing to do is just repeat yourself. So let's say you invite me to go to this giant party, Avic, and I say, you know, thank you so much for the invitation. I'm gonna decline. And you're like, come on, Barb, you know you love these parties. Yeah, we're you're going. And I say, No, actually, I'm I'm not going. Thank you again. And you know, maybe over time, like repeating yourself is the best thing, but sometimes you have to get a little bit more firm. I'm a huge, I'm sorry, I'm not what's going on with my throat here today. Um, I'm a huge fan of politeness. Like, I don't believe it's necessary, except for under very extreme circumstances, to be rude to people with boundaries. I know, and the reason that I say that is because a lot of people think they need to be rude. And probably it's because they waited until they were pushed way beyond their limits and they exploded and it worked. So they think, oh, that's what boundary setting is. But it actually doesn't need to go that far. So I would say, you know, let's say you kept pushing and you kept pushing. I would say, Avic, maybe you haven't heard me. I'm not going. So notice my voice didn't get raised. I got a little bit more firm, but I'm not like yelling at you or anything. But I'm letting you know this

Info Not Ammo And Getting Curious

SPEAKER_00 21:22

is real and I'm not caving in. So now in the beginning, we're probably gonna cave in when people push back. And I say, this is what I say about that. This is info, not ammo. This is information to learn, integrate, and grow from. It's not ammunition to beat yourself up. So it's not, oh my God, I can't even set a boundary. What is wrong with me? I'm never gonna be able to do this. That's beating yourself up. And when you beat yourself up, you only end up battered and bruised. That is no place from which to grow and change. But when you look at this situation as info, you're Curious. And one of the best ways to go from self-deprecation, like beating yourself up, to self-compassion is with curiosity. I think of it as building a bridge between self-deprecation and self-compassion. And you do it with curiosity. So when you're saying this is info, not ammo, instead of asking yourself a question like, why can't I do this? Because you're going to look for reasons why you can't do it, say, what could I do differently? What would make this easier for me? You know, and then you answer those kinds of questions. So if you you set a boundary with someone and they push back and you cave in, it's info, not ammo. You don't give up. You try again, but you actually spend time with yourself thinking about what would have made that easier for me. Like, what could I do differently next time? Like, so maybe what I could do differently next time. So let's say, let's continue the party medicum. So I go to the party with you, and maybe I go, but I go by myself. Like I drive myself or I get my own transportation and I leave early. So I didn't honor myself entirely, but I don't stay the whole time. Then maybe after the fact, when there's no social engagements on the agenda, I call you and I'm like, Avik, listen, I gotta tell you, I really didn't want to go. And I went anyway and I ended up leaving early, and it was really hard for me. But I I've learned about myself that going to large events like that is really not comfortable for me. So please stop inviting me. I'm happy to get together with a smaller group of friends. In fact, that's what I prefer. I really enjoy that kind of interaction. And please stop asking me. Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to stop asking me. But if I if I address the situation outside of a time when there's the pressure to go to the event, it's a lot easier to stay calm. There isn't the pressure at the time. And also having a one-on-one conversation with you instead of being in a group of friends that are all like, come on, you gotta go with this, you know, makes it a lot easier for you also to be like, oh, okay, I get it. You know, but again, just because I have that conversation with you doesn't mean that you're gonna listen to me. And it also isn't, doesn't mean that I have to give in. You know, like if I had someone who was constantly, and let me tell you, like, I'm a former like substance user, you know, addict, all that kind of stuff. So I know what it's like to give up that stuff and to realize I can't hang out with these people anymore if I want to be a healthy person and not die from you know, putting myself in harm's way or putting toxic things in my body, etc. And, you know, we realize over time, like the people who really care about us are going to honor our boundaries eventually, maybe not right away, but eventually.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Amazing, amazing. And um, so if listeners want to connect with you, how

Resources, Links, And A Simple Weekly Try

SPEAKER_01 25:27

can they connect?

SPEAKER_00 25:28

So, since they're already listening to your podcast, they can hop on over to my podcast on any outlet. It's called Fragmented to Whole Life Lessons from 12 Step Recovery. I am going to be recording my 360th episode today. So there's lots and lots of content there. And then my company is called Higher Power Coaching and Consulting. So my website is higherpowercc.com. I have all kinds of free, low cost, mid-cost, and high-ticket items, depending on the level of transformation that you're looking for. And right now, I just started offering an internal safety course called Boundaries That Hold. Stop overriding yourself in real time. And that is also on my website. So you can find that at higherpowercc.com slash boundaries that hold.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

Amazing, amazing. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything, uh, so that you can reach out to Bob anytime. And um I'll just say that the boundary is not the line that you draw for others, right? It's the one that uh you draw for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah, so you can keep showing up as someone you recognize. So yeah, and and um thank you so much, Bob, for sharing all of this with us today. And uh there isn't like uh if you're listening right now, maybe you'll be listening later. I hope this conversation gave you the permission to start small, to pause before you say yes, and uh uh to remember that protecting your energy is not a selfish, it isn't necessary. So uh take one thing from today and try it this week and notice like what changes, like that's it, right? So uh with this, I'll just say thank you so much for being here and uh I'm your host, Avik, and this is the man of the life. Until next time, take care of your mind and take care of your life. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Thanks, Avik.