Relationships. How to set a proper boundary.

Is there a relationship in your life where you find yourself having the same conversation over and over again? Do you feel frustrated and unheard? Do you feel taken advantage of, or do you always give in? You might have to learn about boundaries. 

One of the mistakes that keeps my clients' relationships in a rut is not knowing what a boundary is or how to set one properly. 

• A boundary clearly articulates what you want or don't want.

• A boundary is where you stop and another person starts.

• A boundary is standard you set for yourself to create the results and experience you want with the people in your life. 

Think of a boundary like a fence around a property. It should make you feel clear and safe.

1 - A boundary is a request you make to someone to stop or change a certain behaviour that affects your feeling of safety and wellness.

2 -It is the explanation of the actions you will take if it happens again.  It is the consequence you will take to protect yourself if they violate the boundary again.

Boundaries differ from requests,

A request is something you can make and might like to happen,. But a request can be declined.

For example, I frequently ask my husband not to leave his socks on the table, him not adhering to my request may piss me off, but it does not threaten my safety. (Sanity yes, safety no.)

We also have to watch making threats to people in our life. Threats are frequently made in relationships, sometimes lightly and sometimes not. But if you are making recurring threats, you might want to consider if you need to set a boundary, or accept its a request that remains unmet.

I recently set a boundary with my husband, because I was sick of making threats.

I had been making many requests to my husband not to text/use his phone in the car.  He doesn't ignore me, he agrees, but continues to do it every time we are in the car. 

Recently we we were on a road trip with out big camper trailer, and our beloved dogs Lamb Chop and Jimmy Knackers, and we were coming around a bend on a single lane highway near Biregurra and he started looking at his phone for directions, the phone wasn't on navigation and it wasn't in a holder. I was about to launch into my usual tirade of threats and tell him what to do. But I stopped. I realised I felt genuinely unsafe. So instead I set a boundary but I followed the rules.

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THE RULES OF SETTING A BOUNDARY Think about the boundary you are requesting. Make sure that you are not using it as a manipulation tool. Make sure its not going to be just another threat. Check that it is something you need to set to protect yourself.

Be clear with your communication. 

Explain how their actions make you feel

Say if from a place of love, calmly and with respect.

Explain the consequence of the action if the boundary isn't met. And be clear and confident that you HAVE to follow through. 

So I did ( I packed away whiny voice),  I said, babe, I love the camper and our road trips, but when you look at your phone even if it's to check directions, I feel really unsafe. I have asked you about this before - but I feel now I have to set a boundary with you. So next time you do it,  I am going to ask you to stop the car and I am going to get out. And I mean it. Is that clear? Are you aware that I feel unsafe?  Boundaries are not there to create separation. In fact, considered and well set boundaries can bring us closer together. 

Knowing how to set and follow through on a boundary promotes respect. Weak boundaries ( threats) are exhausting and downgrade self respect. 

So, you want to change the dynamics in a relationship and get out of the rut you've set.  Stop repeating yourself, set a boundary but make sure you FOLLOW THROUGH.

Big Love

Maree xx

PS

We haven't been on another road trip yet, but I'm making sure I take comfortable shoes.

Hi there, I'm Maree

I became a Life Coach, because life coaching changed my life. After every kind of therapy and course, I found something that actually worked.

Today I run an eclectic online and coastal practice, where I help woman do what they want to do, so they can transform their life too.

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I trained and certified in the States - under the tutelage of Brooke Castillo at The Life Coach school in California and then later in Texas. 

I work with women like myself, creatives who love thinking, all or nothing lovers of food wine and cooking, human behaviour, music, dogs and the arts. 

 I specialise in coaching on buffers - or the Overs as I like to refer to them. Over drinking wine, over eating sugar, over eating flour, over thinking, overwhelm and over anxiety.

Buffers hold the key to our belief systems and how we get caught in ruts. The way we do one thing in our life is the way we do many things. 

As well as coaching my clients - I teach my clients Self Coaching Therapy, which is a curriculum of coaching I've developed to teach my client to coach themselves.

In my previous lives I received my Bachelor of Arts ( Acting) from The Victorian College Of The Arts. I have produced and directed over 25 largish Festivals and Events in the City Of Port Phillip, including the inaugural St Kilda Festival Live and Local program and the St Kilda Village Night Market. 

I've trained as an interior designer and stylist and have worked in both domestic and commercial settings. 

My last post BC Life Coaching was working as  Co General Manager in my husband's Iconic St Kilda club restaurant and bar Big Mouth. My work was in events, marketing, styling, branding and two interior design refurbishments. 

I cook and like to make a heaving table, I love Chardonnay and Grenache, flowers, fruit trees, preserving, making fruit chutney and second ferment kombucha. (Cherry, rose and saffron anyone? )

I love art and design and philosophy, and I am big into belief systems, spirituality and all the things unseen.

My loves of my life are my husband and dogs, family and a awesome group of women friends. 

Mid Life Initiation & Rites Of Passage

Thinking about Midlife as a Rite of Passage transformed my emotional experience on my own Midlife journey.

Pre-perimenopause, I believed I would sail through the process like a sailboat on a lake.

So when I found myself being sucked into a vortex of emotional turbulence, darkness, isolation and unexplained grief, I did not attribute it to anything to do with my life actually changing,

I just thought that all the situations and circumstances in my life were conspiring against me.

In white Western culture, we have been socialised to downplay the significant transitions a woman goes through during her perimenopausal menopausal phase.

Even the language available to describe what we are going through is significantly void of any real description or sensitivity to the process we are going through.

Women are shamed into talking about the experience at any level other than hot flushes, night sweats and a giggle about a piddle when we laugh.

But the truth is, the transition from our second age - the Mother phase in archetypal language, into our third age, the age of the Crone, is a most significant and final Rite Of Passage.

Seeing our transition as a Rite Of Passage means that we are reframing the experience to embrace the journey.

It allows us to find acceptance and open up to the process.

Rites Of Passage acknowledge the period of time when we shift from one group to another.

In broad terms, in our Midlife rite of Passage we are separating from one age bracket to another.

Western culture may discuss Rites of Passage, but in truth, it misses the important structure and function of true Rites of Passage.

A Rite of Passage is the process of being called away from something familiar to something unfamiliar and unknown.

It's like leaving the bank of the river to swim to another shore.

We go through uncertainty and resistance. The mid-current fear.

We feel the desire to turn back and the internal conflict to stay and weather the storm.

When we stay and weather the storm, we are in the realisation, this is the initiation.

This is where we do our work; this is where we transform.

I feel very strongly that as we get older, we are here to honour the process our life gives us to live.

Take a moment to think. Whatever situation is presenting to you right now, what can you see if you look at it through the lens of your Rite Of Passage, the lens of initiation?

The very thing you are facing will be the very thing you need to see.