I’m a really nice person, but when my younger daughter was 3 years old, I was so frustrated with her that I began to fear I may just lose it one day. She was so oppositional and impossible, and I was at the very end of the last few strands of my long-frayed rope.
So I took my daughter to a child therapist. Honestly, I was waiting for the therapist to say how there was something wrong with my little girl. I didn’t know what, but something. She was so different from my older daughter at that age. She practically bounced off the walls all day and half the night. There would be exercises we could do maybe. Maybe supplements she could take.
But as it turns out…
The problem was not my daughter. It was ME. And when I figured out exactly what the issue was, it changed the rest of my life.
Here’s how it started:
At the end of a session, I told my daughter what we’d be doing next, as the therapist had suggested, and I used the phrase “it’s time to,” as the therapist had taught me, so it didn’t sound like just an idea of mine but a fact:
“Honey, we’re going to go home in a few minutes. It’s time for you to put your coat on, okay?”
The therapist said, “Do you think you just told her to put her coat on?”
“Yes?” I said.
“Nope,” she said. “You ASKED her if she would put her coat on.”
“But I said, ‘it’s time to’.”
“And then you added ‘okay?’ You asked her. She doesn’t know who’s in charge, Tara. You’re not acting like you’re in charge. So she figures SHE better be in charge.”
Ohhhh. I was too nice. People had actually told me that before, but I never knew what they meant. What I saw: I was so nice that other people couldn’t discern what I wanted, where I stood, where they ended and I began. I was fuzzy, out of focus. I was disempowered. People couldn’t hear me unless they really tried. So that’s why my 3-year-old had to teach me how to have boundaries. In fact, this child is the best teacher of boundaries I’ve ever met. She’s an expert, a genius teacher. She changed my life for the better. She helped me find my voice and use it.
The thing was, I didn’t know that I didn’t have good boundaries.
I didn’t know that adding “okay?” or lilting my voice up at the end of my sentences was disempowering me. I didn’t know I had the right to establish what I did and did not want, and to let others know politely but firmly that. I didn’t know that others could think and feel whatever they wanted to think and feel, and that I could stay in my own power anyway.
Sometimes you don’t know that you don’t know.
What about you? Are you sick of people ignoring what you want and need? Do you feel unseen and unheard?
When I was growing up – and maybe this is true for you too – the emphasis for girls was always on being nice. So I didn’t know that being nice wasn’t always the same as being kind. No one ever mentioned that often it’s very important to stop being nice and apologizing and start going after what you want.
Because if you don’t have strong boundaries, you’re not completely in charge of your own life.
You’re not in your power. And the people around you won’t say, “Hey, I notice you don’t have strong boundaries. Let me help you. What is it that you’re really trying to say right now?”
The people around you will roll right over you. Because they can’t even really see you. And this feels horrible, this sense of being unseen and unheard.
But you can change this!
Getting boundaries is one of the most powerful and vital things you can do to improve your personal and professional life.
Do you need stronger boundaries?
Let’s check. If you…
- Feel overlooked by colleagues and employers
- Often get taken advantage of by family and friends
- Take on the feelings of people you love (or just people you know)
- Overextend yourself by being on every committee, organizing every holiday, etc.
- Are busy all day but have a hard time actually completing anything because you do 5 or 6 things at once
- Find it impossible to watch the news without freaking out
- Feel completely overwhelmed when you go to a public place, like a mall
- Feel like others should understand and empathize with your feelings, but they hardly ever do
then you, my friend, need to get boundaries in place. This will enable you to reclaim your power and speak so others will listen, in personal relationships and professional settings.
If you want to chat with me about your specific boundary issues, you can set up a call with me. It’s an hour of 1:1 time with me (for free) to figure out what keeps happening in your life, why that keeps happening, and what you can do to change things. Claim your free 1:1 here: https://calendly.com/tara-greenway-byb/free-get-unstuck-session