Taking a Pause
Boundaries Queen
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#16: Listening Boundaries: Knowing What's True (For You)
Boundaries Queen
Of the four primary boundaries, the listening boundary is by far the most difficult. This is largely because all of us have preinstalled “filters” that impact how we hear and receive others’ words (both spoken and written). In other words, your beliefs, biases, experiences, and a host of other factors impact how you hear what others communicate—meaning it’s incredibly difficult to accurately receive or take in the words others say. The listening boundary also involves only taking in what is true for you rather than simply accepting others’ words as reality. In fact, negative...
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#15: Speaking Boundaries: Knowing How to Be Heard
Boundaries Queen
The idea of having a speaking boundary may sound strange at first, but by the end of this episode, I hope you’ll understand how a healthy speaking or talking boundary can protect both you and those around you. When your speaking boundary isn’t working well, you can come across as rude, dismissive, critical, or even contemptuous. On the other hand, a healthy speaking boundary means that you’re speaking in a way that makes your words easier to receive and easier to hear, because you’re clear, coherent, and respectful. This means you’ll avoid saying things you’ll regret or feel...
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#14: Sexual Boundaries: Yes, No, and Everything in Between
Boundaries Queen
Of the four primary boundaries, the sexual boundary is the most controversial and the one that people have the most opinions about. In today’s episode, I want to simplify this messy, complicated topic so you can more easily implement your own healthy sexual boundaries. Sexual boundaries are non-negotiable. No one gets to decide whether or how they touch you sexually without your permission—and you get to decide what you consider sexual. It’s up to you to decide which of your body parts you consider to be sexual, for example, and what you define as sexual activities. Your sexual...
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#13: Physical Boundaries: Protecting Your Body and Your Belongings
Boundaries Queen
There are four primary boundaries: the physical boundary, the sexual boundary, the speaking/talking boundary, and the listening boundary. Today’s episode is the first in a four-part series in which I’ll cover each of these boundaries in turn. Before digging into the physical boundary in detail, though, I’ll cover some basics of these primary boundaries in general, so don’t miss this episode. One deeply important point that I’ll cover but want to reiterate here is that physical boundaries are non-negotiable; a “no” is a “no.” This applies both to you and to other people,...
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#12: Step 6: Evaluate Your Results and See What Went Wrong
Boundaries Queen
If you’ve been following along with the six-step boundaries clarifier process, you’ve already created a boundary and taken action. But there’s still one more step: evaluating how things went to see what (if anything) went wrong and whether you need to work through the process again. Resolving any problems that occurred during the boundary-setting process involves identifying the reason why things went wrong. In this episode, I’ll go over various types of problems (from unsuccessful boundary creation to broken agreements) and offer guidance on how to move forward from each of them....
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#11: Step 5: Take Action to Create a Boundary
Boundaries Queen
If you’ve been following along through these episodes, you may be both excited and nervous to hear that now, in step 5, it’s time to take action based on everything you’ve worked through up to this point. The options you explored in the previous step directly correlate to the actions possible here—so if you completed step 4 thoroughly, you should already have a pretty good idea of what you’re doing now. But that doesn’t necessarily make it easy, so this episode is all about helping you learn the best ways to follow through and take action. One big tip I’d like to share is...
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#10: Step 4: See Where You Have Power Before You Take Action
Boundaries Queen
As you work toward achieving the outcome you want for the situation or event you identified in step 1 of the boundaries clarifier process, it’s crucial to figure out where your power lies—and that’s exactly what I’ll guide you through in today’s episode. As you’ll learn today, there are four main options for where your power lies in this process. Ultimately, there’s very little that’s fully within your circle of control, and misunderstanding this can lead you to try to take control of things you don’t have power over (like other people), resulting in unnecessary conflict and...
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#9: Step 3: Clarify Your Needs and the Outcome You Want
Boundaries Queen
In the first step of my boundary-setting process, you identified a specific situation or event you wanted to address. Today’s episode, which covers the third step in the process, is all about clarifying your needs in regard to that situation, and then identifying the outcome you want. As you work through this step, let go of being “realistic.” I want you to brainstorm all sorts of outcomes for the second part of this step, no matter how far-fetched or impractical they might seem, and to allow yourself to imagine exactly what you want. If you’ve worked through this step and...
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#8: Step 2: Get Clear about Your Reality
Boundaries Queen
Welcome to the second part of this six-episode exploration of the boundaries-setting process. I’ll assume you’ve already listened to the previous episode about step one; if you haven’t, please go listen to that one and then come back to this episode. Now that you’ve identified a specific situation or event that you need to set a boundary around in the previous episode, it’s time to get clear about your reality as it relates to that incident or situation. To really understand what’s going on, we’ll examine the experience from three angles. First, there’s what you experienced...
info_outlineIn the first step of my boundary-setting process, you identified a specific situation or event you wanted to address. Today’s episode, which covers the third step in the process, is all about clarifying your needs in regard to that situation, and then identifying the outcome you want.
As you work through this step, let go of being “realistic.” I want you to brainstorm all sorts of outcomes for the second part of this step, no matter how far-fetched or impractical they might seem, and to allow yourself to imagine exactly what you want. If you’ve worked through this step and you’re still struggling to identify outcomes, I’d love for you to brainstorm with a friend, therapist, or someone who really understands how boundaries work.
Biggest Takeaways From Episode #9:
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There are two parts involved in step 3:
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identifying the needs that aren’t being met with regard to the situation or event you’re working on.
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considering and exploring the outcome you want and your vision for how the issue might be resolved.
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To establish an effective boundary, you need to clarify your own needs that aren’t being met. These could be for things like kindness, respect, acceptance, reliability, trust, reciprocity, self-respect, and so on.
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The outcome you want might involve creating an agreement with someone—or choosing not to enter into an agreement with them. You might find that the best outcome for you involves limiting your contact or relationship with someone. Importantly, make sure the outcome you want aligns with the nature of the relationship.
Highlights from Episode #9:
Welcome to this episode, the third in a six-part series about Victoria’s boundary-setting system. [00:31]
Victoria explains that there are two parts to step 3, and talks about the first part in detail. [01:54]
We hear about some of the most common needs around relationships. [06:01]
Victoria offers examples of specific situations and the associated needs that might come along with them. [08:20]
The second part of this step is identifying the outcome you want in the situation you’re working on in this boundary-setting process. [10:30]
Victoria lists three guidelines to help you if you get stuck on figuring out the outcome you want or your vision for resolving the issue. [13:59]
If you create an agreement with someone harsh and critical, there are two important points to keep in mind. [17:34]
Victoria brings Uncle Joe, the fictional case study character she invented for step 7, into this episode to continue her explanation of how to work through that situation. [18:40]
We hear about some example potential outcomes for the Uncle Joe situation. [23:32]
Victoria offers some best practices for working through this step. [29:01]
People-dependent outcomes require other people’s participation. [33:24]
Choosing the easiest outcome to achieve is a best practice for this step, as is avoiding vague outcomes. [35:48]
Victoria closes with two pro tips for this step. [38:12]
We hear a quick recap of what Victoria has talked about today, and learn the topic of next week’s episode. Make sure you subscribe to be notified when the next episode is available! [39:13]
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