May 10, 2024 • 41 mins
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries; we need them! They are vital and necessary for our individual mental health and the preservation and longevity of our relationships.Tune in and get started on identify and establishing firm emotional and physical boundaries.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's Unbleep YourLife and Relationships with host Anita Aslant,
(00:23):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode of
Unbleep Your Life and Relationships. I'myour host, Anita Astley. I'm a
licensed individual, couples and Marriage therapist. I've been doing that for about twenty
five years. Kind of ages me. I feel old, but it is
something that i do with a lotof passion. I'm still in private practice
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today. I released a book recentlycalled Unbleep Your Life and Relationships, and
it's basically highlights some of the thingsthat I've been through in my own life
that I had to unbleep and Iwanted to share that with everyone else,
make my self vulnerable, to demonstratethat you know, you can kind of
be a little bleeped up and unbleepthat stuff through proper guidance and help and
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support such as psychotherapy and in thebook. I also share seven concrete prescriptions
I call them that I think weneed to practice in our lives, with
ourselves and within our relationships to getto a healthy place. We are living
in a time a relationship. Youknow, relationships have always been complicated,
but I think they are just somuch more complicated today because we communicate very
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differently with each other. Like Italked about in my last show, talking
about talking and how we need tobe able to do that, because yeah,
I love technology, but sometimes lotsof stuff gets lost in there with
talking. Talking with your eyes.Yeah, did you share that last week
with your wife? Yeah? Weneed to learn to do more of that
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anyway. So I want to shareabout my weekend. I had an experience.
I was at a party and Iwas and people always ask me,
I need to are you analyzing people? Are you? And I'm like no,
if I'm not getting paid, I'mnot doing that. I'm off duty.
But I cannot help but observe people'sbehavior, physical behavior, non verbal
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stuff that goes on, and alsothe verbal stuff. And I'm astounded by
how many things go on that leaveme kind of thinking, oh my god,
I'm not being the therapist. I'mjust being a person at fifty five
years old who's had a lot ofexperiences as I'm sure you have. Greg.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So. Anyway, I'm at this party
and I am watching this couple.There's probably about twenty people there. I'm
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watching this couple and their dynamic andtheir dialogue is just escalating and escalating and
escalating. I'm sure you've been toparties where you've met and seen that couple,
the couple who is fighting at somebody'sparty and just becoming totally inappropriate and
cutting each other down. Have youseen that happen? Oh? I saw
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that on an episode of the Officeat one time. Michael and his wife,
we're going at it. Yeah,I know exactly what. I've seen
it before. Yeah, so,and it makes everybody feel uncomfortable. It
makes everybody feel awkward, and theydon't seem to pick up on the cues
socially that they're being inappropriate and there'sa grave violations going on, which leads
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me into what we're going to talkabout today is unbleeping boundaries. Now,
when we think about boundaries, whatdo we think about? What do you
think about when that word comes up? What I can say and can't say
yeah and yeah, that's actually reallysomething that we all need to have in
place. We need to have Wehave two types of boundaries. We have
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physical boundaries and we have emotional boundaries. Physical boundaries is pretty self explanatory.
And I want to thank everybody whofollows me on Instagram. You guys can
follow me. It's my handle,is asking you to ask thee. I
bring that up because I get alot of questions for this show to address,
and I have three questions today thatwill highlight some of the issues around
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boundaries. And if you're listening outthere and you have trouble with this word
and doing something with this word andestablishing them in your life, today is
a good show for you to stayfocused on what I'm going to share with
you today. So let's talk aboutboundaries. But before I do that,
I'm just going to mention that itis in my book. I have a
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chapter devoted to unbleeping blurred boundaries,as I call them, and I want
to share that. Also. Ihad some feedback from one of my followers
who said, Anita, I lovethe book, but one of the things
I love the most in the bookis that at the end of each chapter,
I provide worksheets for you to kindof work through your own issues.
So today it's boundaries. I thinkit's chapter five, and there's a whole
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section in there in terms of howto help you establish some boundaries with yourself.
Of course is going to be thatfive things that you need to do
at the end of the show todo that. But let me jump into
the question because it's a really goodquestion. So boundaries, what are they,
why do we need them? Andhow do we start putting them up
and in place. Most people strugglewith this, so let me get to
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the question. It's a really goodquestion, Anita. I have so many
challenges in dealing with people at theage of fifty five, always my age,
I feel like I just can't bebothered anymore. People are a pain
in the ass. Well that's actuallydo they can't be? They can be
a pain in the ass. Ican't seem to say no, they can't
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be bothered. To do they can'tbe, then I can't be bothered.
Sorry to follow through with what Iagree to. I get roped into things
like this all the time. Ilove this question because it highlights so many
things. First of all, thankyou for sending this question in I appreciate
everybody who takes the time to dothat, and dude, at fifty five,
I get it. By this time. We have a lot of issues
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that we have to unbleep in ourselvesthrough relationships, our childhood, all that
kind of stuff. And of course, even though people are pain in the
ass, says, we still needthem. We are social creatures. I
don't know about you, Greg,but I love as much as people are
annoying, I love people. Ohyeah, you got well. I've been
in this business for so long people. You have to love people, but
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they can be annoying. But theway to deal with some of that is
always to start with ourselves, workingfrom the inside out. So sorry,
you're struggling. Thanks for sharing.Let me help you untangle some of this
stuff. And I'm glad that youreached out, and I want to just
point out some of that. There'sso much to unpack in this question and
some of the things we will addresstoday I hope will help you unbleep your
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boundary issues because this, you know, when you think about this question and
look at it, you might think, well, what does it have to
do with boundaries? It sounds likehe just needs to stop saying yes when
he really means no. Yeah,it's not as simple as that. I
wish it was. So let's getstarted. Okay, Greg, Where should
we start? Where should we start? Okay? Emotional and physical boundaries are
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two things that we have to havein place. Emotional boundaries really talk about
our internal emotional world, and you'reright, they are rules of engagement.
How are we gonna engage with otherpeople and how are we, most importantly
going to allow other people to engagewith us? What is acceptable emotionally what
is not acceptable physically? It's prettyobvious it's our physical space. But an
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element of physical space these days isalso privacy rules in relationships and within ourselves.
Well, I'll get to later.But boundaries are there to protect us,
and you might be thinking protect us? What do we need protection from?
Well, annoying me, annoying people, but we also need protection from
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our own unconscious thoughts and feelings.Does that make any sense? Yeah?
Okay, yeah, because he's sayingI repeatedly do this, so then think
Okay, first of all, congratulations, you're aware of the fact that you
repeatedly do this. When we repeatedlydo something, that's because somehow, unconsciously
we've learned to do that. Buthe's become very conscious of it because he's
saying he knows that he does.So again, self awareness is the first
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place to start. So congratulations thatyou have this awareness. And of course
people say to me in my officeand you're probably thinking, well, thank
you so much for letting me knowthat. But what do I do with
this self awareness? A doing isalways the hardest part, isn't it is?
Is it keywords that I use tohandle this. I'm going to give
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you a concrete thing that you needto do to well for the listeners who
also struggle with this. And wesometimes I think at some point in life
we it's hard to say no.Sometimes so we say yes. But if
you're repeatedly doing that, it's aproblem and it is a boundary violation,
and we need to set that boundarythat we don't end up saying things that
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we don't mean. In particular peoplepleasers, I've met a lot of people
who just keep saying yes and yesand yes. And when people do that,
they become anxious, they become stressed, they feel guilty, they feel
scared, and it sounds like thisperson is also becoming resentful because then we
end up doing more things for otherpeople and not respecting what we really need
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to do for our own selves.Okay, I see what you're saying.
When there's an emotional boundary violation,people are left feeling anxious, stressed,
guilty, scared, and most ofall resentful. Like this man is sounding
like he's resentful. He doesn't wantto continue with people. But we all
know that you're going to get backinto relationships. We just want you to
do it in a healthy manner.And like we said, boundaries provide security
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and stability not only for ourselves butfrom our relationships. They also indicate that
I am separate from you. Right, You have different boundaries. I have
different boundaries. Therefore we are separatebeings. We have a separate identity.
Now, what does identity have todo with boundaries? People who have a
solid sense of self generally have verystrong emotional and physical boundaries, meaning that
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they know who they truly are withinthemselves and no one, no one can
make them do something they're not comfortableor wanting to do. That makes a
lot of sense, I'll tell youwhat. Let's take a break here and
continue in just a few minutes.Okay, okay, let's get back to
Unbleape your Life on New's Dog eleventhirty wis everyone strives for healthier relationships.
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Here's more of unbleep your Life andRelationships on News Talk eleven thirty WISN Welcome
back to on Bleep Your Life andRelationships. I'm your host, Anita Ashley.
We were just addressing a question aboutnot being able to say no,
I can't do that and wondering,you know, you guys might be wondering
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if you can relate to this.How is this a boundary issue? It
is a boundary issue when you're sayingyes when you really mean no, because
you're not respecting your emotional space andyou don't know what you really want and
what you need at the time,so you kind of feel cornered and then
you just say yes, and ofcourse you end up feeling resentful and angry,
and as this person was saying,they don't follow through. So that's
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pretty passive aggressive. We'll address thatin a later show. But what it
does is makes us do things thatare very uncomfortable because body and mind is
saying no, this is not acceptableto who you are, but you're doing
it anyway because it kind of makesyou comfortable in the moment. But it's
a short term game but a longterm loss. How do I say no?
How can I do that? Well? The linear path is that just
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to say no. But hey,if he could do it, he probably
would have. Right. If wecould just do what we're supposed to do,
our relationships would be less complicated.But it's really difficult. And I'm
going to give you a concrete answerto that, a few suggestions that you
can employ if you are also likethis person who's sending this question. But
let me just get back to emotionalboundaries also do one other thing. They
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also control the flow of information,what comes into the relationship and what goes
out of the relationship, and that'shuge today with regards to social media and
what everybody posts, and so forthat, I have a really good question
that's going to highlight that in theanswer to how to help you with that?
But let's talk about boundaries themselves.They can be really rigid, they
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can be fluid. They can befused, meaning mine is merged with yours,
and I don't know where mine is. I don't know where yours is
the kind of fuse together. They'reunclear, and that's the chapter in my
book called Unblurred Boundaries, which meansthey're not clear. They're not clear to
the person who should have them,and they're not clear to everybody else who's
interacting with that person, and itmakes it very complicated to have a relationship.
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They're also determined by our culture.Now. I remember going to my
therapist and we were talking about boundariesand one hundred years ago, and I
remember him saying things to me aboutboundaries and you know, helping me to
learn about them. And I thought, wait a minute, dude. As
much as I respect you and I'mhaving a great experience, And I was
one of those patients, you know, I really pushed back the way if
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you're in therapy, you should pushback. You should push your therapists and
challenge them. You're not just supposedto sit there and agree with everything that
they're saying. And I was thatclient and I learned a lot from that.
So I would say to him,well, that's great because you're part
of Western culture. But in theIndian culture that doesn't happen. The boundaries
are very different in terms of rulesof engagement in terms of how I would
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deal with my father, how Iwould deal with my mother, and that
is and he did say, Okay, you're right, I need to learn
more about the Indian culture when I'mtelling you what's appropriate and what's not,
because what does he know. He'snot Indian, he doesn't know how the
culture works. I'm very sensitive tothat, and we have to be sensitive
to that. But also we can'tuse that as a defense mechanism. It's
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if it's not working for us,irrespective of the culture that you come from,
then we need to change that.And how do we change it?
We got to first recognize this.So back to the question, congratulations first
of all, that you're ware andthat you need to start saying no to
all these people that you feel corneredby. Yes, easier said than done.
That's called respecting your emotional boundaries.So how do we do this?
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Let me give you a concrete thingthat you need to do if you're struggling
with similar issues. Instead of answeringthe question right away, what you can
say is this, I'll get backto Oh that's good. I like that.
I need to look at my calendar. That sounds very interesting. You
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don't have to say yes or no, and in that moment, you don't
have to commit when you don't wantto commit. What it does is allows
you some space to process what you'regoing to say, because obviously you're afraid
to say no, I can't dothat. It allows you time, It
buys you space where you can goaway. But I'm going to encourage you
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to follow up with it so youcan practice saying no, don't go because
some people say, well, Ijust won't get back to them. No,
no, no. I want youto rehearse it, and I want
you to practice being able to sayno, Hey, I'm really sorry,
I'd love to do it, butI can't do it. I'm busy.
Well it's as simple as that,and then come back to it as simple
as that, but always come back. In a couple's relationship, this could
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this be used in work. Itcan be used in workspace, your romantic
relationships, botonic, your familial relationships. We have to learn to say no
to people, and when we can'tsay no to people, we then sometimes
blame the other person. Now heroped me, And as the question said,
I got roped into this, Iget roped into these all the time.
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No, you can't be roped intosomething that you don't want to do.
If you're healthy inside, and ifwe have a true sense of who
we are, we're going to bestrong enough to say no, I can't
do that. However, a lotof us struggle with it. I get
it. And if it was thateasy that I pushed this button in you
and say okay, Greg, nowlearn to say no, we would all
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do it. I mean, theseissues are tied up to as I talk
about our family of origin, wherewe come from, how were we taught
in our family of origin to respectour own boundaries emotionally? And that gets
all bleeped up at times. Andit's okay, So there you go.
Don't be put on the spot,don't be put on the hot seat.
There is a way out. Justsay you know what, I'll get back
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to you later on that. Letme think about it. But please come
back to it, because if youjust avoid it, you're just avoiding the
problem. Then yes, you're gonnawell. And if you're scared of the
word no, just say well,I have a conflict with my schedule that
week and I can't do it.But eventually, the whole point of getting
back is that you have an opportunityto rehearse saying no. I'm sorry,
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I can't do it because if youghost the person, you're not getting an
opportunity to confront your issue, andyou're not getting an opportunity to rehearse saying
no. We need to practice it. And guess what, over time,
when you become more solid and comfortablewith setting some of those boundaries, You're
not going to have a problem.You're going to be throwing no around all
over the place, and maybe Ihave to unhelp well, maybe I have
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to bleep that stuff later on.I was just going to say, you
know what this sounds like to me? What it sounds like a politician.
I'll get back to you, well, you know what question. Hey,
if it works and helps you,then let's do it. And I trust
me with people who have trouble sayingit on the spot, and I get
that with other things too. Sometimespeople ask me stuff and I'm like,
oh, I wasn't prepared for thatquestion rather than just answering because I'm uncomfortable
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with the silences we talked about,or I'm uncomfortable saying yes, or were
saying no. Whatever it is,just pause and it's hard for us to
pause. It's hard for me tosometimes pause even when I'm doing this show
because I get excited and I talkfast. Blah blah blah. Yeah,
you guys can't say I need topause and say hey, it's okay.
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I can step back from this andpolitely say I'll get back to you.
I have to look at my calendar, and sometimes we do. Like sometimes
I'll come out and say oh yeah, and I'm like, oh shit,
I can't do it. But Ialways go back and say, I'm so
sorry. I didn't realize I havea conflict. Yeah. Practice small steps
will lead to bigger steps, whichwill lead to I'm so sorry, No
I can't do that. Yeah,I see what you're saying, so yeah,
So just practice on this and theneventually you can say no. That's
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the whole idea of practice, becausewe get so stuck in what we know,
and then we just keep doing thatand we know it's not working for
us, but we keep doing itbecause we don't know what else to do
and we're very uncomfortable. So thenwe start saying things like I don't want
to be around people. People areannoying. Listen, Relationships are complicated.
They can be annoying, but atthe same time, it is something that
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we need to be in. Weare social creatures and we can't avoid them.
We are all in one kind ofrelationship or another, so we need
to learn to unbleep them. Andpart of setting boundaries is preserving not only
our own mental health, but themental health of our friends too. We're
doing it for other people too,not for only ourselves, but it preserves
a relationship. And I was,as I was sharing earlier on in the
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story, talking about that couple whowas fighting at the party, so many
violation boundary violations, I was justthinking, Wow, I could write a
whole story on this. First ofall, you're not only just violating your
partners boundaries emotionally and maybe physically ifthere's some pushing or touching going on,
which in this case there wasn't.You're also violating the boundaries of the person
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who's hosting the party. They donot want to be a part of your
Can I say that? Sorry,I just said it. Anyway, you
might have to edit that up.They don't want to be part of your
drama. Nobody in a party wantsto see that or you know, feel
awkward because of your behavior. Soyou're violating your partner's emotional boundaries, you're
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disrespecting yourself, but most of all, you're disrespecting the person who is hosting
the party. And I'm sure youguys listening have been part of this scenario
at some point in your life whereyou know that couple and you're like,
oh god, here they are,here they go. And the interesting part
of it, neither one seems tode escalate. They kind of just egg
each other on and before you knowit, it's a full blown fight.
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And so neither one of them fromyou know, I'm watching this, I'm
like, oh my gosh, neitherone of them have any emotional boundaries set
up that are healthy, and theyare so oblivious to what they're actually doing
to the people around them, inparticular the I mean, the host put
this beautiful party together and they didn'tdo it to have that. Yeah,
I understand that. Hey, we'reanswering questions tonight, Unbleep your Life on
news Talk eleven thirty, wisent andmore coming up. Anita Ashley has more
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advice on how to on bleep yourLife and relationships on News Talk eleven thirty
wys Welcome back to on Bleep YourLife and Relationships. I'm your host Anita
Ashley, psychotherapist of twenty five yearsand plus. Today we are talking about
boundaries and I have quite a fewquestions that came in to address some of
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these boundary violation issues. Now let'sget to question number two. Thank you
for your question, Anita. Thankyou for all that you do to help.
I love appreciate your posts on Instagramand just started to read your book
book. I love how you makeyourself vulnerable to the reader. Anyway,
how do I deal here's my question, how do I deal with a male
friend who always has this need torub my back when we're at a social
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event together. It has become aHabit makes me very uncomfortable. Help.
Oh ooh, yeah, that's notcool. Of course you know that.
Thank you for sharing that. Ofcourse, thank you also for checking out
my book and the compliments. It'smy passion to help people unleap their life
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and relationships, and of course there'sa lot of stuff in the book that's
going to help us do that.So thank you so much. But let's
get to this question. This happensoften. It has actually happened to me
too, where it happened to beat a party and I meet a friend
or even a couple friend where theman is like saying hi to me,
and then all of a sudden startstouching inappropriately. Now we're not talking about
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grabbing the boo or the butt orother areas like that, but just rubbing
in a certain way that's not comfortable. So first of all, great,
you recognize that. Congratulations. Yourbody is wired to protect you, so
clearly something is saying to you thistouch is not welcome, This touch is
not desired, So we need todo something about it, and we talk
about physical boundaries. We can say, if you're uncomfortable with it, it's
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a way of your body responding toyou. We are meant to preserve ourselves.
You're not comfortable with it. It'snot something that's acceptable to you.
It's not something that's desirable. Andyes, of course it makes it more
uncomfortable that this person is a friendof yours. So we can take the
linear path. We can say,dude, you can't do that. That's
not acceptable, it's not part ofour relationship, and it makes me really
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uncomfortable. That's the linear path.But clearly, if you could do that,
you would have done that already becauseconfrontation is really hard. We have
difficult confronting our issues with especially ourfriends, even though we shouldn't, we
do because we don't want to losethe friendship. That's part of establishing emotional
and physical boundaries. People don't doit because they fear they're going to lose
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the friendship. But I'll tell yousomething. If you don't establish emotional and
physical boundaries, you are losing yourself. You're losing your identity. You're losing
what it is that you want andwhat you need to stay healthy and to
stay balanced. A person who hassolid identity, as I said before,
will have solid concept of what theiremotional and physical boundaries are. Does that
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make any sense? So you're kindof giving limitations or you have to nip
it in the bud right away beforeit? Yeah, Clearly with this question,
it's gotten out of hand where hedidn't get the social cues and maybe
she didn't give them strong enough tosay this is not acceptable, you can't
do this, And sometimes that's happens. We get into a relationship. I
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mean, you ever have a friendor someone that you know that all of
a sudden, you start hugging,and you're like, I'm so uncomfortable hugging
this, but every time we seeeach other, we gotta hug. But
I don't really want to do thisanymore? So how do I break out
of it? I think there wasa Seinfeld episode about that, How do
I break out of this uncomfortable situation? But if it's making you feel uncomfortable
physically and mentally, then you needto do something about it. We need
to put some physical boundaries in place. Physical boundaries protect our physical space,
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and they also protect what we wantand what we don't want physically. Desire
touch a touch that you feel comfortablewith, but also touches that you are
very uncomfortable. Pushing back on thearm if he's rubbing your back, is
that what you mean by you cando that? But I think you just
need to use your words and say, listen, I'm very uncomfortable with this.
That's the number one thing you cando. And I like the linear
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path, but it's also difficult forsome people to take the other one.
Is what I would suggest that youdo the next time it happens to you,
You just take that arm and youpush it away, just like you're
saying, respectfully, push it awayand give that look one cannot not communicate.
So we talked about this last week. If I'm gonna do that to
you, Greg, and I'm goingto look you in the eye, hopefully
my look will tell you, dude, this is not okay, this is
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not comfortable, and I'm not goingto deal with it. And you just
gave me the scary mamas, didI? So I tell my kids,
hey, you see these eyes,they're gonna pop out. You're gonna be
in troublesoon. It's the Indian inyou. That's what it is. Yeah,
that's a whole other thing. Sophysical boundaries, we need to have
them in place. They are reallyrules that govern our personal and physical space,
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our body, and you need toestablish those. It's very important.
And I know people and I've workedwith people who have had who are abused
as children sexually or physically. Touchis something they don't know. Sometimes it
gets a little unbleep because they don'tknow what to do with that. They
don't know what's good touch. Theydon't know what's bad touch anymore. That
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they need to unbleep that stuff.And you know that takes a lot of
therapy. If you've been through somethinglike that, don't try to work it
out just within yourself. Go andget some professional health. I always advocate
on this show reaching out to atherapist is not a bad thing. Doesn't
mean there's something wrong with you.It just means you're struggling and you need
a little bit of a health.So when we talk about physical boundaries,
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it depends on your history. Whatis your history with physical relationships with people.
If it's something that involves sexual assaultor abuse, then you need to
unbleep that stuff. And it's alot more complicated. But if we're just
talking about, like this question ishighlighting normal social physical cues that we should
all be aware of what's acceptable touchand what's not. And most of us
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know that, but there are somepeople who are kind of a little weird
with that kind of stuff. Itdepends on how you know. That's funny
because some families, like on mywebside of the family are not huggers.
Yeah, but my family are huggers. Yah, That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, So you have to adjustto that. You have to just you
have to be able to read thesocial cues but some people are socially inept.
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Clearly this guy is thinking that,hey, this is okay, and
some people might say, well,she's allowing it to happen. It's continuing,
so she's giving him permission. No, she's not saying anything. She
clearly doesn't want it. It's uninvited. And but she just needs to be
more assertive in being able to sayno. Again, it's about being able
to say no another. So thisis not only a physical violation, it's
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also a violation of her emotional boundaries. She clearly doesn't want to be touched.
And guys, you should not betouching anybody and if the person is
not receptive to that touch, youshould be attuned to that. But not
all of us are attuned to thecues that go on between people. Hence
their relationships are bleep up. Andthat's why we have all these these seminars
at the radio station here, doyou yeah right, yeah, you can't
(27:30):
touch, You can't acceptable touch.And also in therapy, like what is
a therapeutic touch? And clients willsometimes hug me and I'll hug them back,
but there's a whole thing technique aboutwhere to put your hands, not
on there, but not arms,well, the shoulders, the shoulders and
anywhere of you know, anything aboveyour hips. It's an therapeutic touch.
(27:51):
We have to use a discussion.Don't quote me, people, but I
generally when I hug a client,it's usually shoulders and above you know,
it's never below that. But II've learned that, I've been trained in
that, and you know, yeah, at work, we've got to teach
people what's appropriate what's not. It'skind of sad, right, but we
do have people like that who workin the office and kind of like way
too touchy, Like, dude,that's totally not acceptable. Stop doing that.
(28:14):
Let's bring up a point here.Well, the first time I met
you, and when we have werecorded our first show, you hugged me.
I did. I didn't know howto should I hug back? Yeah,
so that's what that was, Like, what do I do here?
Yeah? Well I did hug you, and then I noticed that you were
kind of like, Okay, thisis professional environment. I don't know what's
going on here, so I backedoff. I know, hugs for greg,
(28:36):
but it's just but it's okay,you could hug me, I cannot.
I'm just joking. No, heis. He's a wonderful but this
is how I am. Right.I'm a very touchy feely, huggy person.
And then I'll but I'll read thecues. If I feel like it's
making somebody uncomfortable, I'll just pullback the hug because I feel like that's
a better boundary for me to saystep, that's a better boundary, sorry,
(28:57):
for me to establish then to stepon your boundaries of physical confort.
I don't know you, we justmet, but I just get this vibe.
But then I readjust you know,boundaries also have to be flexible.
We have to be able to adjustthem if we're going to continue in the
relationship. And if I get thatvibe from you, because I tend to
think I know people in relationships andI can observe and pick up on these
(29:19):
things, and I can read thesituation, well, I back off a
little bit. And then if youwent in for the hug. There's a
Seinfeld episode about this, and thenI feel like, oh my god,
I'm going in for the hug andhe totally rejected me. Oh I feel
a little stupid now, so manydifferent levels this is so embarrassing. He
must be thinking all kinds of stuff. But no, I don't have to
have that narrative in my head.I can just say, Okay, it's
(29:40):
kind of a workplace, but he'skind of a teddy, very cuddly looking
guy, and I like to hug. But it's reading the room, reading
the situation. If you're uncomfortable,if you feel like they're uncomfortable, you
can have a conversation about it.And with forensic gets complicated, especially if
it's a friend of the opposite sex. You're thinking, wait a minute,
is there something else now going onon? Or what's going on over here?
(30:00):
So of course I'm going to sayyou have to have a conversation about
it, but if you feel veryuncomfortable doing that, establish some boundaries with
yourself. First, know what yourphysical and emotional boundaries are, then communicate
them with the other person. Sometimesjust with our body language, we can
communicate that you and I never talkedabout the hug until now. That's good.
(30:21):
It's therapy. Right now, we'rehaving therapy. Right now. We
need to unpleep our relationship, butwe pick up on those social cues.
But some people are not able todo that. But what I want to
say to this person who wrote thisquestion is you can take the linear path
and just confront them, or youcan next time they do that, just
physically remove the arm. And ifnone of those tactics work, then you
(30:42):
have to establish that boundary within yourselfand just not be so close to this
person anymore. I mean, doyou really want to be around a person
that you can't talk openly about somethinglike this and somebody who violates your physical
boundaries and is totally not attuned tosocial social norms cues at a party or
wherever it is that you are.So I'm gonna hugg you after this show.
(31:04):
I we'll talk about that. You'reallowed too. I'm okay with hugs.
I just want to say that.But it's an interesting dynamic to consider
because yeah, we're not at asocial setting. We are at a work
professional setting. But it gets sobleeped up because even if you do that
is not a violation of some sort. So we're always looking at, you
know, especially at work, arewe violating some kind of rule? You
(31:26):
know, we're all afraid today ofrules, right, because you can't say
anything and you can't do anything withoutyou know, HR coming in and say,
hey, you know you did thisand you're naughty. Now we're gonna
have to do this right. It'slike it's gone overboard. But at the
same time, emotional and physical boundariesin all relationships are important, and they're
particularly important to our own sense ofself, our identity. They protect us
(31:51):
from ourselves at times unhealthy patterns,and they protect and preserve our relationships.
Anita Ashley, she's unbleeping your Lifetonight, Love and thirty wis then more
coming up? Hiere back to UnbleepYour Life and Relationships on News Talking eleven
thirty wys Welcome back to Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. I'm your host Anita
(32:15):
Asley. Today we are talking aboutrespecting yourself by establishing physical and emotional boundaries.
We talked about emotional boundaries. Whatare they? They are rules of
engagement with us Emotionally, they haveto do with our sense of identity.
If rules of engagement, Physical boundariespretty obvious in terms of what are we
comfortable with when somebody is close tous physically, unwanted touch, desired touch,
(32:40):
or something else that's making us uncomfortablephysically in relationships that our body is
saying no, but we are notdoing anything about it. Listen to your
body, listen to your mind.When it comes to boundary violations, it
is telling you something, all right, Now you have a question to round
out the show. I do questionnumber three. Now, this is a
(33:00):
very common problem today because everyone ison social media posting pictures, all kinds
of stuff. Right, so weare talking about here is privacy boundary violations.
Do you did you ever have somebodypost something about you and you're like,
I'm not sure I wanted that inmy family. I am the social
(33:23):
media butterfly, I really am,and my famili has come to the point
now where they say, don't postthis, yes, don't post this this,
don't do this. So how isthis about boundaries? It absolutely is.
It's about our physical privacy boundaries.And again, boundaries also speak to
the flow of information, what staysin the relationship, what stays between us,
(33:45):
and also what is shared with theworld. And you know, everybody
today wants to share that they're makingcupcakes with the world, even that nobody
gives up bleep about that. Butthat's a whole other issue that's been created.
So get to the question, andAnita, how do I deal with
my girlfriend who always posts every singlething that we do together on Facebook.
(34:07):
I don't want everyone to know whatI'm doing all the time, and maybe
I don't want my boss, especiallyto know what I'm doing all the time.
That's another issue because everybody wants tobe our friend. But how do
I set some boundaries with her?And we always argue about this. Help
there you go. It's a verygood question, and today we have a
(34:27):
lot of issues with this and howdo we get consent from somebody? And
you were just highlighting that. Youwere saying, well, you're the social
media person in your family. You'realways putting stuff up and then people have
to say, hey, before youtake that picture, what are you going
to do with it? So that'swhat we have to do. So I
would say to this to you friend, thank you for your question. Also
to all you listeners today it's ahuge problem today. I don't consent to
(34:50):
this picture being posted on social media. Please don't post it so anytime what
I want. What I would sayto this person with your question is to
say, to your girlfriend, areyou going to put this on social media?
If you are going to put anythingon social media, you need to
get my permission first. Even thoughit's your girlfriend, even if it's your
wife, even if it's your mother, even if it's your father, whoever.
(35:14):
You should be able to say,hey, is this picture taken just
for us? Or are you goingto post it on social media? Because
if you are, please don't.That's actually really good advice because you don't
even think about that now, darethink about it. You're taking pictures,
you know, with the family,or you're going to a museum or something
like that and get a selfie withyour friend. You don't realize that.
You think that it's just supposed tobe for yourself to say on your phone,
(35:36):
but you're gonna end up posting it. Yeah, and that's how I
want to know. And I've beena violator of that by accident. Yeah,
I've got to say, I'm reallysorry. Usually very mindful of these
things, but I was out,don't know, a couple of months ago.
I was out somewhere and I waswith a friend and I took a
selfie and I said, hey,do you mind if I post this?
So she said no problem, Butthen I that I had written something probably
(35:59):
had something to with that word unbleep, and then she was all like upset
about it. She goes, oh, I don't you know, I don't
mind the picture was posted, butthe comment kind of made me very uncomfortable?
Do you mind taking that down?And I was like in Lulloland.
You know, I like to thinkof myself that I'm attuned to these things,
but I'm not immune to any ofit. I want to say this
to you guys listening out there.Just because I'm a therapist doesn't mean I
(36:21):
live in some protective bubble. Idon't. I make faux pause all the
time. I like to think thatI'm mostly unbleep, but I make these
mistakes to her, especially around socialmedia so new. It's still fairly new,
and the rules of engagement around itare fairly new. So what I
did, and I think this iswhat people should do. I immediately erased
or deleted the post, and Iapologized. I said, oh my god,
(36:43):
I didn't even think about it becauseall I thought about was the picture,
and she said, yes, ofcourse you can post it. But
I didn't even think about if Iwrote this, how she would feel about
it. So there's not only thepicture, but it's also the comment.
So the best way to get aroundthis is automatic assume that whatever is being
a taking a picture off it's goingto be on some social media platform that
(37:06):
we have to be proactive to say, Hey, we you know, my
boss doesn't know that I'm playing hockeytoday. Please don't post that picture because
I'm gonna get in shovel sure,or my pastor follows me. Yes,
my grandmother looks at that post thingslike that, So you just have to
say please, can you ask menext time? And they're gona say,
I'm gonna have to ask you everytime because you know I like to post
all the time. I'm like,well, this is part of my emotional
(37:29):
boundary and I need to protect myself. It's part of my physical privacy boundary.
I don't want my information to beshared with a thousand others. Basically,
just ask are you going to postthis? Yeah? Just ask me.
It's just as easy as that.Are you gonna post it? Yeah?
I am. I'm not comfortable withthat picture. Yeah I look fat
in this picture. Whatever. Whatever. But he's also saying that they argue
(37:49):
about this all the time. ThenI then I think there's other issues going
on that are, you know,related to your not respecting what I need
and expect in this relationship. Youhave. We have to be able to
respect people's privacy, and today withsocial media, nothing is private anymore.
But we need to return to establishingthose boundaries. And yes, it is
(38:09):
a boundary what information goes out,what information stays in as an individual,
as a couple, and also asa family. It's kind of like if
we did have social media today.You you know you have children. I
know that I have children. Ias the mother when they were younger even
now, control the information that wentout as much as I could, and
(38:29):
control the information that went into thehousehold. This was my way of protecting
my family. It was the physicaland emotional boundaries around information. Social media
speaking more so social media. Wecan check you out on Facebook and Twitter,
and I just wanted to make surewe have my handle is asking you
to ask me on Instagram, andthank you so much. I get so
(38:51):
many of the questions that I shareon this show through that medium, so
I do appreciate it. Can Ipost you want to post that thing?
Now? Show we usually have sometime. We set away some time so
that we can give them five tipsfrom this show. And I figure,
well, we got a couple ofminutes here, let's do that. Right
now. Top five things to unbleepboundaries physically and emotionally. Know them,
(39:15):
have some self awareness, like thequestions that highlighted, Know them and name
them. Number two establish them.What does this mean? While if you
look at the back of the chapterthat I have in my book called Unbleep
Your Life in Relationships, there's aworksheet there. Write them down. Number
three value them, hence value yourself. These are rules of engagement for yourself
(39:37):
and for other people. Number fourstop allowing others to violate your emotional and
physical boundaries. You know, Ialways say to people, we know what
a stop sign looks like. Internalizethat. Anytime you think you're doing that,
put up your mental stop sign.Do not let people violate your emotional
and physical boundaries. They will try, but you got to be strong enough
(39:59):
to push back and keep them inplace. Number five boundaries are necessary.
You need to accept this. Itis not a rejection of somebody else.
It is an acceptance of yourself andwho you're trying to be and your identity.
We do it to preserve our mentalhealth, but also the mental health
of the people around us, ourrelationships preservation. Yeah, well, something
(40:22):
I took out of this show sofar is I've got to learn to say
no. Yeah. It's just becauseit's so hard for me, especially been
in this business for so long.I just can't say no, oh sure,
yeah, I was the yes man. Yeah. And then you go
back and you're like, why didI say that? I didn't really want
to do that now kind of ropedup into it, and then you build
up present, you start having awhole conversation with yourself and then but at
(40:44):
the end of the day, ifyou do this repeatedly, it's a very
unhealthy pattern to get into. Butagain, I just want to say,
solid identity are based on solid boundaries. It's knowing who we are and identifying
the rules of engagement within ourselves andother people. Our rules in an engagement
were allowed to hug. Now,now we're gonna hug because Greg said it's
(41:05):
okay, even though his body languagesaid no. He has clarified today that
it's okay to do this, Sowe will hug at the You'll I'll be
happy to know that Greg's getting ahug after it. Yes, Yes,
let's talk a little bit about thebook. Where can we get it?
And all that the book is callednot unbleep that's actually another word, as
you guys know and bleep your lifeand relationships. You can get it on
Amazon and Simon and Schuster and pleasesend me your comments and questions if you
(41:29):
have any on Instagram. Ask AnitaAstley, what are we going to talk
about next week? I didn't know. I think about what Maybe I had
some boundary violations. I don't know. We'll figure it out after the Hug.
Stay tuned. I will talk aboutthe hug. Did it go well
or did it not go well?Nice? I believe your life on News
Talk eleven thirty W I said,news coming up next
Relationships weather, romantic, platonic,familial are complicated and can be downright messy,
bringing out the best and worst inall of us. Here's an opportunity
for you to learn effective, concretestrategies to help you build healthy relationships from
the inside out. It's Unbleep YourLife and Relationships with host Anita Aslant,
(00:23):
psychotherapist of over twenty five years.Hey guys, welcome to another episode of
Unbleep Your Life and Relationships. I'myour host, Anita Astley. I'm a
licensed individual, couples and Marriage therapist. I've been doing that for about twenty
five years. Kind of ages me. I feel old, but it is
something that i do with a lotof passion. I'm still in private practice
(00:45):
today. I released a book recentlycalled Unbleep Your Life and Relationships, and
it's basically highlights some of the thingsthat I've been through in my own life
that I had to unbleep and Iwanted to share that with everyone else,
make my self vulnerable, to demonstratethat you know, you can kind of
be a little bleeped up and unbleepthat stuff through proper guidance and help and
(01:07):
support such as psychotherapy and in thebook. I also share seven concrete prescriptions
I call them that I think weneed to practice in our lives, with
ourselves and within our relationships to getto a healthy place. We are living
in a time a relationship. Youknow, relationships have always been complicated,
but I think they are just somuch more complicated today because we communicate very
(01:30):
differently with each other. Like Italked about in my last show, talking
about talking and how we need tobe able to do that, because yeah,
I love technology, but sometimes lotsof stuff gets lost in there with
talking. Talking with your eyes.Yeah, did you share that last week
with your wife? Yeah? Weneed to learn to do more of that
(01:52):
anyway. So I want to shareabout my weekend. I had an experience.
I was at a party and Iwas and people always ask me,
I need to are you analyzing people? Are you? And I'm like no,
if I'm not getting paid, I'mnot doing that. I'm off duty.
But I cannot help but observe people'sbehavior, physical behavior, non verbal
(02:12):
stuff that goes on, and alsothe verbal stuff. And I'm astounded by
how many things go on that leaveme kind of thinking, oh my god,
I'm not being the therapist. I'mjust being a person at fifty five
years old who's had a lot ofexperiences as I'm sure you have. Greg.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So. Anyway, I'm at this party
and I am watching this couple.There's probably about twenty people there. I'm
(02:35):
watching this couple and their dynamic andtheir dialogue is just escalating and escalating and
escalating. I'm sure you've been toparties where you've met and seen that couple,
the couple who is fighting at somebody'sparty and just becoming totally inappropriate and
cutting each other down. Have youseen that happen? Oh? I saw
(02:57):
that on an episode of the Officeat one time. Michael and his wife,
we're going at it. Yeah,I know exactly what. I've seen
it before. Yeah, so,and it makes everybody feel uncomfortable. It
makes everybody feel awkward, and theydon't seem to pick up on the cues
socially that they're being inappropriate and there'sa grave violations going on, which leads
(03:17):
me into what we're going to talkabout today is unbleeping boundaries. Now,
when we think about boundaries, whatdo we think about? What do you
think about when that word comes up? What I can say and can't say
yeah and yeah, that's actually reallysomething that we all need to have in
place. We need to have Wehave two types of boundaries. We have
(03:38):
physical boundaries and we have emotional boundaries. Physical boundaries is pretty self explanatory.
And I want to thank everybody whofollows me on Instagram. You guys can
follow me. It's my handle,is asking you to ask thee. I
bring that up because I get alot of questions for this show to address,
and I have three questions today thatwill highlight some of the issues around
(04:00):
boundaries. And if you're listening outthere and you have trouble with this word
and doing something with this word andestablishing them in your life, today is
a good show for you to stayfocused on what I'm going to share with
you today. So let's talk aboutboundaries. But before I do that,
I'm just going to mention that itis in my book. I have a
(04:20):
chapter devoted to unbleeping blurred boundaries,as I call them, and I want
to share that. Also. Ihad some feedback from one of my followers
who said, Anita, I lovethe book, but one of the things
I love the most in the bookis that at the end of each chapter,
I provide worksheets for you to kindof work through your own issues.
So today it's boundaries. I thinkit's chapter five, and there's a whole
(04:44):
section in there in terms of howto help you establish some boundaries with yourself.
Of course is going to be thatfive things that you need to do
at the end of the show todo that. But let me jump into
the question because it's a really goodquestion. So boundaries, what are they,
why do we need them? Andhow do we start putting them up
and in place. Most people strugglewith this, so let me get to
(05:06):
the question. It's a really goodquestion, Anita. I have so many
challenges in dealing with people at theage of fifty five, always my age,
I feel like I just can't bebothered anymore. People are a pain
in the ass. Well that's actuallydo they can't be? They can be
a pain in the ass. Ican't seem to say no, they can't
(05:28):
be bothered. To do they can'tbe, then I can't be bothered.
Sorry to follow through with what Iagree to. I get roped into things
like this all the time. Ilove this question because it highlights so many
things. First of all, thankyou for sending this question in I appreciate
everybody who takes the time to dothat, and dude, at fifty five,
I get it. By this time. We have a lot of issues
(05:50):
that we have to unbleep in ourselvesthrough relationships, our childhood, all that
kind of stuff. And of course, even though people are pain in the
ass, says, we still needthem. We are social creatures. I
don't know about you, Greg,but I love as much as people are
annoying, I love people. Ohyeah, you got well. I've been
in this business for so long people. You have to love people, but
(06:12):
they can be annoying. But theway to deal with some of that is
always to start with ourselves, workingfrom the inside out. So sorry,
you're struggling. Thanks for sharing.Let me help you untangle some of this
stuff. And I'm glad that youreached out, and I want to just
point out some of that. There'sso much to unpack in this question and
some of the things we will addresstoday I hope will help you unbleep your
(06:38):
boundary issues because this, you know, when you think about this question and
look at it, you might think, well, what does it have to
do with boundaries? It sounds likehe just needs to stop saying yes when
he really means no. Yeah,it's not as simple as that. I
wish it was. So let's getstarted. Okay, Greg, Where should
we start? Where should we start? Okay? Emotional and physical boundaries are
(07:00):
two things that we have to havein place. Emotional boundaries really talk about
our internal emotional world, and you'reright, they are rules of engagement.
How are we gonna engage with otherpeople and how are we, most importantly
going to allow other people to engagewith us? What is acceptable emotionally what
is not acceptable physically? It's prettyobvious it's our physical space. But an
(07:24):
element of physical space these days isalso privacy rules in relationships and within ourselves.
Well, I'll get to later.But boundaries are there to protect us,
and you might be thinking protect us? What do we need protection from?
Well, annoying me, annoying people, but we also need protection from
(07:45):
our own unconscious thoughts and feelings.Does that make any sense? Yeah?
Okay, yeah, because he's sayingI repeatedly do this, so then think
Okay, first of all, congratulations, you're aware of the fact that you
repeatedly do this. When we repeatedlydo something, that's because somehow, unconsciously
we've learned to do that. Buthe's become very conscious of it because he's
saying he knows that he does.So again, self awareness is the first
(08:09):
place to start. So congratulations thatyou have this awareness. And of course
people say to me in my officeand you're probably thinking, well, thank
you so much for letting me knowthat. But what do I do with
this self awareness? A doing isalways the hardest part, isn't it is?
Is it keywords that I use tohandle this. I'm going to give
(08:31):
you a concrete thing that you needto do to well for the listeners who
also struggle with this. And wesometimes I think at some point in life
we it's hard to say no.Sometimes so we say yes. But if
you're repeatedly doing that, it's aproblem and it is a boundary violation,
and we need to set that boundarythat we don't end up saying things that
(08:52):
we don't mean. In particular peoplepleasers, I've met a lot of people
who just keep saying yes and yesand yes. And when people do that,
they become anxious, they become stressed, they feel guilty, they feel
scared, and it sounds like thisperson is also becoming resentful because then we
end up doing more things for otherpeople and not respecting what we really need
(09:13):
to do for our own selves.Okay, I see what you're saying.
When there's an emotional boundary violation,people are left feeling anxious, stressed,
guilty, scared, and most ofall resentful. Like this man is sounding
like he's resentful. He doesn't wantto continue with people. But we all
know that you're going to get backinto relationships. We just want you to
do it in a healthy manner.And like we said, boundaries provide security
(09:35):
and stability not only for ourselves butfrom our relationships. They also indicate that
I am separate from you. Right, You have different boundaries. I have
different boundaries. Therefore we are separatebeings. We have a separate identity.
Now, what does identity have todo with boundaries? People who have a
solid sense of self generally have verystrong emotional and physical boundaries, meaning that
(10:01):
they know who they truly are withinthemselves and no one, no one can
make them do something they're not comfortableor wanting to do. That makes a
lot of sense, I'll tell youwhat. Let's take a break here and
continue in just a few minutes.Okay, okay, let's get back to
Unbleape your Life on New's Dog eleventhirty wis everyone strives for healthier relationships.
(10:24):
Here's more of unbleep your Life andRelationships on News Talk eleven thirty WISN Welcome
back to on Bleep Your Life andRelationships. I'm your host, Anita Ashley.
We were just addressing a question aboutnot being able to say no,
I can't do that and wondering,you know, you guys might be wondering
(10:46):
if you can relate to this.How is this a boundary issue? It
is a boundary issue when you're sayingyes when you really mean no, because
you're not respecting your emotional space andyou don't know what you really want and
what you need at the time,so you kind of feel cornered and then
you just say yes, and ofcourse you end up feeling resentful and angry,
and as this person was saying,they don't follow through. So that's
(11:09):
pretty passive aggressive. We'll address thatin a later show. But what it
does is makes us do things thatare very uncomfortable because body and mind is
saying no, this is not acceptableto who you are, but you're doing
it anyway because it kind of makesyou comfortable in the moment. But it's
a short term game but a longterm loss. How do I say no?
How can I do that? Well? The linear path is that just
(11:31):
to say no. But hey,if he could do it, he probably
would have. Right. If wecould just do what we're supposed to do,
our relationships would be less complicated.But it's really difficult. And I'm
going to give you a concrete answerto that, a few suggestions that you
can employ if you are also likethis person who's sending this question. But
let me just get back to emotionalboundaries also do one other thing. They
(11:54):
also control the flow of information,what comes into the relationship and what goes
out of the relationship, and that'shuge today with regards to social media and
what everybody posts, and so forthat, I have a really good question
that's going to highlight that in theanswer to how to help you with that?
But let's talk about boundaries themselves.They can be really rigid, they
(12:15):
can be fluid. They can befused, meaning mine is merged with yours,
and I don't know where mine is. I don't know where yours is
the kind of fuse together. They'reunclear, and that's the chapter in my
book called Unblurred Boundaries, which meansthey're not clear. They're not clear to
the person who should have them,and they're not clear to everybody else who's
interacting with that person, and itmakes it very complicated to have a relationship.
(12:37):
They're also determined by our culture.Now. I remember going to my
therapist and we were talking about boundariesand one hundred years ago, and I
remember him saying things to me aboutboundaries and you know, helping me to
learn about them. And I thought, wait a minute, dude. As
much as I respect you and I'mhaving a great experience, And I was
one of those patients, you know, I really pushed back the way if
(13:00):
you're in therapy, you should pushback. You should push your therapists and
challenge them. You're not just supposedto sit there and agree with everything that
they're saying. And I was thatclient and I learned a lot from that.
So I would say to him,well, that's great because you're part
of Western culture. But in theIndian culture that doesn't happen. The boundaries
are very different in terms of rulesof engagement in terms of how I would
(13:22):
deal with my father, how Iwould deal with my mother, and that
is and he did say, Okay, you're right, I need to learn
more about the Indian culture when I'mtelling you what's appropriate and what's not,
because what does he know. He'snot Indian, he doesn't know how the
culture works. I'm very sensitive tothat, and we have to be sensitive
to that. But also we can'tuse that as a defense mechanism. It's
(13:45):
if it's not working for us,irrespective of the culture that you come from,
then we need to change that.And how do we change it?
We got to first recognize this.So back to the question, congratulations first
of all, that you're ware andthat you need to start saying no to
all these people that you feel corneredby. Yes, easier said than done.
That's called respecting your emotional boundaries.So how do we do this?
(14:07):
Let me give you a concrete thingthat you need to do if you're struggling
with similar issues. Instead of answeringthe question right away, what you can
say is this, I'll get backto Oh that's good. I like that.
I need to look at my calendar. That sounds very interesting. You
(14:28):
don't have to say yes or no, and in that moment, you don't
have to commit when you don't wantto commit. What it does is allows
you some space to process what you'regoing to say, because obviously you're afraid
to say no, I can't dothat. It allows you time, It
buys you space where you can goaway. But I'm going to encourage you
(14:48):
to follow up with it so youcan practice saying no, don't go because
some people say, well, Ijust won't get back to them. No,
no, no. I want youto rehearse it, and I want
you to practice being able to sayno, Hey, I'm really sorry,
I'd love to do it, butI can't do it. I'm busy.
Well it's as simple as that,and then come back to it as simple
as that, but always come back. In a couple's relationship, this could
(15:11):
this be used in work. Itcan be used in workspace, your romantic
relationships, botonic, your familial relationships. We have to learn to say no
to people, and when we can'tsay no to people, we then sometimes
blame the other person. Now heroped me, And as the question said,
I got roped into this, Iget roped into these all the time.
(15:31):
No, you can't be roped intosomething that you don't want to do.
If you're healthy inside, and ifwe have a true sense of who
we are, we're going to bestrong enough to say no, I can't
do that. However, a lotof us struggle with it. I get
it. And if it was thateasy that I pushed this button in you
and say okay, Greg, nowlearn to say no, we would all
(15:52):
do it. I mean, theseissues are tied up to as I talk
about our family of origin, wherewe come from, how were we taught
in our family of origin to respectour own boundaries emotionally? And that gets
all bleeped up at times. Andit's okay, So there you go.
Don't be put on the spot,don't be put on the hot seat.
There is a way out. Justsay you know what, I'll get back
(16:14):
to you later on that. Letme think about it. But please come
back to it, because if youjust avoid it, you're just avoiding the
problem. Then yes, you're gonnawell. And if you're scared of the
word no, just say well,I have a conflict with my schedule that
week and I can't do it.But eventually, the whole point of getting
back is that you have an opportunityto rehearse saying no. I'm sorry,
(16:37):
I can't do it because if youghost the person, you're not getting an
opportunity to confront your issue, andyou're not getting an opportunity to rehearse saying
no. We need to practice it. And guess what, over time,
when you become more solid and comfortablewith setting some of those boundaries, You're
not going to have a problem.You're going to be throwing no around all
over the place, and maybe Ihave to unhelp well, maybe I have
(16:59):
to bleep that stuff later on.I was just going to say, you
know what this sounds like to me? What it sounds like a politician.
I'll get back to you, well, you know what question. Hey,
if it works and helps you,then let's do it. And I trust
me with people who have trouble sayingit on the spot, and I get
that with other things too. Sometimespeople ask me stuff and I'm like,
oh, I wasn't prepared for thatquestion rather than just answering because I'm uncomfortable
(17:23):
with the silences we talked about,or I'm uncomfortable saying yes, or were
saying no. Whatever it is,just pause and it's hard for us to
pause. It's hard for me tosometimes pause even when I'm doing this show
because I get excited and I talkfast. Blah blah blah. Yeah,
you guys can't say I need topause and say hey, it's okay.
(17:45):
I can step back from this andpolitely say I'll get back to you.
I have to look at my calendar, and sometimes we do. Like sometimes
I'll come out and say oh yeah, and I'm like, oh shit,
I can't do it. But Ialways go back and say, I'm so
sorry. I didn't realize I havea conflict. Yeah. Practice small steps
will lead to bigger steps, whichwill lead to I'm so sorry, No
I can't do that. Yeah,I see what you're saying, so yeah,
So just practice on this and theneventually you can say no. That's
(18:10):
the whole idea of practice, becausewe get so stuck in what we know,
and then we just keep doing thatand we know it's not working for
us, but we keep doing itbecause we don't know what else to do
and we're very uncomfortable. So thenwe start saying things like I don't want
to be around people. People areannoying. Listen, Relationships are complicated.
They can be annoying, but atthe same time, it is something that
(18:33):
we need to be in. Weare social creatures and we can't avoid them.
We are all in one kind ofrelationship or another, so we need
to learn to unbleep them. Andpart of setting boundaries is preserving not only
our own mental health, but themental health of our friends too. We're
doing it for other people too,not for only ourselves, but it preserves
a relationship. And I was,as I was sharing earlier on in the
(18:55):
story, talking about that couple whowas fighting at the party, so many
violation boundary violations, I was justthinking, Wow, I could write a
whole story on this. First ofall, you're not only just violating your
partners boundaries emotionally and maybe physically ifthere's some pushing or touching going on,
which in this case there wasn't.You're also violating the boundaries of the person
(19:17):
who's hosting the party. They donot want to be a part of your
Can I say that? Sorry,I just said it. Anyway, you
might have to edit that up.They don't want to be part of your
drama. Nobody in a party wantsto see that or you know, feel
awkward because of your behavior. Soyou're violating your partner's emotional boundaries, you're
(19:37):
disrespecting yourself, but most of all, you're disrespecting the person who is hosting
the party. And I'm sure youguys listening have been part of this scenario
at some point in your life whereyou know that couple and you're like,
oh god, here they are,here they go. And the interesting part
of it, neither one seems tode escalate. They kind of just egg
each other on and before you knowit, it's a full blown fight.
(20:00):
And so neither one of them fromyou know, I'm watching this, I'm
like, oh my gosh, neitherone of them have any emotional boundaries set
up that are healthy, and theyare so oblivious to what they're actually doing
to the people around them, inparticular the I mean, the host put
this beautiful party together and they didn'tdo it to have that. Yeah,
I understand that. Hey, we'reanswering questions tonight, Unbleep your Life on
news Talk eleven thirty, wisent andmore coming up. Anita Ashley has more
(20:26):
advice on how to on bleep yourLife and relationships on News Talk eleven thirty
wys Welcome back to on Bleep YourLife and Relationships. I'm your host Anita
Ashley, psychotherapist of twenty five yearsand plus. Today we are talking about
boundaries and I have quite a fewquestions that came in to address some of
(20:48):
these boundary violation issues. Now let'sget to question number two. Thank you
for your question, Anita. Thankyou for all that you do to help.
I love appreciate your posts on Instagramand just started to read your book
book. I love how you makeyourself vulnerable to the reader. Anyway,
how do I deal here's my question, how do I deal with a male
friend who always has this need torub my back when we're at a social
(21:11):
event together. It has become aHabit makes me very uncomfortable. Help.
Oh ooh, yeah, that's notcool. Of course you know that.
Thank you for sharing that. Ofcourse, thank you also for checking out
my book and the compliments. It'smy passion to help people unleap their life
(21:32):
and relationships, and of course there'sa lot of stuff in the book that's
going to help us do that.So thank you so much. But let's
get to this question. This happensoften. It has actually happened to me
too, where it happened to beat a party and I meet a friend
or even a couple friend where theman is like saying hi to me,
and then all of a sudden startstouching inappropriately. Now we're not talking about
(21:52):
grabbing the boo or the butt orother areas like that, but just rubbing
in a certain way that's not comfortable. So first of all, great,
you recognize that. Congratulations. Yourbody is wired to protect you, so
clearly something is saying to you thistouch is not welcome, This touch is
not desired, So we need todo something about it, and we talk
about physical boundaries. We can say, if you're uncomfortable with it, it's
(22:15):
a way of your body responding toyou. We are meant to preserve ourselves.
You're not comfortable with it. It'snot something that's acceptable to you.
It's not something that's desirable. Andyes, of course it makes it more
uncomfortable that this person is a friendof yours. So we can take the
linear path. We can say,dude, you can't do that. That's
not acceptable, it's not part ofour relationship, and it makes me really
(22:37):
uncomfortable. That's the linear path.But clearly, if you could do that,
you would have done that already becauseconfrontation is really hard. We have
difficult confronting our issues with especially ourfriends, even though we shouldn't, we
do because we don't want to losethe friendship. That's part of establishing emotional
and physical boundaries. People don't doit because they fear they're going to lose
(23:00):
the friendship. But I'll tell yousomething. If you don't establish emotional and
physical boundaries, you are losing yourself. You're losing your identity. You're losing
what it is that you want andwhat you need to stay healthy and to
stay balanced. A person who hassolid identity, as I said before,
will have solid concept of what theiremotional and physical boundaries are. Does that
(23:25):
make any sense? So you're kindof giving limitations or you have to nip
it in the bud right away beforeit? Yeah, Clearly with this question,
it's gotten out of hand where hedidn't get the social cues and maybe
she didn't give them strong enough tosay this is not acceptable, you can't
do this, And sometimes that's happens. We get into a relationship. I
(23:45):
mean, you ever have a friendor someone that you know that all of
a sudden, you start hugging,and you're like, I'm so uncomfortable hugging
this, but every time we seeeach other, we gotta hug. But
I don't really want to do thisanymore? So how do I break out
of it? I think there wasa Seinfeld episode about that, How do
I break out of this uncomfortable situation? But if it's making you feel uncomfortable
physically and mentally, then you needto do something about it. We need
to put some physical boundaries in place. Physical boundaries protect our physical space,
(24:11):
and they also protect what we wantand what we don't want physically. Desire
touch a touch that you feel comfortablewith, but also touches that you are
very uncomfortable. Pushing back on thearm if he's rubbing your back, is
that what you mean by you cando that? But I think you just
need to use your words and say, listen, I'm very uncomfortable with this.
That's the number one thing you cando. And I like the linear
(24:33):
path, but it's also difficult forsome people to take the other one.
Is what I would suggest that youdo the next time it happens to you,
You just take that arm and youpush it away, just like you're
saying, respectfully, push it awayand give that look one cannot not communicate.
So we talked about this last week. If I'm gonna do that to
you, Greg, and I'm goingto look you in the eye, hopefully
my look will tell you, dude, this is not okay, this is
(24:56):
not comfortable, and I'm not goingto deal with it. And you just
gave me the scary mamas, didI? So I tell my kids,
hey, you see these eyes,they're gonna pop out. You're gonna be
in troublesoon. It's the Indian inyou. That's what it is. Yeah,
that's a whole other thing. Sophysical boundaries, we need to have
them in place. They are reallyrules that govern our personal and physical space,
(25:18):
our body, and you need toestablish those. It's very important.
And I know people and I've workedwith people who have had who are abused
as children sexually or physically. Touchis something they don't know. Sometimes it
gets a little unbleep because they don'tknow what to do with that. They
don't know what's good touch. Theydon't know what's bad touch anymore. That
(25:40):
they need to unbleep that stuff.And you know that takes a lot of
therapy. If you've been through somethinglike that, don't try to work it
out just within yourself. Go andget some professional health. I always advocate
on this show reaching out to atherapist is not a bad thing. Doesn't
mean there's something wrong with you.It just means you're struggling and you need
a little bit of a health.So when we talk about physical boundaries,
(26:02):
it depends on your history. Whatis your history with physical relationships with people.
If it's something that involves sexual assaultor abuse, then you need to
unbleep that stuff. And it's alot more complicated. But if we're just
talking about, like this question ishighlighting normal social physical cues that we should
all be aware of what's acceptable touchand what's not. And most of us
(26:23):
know that, but there are somepeople who are kind of a little weird
with that kind of stuff. Itdepends on how you know. That's funny
because some families, like on mywebside of the family are not huggers.
Yeah, but my family are huggers. Yah, That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, So you have to adjustto that. You have to just you
have to be able to read thesocial cues but some people are socially inept.
(26:44):
Clearly this guy is thinking that,hey, this is okay, and
some people might say, well,she's allowing it to happen. It's continuing,
so she's giving him permission. No, she's not saying anything. She
clearly doesn't want it. It's uninvited. And but she just needs to be
more assertive in being able to sayno. Again, it's about being able
to say no another. So thisis not only a physical violation, it's
(27:06):
also a violation of her emotional boundaries. She clearly doesn't want to be touched.
And guys, you should not betouching anybody and if the person is
not receptive to that touch, youshould be attuned to that. But not
all of us are attuned to thecues that go on between people. Hence
their relationships are bleep up. Andthat's why we have all these these seminars
at the radio station here, doyou yeah right, yeah, you can't
(27:30):
touch, You can't acceptable touch.And also in therapy, like what is
a therapeutic touch? And clients willsometimes hug me and I'll hug them back,
but there's a whole thing technique aboutwhere to put your hands, not
on there, but not arms,well, the shoulders, the shoulders and
anywhere of you know, anything aboveyour hips. It's an therapeutic touch.
(27:51):
We have to use a discussion.Don't quote me, people, but I
generally when I hug a client,it's usually shoulders and above you know,
it's never below that. But II've learned that, I've been trained in
that, and you know, yeah, at work, we've got to teach
people what's appropriate what's not. It'skind of sad, right, but we
do have people like that who workin the office and kind of like way
too touchy, Like, dude,that's totally not acceptable. Stop doing that.
(28:14):
Let's bring up a point here.Well, the first time I met
you, and when we have werecorded our first show, you hugged me.
I did. I didn't know howto should I hug back? Yeah,
so that's what that was, Like, what do I do here?
Yeah? Well I did hug you, and then I noticed that you were
kind of like, Okay, thisis professional environment. I don't know what's
going on here, so I backedoff. I know, hugs for greg,
(28:36):
but it's just but it's okay,you could hug me, I cannot.
I'm just joking. No, heis. He's a wonderful but this
is how I am. Right.I'm a very touchy feely, huggy person.
And then I'll but I'll read thecues. If I feel like it's
making somebody uncomfortable, I'll just pullback the hug because I feel like that's
a better boundary for me to saystep, that's a better boundary, sorry,
(28:57):
for me to establish then to stepon your boundaries of physical confort.
I don't know you, we justmet, but I just get this vibe.
But then I readjust you know,boundaries also have to be flexible.
We have to be able to adjustthem if we're going to continue in the
relationship. And if I get thatvibe from you, because I tend to
think I know people in relationships andI can observe and pick up on these
(29:19):
things, and I can read thesituation, well, I back off a
little bit. And then if youwent in for the hug. There's a
Seinfeld episode about this, and thenI feel like, oh my god,
I'm going in for the hug andhe totally rejected me. Oh I feel
a little stupid now, so manydifferent levels this is so embarrassing. He
must be thinking all kinds of stuff. But no, I don't have to
have that narrative in my head.I can just say, Okay, it's
(29:40):
kind of a workplace, but he'skind of a teddy, very cuddly looking
guy, and I like to hug. But it's reading the room, reading
the situation. If you're uncomfortable,if you feel like they're uncomfortable, you
can have a conversation about it.And with forensic gets complicated, especially if
it's a friend of the opposite sex. You're thinking, wait a minute,
is there something else now going onon? Or what's going on over here?
(30:00):
So of course I'm going to sayyou have to have a conversation about
it, but if you feel veryuncomfortable doing that, establish some boundaries with
yourself. First, know what yourphysical and emotional boundaries are, then communicate
them with the other person. Sometimesjust with our body language, we can
communicate that you and I never talkedabout the hug until now. That's good.
(30:21):
It's therapy. Right now, we'rehaving therapy. Right now. We
need to unpleep our relationship, butwe pick up on those social cues.
But some people are not able todo that. But what I want to
say to this person who wrote thisquestion is you can take the linear path
and just confront them, or youcan next time they do that, just
physically remove the arm. And ifnone of those tactics work, then you
(30:42):
have to establish that boundary within yourselfand just not be so close to this
person anymore. I mean, doyou really want to be around a person
that you can't talk openly about somethinglike this and somebody who violates your physical
boundaries and is totally not attuned tosocial social norms cues at a party or
wherever it is that you are.So I'm gonna hugg you after this show.
(31:04):
I we'll talk about that. You'reallowed too. I'm okay with hugs.
I just want to say that.But it's an interesting dynamic to consider
because yeah, we're not at asocial setting. We are at a work
professional setting. But it gets sobleeped up because even if you do that
is not a violation of some sort. So we're always looking at, you
know, especially at work, arewe violating some kind of rule? You
(31:26):
know, we're all afraid today ofrules, right, because you can't say
anything and you can't do anything withoutyou know, HR coming in and say,
hey, you know you did thisand you're naughty. Now we're gonna
have to do this right. It'slike it's gone overboard. But at the
same time, emotional and physical boundariesin all relationships are important, and they're
particularly important to our own sense ofself, our identity. They protect us
(31:51):
from ourselves at times unhealthy patterns,and they protect and preserve our relationships.
Anita Ashley, she's unbleeping your Lifetonight, Love and thirty wis then more
coming up? Hiere back to UnbleepYour Life and Relationships on News Talking eleven
thirty wys Welcome back to Unbleep YourLife and Relationships. I'm your host Anita
(32:15):
Asley. Today we are talking aboutrespecting yourself by establishing physical and emotional boundaries.
We talked about emotional boundaries. Whatare they? They are rules of
engagement with us Emotionally, they haveto do with our sense of identity.
If rules of engagement, Physical boundariespretty obvious in terms of what are we
comfortable with when somebody is close tous physically, unwanted touch, desired touch,
(32:40):
or something else that's making us uncomfortablephysically in relationships that our body is
saying no, but we are notdoing anything about it. Listen to your
body, listen to your mind.When it comes to boundary violations, it
is telling you something, all right, Now you have a question to round
out the show. I do questionnumber three. Now, this is a
(33:00):
very common problem today because everyone ison social media posting pictures, all kinds
of stuff. Right, so weare talking about here is privacy boundary violations.
Do you did you ever have somebodypost something about you and you're like,
I'm not sure I wanted that inmy family. I am the social
(33:23):
media butterfly, I really am,and my famili has come to the point
now where they say, don't postthis, yes, don't post this this,
don't do this. So how isthis about boundaries? It absolutely is.
It's about our physical privacy boundaries.And again, boundaries also speak to
the flow of information, what staysin the relationship, what stays between us,
(33:45):
and also what is shared with theworld. And you know, everybody
today wants to share that they're makingcupcakes with the world, even that nobody
gives up bleep about that. Butthat's a whole other issue that's been created.
So get to the question, andAnita, how do I deal with
my girlfriend who always posts every singlething that we do together on Facebook.
(34:07):
I don't want everyone to know whatI'm doing all the time, and maybe
I don't want my boss, especiallyto know what I'm doing all the time.
That's another issue because everybody wants tobe our friend. But how do
I set some boundaries with her?And we always argue about this. Help
there you go. It's a verygood question, and today we have a
(34:27):
lot of issues with this and howdo we get consent from somebody? And
you were just highlighting that. Youwere saying, well, you're the social
media person in your family. You'realways putting stuff up and then people have
to say, hey, before youtake that picture, what are you going
to do with it? So that'swhat we have to do. So I
would say to this to you friend, thank you for your question. Also
to all you listeners today it's ahuge problem today. I don't consent to
(34:50):
this picture being posted on social media. Please don't post it so anytime what
I want. What I would sayto this person with your question is to
say, to your girlfriend, areyou going to put this on social media?
If you are going to put anythingon social media, you need to
get my permission first. Even thoughit's your girlfriend, even if it's your
wife, even if it's your mother, even if it's your father, whoever.
(35:14):
You should be able to say,hey, is this picture taken just
for us? Or are you goingto post it on social media? Because
if you are, please don't.That's actually really good advice because you don't
even think about that now, darethink about it. You're taking pictures,
you know, with the family,or you're going to a museum or something
like that and get a selfie withyour friend. You don't realize that.
You think that it's just supposed tobe for yourself to say on your phone,
(35:36):
but you're gonna end up posting it. Yeah, and that's how I
want to know. And I've beena violator of that by accident. Yeah,
I've got to say, I'm reallysorry. Usually very mindful of these
things, but I was out,don't know, a couple of months ago.
I was out somewhere and I waswith a friend and I took a
selfie and I said, hey,do you mind if I post this?
So she said no problem, Butthen I that I had written something probably
(35:59):
had something to with that word unbleep, and then she was all like upset
about it. She goes, oh, I don't you know, I don't
mind the picture was posted, butthe comment kind of made me very uncomfortable?
Do you mind taking that down?And I was like in Lulloland.
You know, I like to thinkof myself that I'm attuned to these things,
but I'm not immune to any ofit. I want to say this
to you guys listening out there.Just because I'm a therapist doesn't mean I
(36:21):
live in some protective bubble. Idon't. I make faux pause all the
time. I like to think thatI'm mostly unbleep, but I make these
mistakes to her, especially around socialmedia so new. It's still fairly new,
and the rules of engagement around itare fairly new. So what I
did, and I think this iswhat people should do. I immediately erased
or deleted the post, and Iapologized. I said, oh my god,
(36:43):
I didn't even think about it becauseall I thought about was the picture,
and she said, yes, ofcourse you can post it. But
I didn't even think about if Iwrote this, how she would feel about
it. So there's not only thepicture, but it's also the comment.
So the best way to get aroundthis is automatic assume that whatever is being
a taking a picture off it's goingto be on some social media platform that
(37:06):
we have to be proactive to say, Hey, we you know, my
boss doesn't know that I'm playing hockeytoday. Please don't post that picture because
I'm gonna get in shovel sure,or my pastor follows me. Yes,
my grandmother looks at that post thingslike that, So you just have to
say please, can you ask menext time? And they're gona say,
I'm gonna have to ask you everytime because you know I like to post
all the time. I'm like,well, this is part of my emotional
(37:29):
boundary and I need to protect myself. It's part of my physical privacy boundary.
I don't want my information to beshared with a thousand others. Basically,
just ask are you going to postthis? Yeah? Just ask me.
It's just as easy as that.Are you gonna post it? Yeah?
I am. I'm not comfortable withthat picture. Yeah I look fat
in this picture. Whatever. Whatever. But he's also saying that they argue
(37:49):
about this all the time. ThenI then I think there's other issues going
on that are, you know,related to your not respecting what I need
and expect in this relationship. Youhave. We have to be able to
respect people's privacy, and today withsocial media, nothing is private anymore.
But we need to return to establishingthose boundaries. And yes, it is
(38:09):
a boundary what information goes out,what information stays in as an individual,
as a couple, and also asa family. It's kind of like if
we did have social media today.You you know you have children. I
know that I have children. Ias the mother when they were younger even
now, control the information that wentout as much as I could, and
(38:29):
control the information that went into thehousehold. This was my way of protecting
my family. It was the physicaland emotional boundaries around information. Social media
speaking more so social media. Wecan check you out on Facebook and Twitter,
and I just wanted to make surewe have my handle is asking you
to ask me on Instagram, andthank you so much. I get so
(38:51):
many of the questions that I shareon this show through that medium, so
I do appreciate it. Can Ipost you want to post that thing?
Now? Show we usually have sometime. We set away some time so
that we can give them five tipsfrom this show. And I figure,
well, we got a couple ofminutes here, let's do that. Right
now. Top five things to unbleepboundaries physically and emotionally. Know them,
(39:15):
have some self awareness, like thequestions that highlighted, Know them and name
them. Number two establish them.What does this mean? While if you
look at the back of the chapterthat I have in my book called Unbleep
Your Life in Relationships, there's aworksheet there. Write them down. Number
three value them, hence value yourself. These are rules of engagement for yourself
(39:37):
and for other people. Number fourstop allowing others to violate your emotional and
physical boundaries. You know, Ialways say to people, we know what
a stop sign looks like. Internalizethat. Anytime you think you're doing that,
put up your mental stop sign.Do not let people violate your emotional
and physical boundaries. They will try, but you got to be strong enough
(39:59):
to push back and keep them inplace. Number five boundaries are necessary.
You need to accept this. Itis not a rejection of somebody else.
It is an acceptance of yourself andwho you're trying to be and your identity.
We do it to preserve our mentalhealth, but also the mental health
of the people around us, ourrelationships preservation. Yeah, well, something
(40:22):
I took out of this show sofar is I've got to learn to say
no. Yeah. It's just becauseit's so hard for me, especially been
in this business for so long.I just can't say no, oh sure,
yeah, I was the yes man. Yeah. And then you go
back and you're like, why didI say that? I didn't really want
to do that now kind of ropedup into it, and then you build
up present, you start having awhole conversation with yourself and then but at
(40:44):
the end of the day, ifyou do this repeatedly, it's a very
unhealthy pattern to get into. Butagain, I just want to say,
solid identity are based on solid boundaries. It's knowing who we are and identifying
the rules of engagement within ourselves andother people. Our rules in an engagement
were allowed to hug. Now,now we're gonna hug because Greg said it's
(41:05):
okay, even though his body languagesaid no. He has clarified today that
it's okay to do this, Sowe will hug at the You'll I'll be
happy to know that Greg's getting ahug after it. Yes, Yes,
let's talk a little bit about thebook. Where can we get it?
And all that the book is callednot unbleep that's actually another word, as
you guys know and bleep your lifeand relationships. You can get it on
Amazon and Simon and Schuster and pleasesend me your comments and questions if you
(41:29):
have any on Instagram. Ask AnitaAstley, what are we going to talk
about next week? I didn't know. I think about what Maybe I had
some boundary violations. I don't know. We'll figure it out after the Hug.
Stay tuned. I will talk aboutthe hug. Did it go well
or did it not go well?Nice? I believe your life on News
Talk eleven thirty W I said,news coming up next
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