January 20, 2025 • 16 mins
In this episode, I address a powerful Q&A from a listener about navigating emotional boundaries, particularly with a narcissistic presence. 🛡️✨
Join me as I share practical steps and draw from my journey, offering strategies to start setting emotional boundaries and working with the weight of guilt.
🚀 Key Insights:
- Why emotional boundaries can be tricky
- Two ways we can work with the feelings of guilt that come with setting emotional boundaries
- Simple steps that we can journal
This discussion is not just about setting boundaries, feeling empowered to navigate emotional boundaries, and getting to know our guilt. ❤️
❤️ Have a Q you'd like A? Share your question here 👇
https://forms.gle/41exzfEMEBA2TvmR7
Related Episodes:
❤️ Boundaries With A Narcissistic Parent https://selfdevelopmentcollective.podbean.com/e/boundaries-with-a-narcissistic-parent-setting-boundaries-with-toxic-parents-advice/
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi guys, and welcometo the Self-Development Collective.
So I've made a decisionwhich is really exciting to do
a Q and a podcast recordingswhere basically I answer a question
that someone might have about somethingthat's happening to them right now.
So I'm not sure if you guys have seen,but I'm getting into coaching.
(00:22):
I'm currently a psych student
and I'm hoping to become a psychologist,so I am nearly finished with my factory.
I'm halfway through,but in my second last semester
and then I'll be moving forwardto continue on until I become a psych.
And until then,I did want to do some coaching work
with people one on one,like support sessions
(00:45):
and really focus on that sort of peerto peer support.
So basically that means likeI'll be offering support in areas
that I've worked in myself.
So obviously,as you might know, grief boundaries,
narcissism and relationships
with narcissists, people praising
that and in a critique.
(01:05):
So that's the areasthat I tend to focus on
because they're the areas that I dothe most work.
So it's something that I've startedjust so that, you know,
people can get an idea on what I'm likeand the type of the type of way
that I am in terms of sessions.
I thought that I would do Q and A's.
So basically there's a form
that you see belowthat you can send a question
(01:27):
and we can just start having conversationsabout what's happening for listeners.
And I will share somelike really simple feedback
and advicethat supported me in my own journey
in the hopes that that can helpsomeone else.
I had a lady reach out to meabout my Boundaries episode
now just to confirm every episodethat I record Q&A
(01:48):
and the listeners are awarethat I'm I'm using this for a podcast
so they know I don't use names,which is really important,
and I don't give heaps of details becauseI just think that that's a bit tricky.
Just practice, you know, privacy.
So basicallythis person is reaching out to me.
They have a nice, narcissistic personin their life.
I did a topic on YouTubea little while ago on setting boundaries
(02:11):
with a narcissist.
My dad is quite challenging.
He is definitely, definitely has
some some form of narcissism ora narcissistic personality disorder only.
I know those two things are different.
He's never had a formal diagnosis,but I have worked with a psychologist
who was able to help me understandthat the challenges I was having with
(02:32):
my dad were outside of the norm,and that's why I was struggling so much.
So I have had I can say thatnow this person has asked me
to record an episodeabout setting strong emotional boundaries,
in particular with this personthat they're struggling with, with the
person being narcissistic.
(02:53):
So today I want to record an episode
about strong emotional boundaries,because I know that's a really tricky one.
So she's offered some siding, stepsinto creating a strong emotional boundary.
Now, the first thing that I did wasI asked her what an emotional boundary
looks like to herbecause they are different.
Obviously, for each person.
And the way I have reflected on
(03:15):
this was when I started workingwith a psychologist
who actually helped me to understandthat my dad was quite challenging.
I used to work with my dadand I had found that really challenging
because my dad was always wanting me to dowhat, you know, what he wanted me to do.
He'd get quite far if I didn't.
There was no no, like basic conversationin terms of like giving feedback.
(03:40):
It was all very like heavilybased on what he thought,
his views of things.
And basically this
therapist helped me to understandthat I needed to stop working with him
and take a step back from that becausemy mental health was really struggling.
So I suppose for me,that's the way that I reflect
(04:00):
on the emotional boundary in terms of
I was working with himand I was really struggling
and I really had to figure outhow I could start saying no.
And so that's kind of theemotional boundary that I was working with
in that sense.
But I do think thatthese situations are similar
because when I ask this person to narrowdown what an emotional boundary is,
(04:21):
they said they basically wantedto stop feeling guilty
about not being there to take itor basically to stop feeling guilty
about their feelings.
So, you know,if this person gets upset with them for
then not visiting or something like that,they wanted to stop taking that on.
And this is a tricky partof emotional boundaries
Sometimes with boundary work,we can make it.
(04:43):
I mean, it's always our work,but we can't do things to stop the person.
For example,I can reach out and I can stop,
stop calling my dad, I can block him,I can do things like that.
But emotional like themor physical boundaries, right?
Where we can actively put somethingin place to stop them from reaching us.
But the challenge with emotionalboundaries is when not looking at them,
(05:07):
not reaching usphysically, we're looking at them,
not reaching us emotionally,but maintaining contact with them.
And so the thing withthat is it involves a lot.
The boundariesliterally come down to the inner work
and our abilityto separate our feelings from theirs.
And that is really tricky, especiallyif you're working with someone who might
(05:28):
be really narcissistic or strugglewith a narcissistic personality disorder.
Because usually in my experienceand I can only talk from my experience,
they are really like, they make youfeel bad, they make you feel guilty.
So the
situation that I reflect on mostwhen I think about this person
(05:50):
and when she's talking about emotionalboundaries
is like simple thingsthat simple experiences that I had
in a sense,You know, once my dad opens up a bill.
So I opened up one of my dad's bills notknowing that he was he's one of his bills.
And he basically treated melike a bit of a secretary
and expected me to sort it out when it waslike one of these personal bills.
And I was like, no, like,you know, it's not for me, it's for you.
(06:12):
And it just flew off the handle.
So like, it's not like a common responsein the sense it went out sort of,
you know, if someone else had approacheda parent and said, Oh, this is your mail,
the parent probably would have been like,Oh, okay, thanks.
Whereas for me, it became a thing of likemaking me feel guilty for me
and selfish for not doing thingsthe way he wanted me to do them.
(06:34):
And so this is a challengewith emotional boundaries
where really focusing onhow we can separate our feelings
from their feelingsand how we can separate our response
versus reaction to their feelingsand being able to really go
through that process as we're learninghow to cope with them at the same time.
(06:56):
So I think the biggest
challenge when we're doing work like thisis always going to come down to guilt.
And that's what this this person had said,that she feels guilty because she
she feels she feels guiltybasically for for wanting to do this,
for guilty, for not contacting them, not,you know, not doing things
the way they want to, like,you know, not being a therapist.
(07:20):
There was a lot there.
And I just thinkthat the biggest challenge
with emotional boundariesis it's always going to be our work
because we're not puttingthat physical boundary in place
to separate ourselves in that person.
So your work is really going to beon separating our emotion
from and our experience from the reaction.
(07:41):
And that can be really trickybecause the thing with guilt, right?
I think that I personally have haveunderstood of guilt
is usually wewe feel guilt or in these situations
when we're talking about relationshipswith people, we tend to feel guilty
when we've done somethingthat goes against a value that we have.
But the challenge isdoes that value serve us?
(08:03):
And that is a different story altogetherbecause we can feel guilty
for not doing somethingand have a particular value around that.
But that doesn't mean thatthat value is serving
us, is working for us, is helping usto get to where we want to be.
And so I think the biggest challengeis always going to be
(08:24):
and the step that I would suggestright, is writing down those values,
thinking about the valuesthat contribute to you feeling guilty
and going inand saying where those values stem from.
So usually,you know, for example, my experience,
you know, my values stems from my familyand what I was told.
I think there were particular expectationsaround my dad
(08:48):
thought of meand what he wants it from me.
And and I do think that a lot of my valuesstemmed from his expectations.
Right.
So when I didn't meet those values
that he expected of me, I felt really bad.
But I held on to those valuesthat were mine.
And I never really did that introspectionuntil my brother passed away.
(09:08):
And that's whenand when my father got sick as well,
because that's when I really startedto think about the way I was living
and how it was serving meand whether it was right.
So I think the workwhen it comes to starting sex,
when it comes to creating a strongemotional boundary, is again
going into that space of guilt,understanding where the guilt comes
(09:29):
from, the values that that comes from,and then dissect
how those values were created,who do they belong to?
What experiences do you think taught youthose values or encourage those clues?
And my second,
my second step or my second suggestion,and which is, again, based on work
that I've done more so in the griefand guilt space, but nonetheless, guilt
(09:51):
and I do think is such a you know,
it's a big one and it's so commonin so many experiences is,
again,I am a big internal family systems person.
I work with that myself internally.
It's something that my therapist told me.
It's something I'm reading on
and something that I will eventuallybe doing training on
(10:11):
as I continue moving forward.
But the thing I love about thissort of internal family systems is
that they look at us and our experiences,our feelings in different parts.
And the best thing, the best wayI can describe it is the movie Inside Out.
So you know howshe's got these different feelings.
So they effect.
The whole idea of it is to lookat ourselves as those different feelings.
(10:34):
Right?And then we have the self. So we have
we have all the different sort of feelingsand emotions we have.
And then we have this main corepart of off
that is untouchable that's always there,even if we feel it's not
and we want to be able to access it, it'sthat compassionate, curious place.
So basically I in a nutshell,it's really helpful to look at guilt
(10:57):
as a part of us, but not like attachlike out part of our whole.
Like it's just the only part that we haveand I think the idea behind this type of
thinking is it helps us to create spaceand think about the guilt.
And again, this is similar to the valueand the values work and the guilt work.
So, you know, I guess the whole idea is
we treat guilt as like a sin partand we work with it.
(11:21):
And that I love because it's sucha big part of self-acceptance, right?
So how do we so what questions canwe ask ourselves to help us reflect
on this part of us
that feel guilty for wanting to putin these emotional boundaries?
And the reason that I'm saying this is
without working on the guilt first,I do think it becomes tricky
because the guilt is usually what preventsus from making those decisions
(11:44):
and following through with those decisionsaround any type of boundary.
And that's basically the type of workthat I struggled with
because I felt really bad.
I felt bad about telling him that I didn'twant to work with him anymore.
I felt bad about not handling thingsthe way he wanted me to handle them,
even though I was likereally struggling mentally.
So a couple of questionsthat I want to leave you with and
(12:06):
to sum up this category,
and these are some questionsyou can ask yourself about your guilt.
So the first question is,
when you think of guilt,when you think of this part of you
that feels guilty,where do you feel it in your body?
And that is just to gain awarenessas to where it sits
and to be able to again, look at lookat the feelings that you get that come up.
And I love that because it helps meto understand when it starts to come up
(12:29):
and I can feel it in my bodyand understand it differently.
The second questionis how do you feel towards the guilt?
So, you know, that's a question
to help us get reflectingand seeing this as a part, right?
So it's looking at the guilt and it'ssaying, how do I feel towards this part?
And that's that's another stepthat helps us again, to just look at it
(12:51):
and then the third question is
what does your guilt do and or say to you?
So when you think about your guilt,what does it encourage you to do
and what does it say to you?What does it sound like?
What do you feel like it's saying to youwhen you get stuck in that part
and you really, you know,working from that place of guilt?
(13:12):
And then the last question, which I love,because I feel like for me
it always opens up the doorto what's really happening underneath is
what would you guilt think would happen or
how would your guilt think you would feelif it wasn't there?
So my, my belief,
my view on guilt is that it'sa protective part that can come in
(13:35):
and it can it works to stop usfrom experiencing certain feelings
that we that that despise concernwill feel overwhelmed by it.
So working with our guilt,
getting to know it, befriending it,focusing on it, understanding it,
are again, great ways to really startworking on those emotional boundaries.
Because the thing is,
when we start to understand our guiltand when we start to work with it,
(13:59):
that's when we start
to shift our decision making,our conscious decision making out values,
and we really start to work through
what's holding us backfrom setting those emotional boundaries.
And this will also, you know, look, Ialways recommend working with a therapist.
I work with a really great therapist.
Maybe I'm going to internal family system.
The therapist is helpful as well.
(14:20):
But I just
think when we are
able to reflect on the guilt,the experiences we've had around it,
the values that are attached to it,that's when we can stop unpacking it.
And then from there againmaking different decisions
because we understand our guiltas it's coming up.
We understand what's created it.
We really start to work with it.
So they would be the starting steps,I would say, to
(14:43):
setting strong emotional boundaries.
And again,these are just starting steps, obviously,
there's there's more work to it.
I do think if I had to saytwo steps and I would start
with the first again would be lookingat the guilt and the values we have that
that result in that guilt,where those values came from unpacking
that thoughtand then working without asking,
(15:05):
even if it's just like journalingand asking these questions.
Something that I love to dois literally like write the question
and then write a top 5 to 8 answers thatcome out.
So where do you feel that guilt?
You write a couple of placesor where Forever.
How do you feel towards it? Right?You know, a couple of ways.
You feeling the first things that come upand then what did you guilt
do or say to you?
(15:26):
Like again, writingwhatever comes to mind.
And I think that just really opens us upto, again, working with
that's that part of usbeing accepting, understanding
why it's so challengingto set those emotional boundaries.
And honestly, just by doing that work,we're already starting to create
those emotional boundariesbecause we're separating our feelings
(15:50):
and our experiencesfrom what we were taught, right, or what
we've been through or what,you know, what others want.
We're starting to create that space.
And that's why I love this work,because I do.
I do truly believe when I startedto create that space in my own life
was when I was ableto start making more changes.
So I hope this is helpful.
I hope that you find thisepisode gives you some insight
(16:12):
or some question or somethingthat resonates with you.
It can help you in your own workwith working with emotional boundaries,
regardless of whether it's someonewho's narcissistic or not.
I do feel like these tips are really,
really interestingand really powerful tips to help us
in starting to work on thatthat area of emotional boundaries.
So thank you so much for listeningand I will catch you in the next episode.
Hi guys, and welcometo the Self-Development Collective.
So I've made a decisionwhich is really exciting to do
a Q and a podcast recordingswhere basically I answer a question
that someone might have about somethingthat's happening to them right now.
So I'm not sure if you guys have seen,but I'm getting into coaching.
(00:22):
I'm currently a psych student
and I'm hoping to become a psychologist,so I am nearly finished with my factory.
I'm halfway through,but in my second last semester
and then I'll be moving forwardto continue on until I become a psych.
And until then,I did want to do some coaching work
with people one on one,like support sessions
(00:45):
and really focus on that sort of peerto peer support.
So basically that means likeI'll be offering support in areas
that I've worked in myself.
So obviously,as you might know, grief boundaries,
narcissism and relationships
with narcissists, people praising
that and in a critique.
(01:05):
So that's the areasthat I tend to focus on
because they're the areas that I dothe most work.
So it's something that I've startedjust so that, you know,
people can get an idea on what I'm likeand the type of the type of way
that I am in terms of sessions.
I thought that I would do Q and A's.
So basically there's a form
that you see belowthat you can send a question
(01:27):
and we can just start having conversationsabout what's happening for listeners.
And I will share somelike really simple feedback
and advicethat supported me in my own journey
in the hopes that that can helpsomeone else.
I had a lady reach out to meabout my Boundaries episode
now just to confirm every episodethat I record Q&A
(01:48):
and the listeners are awarethat I'm I'm using this for a podcast
so they know I don't use names,which is really important,
and I don't give heaps of details becauseI just think that that's a bit tricky.
Just practice, you know, privacy.
So basicallythis person is reaching out to me.
They have a nice, narcissistic personin their life.
I did a topic on YouTubea little while ago on setting boundaries
(02:11):
with a narcissist.
My dad is quite challenging.
He is definitely, definitely has
some some form of narcissism ora narcissistic personality disorder only.
I know those two things are different.
He's never had a formal diagnosis,but I have worked with a psychologist
who was able to help me understandthat the challenges I was having with
(02:32):
my dad were outside of the norm,and that's why I was struggling so much.
So I have had I can say thatnow this person has asked me
to record an episodeabout setting strong emotional boundaries,
in particular with this personthat they're struggling with, with the
person being narcissistic.
(02:53):
So today I want to record an episode
about strong emotional boundaries,because I know that's a really tricky one.
So she's offered some siding, stepsinto creating a strong emotional boundary.
Now, the first thing that I did wasI asked her what an emotional boundary
looks like to herbecause they are different.
Obviously, for each person.
And the way I have reflected on
(03:15):
this was when I started workingwith a psychologist
who actually helped me to understandthat my dad was quite challenging.
I used to work with my dadand I had found that really challenging
because my dad was always wanting me to dowhat, you know, what he wanted me to do.
He'd get quite far if I didn't.
There was no no, like basic conversationin terms of like giving feedback.
(03:40):
It was all very like heavilybased on what he thought,
his views of things.
And basically this
therapist helped me to understandthat I needed to stop working with him
and take a step back from that becausemy mental health was really struggling.
So I suppose for me,that's the way that I reflect
(04:00):
on the emotional boundary in terms of
I was working with himand I was really struggling
and I really had to figure outhow I could start saying no.
And so that's kind of theemotional boundary that I was working with
in that sense.
But I do think thatthese situations are similar
because when I ask this person to narrowdown what an emotional boundary is,
(04:21):
they said they basically wantedto stop feeling guilty
about not being there to take itor basically to stop feeling guilty
about their feelings.
So, you know,if this person gets upset with them for
then not visiting or something like that,they wanted to stop taking that on.
And this is a tricky partof emotional boundaries
Sometimes with boundary work,we can make it.
(04:43):
I mean, it's always our work,but we can't do things to stop the person.
For example,I can reach out and I can stop,
stop calling my dad, I can block him,I can do things like that.
But emotional like themor physical boundaries, right?
Where we can actively put somethingin place to stop them from reaching us.
But the challenge with emotionalboundaries is when not looking at them,
(05:07):
not reaching usphysically, we're looking at them,
not reaching us emotionally,but maintaining contact with them.
And so the thing withthat is it involves a lot.
The boundariesliterally come down to the inner work
and our abilityto separate our feelings from theirs.
And that is really tricky, especiallyif you're working with someone who might
(05:28):
be really narcissistic or strugglewith a narcissistic personality disorder.
Because usually in my experienceand I can only talk from my experience,
they are really like, they make youfeel bad, they make you feel guilty.
So the
situation that I reflect on mostwhen I think about this person
(05:50):
and when she's talking about emotionalboundaries
is like simple thingsthat simple experiences that I had
in a sense,You know, once my dad opens up a bill.
So I opened up one of my dad's bills notknowing that he was he's one of his bills.
And he basically treated melike a bit of a secretary
and expected me to sort it out when it waslike one of these personal bills.
And I was like, no, like,you know, it's not for me, it's for you.
(06:12):
And it just flew off the handle.
So like, it's not like a common responsein the sense it went out sort of,
you know, if someone else had approacheda parent and said, Oh, this is your mail,
the parent probably would have been like,Oh, okay, thanks.
Whereas for me, it became a thing of likemaking me feel guilty for me
and selfish for not doing thingsthe way he wanted me to do them.
(06:34):
And so this is a challengewith emotional boundaries
where really focusing onhow we can separate our feelings
from their feelingsand how we can separate our response
versus reaction to their feelingsand being able to really go
through that process as we're learninghow to cope with them at the same time.
(06:56):
So I think the biggest
challenge when we're doing work like thisis always going to come down to guilt.
And that's what this this person had said,that she feels guilty because she
she feels she feels guiltybasically for for wanting to do this,
for guilty, for not contacting them, not,you know, not doing things
the way they want to, like,you know, not being a therapist.
(07:20):
There was a lot there.
And I just thinkthat the biggest challenge
with emotional boundariesis it's always going to be our work
because we're not puttingthat physical boundary in place
to separate ourselves in that person.
So your work is really going to beon separating our emotion
from and our experience from the reaction.
(07:41):
And that can be really trickybecause the thing with guilt, right?
I think that I personally have haveunderstood of guilt
is usually wewe feel guilt or in these situations
when we're talking about relationshipswith people, we tend to feel guilty
when we've done somethingthat goes against a value that we have.
But the challenge isdoes that value serve us?
(08:03):
And that is a different story altogetherbecause we can feel guilty
for not doing somethingand have a particular value around that.
But that doesn't mean thatthat value is serving
us, is working for us, is helping usto get to where we want to be.
And so I think the biggest challengeis always going to be
(08:24):
and the step that I would suggestright, is writing down those values,
thinking about the valuesthat contribute to you feeling guilty
and going inand saying where those values stem from.
So usually,you know, for example, my experience,
you know, my values stems from my familyand what I was told.
I think there were particular expectationsaround my dad
(08:48):
thought of meand what he wants it from me.
And and I do think that a lot of my valuesstemmed from his expectations.
Right.
So when I didn't meet those values
that he expected of me, I felt really bad.
But I held on to those valuesthat were mine.
And I never really did that introspectionuntil my brother passed away.
(09:08):
And that's whenand when my father got sick as well,
because that's when I really startedto think about the way I was living
and how it was serving meand whether it was right.
So I think the workwhen it comes to starting sex,
when it comes to creating a strongemotional boundary, is again
going into that space of guilt,understanding where the guilt comes
(09:29):
from, the values that that comes from,and then dissect
how those values were created,who do they belong to?
What experiences do you think taught youthose values or encourage those clues?
And my second,
my second step or my second suggestion,and which is, again, based on work
that I've done more so in the griefand guilt space, but nonetheless, guilt
(09:51):
and I do think is such a you know,
it's a big one and it's so commonin so many experiences is,
again,I am a big internal family systems person.
I work with that myself internally.
It's something that my therapist told me.
It's something I'm reading on
and something that I will eventuallybe doing training on
(10:11):
as I continue moving forward.
But the thing I love about thissort of internal family systems is
that they look at us and our experiences,our feelings in different parts.
And the best thing, the best wayI can describe it is the movie Inside Out.
So you know howshe's got these different feelings.
So they effect.
The whole idea of it is to lookat ourselves as those different feelings.
(10:34):
Right?And then we have the self. So we have
we have all the different sort of feelingsand emotions we have.
And then we have this main corepart of off
that is untouchable that's always there,even if we feel it's not
and we want to be able to access it, it'sthat compassionate, curious place.
So basically I in a nutshell,it's really helpful to look at guilt
(10:57):
as a part of us, but not like attachlike out part of our whole.
Like it's just the only part that we haveand I think the idea behind this type of
thinking is it helps us to create spaceand think about the guilt.
And again, this is similar to the valueand the values work and the guilt work.
So, you know, I guess the whole idea is
we treat guilt as like a sin partand we work with it.
(11:21):
And that I love because it's sucha big part of self-acceptance, right?
So how do we so what questions canwe ask ourselves to help us reflect
on this part of us
that feel guilty for wanting to putin these emotional boundaries?
And the reason that I'm saying this is
without working on the guilt first,I do think it becomes tricky
because the guilt is usually what preventsus from making those decisions
(11:44):
and following through with those decisionsaround any type of boundary.
And that's basically the type of workthat I struggled with
because I felt really bad.
I felt bad about telling him that I didn'twant to work with him anymore.
I felt bad about not handling thingsthe way he wanted me to handle them,
even though I was likereally struggling mentally.
So a couple of questionsthat I want to leave you with and
(12:06):
to sum up this category,
and these are some questionsyou can ask yourself about your guilt.
So the first question is,
when you think of guilt,when you think of this part of you
that feels guilty,where do you feel it in your body?
And that is just to gain awarenessas to where it sits
and to be able to again, look at lookat the feelings that you get that come up.
And I love that because it helps meto understand when it starts to come up
(12:29):
and I can feel it in my bodyand understand it differently.
The second questionis how do you feel towards the guilt?
So, you know, that's a question
to help us get reflectingand seeing this as a part, right?
So it's looking at the guilt and it'ssaying, how do I feel towards this part?
And that's that's another stepthat helps us again, to just look at it
(12:51):
and then the third question is
what does your guilt do and or say to you?
So when you think about your guilt,what does it encourage you to do
and what does it say to you?What does it sound like?
What do you feel like it's saying to youwhen you get stuck in that part
and you really, you know,working from that place of guilt?
(13:12):
And then the last question, which I love,because I feel like for me
it always opens up the doorto what's really happening underneath is
what would you guilt think would happen or
how would your guilt think you would feelif it wasn't there?
So my, my belief,
my view on guilt is that it'sa protective part that can come in
(13:35):
and it can it works to stop usfrom experiencing certain feelings
that we that that despise concernwill feel overwhelmed by it.
So working with our guilt,
getting to know it, befriending it,focusing on it, understanding it,
are again, great ways to really startworking on those emotional boundaries.
Because the thing is,
when we start to understand our guiltand when we start to work with it,
(13:59):
that's when we start
to shift our decision making,our conscious decision making out values,
and we really start to work through
what's holding us backfrom setting those emotional boundaries.
And this will also, you know, look, Ialways recommend working with a therapist.
I work with a really great therapist.
Maybe I'm going to internal family system.
The therapist is helpful as well.
(14:20):
But I just
think when we are
able to reflect on the guilt,the experiences we've had around it,
the values that are attached to it,that's when we can stop unpacking it.
And then from there againmaking different decisions
because we understand our guiltas it's coming up.
We understand what's created it.
We really start to work with it.
So they would be the starting steps,I would say, to
(14:43):
setting strong emotional boundaries.
And again,these are just starting steps, obviously,
there's there's more work to it.
I do think if I had to saytwo steps and I would start
with the first again would be lookingat the guilt and the values we have that
that result in that guilt,where those values came from unpacking
that thoughtand then working without asking,
(15:05):
even if it's just like journalingand asking these questions.
Something that I love to dois literally like write the question
and then write a top 5 to 8 answers thatcome out.
So where do you feel that guilt?
You write a couple of placesor where Forever.
How do you feel towards it? Right?You know, a couple of ways.
You feeling the first things that come upand then what did you guilt
do or say to you?
(15:26):
Like again, writingwhatever comes to mind.
And I think that just really opens us upto, again, working with
that's that part of usbeing accepting, understanding
why it's so challengingto set those emotional boundaries.
And honestly, just by doing that work,we're already starting to create
those emotional boundariesbecause we're separating our feelings
(15:50):
and our experiencesfrom what we were taught, right, or what
we've been through or what,you know, what others want.
We're starting to create that space.
And that's why I love this work,because I do.
I do truly believe when I startedto create that space in my own life
was when I was ableto start making more changes.
So I hope this is helpful.
I hope that you find thisepisode gives you some insight
(16:12):
or some question or somethingthat resonates with you.
It can help you in your own workwith working with emotional boundaries,
regardless of whether it's someonewho's narcissistic or not.
I do feel like these tips are really,
really interestingand really powerful tips to help us
in starting to work on thatthat area of emotional boundaries.
So thank you so much for listeningand I will catch you in the next episode.
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