Boundaries for Beginners: How to Set and Keep Your Boundaries

Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life.

My name is Iman Tohami and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories.

It's basically a beginner's guide, especially if you have never put boundaries into place and if you don't know what boundaries are and how you can actually keep them. Setting them is one thing, but keeping them is a whole different thing.

Yes, let's get started and let's talk about boundaries.

Yes, boundaries. So what are boundaries? I think this is a concept that I need to explain because for some reason people tend to believe that when you set boundaries, other people change. While this can be true, it's not necessarily what will happen when you set boundaries.

When you set boundaries, other people will often get very miserable and they will start pushing back because you're changing the system. You know what I mean? And usually people don't like change, they don't like changes to the system, especially if there are family or friends you have known for many years and they've gotten used to you being a certain way.

What boundaries do is you change. You change your response to certain behavior. And this is very important to understand. Once you understand this, your life can really change. I have seen it time and time again in my own practice or even in my direct environment when I have discussed these things with friends and family.

So this is something, if you can internalize it, you can actually see great changes in your life that you have brought for yourself. It's basically like a gift, you know. You have changed certain things to bring yourself some peace of mind.

I want to give you an example, which is actually very important because what you need to understand is in order to establish boundaries, you also need to respect them yourself. Now imagine you buy a house and it has a wonderful garden, and for some reason you don't want to step on the grass.

And people come over to your house and you tell them, don't step onto my grass. And the issue is here in one thing. If you allow them once, or you even step on the grass, people will see that you are actually not taking your own boundaries seriously.

So, what will happen? You step on the grass, others step on the grass, nothing will happen. So it's very important for you to understand that once you have established boundaries, you need to honor them as well. I want to give you some tools and tips on how to actually establish boundaries.

Now that we have explained what boundaries actually are. So, step number one: you need to take some time, sit down, journal, think to find out what boundaries you actually want to have. Be clear on your boundaries because sometimes we react to certain situations.

For example, there is a family gathering, we meet, and questions come up, like when are you getting married? Oh my God, why did you gain so much weight? Or, oh my god, why have you lost so much weight?

And these questions can be very triggering, and you feel agitated, you feel angry, you feel a lot of discomfort. It doesn't mean that you in this moment actually understand that you need to have a boundary here. You just understand that these questions are triggering in some way.

But when you sit down and find out these situations are very triggering for you, cause a lot of negativity and discomfort, you also will understand that you need a boundary here. You have to be very clear on the boundaries that you actually want to establish.

And for that, you need to understand the reasons. So, again, to go back to the question, if someone asks you at a family gathering, when are you getting married, and you have really not much control over this, right?

You will feel that this question is causing a lot of negative emotions for you. And in order to control that, you can do certain things, but they will always go back to you and your own behavior. But you can also set a boundary so that when these questions come up, you no longer have to deal with these questions.

So you are basically giving yourself a reason to establish a boundary. You say you no longer want to have these negative emotions, and this is why people need to stop at this point. They cannot ask me these types of questions.

So be very, very confident in your reasons. Be very, very confident in your no. No, I don't want this anymore in my life. You also have to believe that you are very worthy of your boundary because sometimes we are not establishing boundaries because we don't believe that we deserve them.

So actually, peace of mind is something all of us can have when we work for it a little bit and learn what is good for us and what is not good for us. If you are very wishy-washy about the way you want your boundaries to be set, so if you don't understand where the no is, where the reason is why you don't want to have these type of questions, for example, you will be very drained and

even more overwhelmed whenever you are basically presented with these questions because you only know that there is negativity that arises, but you don't really know how to deal with them. So be confident in your no. You have to believe that you are worthy of this boundary and you are worthy of being respected.

You are allowed to have space with your own rules. You know, the space doesn't need to be a physical space, it could be a mental space that you create. But heads up though, people will push back. As I mentioned before, people don't like change, especially when it's a big change within the system.

You're messing with it and you will have to prepare for some pushback. However, what you get in return is well-being, sense of self, your own agency. So step one, be clear about your reasons, be clear about your no.

Step number two, you have to communicate your boundaries. And this can be tricky. And I tell you why. In some cultural contexts, um authority figures are very important. So it's not easily, um, it's not easy to establish a boundary by just saying, I don't like this.

So sometimes you have to trick around with your behavior, your own behavior, in order to establish a boundary. Again, an example. A topic comes up, you really don't want to talk about it, what can you do? You can actually send a no non-verbally.

You just need to set your intention that you really don't want this, but you want to end this in a very respectful way. Let's say your aunt, your mother, your sister is very much into call gossiping and you're really not.

So whenever they want to bring up a topic that is basically gossip about someone, you can say, oh well, I don't know. Or, oh, interesting, oh okay, but I don't know. Basically, you divert the situation by bringing up answers they cannot work with.

But again, if you have the feeling that this person can, you can actually address a lot with this person, be very clear that you don't like gossip. Say, hey, listen, you know what? I know that this basically gives you a lot of joy, or I know that we have been talking about these things a lot, but I actually want to change and I no longer want to talk about other people.

You can do this in a very respectful way without hurting them. And obviously, you know best how to interact with people in your life. Well, not so much sometimes, but again, if talking directly is not an option, nonverbal communication is very, very strong.

So basically change the subject, say okay, and move on. Give them nothing to work with. And after a while, they will actually get it and stop it. You just need to test this out a little bit, or you can just randomly state something else in order to, you know, divert, change the subject, wait for the right timing, and then you can start talking about, I don't know, sports.

For example, if you don't like to talk about politics, you can actually actually decide not to engage. You can say, hmm, yes, okay. And then once you see an opening, you just change the subject. For example, oh, have you seen this advertisement?

Oh, have you seen this account on social media? Oh, have you seen this Netflix show or whatever it may be? Find the right timing to change the subject. And that brings me to step number three, which is the most important but also the most difficult step.

Keeping up with your boundaries. You know, after you communicate a certain boundary, it can be very hard to keep up with it. Why is that? Again, change is not easy for anyone. It's not easy for you, but it's also not easy for the people around you.

So once you're very conscious about your boundaries, very conscious about your nose and the walls that you basically want to build in order to stop certain behavior, people will not just say, oh, okay, I mean, if you're lucky, that's that's exactly what's going to happen.

But unfortunately, in many cases, that's not what's happening. Let's say, for example, that someone is constantly pushing you to basically get out of you the old behavior that they used to know. Let's say you are in a relationship and fights turn out to be very messy and loud, you can actually decide, you know what, I will not engage in a conversation with you unless we lower our voices.

Right now, I don't want to have this conversation. Once you have calmed down, we can get back to it. And then, if nothing happens, if they are not responding to your request, you can actually leave the room. And if they are running after you to continue with the fight, you maybe can actually decide, okay, I'm leaving the house now.

So this is within your control. You cannot change other people, but you can change the way you respond to certain things. The trick is to stay consistent because once you do it, you have to stick to it. When you stop being consistent in a boundary, it sends the message that there's actually weak points and they will start experimenting.

They will keep on pushing and wait for a certain outcome. Sometimes they will get it, sometimes they will not. But if you stay consistent, they will eventually change with you. This is basic conditioning. You know, there was an experiment about mice and how to condition them to get certain things.

So they were in a cage, and when they would push a certain button, they would get a treat. They would do it, and every time they do it, they get a treat. And they have been conditioned to know, okay, when I push this button, I get a treat.

What do they do? They always go back and get a treat. When you want to condition them that they are no longer getting the treat, they keep on pushing, they get no treat, they keep on pushing, no treat.

At some point, they will stop pushing because they understand there is no treat coming. However, if you randomly set up the button that sometimes they will get a treat and sometimes they will not, they will continuously push the button.

They will not stop because they will always wait for the out for the good outcome. Sometimes they will get it, sometimes they will not. And the same concept applies to boundaries. If you allow boundaries to be overstepped, sometimes people will keep on pushing.

So you have to be very consistent in the way how you set your boundaries and how you keep them up. And then that brings me back to step one. Be very aware of your no, be very confident in your reasons.

I know it's hard to understand what a no actually means and how to implement it in a polite and respectful way, because again, certain um certain regions in the world are culturally not as direct and need a different type of communication, but you have to play a little bit with the wording, you have to play a little bit with the way on how you you address things.

As long as you know what your know is, what your reasons are, and you stick to them and you believe in them, and you believe that you should have these boundaries, and these are your principles, you will be able to implement them.

So, yeah, I hope that helped a little bit. It's just a short overview on how to set up boundaries and keep them up. And we will talk more about it in the future. Hey, thank you so much for tuning in, and hopefully, you will tune in again next week.

It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The handle is always @saidintherapy. Thank you so much.