Setting boundaries after divorce is a transformative step towards reclaiming your emotional well-being. Ever wondered how boundaries differ from ultimatums, especially when navigating the complexities of post-divorce life?
Join me as I walk you through the difference between the two, helping you establish personal limits that protect your emotional safety while fostering healthier relationships. We’ll explore how life’s challenges can be approached with a hopeful perspective, ensuring that your journey towards independence is both empowering and safe, particularly if you're facing any risk to your physical well-being.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hi, welcome back to Becoming you Again.
This is the podcast where you learn to create a solid, authentic identity for yourself, full of self-love and confidence, to be emotionally resilient, taking back your own power over your emotional and physical life, and how to be truly independent in your life after divorce. I'm your host, karen Nelson, and you're listening to episode number 189. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, karen Nelson. Hello, my lovely ladies, I am so happy to be here recording this podcast for you today.
I'm trying to think if there has been anything like overly exciting or deeply spiritual or just really hard going on in my life right now, and right now it just kind of seems like pretty even keel. Yes, of course I feel the range of emotions throughout the day, like most of us, but I think the last little bit has just kind of been pretty even keel, and I know that may not be how your life feels right now, and just remember, whatever you're going through right now whether it's the depths of divorce and it's really hard and you're really struggling no matter what is happening, our emotional life and the things that we go through in our life whether happy or sad, they ebb and flow. Remember that life waxes and wanes. It doesn't always stay the same. It's never like always perfect or always the worst, and that that's okay. Just remind yourself that's okay. That's like a. For me. This is a total side tangent about what this podcast is about, by the way, but you know me, I like to side tangent sometimes. But like adding that little parenthetical saying at the end of many of my thoughts and that's okay really helps me to pull out of difficult times or things that are like a big struggle for me, or remembering that like not everything is going to be terrible or the worst. It sort of adds like a little bit of hope to the end of things. And hope I've said this before but hope is a choice and it can be a really powerful choice in certain moments. So if that helps you to add that little parenthetical like add on to the end of your thoughts or the end of your sentences or the end of whatever is going on in your life, and that's okay, use it. If not, totally okay, you don't have to. All right, so there's my little tangent. Again, nothing super like crazy is going on over here in my life and that's okay. But in this podcast episode I am going to be talking about mainly, I'm going to be talking about boundaries and the difference between boundaries and ultimatums, but then I'm also just going to give you some ways to get better at setting your own boundaries and and like stepping into your own safety and power for yourself as you set boundaries in your life.
So there's this lady that I follow on Instagram and I probably should have looked up before I started recording what her name is. I can't remember and I didn't look it up, um, but I will try and remember to put her name in the show notes. After I'm done and editing and all of that I'll still probably forget. I forget a lot of things. This is kind of an ongoing joke with me and my brain during perimenopause is that I forget so many things. So anyway, I will try and remember.
But she's just kind of like this um comedian and most of her reels are just like she's standing like outside somewhere and it's just like basically a face shot. And she just says like these really funny kind of realistic comments about just life in general. And there's this one that I saw the other day and she was saying something like isn't it funny how when you set boundaries and you decide to hold them, everybody in your life seems to be really mad at you and hate you and she's like, yeah, that's kind of how, that's kind of the funny thing about boundaries and she's not wrong. Like it's just kind of like this ironic thing about when we step into setting boundaries for ourselves, for protection, for our own like emotional safety or maybe even physical, but oftentimes it's emotional right For our own safety, because that is very, very important. And when we uphold those boundaries, like that's the key is like actually upholding the boundary, oftentimes people will kind of be upset with that, people will kind of be mad about that, but the boundary again isn't for them, it's for you, and so, anyway, that was again just like a little side tangent I'm on the side tangents today apparently, but uh, so this is what's really important about boundaries is they are for your safety, and let me just do like a little caveat here when it comes to boundaries.
If you are in a situation where setting a boundary like if you're still in a marriage where maybe you are being abused in some kind of way and setting a boundary actually will make things more unsafe for you in like a physical sense or whatever that means Maybe this isn't the time to figure out how to set boundaries, because you have other safety needs that need to be taken care of first, and that might mean being complacent, placating, doing whatever you need to do to protect yourself and your children and then being able to figure out a way to either get out of that situation or whatever that means. I'm not telling you how to live your life, but if your physical safety is really going to be threatened by setting a boundary, right now may not be the time you get to decide, and everyone's life is nuanced and different, and that's why, like anything that I teach on this podcast, you have to take it and apply it to your own life and make decisions from what you are experiencing and what feels right and good for you. I will never say this is the thing that you must be doing. This is the thing that you need to change your life, blah, blah, blah. I will never say that, because it's not true. Everyone's life is different. Everyone's experience is different. You are the ultimate chooser and decider of your own life and you know what is best for you. Okay, so there was my little caveat. Now we're really going to dive into what are boundaries.
Speaker 1: 7:35
So why do we sometimes not set boundaries outside of feeling very, like, physically unsafe, like what would be just regular old reasons why we wouldn't want to set a boundary for someone? Well, that lady hit it right on the head, right, the Instagram lady that I was talking about. We don't want to make people mad. We don't want people to reject us in some way, and if people are mad at us or aren't talking to us or are talking bad about us or are judging us, that feels like rejection, right? So that's maybe the number one reason why we don't set boundaries for ourselves or other people. Right? We don't want to get judged. We might feel like we're letting people down, like I can't come to this holiday party because of all the comments I get about my divorce and my choices, but if I don't go, my mom's going to be really disappointed and I'm gonna? It's gonna feel like I'm letting her down because I didn't show up at this party, right? You don't want to have people mad at you. You don't want to feel like you're pushing people away. You might feel guilty for making this decision.
Guilt is a huge thing that women feel that we take on and we feel all the time about literally almost everything, every decision that we make, because we have been raised and told and taught that it is our job to take care of everyone else and if we heaven forbid set a boundary around that, that means we're doing something for ourself and that is selfish and that is bad and that is wrong and you should feel guilty. No, you know me, I don't actually ascribe to those things and I want to teach as many women as possible to know that you're not required to feel guilty about any of this. You are allowed to make decisions that are best for you. You are allowed to put yourself first even I know it's a crazy, weird, incredibly out there concept that goes probably against everything that you have been raised to believe. But you are allowed to put yourself first, your needs, your wants, your desires, your safety first, emotional safety and physical safety, right, okay, you maybe are afraid that you're not going to follow through with it, you're not going to keep it up, because you'll say this is my boundary. If you do this, I'm going to do this, and then I do the thing. And then you are like, oh no, my people pleaser is coming out and I have to make them feel safe and good and comfortable and I don't want to upset them and all the things come into that we just talked about, come into your brain, and then you don't follow through, right? So these are all reasons and there's probably many, many more why we often don't or won't or haven't set boundaries.
But here's the really cool thing about boundaries, and I just went through this training with Victoria Albina and she is incredible with boundaries and codependency and all these things, but her main thing with boundaries is they are resentment prevention and they are community care. They are not selfish because you're taking care of you, which then resonates out into your community. And the reason why we develop resentment toward other people is because we are actually being selfish when we are not telling people what we really want or what we really need to feel safe, to be able to function, to be able to live our lives in a way, when we don't tell people what we need and then we just expect them to do it, even though we haven't told them these things. And then they don't tell people what we need and then we just expect them to do it, even though we haven't told them these things, and then they don't do it because we didn't tell them right, and then we just feel frustrated and we feel annoyed and we talk about them in our heads and we just get angry and we're holding it inside. That creates resentment and that is way more selfish than actually just saying listen, this doesn't work for me and so, if you continue to do this, I am going to do this other thing right and I'm going to talk about, like, what an actual boundary looks like and how to create safety in yourself first before setting the boundary. But here's what I want to really focus on at this part of the podcast, which is kind of what I said at the beginning Boundaries and ultimatums are different.
Boundaries are not ultimatums, because boundaries are limits that we set, and we set them Based on our own behavior of what we are going to do. If someone else continues to do or doesn't do this thing. That doesn't work for us, right? It's not like trying to manipulate someone into making a decision or doing something or showing up in a certain way. It's actually based off of like, if you do this, this is how I'm going to behave or respond, and that is like where the boundary lies, right? However, ultimatums are the opposite of that. Ultimatums are reactive.
Ultimatums are based off of, like, our nervous system firing off because it's been activated into fight, fight or freeze, and so it's it like comes out of this fear of, oh no, if this person continues to do this thing, that means I've lost control, there are no other possibilities, and so I better tell them they better do this thing or else and it's like, often followed by some kind of threat, it's like a demand that you better do this or else to try and like, regain control over the situation. But here's the thing People have autonomy. Every single person has autonomy to do whatever they want to do. Every single person has autonomy to do whatever they want to do. And when we try and exert control over situations, over people's actions, over people's behaviors, that is coming from a place of fear, that is coming from a nervous system response that's kicking in, and it's coming from a place of I need to force this or all is lost.
So an ultimatum might sound something like if you don't change the way you are acting or speaking or showing up or the way you're doing things, something really bad is going to happen. Like if you don't stop. Like maybe you're saying this to your ex, or something Like if you don't stop. Like maybe you're saying this to your ex, or something like if you don't stop doing this thing, I'm going to take the kids away from you and you'll never be able to see them again. Take these examples as just what they are. I'm not telling you how to live your life. I'm not telling you that you're doing it wrong. Maybe that's a safer thing.
Again, we have to take this topic as like an individual, nuanced thing. You get to decide what is actually best for you. There's very much like this intensity behind it. There's very much a threat going on, and we do this with our kids. Sometimes, I think, because we feel like we're in this authoritative position over our kids. We will, instead of setting boundaries like a boundary might be if you don't do your homework, then I'm not going to let you drive the car until your homework is done right. That could be a boundary, because boundaries are always set in the first person. Because boundaries are always set in the first person If you don't do this, I am going to do this. I am going to do this thing, but like an ultimatum might be, you're going to do your homework and I'm going to lock the door. I'm going to lock you in your room until you finish it, or you'll sit at this table until you finish your dinner. No discussion, you're sitting here and you're going to finish your dinner.
It's like trying to take away the autonomy, the choice of the other person because you're so frustrated and fed up. But again, we don't want to live our lives trying to control other people's decisions. We don't want to live our lives trying to manipulate people, trying to shame people, trying to guilt people into doing certain things, into making certain choices. Because I want you to think about it from the opposite way. If that has ever happened to you, if you've ever had anyone in your life who has tried to control you and control how you live and how you show up and the decisions that you make, if you've ever had anyone who has tried to make you feel bad, feel like you're doing it wrong, feel like putting yourself first isn't good. Who is trying to manipulate you in some way into being the person that they want you to be, instead of being who you actually are. All of that feels shitty. You don't like yourself, you don't like the other person.
It creates distance in the relationships. There's no conversation going on, there's no talking about things, there's no openness, there's resentment and anger and frustration that is building when we use ultimatums. If your boundaries are not connected to your mind, your body and your intuition, it's so much harder to follow through with actually holding onto that boundary and showing up in the way that you want, in responding in the way that you want. Otherwise, you will often just show up with an ultimatum, which again is a reaction to whatever is going on in your environment in that moment. So what we want to do to step away from setting ultimatums, to step into setting boundaries and really creating safety for ourselves and our community is we want to stay very connected to ourselves and what it is that we truly want and are willing to do to create that for ourselves.
We have to turn to self-trust and really being present in the moment with ourselves, because, again, we want to create boundaries as a response to whatever is happening in our environment, not as a reaction. Remember, reactions are like knee-jerk, reactions are habitual, like what we normally would do. And if we're trying to step away from that and actually think and formulate and decide and come from intention, that's where the response is and that's where boundaries step in. So we want to turn to self-trust and believing that we have our back, that we are going to take care of us in moments when it really matters. We're not going to leave it up to anyone else, right? This is why boundaries, I think, get very confusing, because we think that we set the boundary and then the other person needs to uphold that boundary. But that's not how boundaries work, right? Boundaries are very much.
I'm going to set this boundary and tell you what I need to create safety, to take care of myself, and I'm going to tell you what that boundary is. And then, if you keep doing the thing which you totally can keep doing, because you get to be you and you get to do you but if you keep doing that thing, I'm telling you right now I am going to do this because I am going to have my own back and I am going to take care of me in whatever way that looks like. So you do you and you get to keep doing you if that's what you want. This is how I will respond when that happens. So to be able to set boundaries, we first want to be connected to the present and step into our self-trust. So that always happens when we go into a somatic practice. We get reconnected with our mind and our body right. So do a somatic practice Like say you're struggling with something and you're like I really got to do this thing with my mom.
I really got to say like listen, if you keep butting in and telling me that I'm making all the wrong decisions in my life, about my divorce and about how I'm parenting and about all of the things, if you keep doing that, I'm going to have to not text you anymore. I'm not going to reach out to you anymore. I'm not going to invite you over on Sunday to visit the kids anymore. That is for my own protection and I can't keep hearing you beat down on me and telling me that I'm doing it wrong. So if you're going to keep using those words, you know I'm not going to invite you over on Sunday afternoon anymore. That's how I'm going to keep myself safe and you can keep doing whatever you want and saying what you want about me behind my back and judging me and telling everybody that I'm doing it wrong. But I'm not going to hear it anymore because I'm just not going to invite you over anymore. Right, like that's the boundary.
So before you lay that boundary down, you want to get in touch with yourself and reconnect to yourself and figure out what that boundary actually is. And you can even practice, like, if you're not good at setting boundaries or you're not good at keeping your boundary that you've set, let's practice. There's nothing wrong with practicing and getting better at something before you actually do it. Do a somatic practice. Do one that works for you. I've got plenty. Episode number 186, move it's a somatic practice. Episode number 175, centered hands grounding technique. That's a somatic practice that's going to ground you in the moment. Episode number 153, anchoring in blue Again another somatic practice. I have many other somatic practices. Just go through the podcast and find one that resonates with you. I have many grounding techniques. All of these things are going to bring you to the present moment and reconnect you to yourself. So do that first.
Then you're going to figure out okay, where do I need to set a boundary to keep myself emotionally safe, mentally safe, physically safe, whatever that looks like right. And then you're going to like, practice, saying if you do this, if you keep doing this, I am going to do this because boundaries are in first person, you do this, I am going to take care of myself in this specific way. So we could use maybe your ex in this scenario If you continue to come into my home without asking, without knocking, and just walk in. When you come to pick up the kids, I am going to drop the kids off at your place every time it's your turn, or I'm going to meet you at a parking lot to do drop-offs or whatever right you get to decide what you are going to do for you. But the best way to connect with and understand what it is that you will do for you and the boundary that you will uphold on your end is to reconnect with yourself first. So do that first and then practice, figure out what feels right and best for you in those moments and then practice Like, if you do this, I'm going to do this, if you say this thing, I'm going to remove myself and then just practice saying it and see how your body and your mind react as you practice.
The more you practice things, the better you get, and if you've never been able to uphold a boundary for yourself, that tells me that most likely you are setting boundaries where you're expecting the other person to either change. We don't want to expect that they're going to change. These people have already shown us who they are and that they are very in tune with their autonomy and that they can do whatever they want. Right. But guess what? You also have autonomy. You also get to do what feels right and best for you.
And that is the true beauty of boundaries is remembering that you also have power in these situations. So you get to tell them you keep doing you, you keep being you, this is how I am going to show up. When you keep doing and being you in this way, right, you're not telling them to stop, you're not telling them to leave you alone. You're not telling them how to react. You're not trying to control their behavior. You're just saying, if you keep doing this, this is how I'm going to show up, and if they decide they're not going to like that very much. They get to be mad, they get to be upset, or they get to continue to be them. You also can get to continue to be you. You get to show up as the person that you want to be, and boundaries make that possible for you.
All right, my friends. So remember, we're not setting ultimatums, we're not threatening people, we're not trying to control them or manipulate them, because we hate it when people do that to us. Maybe we've lived our whole marriages like that and we're trying to step away from that. So ground yourself, reconnect with you, understand what it is that you truly want and what true safety looks like for you, and then set that boundary in first person. You got this. You can do this. I believe in you. Take back your power and lean into what is best and right for you.
All right, my friends. As always, I will be back next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to karinnelsoncoaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.