Creating Joyful Connections Through Mastering Boundaries - Dana Skaggs

Could understanding boundaries transform your emotional well-being? Dana Skaggs, the Queen of Boundaries, shares her wisdom on how setting boundaries is not just about saying no, but about opening up a safe space for yes—to joy, intimacy, and a fulfilling life. Our conversation challenges common misconceptions, revealing that boundaries aren't barriers; they are bridges to deeper connections and happiness. Dana unpacks the roots of boundary struggles, often tracing back to childhood dynamics, and offers enlightening perspectives on how these early experiences shape our adult lives. We delve into the signs that a lack of boundaries might be affecting your happiness and provide insights into achieving emotional freedom.

Join us as we tackle the people-pleasing patterns that many of us unintentionally fall into, rooted in a childhood need to satisfy authority figures. Dana guides us through practical strategies for setting boundaries in a supportive way, starting with "baby boundaries" in low-risk scenarios. Through the metaphor of a yard, she beautifully illustrates the balance between maintaining your personal space and respecting others. This episode is a roadmap to nurturing healthier relationships with yourself and those around you. Grab your favorite beverage and immerse yourself in this enlightening journey to a more joyous and connected life.

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Chapters

• 0:07 Exploring Boundaries for Joy and Connection
• 12:40 The Importance of Setting Boundaries

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

to another episode of pleasure principles, where we explore the intersection of mind, body relationships to uncover what truly sparks joy, intimacy and connection in our lives. I am your host, avik, and today we are diving into the powerful and often misunderstood topic of boundaries. Yes, boundaries aren't just about saying no, so they are about creating space for more. Yes, yes to joy, yes to intimacy and yes to life that you deserve. So joining us today is Dana Stacks. So welcome to the show, dana.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Thank you, Avik. I'm excited to be here. This is going to be a great conversation.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Exactly Lovely. So, Dana, before we start our conversation, I'd quickly love to introduce you to all of our listeners. Dear listeners, Dana is also known as the Queen of Boundaries. With over 16 years as a licensed psychotherapist and a master's in clinical psychology and her wildly insightful podcast Phoenix and Flame, Dana knows exactly how to illuminate those shadowy corners of our emotional lives. So, whether it's frustration, anxiety or confusion, holding you back, her expertise and her knack for using relatable analogies will help you create a roadmap to the emotional freedom and a more fulfilling life. So grab a cup of coffee or tea, whatever you like, or maybe even a notebook also, or tea, whatever you like, or maybe even a notebook also, Because this episode is all about the transformative power of the boundaries. And how can actually? You can actually increase our capacity for the pleasure and the connection. So why do we? Let's jump in. Welcome to the show again, Dana.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Thank you so much, Thank you.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Abhik, lovely, lovely. So, dana, to start with, I mean, if you can share, like, what is the biggest misconception people have about boundaries?

Speaker 2: 2:36

Fabulous. So I think one of the biggest misconceptions there's two, actually One like you said a few moments ago that boundaries is all about no, no, no, no, no. Okay, and there is a part to that, helping us learn to feel comfortable saying no. But it's just not just about no, like you mentioned earlier, it's opening up our yeses as well. And there's another myth that people have that they there's a lot of people I run into that think if they're going to set boundaries, they have to be confrontational, they have to be loud, they have to be obnoxious, they have to, you know, engage in really hardcore confrontational interaction with somebody, and this is simply not the case at all at all.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Okay, that's really true. And also like what do you think I mean?

Speaker 2: 3:35

how do boundaries make room for more joy and the pleasure in our lives? Boundaries help us feel safe. We have I don't know how much to get into all of this because we don't have a whole lot of time, but I work with a lot of internal family systems when I work with my patients, because we have to get to the question of why. Why do they have trouble saying no? Why do they have trouble setting boundaries? Why can't they say yes? Because if you can't answer the why, you're not going to change anything. And so the whys frequently lead us to younger parts of ourselves, parts of ourselves that were exposed to something that was scary, maybe an unpredictable, unstable childhood, and we kind of learned we have to be in control of everything. If we're not in control of everything, then we're not safe. Well, for that child in us, that was absolutely true. For the five-year-old, the six-year-old, the seven-year-old in us, that was true for that part of us. But the thing of it is, this is 2024. And so we have to learn how to come forward and be able to adjust and acknowledge what our current relationships are like and be able to set appropriate boundaries in the here and the now so that we can have access to wonderful connections and see boundaries gives us that sense of safety, because when you know how to practice healthy boundaries, you're not drawn into.

Speaker 2: 5:01

It's not your responsibility to meet someone else's needs. If it's their needs, it's their responsibility to get those needs met. But if you feel like it's your responsibility, then you might want to shy away from someone who you feel like has a whole lot of needs, or someone that maybe you feel like is stronger than you, louder than you, pushier than you. You're scared that they might try to push you in to meeting some kind of their need that you're not comfortable with right. But if you're comfortable with your boundaries, you're like I hear you, I understand what you're saying, I'm comfortable doing A, b and C, but that's all. If you need D, e and F met, then you need to go to someone else, and so that's when you have a really good sense of boundaries, of what you're comfortable doing, what you're not comfortable doing. Then you feel safer, you feel calmer, you feel more at peace.

Speaker 2: 6:15

So, when you mentioned this. One more thing what's a sign that someone's lack of boundaries is affecting their happiness? I mean, if there are any, avoids social interaction. They just stay home. They don't want to get into groups. They avoid feeling connected to somebody because they don't have a comfort with setting their boundaries. Like I said a few moments ago, they feel like they're going to get sucked into other people's moods, other people's desires, other people's demands and they don't feel comfortable setting that boundary.

Speaker 2: 6:51

People that are very, very empathetic are also. If someone is very empathetic but they don't have healthy boundaries, then they are at risk for being sucked into other people's lives and feeling like other people's moods overtake their own and other people's desires and other people's struggles suck them under like into a riptide, like they get ass over elbows in a riptide of other people's experiences. And because they're feeling all of this and they don't have healthy boundaries, and because they're feeling all of this and they don't have healthy boundaries, they get scared to go out and be around other people, like parties, gatherings, social outings. So they'll just stay home, they'll make excuses and desires and needs and demands and they will without healthy boundaries?

Speaker 1: 8:01

Exactly, exactly. And also what according to you? I mean how, how someone will handle the pushback from people who dislike the boundaries that you set.

Speaker 2: 8:15

That's a good one, because when setting the boundaries is the first step, but just like you said, Avik, there's going to be pushback. It's not if it's when. Ok, especially when we've been in a relationship with someone for quite some time, we have trained them to expect that we are going to allow them to push us and get their way. And they keep doing it because it works for them. And so we have to acknowledge and that's a good thing, because I think the more, the more that we see that we have control over, the more we have agency, and so we acknowledge that we have contributed to that training. And so when we change that on them, they get confused with us for a while and we kept letting them push into us and tell us what to do and demand that we meet their needs and all of this, then that's what they're used to receiving from us. When we start setting healthy boundaries, then naturally they're going to push back because they're confused and the way it was before was meeting all of their needs and, make no mistake, they want their needs to keep getting met and they're using us to do that. And so when there's that pushback number one, expect it. Yes, it's going to happen. But number two, these are some things I recommend that people do. Keep these two things in mind. Number one when someone wants to change boundaries, set healthy ones, maybe when they haven't really had healthy boundaries before take some time beforehand to think about why they want to change the boundary and how they're going to do it, and also seek guidance from trusted friends, or maybe a mentor or therapist or a coach, and lay out the scenario, lay out the relationship, say this is what's happening right now and I want to change this. This is what I'm thinking about doing. And when you run it by somebody else, number one, you know you're not alone. And number two, you have some time to think about it. Because here's this is why I'm saying this when you set that new boundary and they push back, the first thing you're going to start doing is questioning did I do the right thing? Did I set the right boundary? Was it the right choice? And you start doubting yourself. So that's why, number one, you need to spend plenty of time beforehand and discussing it with other people. So you know it wasn't just your brain, it wasn't just your mind. You played it out to several other people that you trusted and agreed with you and you came up with a game plan. So when there's pushback, you feel comfortable with, you made the right choice. And number two is once you do that, be consistent. Be consistent. Just, they're going to push you.

Speaker 2: 11:10

It's almost like if you imagine you're in a yard and someone's next door to you and you go out and you build a fence and they come out and shove your fence down and then you walk out into your yard and you walk over and you just gently put your fence back up and then they shove it back down again and then you walk out and you just put it back up and you do, you just get like a metronome.

Speaker 2: 11:31

And then you walk out and you just put it back up and you do, you just get like a metronome. You just set it and you set it and you set it and you set it, because your boundary what you decided that you were going to do or not do is not contingent upon your neighbor's approval. So they can disapprove all they want to, they can fight it all they want to, they can push back all they want to, but you've already put your time in deciding what is the healthy boundary that you want to now set up, and so whether they like it or not is irrelevant. But when they push it down, you have to just go and push it back up. You don't need to get upset, you don't need to get alarmed, you don't need to be confrontational. Just like a metronome consistently set the same boundary what you will or will not do again and again, and again, and you have grace for them because they're expecting you not to do that, because you've trained them you wouldn't exactly lovely, lovely, so also like uh, what do I mean?

Speaker 1: 12:32

what role do boundaries play in healing from the past trauma?

Speaker 2: 12:39

Okay. So what happens is that when we okay, so let's say someone is a people pleaser, okay, okay, and there's a lot of those I have a lot of patients that come in and they start telling me about their issues and come to find out they have a people-pleasing pattern that has been in place for a long time. What that usually means is that there is a younger part of themselves. So when they were younger, they learned that they had to please. Usually it's a parent, a strong figure. They learned when they were younger that they had to please that parent, or that parent would essentially abandon them, whereas that parent would punish them, would walk away, would stop talking to them, would leave, would get in the car and leave, which all of that to a child, feels like abandonment. The message that is sent to that child is please me or you're going to be abandoned. Now, this sounds like a little bit of exaggeration, but it is not.

Speaker 2: 13:45

When we are children, because we need our parents to live.

Speaker 2: 13:50

If we don't have a parent, if we don't have that adult figure, we cannot feed ourselves, we cannot keep ourselves warm in the winter, we can do none of those things, and so, biologically, if we're not attached to a parent figure, then in essence, that feels like death.

Speaker 2: 14:11

A figure, then in essence, that feels like death. And so it's very, very important to us, as young children, to have that approval. And so if we have a parent who's unhealthy, who is dysfunctional, who is struggling with mental illness, who's unpredictable, unreliable, immature, fill in the blank, then when we try to set a boundary when we're young and it's met with what feels like abandonment, we learn oh my gosh, that's scary, I can't do that. I have to keep them pleased or I am dead. That younger part of ourselves, in the healing process, until we're healed, until we're aware of that, that younger part of us is in our mind. And when we're in relationships with people, that younger part of us sort of takes over and says please then, please then, make sure they're pleased, make sure they're pleased or we're going to be abandoned, which is equivalent to death. So did that answer your question?

Speaker 1: 15:07

yeah, exactly, exactly that's. I would say that's very relatable. I mean, we never thought about it, but yes, it's very relatable. In this sense, thanks for sharing this, and also for the listeners. How can listeners start small if the idea of the boundaries feels quite overwhelming? So what that would be.

Speaker 2: 15:34

That's a fantastic question, Abhi. So two things. What they need to do is they need to start with people who they're comfortable with. They don't need to start setting boundaries with the big bad wolves, right. They need to start with people who they're comfortable with, their friends, the family members that they have a good relationship with. And I'm saying that because just because it's family member doesn't mean I mean some of the most horrible relationships we have, unfortunately sometimes are family members. So seek out the people, whether they're family members or friends, that they have a good, healthy relationship with already, that they feel safe with. So start with those people.

Speaker 2: 16:19

And number two, start with what we call baby boundaries. So it might be something small, like, let's say there's a group of friends that are going out and they're saying, hey, let's check out the new Thai restaurant down the street. Let's say the person you're talking about has tried Thai food and they just don't like it at all, Right. So that person could say a baby boundary might be hey, guys, I know you love Thai food and you want to try out the new restaurant, but it just doesn't agree with me. So would it be okay? I would really like for us to go to the Italian restaurant instead. Can we do that instead? And maybe when you all are out and I'm not with you, next time you can try the Thai restaurant, but I would really like to try the Italian restaurant instead.

Speaker 2: 17:03

So see, that's a no. That's the person saying, no, I don't want to go to the Thai restaurant. And so then they're giving an alternative, saying can we try the Italian restaurant instead? And so they're doing it with friends that they're comfortable with number one, and it's like a baby. No, we're just talking about a meal, right? We're just talking about going out with friends and they want to go to a Thai restaurant and they're suggesting, hey, why don't we go to this other restaurant instead? They're saying, no, I don't want to go to the Thai restaurant. Here's another alternative no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 17:55

Yeah, that's really really great, and also like what's your favorite analogy for explaining why boundaries are essential explaining why boundaries are essential.

Speaker 2: 18:14

Well, one of my favorite analogies is the yard, because that really helps us, because everyone kind of knows what a yard is like, even for people that live in very large cities where they don't really have a yard. Everyone knows what a yard looks like and they can imagine living in a house with a yard and a fence line between yards, and that's very easy to understand. When we go out into our yard, that belongs to us, we're responsible for keeping it up. If we want to plant flowers in our yard, even if our neighbor doesn't like the flowers that we like, we can still plant them in our yard. But on the other side of the fence, that's our neighbor's property. They might have things going on over there. They might paint their house this horrible color that we can't stand and we can say something about that. But at the end of the day, unless there's HOA rules against it, they can paint it whatever color they want to paint it, because it's on their property, it's their yard.

Speaker 2: 19:12

And so if you think of this, think in your yard are your thoughts, your feelings and your actions, which all of those, you have a right to them, even if other people do not understand them, approve them, them or accept them. You have a right to your thoughts, your feelings and your actions, and think of this. On the other side of the fence, your neighbor, also has a right to his thoughts, his feelings and his actions and you don't have to agree and we can release our neighbor to have whatever opinions he needs to have. And we also have a responsibility to speak our thoughts and feelings Because, if we can like I have one other analogy. If you have time, I'll tell you about it. Is there time left?

Speaker 1: 20:05

Please, please, do so time left.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Please, please, do so. So this is an analogy of the boomerang. So if we have an issue that is bothersome let's say we had an interaction with our neighbor and it really bothered us here's your two choices Either let it go or do something about it. But a lot of people don't do either one of those. They sit with it and it builds up bitterness and resentment. Okay, so we fling it out. We think we're flinging it out like a stick, because we don't want to think about it, we don't want to talk about it, we don't want to remember what happened and we certainly don't want to talk to our neighbor about it. So we fling it away and we think it's a stick right, that's just going to be gone. But it boomerangs back into our yard in the form of intrusive thoughts, because we just can't quite forget that interaction that we had with our neighbor. It just won't go away. As much as we're trying to get it to go away, it won't because we're upset about it. That means it's a boomerang issue. Well, that boomerang is lying right in your own grass, it's in your yard, which means you're responsible for it.

Speaker 2: 21:17

So what we do is we go, we pick up that boomerang and we walk across our yard to the fence line and we engage our neighbor respectfully in conversation and we say, hey, last week we had this interaction and you said this and this and this and it really kind of bothered me. Can we talk about it? Right, because our neighbor doesn't know that we're upset about it. It's not our neighbor's job to read our mind, so we cannot let something go. It is our job to engage in respectful conversation about it so we can then process it and then release it. Respectful conversation about it, so we can then process it and then release it.

Speaker 2: 21:49

If we don't, if we have a boomerang issue and we don't do anything about it, we build bitterness and resentment and then it starts impacting our behavior with our neighbor. And our neighbor is clueless. He doesn't know why we're so upset. He doesn't know why we're so snarky and sarcastic with him. He has no clue. It's not his job to ferret that out of our mind. It's our job to either let it go or engage in conversation about it. Those are the two healthy choices.

Speaker 1: 22:25

Not to get stuck in the middle with bitterness and resentment building up. Wow, what an incredible conversation with Donnana skaggs. Dear listeners, we have learned that boundaries aren't the barriers. They are the bridges to a more connected, joyful and the fulfilled life. So, whether it's creating the space for intimacy, protecting our emotional energy or simply reclaiming our time, boundaries are the ultimate self-care tool. I would say so.

Speaker 1: 22:56

If today's episode has resonated with all of you, then do not forget to check out Dana's podcast Phoenix and Flame for more insights and the practical insight, for more insights and the practical insight. And also remember that setting boundaries isn't just an act of self-respect. So it's all about. It's a gift. It's a gift to every relationship in our life. So let me know your thoughts. You can connect with us on social media. I'm on Instagram and you can find our shows on Spotify, apple. What boundaries are you ready to set or strengthen? Connect with me on social media, as I mentioned, and let's keep the conversation going. So until next time, this is your host, avik, reminding you to own your pleasure and prioritize yourself. Stay resilient. Thank you so much.