4 Ways to Re-Establish Healthy Boundaries When You've Been Through Childhood Trauma (Read Time: 4 min.)

Boundary development begins in infancy. Through attachment to parents, babies learn when and how to feel safe. They experience love, acceptance, and unconditional positive regard and this level of intimacy encourages them to develop healthy boundaries as adults.

But what happens when early childhood attachment isn't secure, when a child grows up with the uncertainty of divorce or the sudden grief that comes as a result of death of one or both parents or the constant danger of an abusive or drug addicted parent?

What happens to the child who was born feeling safe only to discover that the most intimate of spaces (i.e. mom and dad) is really the most dangerous of territories?

Earlyhood childhood trauma (loss, grief, abuse, neglect, or abandonment) all have serious repercussions on boundary development. Children go from needing love to needing acceptance so quickly that when parents are either not present (physically, emotionally or mentally) or are present but overbearing and/or abusive, children quickly replace boundaries with emotional walls.  The innate sense of safety, in these situations, comes from the child doing whatever he or she has to do to protect him/herself.

Fast forward twenty years and you have an adult who doesn't trust his/her boundaries, doesn't trust the people he/she is supposed to trust most, and looks at the world through lonely eyes. Human begins need connection, relationship and a sense that they have someone to count on when the going gets tough. If your early years are spent protecting yourself from the people who are supposed to love you, your adult years are wasted pretending that you don't need the level of connection and attachment you failed to receive.

Here's the issue: early childhood trauma impairs boundary development but it doesn't have to end it. We continue to develop and refine our boundaries throughout our entire lives. Knowing where we are with our boundaries and how they got that way is a great place from which to redefine and recreate healthy boundaries.

If you've experienced boundary injuries early in childhood, here are 4 things you can do to re-establish healthy boundaries in any area of your life:

1) Pinpoint where in early childhood your boundary development was impaired. There is no better way to do this than to get the support and guidance of a licensed, mental health practitioner. A great therapist can go a long way in helping you uncover the key milestones in your childhood where you lost a sense of safety, felt an impaired sense of attachment and started putting up emotional walls. Can this be done on your own? Yes but it's better if you have the support and guidance of a therapist.

2) Give yourself permission to ask and answer. In order to create healthy boundaries, you have to be able to ask for what you want. More than that, you have to have the courage and the strength necessary to say 'No' to the things you don't want and 'Yes' to the things you do. You have to be able to ask for help and receive it, to speak your truth, regardless of who ends up feeling let down, set up, or disregarded. Remember: Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion but you don't have to make anyone else's opinion your fact.   In The Healthy Boundaries Master Class, there are a series of audio lessons that teach you how to set limits with key people in your life. 

3) Own the fact that you are now the adult who doesn't have to settle for the boundary injuries you took as a child. You are no longer at the mercy of a bigger, stronger adult. You are an adult. Even when dealing with parents, there's no amount of mistreatment that you have to accept. You are in a new realm and, in this realm, you get to call the shots. Own that.

4) Notice when you start to put up emotional walls and consciously and constructively bring then down by reminding yourself that all is well, you are safe, and you have the right to say yes or no as you please. Emotional walls are not boundaries. Boundaries breathe; they allow good things in and keep bad things out. Emotional walls block all things, keeping the bad out but also keeping the good from coming in. Emotional walls will never bring you love, connection or intimacy because they are erected on the understanding that to feel any of that would mean you would no longer be safe.  A breach in your security is not a risk an emotional wall is willing to take. You don't want emotional walls to keep you from attaching to the people you really care for. When you know the difference between emotional walls and boundaries, you learn how to set your healthy boundaries firm without compromising the flexibility that comes in experiencing intimacy in relationship.

At the end of the day, childhood trauma has a major impact on boundary development but the impact doesn't have to permanent or lasting.  You have the power to redefine and recreate healthy boundaries.  It can occur if you take things step by step, recreating boundaries one day at a time, one step a a time, one relationship at a time.  It can be done...

Stop Waiting For People to Read Your Mind (Read Time: 4 Min.)

Boundaries come in all shapes and sizes.  They exist for all situations, circumstances and people.  One of the biggest boundary violations you will ever cross (but might never see) is the boundary violation we call unreasonable expectations.  When you hold unreasonable expectations of others, you create unhealthy boundaries.  Why?

Because you hold to the belief that someone else is required to be to you what they are not responsible to be FOR you and it skews the lines of contact. 

When you live in such a way that you expect other people to read your mind, you hold yourself in a position to be constantly misunderstood.  It is no one else's job to ensure that your needs are communicated but yours.  You are the person who has to speak your truth.  That is not a responsibility that can be outsourced.  And, yet, so many people expect that those closest to them will master the art of mind reading and do their spiritual lifting for them.  That will not work.

The reality is this: everybody has their own emotional baggage to carry and there isn't life enough for one person to carry yours.  Most people are so wrapped up in their own internal work that they barely have time to take a guess at yours.  When you expect others to know what you feel, what you think and what you need, you set an unhealthy boundary in the relationship that says: "I need you to do my work for me."  You hold these individuals to unusually high expectations and, after a while, they stop trying to meet even your most basic needs.  Your rigid requirements for connection lead to estrangement which severs ties and kills intimacy.

If you are the kind of person who has trouble sharing what you feel or asking for what you need, you are creating unhealthy boundaries that reduce intimacy, create distance, and solidify loneliness.  You'll know if you're doing the mind reading boundary violation.  Here are some tell-tale signs:

1. You make back-handed comments like, "I thought you would've handled that by now." 
2. You don't share how you feel or what you need but feel resentful that the other person didn't "get" it.
3. You insist upon doing everything yourself but also choose to gripe about it later.
4. You don't ask for help as a way of showing everyone that you can handle anything on your own (even though you secretly wish they'd see how much you'd love and appreciate their help). 
5.  You play the martyr, the victim or Mr./Miss Independent but tell the story of how this person and that person let you down.

Like I said, you'll know if you do this mind reading boundary violation thing.

If you do this, you might be asking yourself, "How do I stop?"

Here are three ways:

1) Own your feelings by communicating them concisely, consciously and clearly.  Start with: "I need..." or "Where I'm coming from is..." or "What I need your help with is..." or "What would really save me time would be for you to..."  Be direct and let the other person know where you are, what you need and how he/she can help... and then give that person the freedom and room to say yes or no without you judging them.

2) Stop playing victim when you take on too much.  The "I'm so independent I never need anybody's help" mantra is a secret way of playing the victim without looking the victim.  Own the fact that you're afraid to ask for help.  Own the fact that you don't want to lean on someone else for fear that they might not be able to hold you.  If you're going to be independent, be independent but don't play indestructible when you know it's simply you're way of feeling justified about feeling angry that no one's reading your mind.

3)  Ask others how they feel and what they need on a regular basis.  If you expect other people to read your mind, it could also be that they are expecting you to read theirs in return.  Stop the non-sense on both sides by taking "check-in" time where you ask the people closest to you how they feel, what they need, and if there's anything you can do to support them.  Not only will you eliminate the mind reading boundary violation but you'll increase the level of connection and intimacy by showing that you care.

How to Nurture the Wounded Child Within (Read Time: 3 min.)

When was the last time you nurtured your inner child?

Within each of us lives an inner child, a younger version of ourselves, a part of who we are that was forged in what had been, a little person who tends to carry a lot of baggage.  Children weren't meant to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders and, yet, the wounded inner child does.  Created from a past it cannot change and stuck in patterns it does not know how to heal, the wounded inner child cries out to an inner parent who barely listens... us.

When was the last time you spoke to your inner child?  

When was the last time you told her how precious she was in your sight, how wonderful her presence is in your life, how safe she is in your care?  

Or do you pretend that your inner child is better seen and not heard, that your inner child is a "weak" part of you that you do not need to acknowledge?  

Do you live in a head space where you say to yourself, "My inner child is a waste of time and nothing more than a memory of the horror I have lived?"  

If that is the case, let me give you a wake up call:

Your inner child is NOT your trauma. 

He/she is the gift that arose from it.

Sometimes our inner child throws a tantrum in our lives and we don't even know it.  However, one of the biggest signs that your inner child is having a fit comes in the form of unhealthy boundaries.  A wounded inner child doesn't know how to draw the line.  In fact, a wounded inner child is so traumatized by a past where there were no lines that he or she lives inside of you always on the verge of fight or flight.  A wounded inner child does not know how to garner peace because his assumption is that, at any moment, chaos will return.

When unhealthy boundaries guide your life and your wounded child exists without your nurturing, a few things begin to happen:

• You drown yourself in an addiction to avoid facing the reality of your wounded child's pain.  Your addiction might be work, exercise, food, drugs, alcohol, being needed, or other people or any combination of the things just listed but it is your drug of choice; it's how you self-medicate that wounded child so you don't have to hear how loud his cries are.
• You criticize yourself incessantly and second guess every move you make.  You set up a boundary and then tear it down.  You try to establish an intimacy line and then let another person walk all over it.  You don't trust yourself long enough or deep enough to make a decision and stick to it... and then you criticize yourself again for not being the kind of person who stands her ground.
• You are cruel to yourself and subtle and overt ways.  You talk to yourself with disregard.  You tell stories about yourself that are self-deprecating.  You focus people's attentions on your faults rather than your brilliance.  You hide behind a facade of inability and blandness just so you can feel safe with being "ordinary."

These are just a few of the ways that your wounded inner child keeps you from setting healthy boundaries.  Now you might ask "Why?  Why would I put myself through this?  Why would I allow my wounded inner child to run the show?  Why would I let past trauma keep me from creating AND keeping the healthy boundaries I say I want?"  Let me tell you why.

Your wounded inner child is deathly afraid to be wrong, so certain that he's not good enough, that nothing she does will ever make her worthy that this child is more comfortable fighting and begging and working to death than accepting the love that's being handed to it on a silver platter.  What this child knows is how to spend her life fighting for the right to be alive spiritually, psychically and physically because that is the only "safe" way this child knows how to ask for love from people and a past who gave nothing but criticism, abuse, and pain.  This wounded child's comfort zone is a place called "unacceptable" in a land called "not enough" and the more she fights, the more in her comfort zone she stays. 

Your wounded inner child doesn't know what to do with unconditional love.  He doesn't know how to handle positive self regard.  How do you handle a level of nurturing no one's ever given you... without strings attached?  You see, this little boy wants to be ready for the blow before it strikes.  This inner little girl wants to meet the next criticism with proof that she deserves to be criticized.  That inner child of yours knows the standard of pain that could occur and she'd rather live in a painful past than hope for a loving future that may never come.  Nurturing is unsafe for a wounded child who fears getting tricked into joy only to be served up with pain.

How do nurture an inner child who doesn't trust your ability to love unconditionally, a child who doesn't believe that you can be the parent he or she needs because, to be honest, you've never been that inner parent before?  How do you get your inner child to stop throwing tantrums in your soul so you now have the power to create healthy boundaries in your life? 

You do three things (none of which come easily or quickly):

1) Accept your wounded inner child EXACTLY as she is.
2) Be kind to yourself in EVERY way, especially in the hard moments of life where your shame level is high and your love level is low.
3) Make daily choices about how you will show and give love to yourself and follow through EVERY time.

Would you like a more detailed, step-by-step guide on the process of nurturing your wounded inner child?  Pick up your copy of The Healthy Boundary Master Class and listen to the BONUS audio called The 7 Practices of a Loving Inner Parent to a Wounded Inner Child.  It will transform your inner and outer world...

Why "Responsible" People Have Irresponsible Boundaries (Read Time: 3 min.)

How do responsible people develop irresponsible boundaries?

Let me give you an example.  Jim is married to Laura who (no matter how many financial conversations they've had) never balances her checkbook, doesn't know what's in their joint account, and has caused them serious amounts of overdraft.  Laura spends like there's no tomorrow, keeps it a secret from Jim, and apologizes later... EVERY single time.

So what does Jim do?

Being the stand-up guy he is, Jim checks behind Laura's every financial move, has the bank send him text messages any time money's been taken out of the account, rushes to the bank to deposit money when Laura's spent too much, calls the stores and deals with the credit card companies to repay the debt Laura's racked up, budgets like a CPA, saves money in a separate account so the household budget is maintained, does the taxes, handles most of the big financial decisions, and lectures Laura on a daily basis about how her financial irresponsibility has got to change.

What's the problem with this picture?

James is the dad and Laura is the disobedient child and, last time I checked, no woman wants to sleep with her dad and no man wants to be married to his child so this couple is in a position of boundary crazymaking: James is the overfunctioning co-dependent and Laura is the crazymaker egotist or borderline.  But the pattern belongs to BOTH of them.

And here's the deal: most people's first reaction is to blame the crazymaker and applaud the "responsible."  Here's the problem with that: it takes two to tango.  Both need help in creating AND keeping healthy boundaries if this relationship is going to survive let alone thrive.

Responsible people oftentimes live very irresponsible lives.  They learn early that over-functioning leads to perfection when it doesn't.  They take on other people's baggage as a way of feeling needed, come to the rescue as a means of validating their existence, and seek to control situations, people, and opportunities which is really none of their business.

Yes, responsible people mean well but when their over-functioning leads them to overwhelm, resentment, and self-hate which leaves them with loads of criticism and very few healthy boundaries. 

So if you're one of those "responsible" people with irresponsible boundaries, what do you do?

Here are three places to start:

1) Stop the over-functioning.  You are GOOD ENOUGH exactly as you are.  You do not have to compensate for other people's non-sense.  The moment you draw a line in the sand and say, "No, I will not make up for your sloppiness in this house.  Clean up your own mess" or "No, I will not drop everything I'm doing because you decided to procrastinate and not handle your business" is the moment you stop indulging another person in crazymaking and begin to take your power back.  Start to live by a VERY important saying:  

Poor planning on YOUR part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

2) Get to the bottom of why you feel the need to be so needed.  Over-functioning people tend to have this sense that if they aren't in super rescue mode all of the time, people will forget, abandon, or reject them.  They see themselves as having use value only in what they can do FOR other people and not what they mean TO other people.  At the end of the day, it comes down to self worth.  What is your self worth?  How do you define it?  If you could do nothing for anyone,would you still be worthy of love, respect, and care?  That's the place you need to go to.  It isn't fun or pretty but once you get to the heart of those questions, you'll have a very clear sense of where you learned that your being "responsible" was a requirement to you being loved.

3) Stop fixing people.  NO ONE, no matter how crazymaker or irresponsible they are, needs to be fixed because no one is broken.  You weren't built to be broken and neither was your drama-filled sister.  You are not a broken vase that needs to be put back together or reconstructed and neither is your less-than-perfect spouse.  When you understand that people are whole exactly as they are and you accept the fact that flaws come with being human and the quest is not to fix the flaws but to embrace them, you will let go of a lot of baggage tied to being perfect and to requiring that everyone else around you be perfect as well.  Perfect sucks and when you can get to the place where you no longer criticize yourself or others for not being what they were never meant to be, you'll let the over-functioning non-sense go.

Alright, it's up to you.  Either you want healthy boundaries and happiness more than you want to control and take charge or you want the title of "RESPONSIBLE" more than you want to experience joy and peace.  Your choice...

How have I demonstrated and given what I'm asking for in this relationship? (Read Time: 3 min.)

How have I demonstrated and given what I'm asking for in this relationship?

Question #2 is HUGE, BIG and it's the one question few people like to answer first.  When you're in the middle of blaming the other person for everything that's wrong with the relationship, the last thing you want to do is stop and ask "What role am I playing in all of this melodrama?"  but here's the deal: it takes two to tango.  

We attract who we are at the moment.

There's no disputing that.  You can believe whatever you want but ignoring the facts doesn't change the facts.  In life, we get what we give EVERY time and no where is that more true than in relationships.  Before you can have the enchanted love you want, you've got to be the giver of enchanted love.

So let's take a dive into ourselves and find out what we want as compared to what we're giving.

Pull out a sheet of paper and write down your answers to these four questions: 

 

1. What are the top five qualities you NEED in a partner?

2. When was the last time you exhibited these qualities on a CONSISTENT basis?

3. When you think of an enchanted love, what three experiences would that love involve?

4. When was the last time you initiated any experiences similar to that in your current relationship?

See, here's the truth: you have not because you give not.  And maybe you aren't giving because you feel underappreciated.  Maybe you're withholding love because you're so stressed out about life that you simply aren't focusing on what seems like a "small" thing.  Maybe you aren't feeling so enchanted because you packed on twenty pounds or you lost your job or the last time you gave your heart it got stomped on.  I don't know the reasons why you're choosing to show up as less than what you say you want but I do know one thing: to have what you want, you must first BE it.

Take three steps today to exhibit the level of love, enchantment and passion that you say you want in your relationship.  Don't worry about whether this person is the right person for you.  Once you start giving what you are open to receiving, the truth of this relationship will become very clear and either this person will step up, step aside or you will step down.  You don't have to fight or make that happen.  When you fully show up for relationships, what's meant to be naturally occurs.

Let's talk tomorrow about Question #3!

Kassandra  

What am I not Giving to This Relationship? (Read Time: 2 min.)

Yesterday, we talked about calling a relationship quits.  I gave you three questions to consider before you take the final step and have that boundary conversation.

Did you think about those questions?

OR did you immediately get defensive and say to yourself, "The problems of this relationship are not about me!  It's the other person that needs fixing!"

Defensiveness is good for one thing: attack.  Since the goal of most relationships is to embrace (and not attack), defensiveness has no place when setting this boundary.  The first question I posed to you yesterday was this:

What am I not giving to this relationship?  

It's a deep question on so many levels.  On the one hand, when you've hit your breaking point in a relationship, you feel as if you've gone the distance... and still it's not working.  On the other hand, somewhere, deep down you know that we only attract who we are.  If the person in your life is not acting appropriately, there's a level to which you need to ask yourself, "What am I not bringing to the table?"  Only when you can fully say "I've done and given my best" will you be 100% able to end the relationship, establish a new boundary and move on.  So long as you wonder whether you could've done more, you will forever live in the regret of what might have been.

When you ask yourself the question, "What am I not giving to this relationship?", you are focused on a number of different areas: 

• how much time and attention you've given to the relationship
• how open you've kept the lines of communication, esp. about what's bothering you
• how often you've given the other person compliments, appreciated what you do value about him/her and made this person feel like a welcome addition to your life (rather than a burden or an unnecessary tag-along in your life)
• to what extent you've become more critical and judgmental of the other person as compared to when the relationship first began
• to what extent you've deceived and/or lied to the other person about who you are, how you really feel and what you really wanted out of this relationship

The truth is known to each and every one of us... but how often do we speak that truth to other people?  Until you've come clean in the relationship, you aren't free to end it (and I mean end it in a way that truly means it's over emotionally, physically, spiritually, etc.).  Before you can have that boundary conversation, you need to get clear with yourself about your role in where the relationship is.  You need to own your own stuff so you don't take it to the next person.  Whether it's work or love, what you don't own about yourself you will carry into your next encounter... and, then, will be forced to learn the lesson you didn't learn this time around.  Don't go through the same experience twice.  Evaluate your role in where the relationship is, own your piece of it and then walk more confidently into answering the second question.

Tomorrow we'll go over what it means to ask yourself:

How have I demonstrated and given what I'm asking for in this relationship?

3 Questions You Need to Ask Before You Call a Relationship Quits (Read Time: 3 min.)

Any relationship has its ups and downs, its highs and lows but what do you do when you exist in a relationship that neither ebbs or flows, that feels stuck, stagnant and without life? 

What do you do when you're so tired of being stuck that you'd rather end the relationship than give it one final try?

How do you set the boundary that involves saying goodbye when a part of you feels like you didn't give this relationship your all?

Ending a relationship is a HUGE boundary to establish.  Most people don't think of it as a boundary but think again.  When you end a relationship (whether it's a friendship, quit a job, get a divorce, or stop speaking to a family member), you are setting a clear and rather permanent boundary. 

The key to establishing this boundary is doing it in a healthy way... and most people don't.  Most people set this boundary in unhealthy ways, like:

• breaking up with someone via text message
• quitting a job same day without giving two weeks notice
• blasting a friend on facebook or twitter and then unfollowing/blocking them so they don't have the ability to respond
• having an affair or overworking or creating emotional distance as a way of pushing the other person out of the relationship/marriage
• talking badly behind a family member's back but smiling in their face until one day they find out the truth and the whole thing blows up over Thanksgiving dinner

I could go on and on but you get the drift.  None of the above-mentioned ways are mature, compassionate, or healthy... and yet we resort to these tactics because most of us lack the courage and confidence to set this kind of boundary once and for all.

So before you call any relationship quits, here are three questions you need to ask yourself that will help you determine if you're REALLY ready to have this boundary conversation:

1. What am I not giving to this relationship?  
2. How have I demonstrated and given what I'm asking for in this relationship?
3. What else could my feelings about this relationship mean?

 Over the next three days, I'll go in depth on each of the three questions.