#110 Privileges and Boundaries

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Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Your Favorite You.

Last week, I spoke about not trying to force relationships with people who no longer want to be in relationship with you. This week, I'm going to speak about withdrawing your consent to be in relationship with others. We work a lot on boundaries in coaching, and this is indeed the ultimate boundary and often a last resort. I was inspired to speak about this when I was coaching my client, whose sister has decided that she no longer wants to be in a relationship with my client.

I saw a reel on Instagram, as one does, where Elizabeth Gilbert was speaking on the Tim Ferriss podcast. In this clip, Liz was speaking about being on a panel with Rachel Cargle. During the panel, an audience member observed that both Liz and Rachel seemed so calm and chill and asked them if they had any difficult people in their life. Rachel honestly answered that she did not have any difficult people in her life. Liz offered that Rachel's position likely seems radical to many. I offer that this is because of how we've been socialized. Rachel said “No, I don't have anyone who is difficult in my life because I won't do that to myself anymore.”

Then someone asked a follow-up question, which was what about the people that you have to deal with, that you have to have in your life, because they're in your family? Rachel answered, “I cannot come up with a single name of anyone who is entitled to be in my life, no matter what their biological relationship to me is.”

So people are not entitled to be in my life just because we were born into the same family. I want you to think about it like this. It is a privilege for people to have a position in your life. Think about that. I hope you can think of several people in your life who you feel it is a privilege to be in their life. And conversely, there are likely many people in the world who see their relationship with you as a privilege in their life. And like I said, this is never a first-line prescription for my clients, and it's often the last-ditch effort.

So first, instead of just making the boundary of, “I'm no longer going to have you in my life,” first we offer compassion to ourselves as we try to navigate our lives with other people in it. For me, what this means is reminding myself that I am actually choosing to have a relationship with this person, that in so choosing, I'm willing to feel some feelings, and I'm willing to coach myself in regard to my relationship with this person. It also means that since I'm choosing this now, I can always make a different choice, another choice in the future. More on that later.

The next thing that we do after we offer ourselves compassion as we try to navigate our lives with other people in it, is to set boundaries with people. In my way of thinking, which comes from many of my teachers, guides, and mentors, a boundary is not telling another person what they can and cannot do.

If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you will know that it is possible for us to try to control other people. It just often is not possible to actually do so. Meaning other people have their own agency, their own sovereignty, and they get to do whatever the F they want. The good news about that is that you too have your own agency and sovereignty, and you get to do what you want.

So in my world, a boundary is, if you do ABC, then I will do XYZ. A boundary is not telling another person, you can't do ABC.

So here are some examples:

• If you choose to speak negatively about my friend, I will exit the conversation.

• If you choose to continue to comment about what I am or am not eating while we are at a restaurant, I will leave the restaurant.

• If you continue to comment on the kid's appearance or their bodies, we will go home.

• If you call me over and over again in a short period of time and it is not an emergency, I will stop picking up.

• If you drive recklessly or road rage when I'm in the car with you, I will ask you to pull over, let me out, and I will call an Uber.

• If you criticize my parenting, I will limit my time with you.

These are just some examples that I came up with. There are many, many more. Sometimes these boundaries need to be explicitly stated to the other person, but more often than not, you can just have these boundaries in your own mind and abide by them in your own mind.

If you find yourself having to create a million boundaries with one person, or if you find yourself having to constantly coach yourself in order to spend time with someone, you have to ask yourself, “Why am I devaluing myself and my wants and desires so much that I'm giving this person so much power over my life?”

Certainly, if you make clear boundaries with another person and you make them aware of the boundaries, and they keep stepping over the boundary that you've made, then you must make a decision questioning, “Does this person deserve the privilege of being part of my life?”

Yes or no?

If you do make the decision that the person in question should no longer have access to the privilege of being in your life, you will do best to make that decision from a really clean and clear place.

This is where having a coach comes in. You make the decision from a place of love for yourself and kindness to the other person. Think about it. It is not kind to another person to pretend to want to be in a relationship with them. It does you no good, and you are essentially lying to the other person.

I was just coaching one of my group members about this in our Facebook group. She was at the point where she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with one of her friends. She recognized that it wasn't fair to keep pretending to want to continue the relationship. It didn't feel good to her. I asked her what she was worried would happen if she ended the friendship. She then went on to list some feelings she might have to feel in order to stop having this person in her life frequently. I then asked her, with love always, “So you get to choose between feeling some uncomfortable feelings or lying.” That was all she needed to hear. After working with me, she knows how to feel her feelings, and she knows she doesn't want to continue to lie.

If you don't make this decision from a clean place, what often ends up happening is that you do physically cut the other person out of your life. You stop seeing them in real life, but they end up holding a large portion of your mental space because you keep wondering, did I make the right decision? Should I have given it more time? What could I have done differently, perhaps to maintain the relationship? So you end up still having a really significant relationship with this person that only exists in your own brain. You don't have to do that to yourself. And like I said, I can certainly show you how to avoid this.

I'm writing this episode as I'm traveling to Toronto for a weekend with Martha Beck and Liz Gilbert. I get a lot of work done on planes. As it happens, since the universe is always on my side, as I was boarding my first flight today, I happened upon a reel of Reese Witherspoon on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. This episode was just with Abby and Glennon. Reese was saying that someone taught her that there are three types of people in your life that can be roughly broken up into thirds.

The first third is those people that lift you up, that inspire you, that believe in your dreams, that love you for who you are and that love you so much that by extension, they love who you love, your kids, your parents, everyone else that you love.

The second third are the neutral people, the ones that don't have much effect on you, you don't have much effect on them, no harm, no foul.

And then the final third are those that want to drag you down actively, either subconsciously or consciously. They try to dim your light. You need to avoid the bottom third.

And what's amazing is that when you start to live up into the top third, it becomes increasingly difficult to spend time with that final third. You start to recognize that you only have so much life to live and that you want to spend it in the presence of people who, just by being them, make you feel warm. Once you stop spending so much time and brain energy trying to get the bottom third to like you or to change, you end up making more room for those that consistently make you feel warm. I want that for all of you.

So this is the next step. After we offer compassion to ourselves, as we try to navigate our lives with people in it, and after we set up boundaries with people, after we coach ourselves to decide who gets the privilege of being in our lives, the next thing to do is to make room for more of the top third people that come into our lives.

This is where all the hard work and uncomfortable feelings start to pay off because you start to become inspired, lifted up, and you can really begin to thrive because you're with other people who are shining their lights brightly too. And because when the universe wants me to get a message, I mean, it really wants me to get it, it provides for me.

As I was saying, I was writing this on the way to see Liz and Martha. And wouldn't you know it, but again, Liz shared the story about being on the stage with Rachel Cargill.

So in case you need a reminder, it is a privilege to be in relationship with you. Treat it as such. If you're struggling with this, come and work with me. The first thing we will do is help you improve your relationship with you. And then you can start making decisions from there. It is a very powerful place to make decisions from.

When you actually like you and are enjoying the privilege of being in relationship with yourself, you become unstoppable. Unless, of course, you are intentionally choosing to rest. Then watch someone come in and try to stop you from resting. You will be unstoppable even in your resting.

OK, that's it for this week, folks. See y'all next week.

Hey, don't go just yet.

Since you're listening to this podcast, you might be one of us who has followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes, but you still feel like something's missing. If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools that you need to put yourself first without guilt and start to treat yourself as your own best friend, I'm here to support you.

As a certified life coach, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace your true self. I'm inviting you to join my next group, which starts on Thursday, January 9th, 2025. 

We'll work together to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. You'll learn effective communication strategies, boundary setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you to cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself first, so that then you can go on to do that with others.

While of course I cannot guarantee specific outcomes, everyone's journey is unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support, and guidance that you need to create lasting change in your life.

With more than a sprinkle of humor, some perfectly placed swear words, and a lot of compassion, I'll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

If you're ready to invest in yourself and embark upon this journey, head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com. Go to the Work With Me page and book a consultation call. We can chat about your challenges and how I can support you.

Like I said, we start in January. We will meet on Thursdays at 12:30 PM Eastern Time for six months, starting on January 9th.

Can't wait to see you there.