Podcast - Episode 0177 - Setting Healthy Boundaries With Merja Sumiloff

In this episode Joel and Antonia talk with Merja Sumiloff about setting healthy boundaries.

In this podcast you’ll find:

• HAT Model Podcast
• Boundaries vs barricades
• Barricades are like a shield you carry with you constantly
• Boundaries are more like a gate that can swing open or be closed at will.
• A Barricade is more like barbed wire. It’s prickly to others. It stops people and causes damage.
• We can hide behind barricades and neglect to ask for our needs.
• Barriers allow us to ask for our needs to be met then only close the gate when those needs aren’t honored.
• There are healthy boundaries on more shallow levels and less healthy boundaries on more intimate levels.
• How do we set better boundaries ahead of time instead of doing something we later regret then blaming someone else for causing us to compromise our principles?
• It is a process. We all have to go thru the process where we gradually set boundaries that are sustainable.
• “What am I going to do the next time when this happens again so I can do better?”
• We aren’t seeking perfection. Just improvement.
• Stop beating yourself up for not being perfect.
• Stop beating up the other person for asking for something that was out of alignment with you.
• It takes practice to use boundaries instead of barricades.
• Most people are kind and their intentions are kind. If you can move into that space, you can give yourself the freedom to say ‘no’ when necessary.
• Or say, “I want to do this thing for you. I am aware that it may tax me somewhat, but I am willing to do this for you if you honor that I will need something in return.”
• The more power you give to another person, the more power they will assume.
• What do you do when your boundaries are stepped on because you didn’t have the proper boundaries?
• Fi wants an authentic relationship where nothing needs to be hidden and sometimes that can get abused.
• Sometimes it is necessary to do tests to guarantee you aren’t in a co-dependent relationship.
• Communicate as much as possible to the best of your ability.
• You and your partner are not the same people. You will see things differently.
• Make sure each is a soft place to land for the other. Embrace the differences instead of allowing them to become massive issues.
• When you step away and do the healing work after an abuse situation, you start to doubt yourself. “How did I allow that to happen?”
• A lot of extraverts say, “What kind of a person am I if…”
• A lot of introverts say, “I don’t have the power. I am broken.”
• Be the student of who you are. “What am I not aware of?”
• It is hard to overcome abuse situations where boundaries were crossed.
• There’s always somebody worse off than you. That doesn’t mean, though, that you don’t deserve to have your wounds healed.
• Your healing journey is a key to who you are as a person and what you are meant to do here.
• You weren’t born to not actualize yourself.
• Healing is an individual experience.
• Pain is an individual experience.
• Healing work can be the hardest work we do.
• You can look at other people’s healing work and see worse scenarios than yours. You can even use that to minimize your issues and not address them. But then you don’t self-actualize by doing the healing you are here to do.
• “You go at the pace that is right for you. That is fine. Your job isn’t to blitz through this and master healing. Your job is to fall in love with yourself.”
• You have the responsibility to keep yourself on task and do the healing that is required.
• The 4 Styles of Unhealthy Boundaries:

1. Compliant – Yes men/women. “Yes. Whatever you need I will do.” This prevents these individuals from living their own lives. They live according to what others need. They experience life thru other people’s needs/wants. They don’t know how to say no. They don’t know how to put up boundaries because they don’t want to hurt others. They fear abandonment. There are a lot of compliant people in co-dependent relationships. Who in your life is compliant?
2. Avoidant – Compliant in reverse. They avoid any commitment of saying Yes or No. They have such extreme boundaries that they avoid putting themselves in the position where anybody may ask for something. They usually say Yes or No when it is completely irrelevant. It is very much about running away from situations.
3. Controller – They can’t hear the word NO. Aggressive controllers don’t listen to anybody else or acknowledge anyone else’s boundaries. Manipulative controllers attempt to seduce others to abandon their boundaries to suit their needs. They get their way in a roundabout way. Aggressive controllers just plow straight through.
4. Non-Responsive – hypercritical non-responsives are chronically dissatisfied and disappointed in people. They have trouble with having compassion for others. Narcissists are the ultimate non-responsives who barely notice when other people are there. Most people are pawns to them. When you ask for a boundary to be honored by these non-responsives they don’t even acknowledge such a thing exists.

• We all have some experience with one or more of these boundaries. Try to become aware of these coping mechanisms. Only people who have been hurt would use these boundaries as coping mechanisms.
• The perfection is in the imperfection.
• When we talk about healthy boundaries we come from the position of avoiding being stepped on. But the healthy way to view boundaries is not avoidance, but building truly authentic intimacy.
• Compliants may have a lot of barricades deep down. They aren’t going to be compliant all the way in. There is likely a hardening on their deepest parts.
• Avoidance of pain/conflict becomes their highest value. Their boundaries are the inability to develop authentic intimacy.
• When you have truly healthy boundaries – a gate that can be closed or open depending on the situation – we put ourselves in a position where we can invite people into the deeper levels of you which create intimacy.
• Build the infrastructure necessary to build intimacy.
• Healthy boundaries get you what you want – true intimacy.
• Stop the bleeding – stop being stepped on or stepping on others.
• Then ask, “Where am I contributing to the situation that is causing the issue?”

1. Identify the problem. What boundary was crossed? And what happened that allowed the boundary to be crossed?
2. Identify the actual conflict. determine which need within the boundary has been dishonored. Then ask for/deliver the need.
3. Identify the needs of all the parties within the conflict. Once you identify the needs it is easy to identify a solution.
4. Identify the benefits of a relationship with this person. Attempt to maintain the relationship while working on the relationship.
5. Practice boundary skills. Learn the language and be patient with yourself while you’re learning these skills.
6. Say NO to the drawbacks. There is always drawbacks to setting boundaries because people like relationships to stay the same.
7. Begin anew. Deal with the issue and let it go. Observe rather than react. If you can’t get out of the drama triangle, you may need to get some space.
8. Act Don’t React. Going into a higher capacity to grow. Look for resolutions.
9. Learn to offer love, freedom, and responsibility to other people from a place of acceptance. You are accepting others as the imperfect people they are.

• When we get healthy, other people may feel like they can rest into you.
• I’m going to bring into this relationship the person I am going to be, and I’m not going to buy into whatever power struggles may be going on underneath.
• This helps see your partner as a teammate and intimacy grows.