62. How boundaries are just another way to show unconditional love

Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to coaching for Latina leaders, the only podcast dedicated to the advancement of Latinas at every level of life with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Latina with over 20 years of leadership experience, Harvard grad physician, and mother of two.

Hey Mujeres, welcome back. So today, I want to offer you a different way to think about unconditional love and boundaries. If you have a history of people pleasing, like me, setting boundaries can feel very uncomfortable. Do you know why? It's because for boundaries to work, there are two things that need to happen. Number one, you need to create the boundary. And number two, you need to enforce the boundary. And enforcing that boundary can feel very uncomfortable. Because you don't want to make other people unhappy, or you don't want them to feel unloved. Or you don't want them to be mad at you, and you want to avoid that discomfort. For many of us, we avoid enforcing boundaries, because we want to avoid that discomfort where we don't want to feel like somebody else is angry or upset with us.

Now there are two things to note here before we go on. Number one is this, for some people, boundary setting can feel scary or dangerous because perhaps there was actually a history of there being physically unsafe to create boundaries. But for the majority of us listening, boundary setting is more of a perceived threat. When nothing is actually wrong, nothing will actually happen to you, as opposed to an actual threat. Now, the other thing to note here that's important is the difference between setting healthy boundaries, versus toxic individuality. And what I'm referring to here is healthy boundary setting that centers on your well-being okay not toxic individuality.

Alright, so let me offer you a different way to think about boundaries. Let's say, for example, you enforce a boundary that your mother-in-law cannot show up at your house anymore. Unannounced, she needs to call first. Now, let's say your mother-in-law gets upset with this boundary, she hates it, and she's pretty upset with it. And when that happens, you have two choices. You can try to control her thoughts and her emotions, by disregarding your needs and pulling back on your boundaries. So not enforcing your boundaries, because you're trying to control the way she's gonna think and feel. And you're hoping that you can make her happy by doing that. Or you can choose to be integrity with yourself, you can choose to respect your boundaries.

Now, when you choose to center your well-being and respect your boundaries, your capacity for love increases. And when that happens, you can choose to love your mother-in-law, regardless of how she reacts to your boundary. That right there is an example of real unconditional love. You love the person no matter what, whether they agree with your boundary or not, you're going to love them no matter what. And the way you know that this is not anything for you to feel guilty about and that you're actually coming from a place of integrity is by checking in with yourself. Check-in with yourself and ask yourself, Am I doing anything wrong here? And usually, the answer is no. There's no need to feel guilty. But the guilt that we feel isn't because we're not coming from a place of integrity, the guilt we're feeling is because we think we're responsible for how that other person is supposed to feel. So when they get upset, we feel guilty. Again, not because we did anything wrong.

But because we feel like we're responsible for how that other person is feeling and thinking. When that happens, it's really important to remind yourself that the only thing you ever have control over is yourself. You can only control your thoughts and your feelings, you can now control how other people will choose to behave. Now many of us try to change how we show up to manipulate the way somebody else will feel because we want them to feel good. We want everything to be hunky dory and happy all the time. And I'm not at all against people having great sort of surroundings and being in those positive environments, but not when it comes at the expense of your own well-being. And that's why we need to set boundaries to make sure that we are always respecting our own well-being first.

Vanessa 04:47
So essentially, when you're choosing to set a boundary and you are choosing then to check in with yourself and say I'm not doing anything wrong, I'm coming from a place of integrity, then you can choose how you want to think, and how you want to feel when somebody else gets upset about the boundary you set. And for me, I choose unconditional love. I choose to set that boundary and love the other person, no matter how they're going to show up, they get upset with the boundary I chose, I get to love them anyway, I get to love them exactly who they are. I don't have to be upset with them, I don't have to feel guilty, and I don't have to pull back my boundaries. I don't have to do any of that. I can just say this is my choice. I know that this is the best thing for my spiritual, mental, and physical health. And this is what's going to increase my capacity to love others because it's filling my own cup. And when that happens, you get to love the other person regardless. I want you to remember this next time you feel uncomfortable.

When it comes time to enforce a boundary, you can simply say, I love you, and no, or you can think I'm going to love them no matter how they react. Because you have the capacity to choose how you think and feel. And you can choose unconditional love. Now the more you practice respecting your own boundaries, the easier it becomes to uphold them. And when you start to respect your boundaries and uphold your own boundaries, other people will too, because people will only respect the boundaries that we respect ourselves. So when you're upset because someone isn't respecting your boundary, I want you to ask yourself, How am I responsible for this? How am I not respecting my own boundaries? Okay, Hasta la Proxima.

Vanessa 06:47
Hey, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to check out my free Ultimate Guide to stop people pleasing, where I teach you a simple five-step process to stop saying yes, when you really want to say No, you'll be so glad that you did. There's a link to the guide in the show notes. I'll see you next time.