Hi, good morning. I’m MaryAiñe and I am talking about boundaries today. Boundaries are something that seemed to be very mysterious and hard to identify because they are is, it’s a feeling that you have inside. So let’s go back to the beginning of when boundaries were nonexistent in a girl’s life. As a young girl, I was taught to be a good girl and to do what I was told, be pleasant. Don’t argue so many more things that made it hard to function in the world and have a voice. So what happens is there’s no voice. You have no opinions, or if you do have an opinion, you are not listened to. So I grew up feeling like many women, young girls, that I was kind of invisible. And it seems to be something that is insidious around the world as I learn more about other cultures.
So it is an accepted practice to be silent as a woman, but women are deeply emotional and thoughtful and brilliant and creative. And so how do we express all of these wonderful abilities that we have unless we can be verbal. And, and so learning about boundaries took a really long time. And as many people have heard, I grew up with five older brothers, another brother and two younger sisters. And so my opinion was just a tiny bit of nine children’s opinions, ideas once and desires. And, and my father ruled the house. My father had the final word and it seemed comfortable to me to know that somebody was in charge. My father was a good man. He was an honorable man and he was very fair. He talked to us rather than beat us. And, and so he helped us learn that our actions had consequences.
That was a good part of his learning, his boundary as he told us what he expected. And if we went outside of that line, then we knew that we would get some kind of consequence that could be a punishment. It could be, um, a spanking. And in those days it seemed to work that spankings, we knew we knew what the punishment would be. And so growing up, thinking about what the, um, what actions we wanted to take as kids, we waited out against the punishment, you know, was the action though we wanted to do, whether it was go fishing without permission, um, or ditch out on, on our work day on Saturdays was the punishment to great. And with our father it wasn’t. And, and, but see there’s respect that comes with boundaries as well. And boundaries are a huge part of respect. So respect and boundaries go hand in hand.
Boundaries and Respect
And as I’m thinking about this as a child, learning boundaries is about not crossing the street at the wrong time or communicating with a dog that you don’t know or petting a dog. And so parents enforce boundaries for you to keep you safe. Those ones we understand pretty well as we grow up and we go into school, then there’s new things that happen on the playground with kids dashing over your boundaries, not listening to you when you say no or the brothers that you have. Like my older brothers not hearing me say no. So I learned that boundaries say no had no effect because I was not heard or if I was heard I was not paid attention to and I think a lot of women and girls have that experience. I’m sure boys do too because there’s bullies. Bullies have no boundaries. They could care less and in fact if you respond or react with tears then they’re worse and and seemed to get some joy from making you cry. So as you grow older and you learn how to navigate or avoid people, avoidance is a type of boundary. You gain more confidence in yourself and so you are able to say no and maybe have the experience of somebody actually paying attention to your words and actually hearing you and responding the way you would expect by respecting that you said no, no is a whole sentence boundaries and saying no should be a no brainer. However, how you say no is very important.
How to say ‘No’ and how not to say ‘No’
When I was a girl and I said no and I screamed no and I screeched no and I yelled, no, it didn’t do any good. It didn’t stop. If my parents could intervene, then things stopped. But my experience was more that I just wasn’t hurt. It didn’t matter how I said it. And growing up as a woman, that pattern, that belief is part of what shapes boundaries. And it was a belief that it didn’t matter what my opinion was. And so I had no boundaries. I kind of went with the flow, whatever the flow was. And that’s another way of, of adjusting to what’s happening. And so it may feel like we have boundaries, but inside we really don’t. So let’s look at how it feels when your boundaries are going unheard and responded to. When you say no to someone and they do not pay attention, something happens inside your gut.
You get this feeling of fear, of sadness, of loneliness that permeates your whole body. It affects everything that happens. When somebody actually hears you say no and they respect your no, something entirely different happens. You get this, this joy, this excitement that wow, somebody actually heard me and and respected my words is like all of a sudden I’m someone that matters. And I had that experience and it just blew my mind. I felt like I was just leaping out of my skin. It was so great to have that experience that I said, no, this is unacceptable and, and I do not want to take part in this behavior. And I told the person they had to leave and they actually left. And, and for me, I was a grown woman when I had that experience. So it was the stepping stone to gaining more confidence in my own voice, in my own responses that it gave me the ability to stop reacting so much and learn to respond with thought with feelings that made a big difference in how I walked in the world.
And okay, so just saying no, it depends on how you say it, how you say no, if you’re screeching, no. If you’re screaming no, often it goes unheard. But when you can come within yourself and find deep inside your core, this belief that your know matters as like sometimes I had to actually visualize that my words were being spoken in defense of my child because then the mother bear came out of me. The mother bear was like, you will not trespass over this boundary. You will not cross this line. And it was a completely different voice than I had for myself, myself. Didn’t really have that understanding because it was a belief that nobody heard me. But as a parent, as a mother, I was ferocious and I didn’t have to be mean. I didn’t have to be nasty. I had to be absolutely certain. And that certainty comes from within, inside. And so I say that now I can whisper no, and you will know what I mean. Because the way I say it, and you might notice that even my voice has changed. My voice has deepened with the reality and the realization that, I mean what I say, I’m totally confident in the word that I am speaking.
How to get confident in your word
So how do you get that? It’s an inside job, honey. You get it by learning about who you are, about the patterns that keep you small. These patterns often start when we’re children because the pattern was that nobody heard me, that I was to be a good girl and not make waves. Don’t upset people. Well, I’m upset, but that’s okay. You can be upset but be quiet about it. So that was the lesson. And so many women have that. So learning that my voice matters, my know matters. And how I say it is what has given me the ability to change what happens in my life. Now, much of this happened for me years after traditional therapy when I started taking therapy called rapid eye technology that didn’t talk. It wasn’t talk therapy. It was working with the emotions and the things that I held inside and has given me the ability to release so many of the old patterns and create new ones.
So how do you get this? How do you get this? I offer classes. I offer one on one sessions with you so that you can release the things that get in your way. And these are feelings that get in your way. You can contact me via my website, phone number and just sign up for the newsletter and I will send you a wonderful stress relief process that will help you in many circumstances. Because when we’re not being listened to, we are in a stressful situation and this we can make changes with so that you can feel heard and your life will change because of it. Thank you for listening.
