I am yet to meet a mum with zero boundaries in place. If this were the case, it would be a lot simpler in some respects as you would be starting from a clean slate. In reality though, things are never quite that simple and there is no one size fits all answer. It is more than likely there are places in your life where you have excellent boundaries that serve you well, and other areas in your life where your boundaries are letting you down.
When I complete boundary audits with clients, often a boundary gap will emerge in either a specifc area of someone's life (e.g. work) or in a specific type of boundary (e.g. time). Once clients are able to identify patterns, reflect on them and learn from why this gap is happening they are then able to work through to establish stronger bounderaries in that area (that free tool and blog, coming next week).
So how do I find these gaps?
First up, you need to think about the different roles that you play in your life. Roles are not who you are, they are transient spaces that you step into (and out of) throughout your life. We can have lots of roles we play all at once, or just a few. For this exercise, it is really important to think about the roles which are most dominant in your life and focus on evaluating these spaces first. Any change takes effort and if you can have 2 roles in your life which account for 80% of your time, energy and dollars, you are better off focusing here than another 5 roles which might make up the other 20%. To find these roles think about your past week or past month. What roles have you played and of these roles - which ones take up the biggest chunk of your resources? These become the horizonal role on your matrix (like columns in Excel).
Once you have identified these roles, now reflect on the types of boundaries that you can have (our handy worksheet from last week called understaning boundaries summarises these for you). These boundary types e.g. time, emotional, physical become the horizontal categories (like rows in excel). You will have reflected last week on what healthy boundaries look like for you, so really lean into what good looks like for this next bit.
Finally go through each role in your life and think about your boundaries in each of the category types. Really reflect on Brene Browns definition of boundaries being 'what's OK and what's not OK and think how well these different boundary types are working for you for each of the roles you currently occupy. Then score yourself from 0 (not at all) to 10 (excellent) for how healthy your boundaries are. Note: you can work horizontally e.g. thinking about boundary types e.g. time and scoring this across roles, if you prefer but most clients find it easiest working down e.g. as a mother how healthy ar emy time, material, emotional boundaries etc.
So what do these scores show me?
When making a change, I find it is sometimes best to work with data and facts, not just feelings. Sometimes we might feel that a problem is in a certain space, but the problem is actually somewhere else as our brains aren't always that reliable in telling us the truth about things (more on CBT in coming weeks). So for now, take the feelings out of it and look at the data as objectively as you can, what does it tell you. Where do you see strong boundaries? Where do you see gaps? What patterns can you see? What did you learn?
When you have jotted these insights down it is now a chance to dig a bit deeper with some self reflection. Without blame or judgement, look at the strong areas, how did you manage to establish such strong boundaries here? How do these boundaries help you to live a brighter life? What worked in establishing these boundaries? What forces do you have that help you in this space? Jot these down as you go. Then look at the areas where you have gaps. How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and had healthier boundaries in this space? When you woke up, how would you notice this change? What learnings can you take from the areas you are really strong and apply them here? Again jot it all down
This process of reflection can be tricky so I have created a free tool which will be available Thursday in our free-self help section (or for our subscribers it will be included in your weekly email update along with this blog). This tool gives you the structure to follow to make this as easy as possible.
Join us next week to put thoughts into action with understanding some of the reactions other people might have to you establishing new boundaries (spoiler alert, they might not always be encouraging reactions) and learn why this is OK and totally normal. I will share my step by step guide to bring people along for the ride and reduce any resistance you may encounter.
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