Healthy Boundaries

The other day I was at the gym, watching a show on Vh1. I'm not a big fan of reality tv but I was attempting to climb a mountain on the elliptical machine and I just didn't have the energy to change the channel. Now most reality shows, from what I can gather, are about as far from real life as one could get. This one, however, seemed different.

I caught the show somewhere in the middle so I don't know all of the details but from what I could gather, a woman was attempting to set some boundaries with her son's father. "Today I am going to tell him that he needs to take my son for the weekend," she said. "But this is going to be very hard for me. I've never done this before, even though it's what we had agreed upon. I'm just not used to setting any kind of boundaries with him. With anyone for that matter. "Aha!" I thought. "Even reality show characters have problems with setting boundaries." Then I hit another difficult incline and forgot all about this poor woman until I sat down to write today's post.

Let's face it. A lot of us have problems setting boundaries with certain people in our lives. In fact, as I scroll through a mental list of all of the women I know, EVERY ONE of them has told me, at some point, that they struggle with setting boundaries with at least one person. We want to be perceived as nice and helpful. We want people to like us. We want the people we love to know that we are there for them. And of course all of this goes utterly wrong when we start to let others cross that sacred line that divides our true selves from our obligatory ones.

In my previous entry, I discussed the difference between being compassionate and being a doormat. In her amazing book on personal healing entitled Light Emerging, author Barbara Brennan discusses the differences between positive relationships and negative ones:

Healthy positive relationships are interdependent and have clearly established contracts of honesty, support and caring. In them there is plenty of room for freedom, creativity and self-expression as well as healthy care and concern for each other. On the other hand, unhealthy relationships are created through negative, unhealthy "contracts" that limit, trap, use, control and even intimidate the people in them. They block creativity, personal expression and interfere with the natural personal growth of each person involved.

Brennan goes on to state that these negative relationships are actually the result of negative "contracts"-or unspoken agreements-that we have gotten ourselves into. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. The friend who is always late, even to appointments when timelieness is needed? The family member who borrows money from you and never pays you back? You don't say anything to them because of a negative contract. Somewhere along the line you agreed not to say anything. Not out loud of course, maybe not even consciously. But somewhere inside of you, at some point in time, you registered that this behavior bothered you and then decided that you weren't going to say anything about it. That is a negative contract. According to Brennan, the only way to get out of a negative contract is to break it.

If you begin to examine, honestly and openly, why you've created a negative contract, if you begin to truly look at your intentions, what you will find is a need to be approved of and loved. For example, perhaps you have a problem standing up to your mom. When you call her, she criticizes you and you don't speak up on your own behalf. Ask yourself why. Are you afraid if you did she would get angry? Hang up on you? Never speak to you again? And what if she did one or even all of these actions, what would that ulitmately mean? That she did not love you?

If you look deep enough, what you will realize is that underneath every negative contract is a fear of not being accepted and not being loved. Ironically what happens when we participate in negative contracts is that we never get the kind of acceptance and love we are looking for because when we allow others to violate our boundaries, we will not feel accepted and loved by them. In addition, we will not feel as if we love or accept ourselves either, because we are not standing up for ourselves. A negative contract serves no one, not even the other person whom you think you are helping by continuing your participation in it. If you have any negative contracts in your life, I would highly encourage you to break them. The payoff for breaking a negative contract is very rewarding, even if it seems very scary and daunting to do so at first.

There are two steps to breaking a negative contract. The first step is to become aware that it exists and to raise your awareness of the negative effects it has on your life. The second step is to gather up enough courage to do that which you are most afraid to do in regards to the negative contract- to do what you must do in order to break it. If you've thought of someone with whom you have a negative contract, it's time to dissolve it. As long as you have a negative contract with anyone, you will stifle your true self, your creativity and your deepest love. Don't you think you deserve a happy and solid life? Don't you deserve honest, fulfilling relationships with others? Those negative contracts need to be broken!

In this post, I've included two charts, complete with examples and written explanations so that you can understand how to complete them. I've included an example from Gary, a man who believes he has to give his mother excessive caretaking in order to be loved by her. (This is an example from Brennan's book). The explanation will walk you through how Gary filled out both of the charts and will give you information on his story. I have also included my own personal example chart as well.

The first chart is designed to help you raise your awareness of why are participating in the negative contract and how the contract is negatively affecting your life. As you go through and fill out your own chart (after looking at the examples), be compassionate with yourself. There is an innocence here, a deep innocence that we all participate in because we want to be loved and accepted, that led you to create this contract in the first place. Now that you've grown into more self-awareness, it is time to break it. The second chart will walk you through the process of breaking it and will ask you to reflect on the benefits this action has on your life.

As you go through these exercises, there need not be any self-judgment on how long you've participated in the contract or how bad you've let things get. The essential and most important part of this exercise is making the decision and mustering up the bravery to leave behind what no longer serves you.

The following documents and charts are taken from one of my 12 week programs entitled Project Confidence.

Step One: Awareness of Negative Contract and Its Effects. Examples and charts here.

Step Two: Breaking the Negative Contract and forming a Positive Contract. Examples and charts here.

Good luck with the task ahead. Once you break the negative contract, go out and do something very nice for yourself. It's not easy to conjure up the courage to do this and you deserve some very big congratulations.

When compassion goes awry

From the time we are very little girls, we women have been taught to "be nice." It's something our parents told us, our teachers told us and even strangers told us to do. In addition to the social conditioning most women receive, most of us are on some kind of conscious spiritual path. Whether you attend a church or temple, meditate regularly or go to your weekly yoga class, most of us participate in some kind of belief system that is intended to better ourselves. And one of the most essential aspects of any spiritual belief system is being kind to others.


We adopt these attitudes of being nice and being kind and we work actively to cultivate compassion because we believe that is what good people do. This is how great humanitarian works are erected and this is the foundation from which many esteemed social activists operate. Kindness and compassion are essential not only to our own happiness but to the betterment of the world.

However, what I'm noticing in several clients, and what's become more and more clear to me as I grow, is that many of us take compassion too far. We don't have solid boundaries when it comes to kindness; we don't know when and how to say "no" and we use our spiritual paths as an excuse for allowing others to take advantage of us. In our quests to be nice to everyone, we forget to be nice to ourselves.

Pema Chodron, one of my favorite Buddhist nuns and spiritual teachers, calls this inability to set healthy boundaries Idiot Compassion. I sometimes suffer from Idiot Compassion, or at least I did until I became aware of it recently. Perhaps you do too. Idiot Compassion is, quite simply, enabling another person to be mean or violent or disrespectful towards you out of a skewed definition that the person needs your compassion more than they need your boundaries.

An extreme example of Idiot Compassion would be the woman who stays friends with the alcoholic who lies to her and manipulates her, believing if she left her friend's side that friend would crumble. Or the woman who continuously allows her husband to scream at her and berate her and then excuses his behavior by saying that he's just had a hard week at work. There are subtle examples too. The friend who always shows up late, even when promptness is a necessity, but you don't say anything because you know how busy his life is. The person who calls you with an "emergency" when she knows you've got an important deadline, but you want to be a good friend so you let her take up your afternoon with her drama (and isn't this her third emergency of the month?) The brother who "borrows" money from you and then never pays you back but you decide not to say anything because you know how broke he is.

These are all examples of Idiot Compassion. I'm sure you can think of more.

There are two distinct ways to tell real compassion from Idiot Compassion.

1. Real compassion feels good. It makes you feel free and helpful and full of purpose. (Like helping your elderly neighbor carry her groceries into her house). Idiot Compassion does not feel good. It feels subtly defeating, like something is being taken from you.

2. Real compassion, upon reflection, makes you feel uplifted and joyful. Idiot Compassion, upon reflection, makes you feel like you should make an excuse about why you are allowing the bad behavior. Real compassion doesn't need any kind of explanation; Idiot Compassion is full of excuses.

Other signs that you are participating in Idiot Compassion:

-You tell a more assertive friend about the situation and she tells you that you should speak up.

-You feel bad every time you interact with this person but are not sure why.

-You find yourself wanting to avoid a certain person because you feel a sense of guilt, fear or obligation whenever you talk to him/her.

If you suspect that you may be participating in Idiot Compassion, then the next step is to learn how to set up some healthy boundaries. In Barbara Brennan's book Light Emerging, Brennan calls the tendency to not set healthy boundaries "participating in a negative contract." Once you've identified the people with whom you are giving Idiot Compassion, then your next step is to set up better boundaries with them, a process Brennan calls "creating positive contracts."

This week, make a list of people to whom you suspect you may be serving as a doormat. (Your Idiot Compassion recepients, if you will.) Next week, I will show you a simple and effective way to dissolve your negative contracts and how to create positive contracts.

Still not sure whether the compassion you're dishing out is helpful or hurtful? Take this interesting and fun quiz to see how often you may be participating in Idiot Compassion.

dead and gone (thank god!)

Yesterday as I was running around town, getting a Mother's Day present for my mom, I heard an interesting song on the radio. It was by one of my favorite hip-hop artists, T.I., and it caught my attention because the lyrics seem to state exactly what is happening in my life (and probably in the lives of most people who have just progressed through Square One). Although T.I. is talking about leaving behind the violent ego-preserving expectations of rap artists (something to which I can't really relate) I felt like the guy understood me, and what I'm going through, completely.

Let me share this with you:

I've been traveling on this road too long. I'm just trying to find my way back home. The old me's dead and gone, dead and gone. I turn my head to the east; I don't see nobody by my side. I turn my head to the west, still nobody in sight. So I turn my head to the north, swallow that pill that they call pride. That old me's dead and gone but the new me will be alright.

T.I. is on the mark here with what it feels like to be in Square Two. These feelings of-Who am I now? and Where is everybody that used to be in my life? are very common. Martha Beck calls this "The Empty Elevator" syndrome but at times I like to think of it as a blank slate. It's a scary, lonely part of the cycle, but it can also be a perceived as quality time you get to spend with your new self. You want to know this new person, don't you, since you'll be living her life?

Sometimes I get excited knowing that I have the freedom to create whatever I'd like, but sometimes I get sad because the only people I socialize with these days are my husband and our new neighbors. It's a little unsettling for a social butterfly such as myself to realize that so many of her former social networks no longer feel right.

I've tried, for quite some time, to deny that the old me is really dead and gone. I continue to hang out with the same people I've hung out with for years, I continue to attend functions that I used to like to attend, I continue to volunteer for the same organizations that I've always volunteered for. What I'm learning is that the more I grow, the louder my body compass speaks to me. I can't deny any more that the evening get-togethers, party invitations and volunteer requests feel so, well, shackles on. Just to be sure that I'm not in a bad mood or that it's not my hormones speaking, I've recently gone to several gatherings and parties just to make sure that my compass is telling the truth. And it is. The old me really is dead and gone. The old life, and many people in that life, no longer fit.

Take, for example, the guy I've hung out with for years who invited me out for coffee only to spend the whole time bragging about himself and his accomplishments. Or the woman I was with the other day who rolls her eyes anytime I talk about the mind-body connection and dismisses me as hippy-dippy. Then of course there is the one girl who is so uncomfortable that I've married someone not American that she squirms anytime I talk about my new Indian husband.

Of course these people can't be your friends! my essential self says. Look at the way they treat you! And of course my essential self is right.

I have to admit, the hardest part about all of this is not neccessarily that I've got more alone time now than I've had in the past. (Like many creative people, I enjoy solitude and time experimenting with my new ideas). What's bothering me the most is that when the new me is hanging out with the people that the old me used to, she's absolutley horrified. Not only does it feel foreign to be in my old life but is feels downright insulting.

Why would I ever put up with being treated this way? I keep wondering. Why does so-and-so think it's okay to spend 90 minutes talking about himself in his slimy way? Why does so-and-so think it's okay to roll her eyes at me? Why would I hang out with someone who can't accept the person I love? The answers I come up with are never very fun to hear. It comes back to the age old adage of wisdom: You teach people how to treat you. And from the looks of it, I haven't been teaching people very well that I deserve to be treated with respect.

When I dive into the reasons behind this, I don't think it has to do with low self-esteem or low self-worth. It seems more like I suffer from something many kind, spiritual people do, a complex Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron calls IDIOT COMPASSION.

I was raised to be very kind to everyone, unfortunately even those who treated me like crap. You know, the whole "turn-the-other-cheek" thing. But allowing people to treat me badly no longer jives with my new self. When I found Chodron's article on Idiot Compassion, suddenly it all made sense. I had confused being kind to others with being a doormat (which, if you've ever suffered from this pyschosis yourself know that it means, ironically, that you are not being kind to everyone because you are not being kind to yourself).

Because Idiot Compassion is a complex topic, I'm going to write my next post on how to identify it, how to set healthy emotional boundaries with others and how to break ties with people who don't respect those boundaries. That's coming up.

For now, though, if you've gone through Square One, if you've jumped through the Ring of Fire (hopefully without too many burns) and are finding your elevator empty and lonely, here are some helpful next steps you can take (ones, I might add, that I am taking now myself):

1. Make a list of everyone who is in your life and with whom you interact.

2. Take a deep breath and start to focus on the sensations of your body. (Remember the shackles on, shackles off test? If you don't, see this post.)

3. Go through each name on your list, focusing on how your body reacts to the memory of this person. If you get a shackles on feeling (a negative feeling), put a - sign next to this person's name. If you get a shackles off feeling (a positive feeling), put a + sign next to this person's name. (Some people may register neutral. Put a 0 next to neutral people).

4. Find a way to spend more time with + people and less time (if any) with 0 and - people. I understand that there may be people on your list with whom you cannot avoid interacting. You may hate your boss and yet she may be someone with whom you have to interact with while you are at work. Keep your interactions to the bare minimum then. Remember that although you have to talk to her in meetings, you do not have to sit next to her during the office holiday party and pretend like you enjoy talking to her because she is your boss. See the difference?

5. Once you stop spending so much time with - people, you will start having more free time. At first this may feel like being lonely, especially if a lot of the people you used to hang out with get a negative reading on your body compass. You can use this time to:

a) Get to know yourself better (Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way is a great book even if you don't think of yourself as an artist)

b) Spend more time with your + people

c) Find more + people to hang out with. (Meetup.com has a lot of interesting groups, some of which you may be interested in joining).

When you start treating yourself kindly, you will decide that you want to be surrounded by others who also treat you kindly. And that, my friends, is true kindness.

RECAP-5 Minute Life Coach

If you're finding yourself feeling a bit lonely after you've made some positive changes, or not sure if the people you've surrounded yourself with in the past will fit your new life, conduct this simple test:

1. Make a list of everyone who is currently in your life and with whom you interact.

2. Go through each name on your list, focusing on how your body reacts to the memory of this person. If you get a shackles on feeling (a negative feeling), put a - sign next to this person's name. If you get a shackles off feeling (a positive feeling), put a + sign next to this person's name. (Some people may register neutral. Put a 0 next to neutral people).

3. Find a way to spend more time with + people and less time (if any) with 0 and - people. Use the extra time you've now freed up to learn more about yourself or to meet more + people.