Eileen March,a CAN certified life coach, energy coach, healer, and cyclical living guide talks to Jeanne about more than just setting boundaries. Using Jeanne's own experience as reference to the episode they explore the difficulty in re-enforcing boundaries and making hard decisions about who deserves space in your life.
Eileen March,a CAN certified life coach, energy coach, healer, and cyclical living guide talks to Jeanne about more than just setting boundaries. Using Jeanne's own experience as reference to the episode they explore the difficulty in re-enforcing boundaries and making hard decisions about who deserves space in your life.
Key Moments in the Episode:
00:00 Introduction.
02:00 The over-use of advice toward "setting boundaries."
03:30 How did Eileen decide to dedicate her life to helping others with boundaries?
07:40 Do we really still lack boundaries?
09:40 What are the different types of boundaries?
12:30 Emotional boundaries and narcissistic people.
14:21 How to set a boundary, why you use a preface and how to use a preface?
16:14 Other boundaries: Material, financial, conversational, mental, and physical boundaries.
18:40 How do you keep re-enforcing boundaries if the initial setting of the boundary was so difficult and emotionally taxing?
25:05 Experiencing verbal abuse when setting boundaries.
28:30 Experiencing gas-lighting while stating the preface to your boundary.
35:05 Setting boundaries when you cannot set physical boundaries or when you live with the person?
37:20 Eileen's daily wellness tip and where to find Eileen.
39:15 Conclusion
Links
Eileen March: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Work With Eileen
Jeanne Retief: FIGGI Beauty Shop | My FIGGI Life Podcast | My FIGGI Life Blog | Instagram | Facebook
[00:00:00.440] - Jeanne
Hello, FIGGI goddess, and welcome to the My FIGGI Life podcast. Today I'm joined by my guest, Eileen March, a CAN certified life coach. And we're talking about boundaries. It is something that has been so integral in my journey. It's caused me so much pain, so much anxiety, so many tears, and also so much freedom. So if you're one of those that you're tired about reading and hearing about boundaries and people telling you you really should deploy boundaries and you feel you already are, this is the episode for you. Okay, so we're going to dive deep into that. And if you want to join us for this journey, then stay tuned.
[00:00:44.860] - Intro
Welcome, goddess, to your sacred space. This is my FIGGI Life podcast, where we openly discuss life's wins and losses on our journeys to self discovery. This is your best life. This is your FIGGI Life. And now, here is your host, Jeanne.
[00:01:03.760] - Jeanne
Goddess, we are back with my guest, Eileen March. She is a CAN certified life coach, energy coach, healer, and cyclical living guide. After leaving a career in midwifery that left her burnt out and depleted, Eileen has dedicated herself to supporting her clients and finding the courage to rest and prioritize their own needs without feeling guilty about it so that they can feel more in control of their lives. She does this with a blend of coaching, energy healing, and helping women reconnect with the cyclical wisdom of their bodies and the Earth. She works with women in her signature 12 week, one on one mentorship program rekindled. In addition, she also hosts women's circles, honoring the Wheel of the Year celebrations. Welcome to the My FIGGI Life podcast.
[00:01:57.040] - Eileen
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:59.930] - Jeanne
Boundaries has been such an integral part of my story. I have lost so many what I would then have considered to be loved ones and relationships because of this. But it's also caused me so much pain and anxiety. And at the same time, it's also been very freeing. I think it's such an important conversation to have, but I almost feel like it's the same as self care. You read about it everywhere. You see it everywhere. And we're all trying to do our best. We're just all trying to survive. And I think it's so much easier said than done to say, Oh, you know what? You need to set boundaries. It feels like that sentence is not extremely helpful.
[00:02:49.800] - Eileen
It's a topic that has come up over and over as being so important. And it's really interesting. I was thinking about this talk this morning and writing writing in my morning pages and thinking to myself that if you had told me three years ago that I'd be talking about boundaries with everybody on podcasts and in my programs, I may not have believed you. I would have been like, That's boring. But it's so not. And I really appreciate that connection you make between boundaries and self care and those two words and how they're just thrown at us constantly every day. And it almost feels really difficult to actually know what that means or where a healthy place to land is in both of those topics. So yeah, it's important.
[00:03:36.850] - Jeanne
And just for our listeners to have a really nice background to our conversation today, you're a trained and qualified midwife, and you've also had your own journey with boundaries. Can you give us a little bit more insight to who you are and how you ended up here talking about boundaries?
[00:03:52.890] - Eileen
Yes. So I was, am, a trained certified midwife. I'm currently on a leave of absence. I actually just wrapped up my midwifery career at the end of last year in December. Part of why I felt like I could no longer be in that career was because there really is no room for good boundaries. There's some, but not a lot. The way that Midwifery works in Canada, which is where I'm speaking from, is that we are on call for our clients 24 7. On a team, which I was, I had every other week off. During that time, nobody could contact me, my clients anyways. But on the on call week, it was like, the phone rang and you pick it up and you go. You go to their home, you go to the hospital, you triage whatever concern they have. It is really taxing and difficult because you can't, from a professional standpoint, put up a boundary of I'm not going to answer my phone for the next 15 minutes while I meditate, or while I get in the shower, or while I have sex with my partner. I hope it's okay to say that on this show.
[00:05:03.170] - Eileen
But just even those intimacy pieces, it was very stressful. So that was a big piece of why I left the career and started to pursue coaching.
[00:05:13.100] - Jeanne
But what was the turning point for you? Because it sounds like this was what the career was, part and parcel. So was there an event where you thought, Okay, I can't. This is like the straw that broke the Campbell's back, so to speak.
[00:05:26.710] - Eileen
Yeah. I don't think there was any one event unless we can consider COVID to be the event because that certainly the outlets and the ways to recharge, connecting with my Midwife community, going out for food, having all of that communal support and interaction was taken away. And that's what made the job doable, really, in a lot of ways was being able to come together with the midwives. And especially in the beginning of COVID and all the way through, didn't want to risk gathering those of us who were in one practice because if one of us got everybody sick, who would take care of our clients?
[00:06:08.910] - Jeanne
Given that and this background and that we're talking about boundaries today, I just want to go back to this statement I made at the beginning. I want to ask you, do we really still lack boundaries that much? Because I remember the first time I ever heard about something like boundaries. I think I was in my first year of law school, and then I didn't know yet that I had an anxiety disorder. I just knew I was a very stressed person, and I had gone through a very difficult time in my life. And this person or this friend had come to me and she'd given me this book on boundaries. It's a now I can't remember the name, but I think it's the most famous one. It's like the first one, maybe something like that.
[00:06:51.660] - Eileen
There is one story boss that is well known.
[00:06:55.770] - Jeanne
And this was the first interaction I've ever had with something like boundaries. And ever since then, I've heard about it a lot and a little bit more and a little bit more as we, I think, evolve more as a society and we become more intuitive and we try to have more spaces and places for ourselves and to take care of ourselves. But now it almost feels like that's go to advice. You're going through a difficult time in a relationship. You're having issues with a parent. You're super stressed because of different things happening in your life. And even your friends would probably say, Oh, you know what? You need to set boundaries. So do you think we really still lack them that much?
[00:07:42.790] - Eileen
I think that in a lot of ways we do. I think there are obviously many moving parts and different relationships call for different boundaries. There's also so many different types of boundaries. Especially as women, though we are raised from a very young age. I'm very hopeful that the generations coming up are going to have a different way of being in the world. But we are raised to put everyone's needs before our own. We're raised to make sure everybody else is comfortable before we attend to our own needs and often to keep ourselves small so that other people don't feel uncomfortable. I was hopeful that I had coined the term Good Girl Syndrome when it came to me one afternoon while I was writing, and then I googled it, and of course, somebody had been writing on it before. But it is this people pleasing behavior that we're praised for, either overtly or subliminally in the messaging that we get. And so I do think it is something that most of us still struggle with. I don't think that it is helpful, though, to just tell someone that they need a boundary in place, like, oh, you should get better boundaries, have a boundary without any teaching or understanding of context.
[00:08:59.830] - Eileen
Yeah. That? And of how? How do we set boundaries and how do we make it not so emotionally difficult for ourselves to do so? And that's something that I come up in my own life often and with my clients, for sure. It's something that we talk about. Different age groups, too, I find are different here. I have a client who's in her 50s, and when I told her boundaries could actually be kind, she laughed in my face. She did not believe me. Oh, wow.
[00:09:31.580] - Jeanne
Okay, so it's definitely still an issue. I think it's fair to say, at least for my audience, that it may be similar to them as my experience, that there are definitely places and spaces in my life. Like you were saying, there are different types of boundaries. Where setting boundaries is almost natural to me. I don't feel bad about it. I don't feel guilty about it. But where I struggle to have boundaries are the more difficult and taxing spaces in my life. And they become so difficult and so emotionally taxing. It overshadows everything. Do you understand what I'm saying? So then the whole house of cards comes falling down. So can you maybe just take us a little bit through this and the different types of boundaries?
[00:10:29.630] - Eileen
Yeah, sure. I really like to use this. A good visual on positive psychology. Com that has a boundary wheel and it differentiates between seven types of boundaries. Often when we hear boundaries, we think saying no to request on our time. That is certainly one boundary. Time boundaries are a big one. It is really common to over commit ourselves to say yes because we want to help. We really do. Then realize that we actually don't have the capacity or the time or the space to help. I'm noticing a trend these days of it being much more acceptable to back out of a commitment and say, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize I was over committed, I can't do this anymore. Something that comes up with that for me is the next step is that we need to get better at pausing before committing so that we can not say yes in the first place. We can give ourselves some space to check our schedules, to check in with our bodies, to see if we actually have a desire to do the thing so that we're not letting people down at the last minute. That is one type of boundary that comes up often that I teach on often, how to say no better is what I say.
[00:11:38.770] - Eileen
There's also emotional boundaries. This comes up often in our intimate relationships. With our spouses, with our families, with women, their mother relationship is often one that is a struggle with boundaries. The ability to put boundaries in place with people we love can be so nourishing, but it is usually the difficult and fraught with emotion initially, especially in cases of parent child relationships, because our parents feel like they are entitled to us in a way. They've been the one to raise us. They did everything for us, and that is true. We can honor that, and we can also honor ourselves and our need to create healthy distance between us if the relationship is difficult or if they're doing things that are causing us emotional or mental strain or pain or discomfort.
[00:12:29.810] - Jeanne
Lso, emotional boundaries are also difficult to deal with if you're dealing with narcissistic people. That one's so hard. You're saying emotional boundaries. I'm like, Okay, that's the one. That's the one that I'm super bad at.
[00:12:48.050] - Eileen
It's tricky for several reasons. When you first start to put boundaries in place, and this is the case, whether or not the person you're dealing with is narcissistic. But when you first start to put boundaries in place, if you haven't done so before, the other person is probably going to react a little bit. They might be put out, they might be upset, they might be actually angry because they are used to you interacting with them without those boundaries in place. That initial boundary can be the hardest. I find that it often helps to preface your boundary setting by saying, I've been doing some self work, some thinking, some whatever, however you want to phrase it. I'm going to be setting some boundaries, and here's why. Giving the why of your boundaries can be so helpful because if the person loves you and you give them a really compelling why, they are a little more likely, a lot more likely in the case of people who are more self aware. Sometimes narcissism, that's a tricky one. But generally speaking, if you give them a why, somebody who loves you, they might come up against their own like, oh, why wouldn't you do that for me?
[00:13:57.240] - Eileen
But then if they can remember that why, that you need it for you, whatever explanation you've given them, it usually makes that interaction easier and it's easier to put the boundary back in place when it's crossed, which it will be crossed. If you're new to setting a boundary with a person, everybody gets in their habits and their ruts. So it is something that you do have to reinforce a few times generally before it's fully respected.
[00:14:21.230] - Jeanne
But what would be your jumping off point there if you were to say, Okay, this is why I'm doing it, right? And this is why I need to do it. Just for your own mental preparation, is your aim to be able to say, Okay, I did it. I set the boundary. I prefaced it. I said why. And that was my goal. Now it's on the other person to react and that will tell me how this will go. Is that what you're aiming for?
[00:14:52.530] - Eileen
Yeah, I think so. I think also having some way to remind yourself, whether it be you wrote it on a sticky note and you're going to go back back and look at it, or you have your partner or your friend who's in your background that you said, Hey, I'm going to set a boundary with this person and it's going to be hard, and they're going to react, probably, having some way to remind yourself that their reaction is about them and not about you. That can be the hardest thing to remember and to actually believe in the moment, especially with someone that we have felt responsible for their emotions and their emotional wellbeing for a long time, which is often the case with parents, especially people who are narcissistic, because they want us to feel responsible for their emotions and how they are feeling. That's the characteristic of that personality type, certainly.
[00:15:49.200] - Intro
You're listening to the My FIGGI Life podcast.
[00:15:53.100] - Jeanne
I have so many more questions to ask you. I think about emotional boundaries, but I want to give you a chance to explain to us what the seven types of boundaries are. I think this is the third one you've mentioned to us.
[00:16:04.880] - Eileen
We talked about emotional, and yes, probably come back to that one because it's probably the hardest time boundaries we briefly touched on. That one's a bit simpler. Material boundaries, that's things like lending money or possessions. This one doesn't come up as frequently for people, and a lot of people are comfortable with just saying no to requests for their things, but it can come up. Conversational boundaries are another. This would be if you're having a conversation with someone and you're straying into a topic that you're just not comfortable speaking about. It may be that you're not comfortable speaking about it with this person, or it might be in general, it's not a topic that you are comfortable with. Being able to say something kind along the lines of, I'm really sorry, but I can't speak about this with you, or I can't speak about this topic. But knowing that you don't have to suffer in silence or awkwardness in a conversation, it is totally appropriate and okay to say, Can we move on? Can we change the subject? There are internal boundaries. With our own selves, I struggle here. Any entrepreneurs listening to your podcast may recognize that same internal struggle of creating boundaries around work and life internally, around listening to our own bodies and taking care of ourselves, even though there are other things to do.
[00:17:25.100] - Eileen
That's definitely one that I teach on it. A big piece of what I offer my clients is around this because it's my big struggle and we teach what we need. Physical boundaries, so space, pure physical. Some people are huggers, some people want you to stay a few feet away. That's a pretty simple one. I also think that one of the very cool things that has come out of the pandemic, at least in my circles, is this consent before touch piece that has come out. People are, Are you a hugger? Can I hug you? And everybody's really okay with the no thanks, whereas before they may not have been. The last one, I think, is mental boundaries. That one is more the freedom to have your own thoughts, values, opinions. So agreeing to disagree, that respect piece is what that one is all about.
[00:18:15.260] - Jeanne
Yeah. And I think even mental boundaries can go back to so many others that you've listed because we're in our own mind so much. If I understand what mental boundaries are correctly, I think it can really impact you. Let's go back to the emotional boundaries and let's assume that our listeners are okay with setting that first boundary. So I'm going to use myself as an example. I am already an extremely anxious person. I struggle with an anxiety disorder, and a lot of that has to do with things in my past and traumas in my past which are connected to a lot of people that I have close familial relationships with. I think for me, obviously in the beginning setting that initial boundary was terrifying because as I said, I didn't even understand the concept of setting a boundary. I never grew up with that. That wasn't something that was taught to me. It wasn't something that I even knew existed, never mind valued, or knew that I was allowed to value or allowed to have. I think the hardest thing for me was actually not setting that first boundary. It was that you had to keep doing it because you go in and you set the boundary.
[00:19:36.910] - Jeanne
And then for me personally, one of two things happens. The reaction is so severe and so aggressive and argumentative and just horrible verbal abuse and emotional manipulation that comes from that. And you stick with it. And then by the second or third turnaround, you give up because it's not worth it. I'd rather be stressed that I don't have boundaries than have to deal with this onslaught the entire time. Or the second thing that would happen is, initially, they would be angry with you and ignore you. And then it's like they start pulling you back into their world. Oh, I miss you. I wonder where you've been. Are you okay? And as soon as you're nice again and you say, Oh, yes, thank you so much. I appreciate for reaching out and you think you're in a better space, boom, you're home. It's back to how it was pre boundary. So can you talk to that a little bit? Because it's really a commitment to keep going.
[00:20:40.570] - Eileen
Yeah, certainly. And I feel there's so much compassion in my heart and my body for everyone who struggles with people who are intimately tied to their lives where these boundaries are so difficult because it just adds a layer of complication. I'll address the second one first, that angry, ignore, and then slowly pulling you back in peace. One of my mentors likes to say, When somebody shows you who they are, believe them.
[00:21:06.710] - Jeanne
You have no idea how significant that is that you have.
[00:21:11.870] - Eileen
Just said. It's tough because that pattern of angry, ignore, Oh, I missed you, come back in, and then start to do it again, that's the definition. That's how you define abuse. Psychological, physical, verbal, all the types of abuse. You get the abuse, you get the honeymoon phase, and then you get the abuse again. It's that cycle of I'm mad, I'm going to ignore you, and then, Oh, I missed you. Here's some things. It's so great to be back in your world. It just slowly gets back to that breaking point of abuse again where you're like, No, I need to set a boundary. They're angry, they ignore you.
[00:21:47.010] - Jeanne
They point you down the thing. And that cycle is devastating.
[00:21:49.940] - Eileen
It's so devastating. And so as hard as it is and as much grief as it carries, often or sometimes at least, the best course of action is to when they reach back out, say, I miss you too, if you do, but I'm really sorry, I can't engage, I can't be your friend, this isn't for me. If it's somebody that you have been observing and know or believe that they've been doing the self work, that they've been putting in the effort to change their own behavior, giving them another chance is always an option. But I stress caution with my clients, with my friends when they ease situations come up because so often they are just repeating. And rather than the one really upsetting boundary where you're then not part of their life or not a close part of this person's life, you end up with multiple times of having to do it.
[00:22:44.890] - Jeanne
That's exactly right.
[00:22:47.000] - Jeanne
And that's exactly what happened because there are many of these instances where I actually just broke off the relationship because it was just so emotional emotionally and physically taxing on me to keep going through this and through this and through this than it was for me to actually just step away and say, you know what? I just can't. I just cannot do it. The last time this happened, I had a really, really bad migraine attack and I lost function in the whole right side of my body because of the stress. So it really has an extremely severe impact on me. So I can definitely understand that maybe sometimes it's better to actually just step away just for, honestly, self perseverance or self preservation, really not to be mean or horrible or feel guilty. It's just that's the.
[00:23:47.430] - Eileen
Thing is that guilt comes from us again taking on ownership or responsibility for how the other person feels. I do believe that we have a responsibility in being kind and compassionate, but our first responsibility needs to be to ourselves and our own wellbeing. And anytime we are growing and boundaries, beginning to set boundaries, learning how to bring them into more areas of our lives, that's a growth piece. And the hard truth is that when we are growing, we are outgrowing some people. We will always outgrow some people in our lives. It's really difficult to let go, especially of friendships or family. It's even harder, but friendships that we've had for a long time. I have a friend who has gone through massive growth and transformation in the last year, and she had to end a friendship with a woman that she's known since they were little girls because it was no longer healthy. It was no longer making her feel good. It was draining. It was stressful. And we actually don't owe our friendship to anyone. That's a hard one to wrap our brains.
[00:24:59.460] - Jeanne
Around sometimes. And how would you speak to the first one? You set your boundary. The verbal abuse. Yeah. And somebody is so combative about that because I think that really goes to what you said about stating the why, prefacing why you're setting the boundary and stating the why. I'm sure with many others as well, but for example, in my case, it goes back to a lot of mental boundaries because I realized that, especially with these people, I had been put in a position where it's such a devastating place to be in to understand and to realize that where you have grown so accustomed to doubting your own reality that it doesn't feel good to say the why because the response.
[00:25:51.100] - Eileen
Is.
[00:25:52.170] - Jeanne
Explicitly angry and it is, No, you didn't remember that right, or That didn't happen the way you said it happened. And then you're in the space of, Oh, I'm setting a boundary and I'm trying to do it. And did I remember that right? Maybe it wasn't that bad. No, maybe I didn't remember it that way. I think it feeds into that whole thing, the combative explosion when you're setting the boundaries e the why you were talking about, and then this whole idea of how you reconcile that with your reality.
[00:26:21.100] - Eileen
I mean, I do think there are some people who won't be open to the why because the only person that they can truly care about is themselves selves. It sounds like there are certain situations for you for sure, but definitely there are cases where removing yourself from the relationship or simply if it's somebody you have to see. Sometimes it is easier to just stay quiet and not engage as much as possible. If it's possible to have a support person, a partner, a friend, somebody who can reaffirm for you that you are not crazy, that your truth is real, especially in the face of gas lighting. It is so hard because we do want to believe that the other person is not out to harm us and does have our best interests at heart, even if they are acting that way, especially if it's somebody they love. Having somebody in our corner to reaffirm our validity that what we're feeling is valid, remind us that nobody remembers things perfectly clearly. We make things up all the time. It's as likely true for them as for you. But what matters is how you feel and the way you experience the situation.
[00:27:30.900] - Eileen
It doesn't actually matter what specifically happened. If you feel badly and continue to be put in a position of feeling badly, then that's your reality and that's your truth and it's valid, it matters. Physical boundaries are a good way to keep yourself out of those situations. Being unavailable to be in the room with people who truly cannot receive any feedback like that or boundary setting. If they just continue to explode and be angry, sometimes it's not reparable. And sometimes saying, I can't see you anymore, I can't speak to you anymore, that can be the kick in the pants that some people need to do some internal work and look inwards. And some people will just be mad forever. But I often think this is the one life we know for sure we get. And do we really want to be spending it bending ourselves into shapes that we don't fit in just to appease somebody in our lives?
[00:28:29.230] - Jeanne
And that's the reason why I asked you in the beginning when you were saying you need to preface the boundary and give the why, what is your goal? What should your goal be going into it? I think, especially if you're so anxious about it and it's somebody so difficult that you're dealing with, I think it helps you a lot because as ladies, we tend to be perfectionists. We set a goal and we have this vision of how we are going to achieve it and this is the way it should be. And in your mind, I think you're thinking, I'm going to set the boundary, I'm going to say the why, they're going to respect me, everything's going to be fine, and it will be done. But if you have a goal in mind that you can say, Listen, my goal is to set the boundary and to say why. And if I have done that and I've spoken my truth and I've said my why, that was my goal that I had achieved. I cannot have responsibility for how somebody else would accept that why. It's just my responsibility to give the why.
[00:29:28.810] - Eileen
The first responsibility is to yourself. Doing what you need to do to feel like you've stood up for yourself and then doing what you need to do to feel safe. If that means stepping down, backing down, if it's a situation you truly have to continue to engage in, playing that smaller part or just disengaging a bit might be the best option. Or deciding that that person no longer gets to have time and space in your life is another option. A harder one.
[00:29:56.620] - Jeanne
Very hard. It's very hard. You were talking about support systems and how important that is. And that actually helped me a lot because I started seeing what this was doing to me, but what it was doing to me was doing to my family. I may be the one that has the migraine and my right side is paralyzed and I'm sick, but they are the ones seeing it and experiencing it. And they're the ones that are there for me, driving me to the hospital, helping me, setting through all the tests and the exams, knowing that this has been brought on by something that isn't from within our circle of love or our family. And it's taking time and energy away from my five year old and from my husband. And that's really what helped me make that final decision.
[00:30:47.350] - Eileen
Yeah. I mean, I often say that the reason we need to take care of ourselves first is so that we do have the capacity to take care of the people we love and who really deserve our time and our attention and our affection and all of those things. When we're thinking about boundaries with other people, it can be really helpful if we struggle with setting them, if we struggle with guilt or anxiety around them, to remember that our why is often not ourselves. It's often our partner or our children. That's our why. We need more for them. And that can be a helpful way for us people pleasing women who like to take care of everybody to frame our why, not only in terms of our own physical health, but the fact that our own physical and mental health impacts directly the people we love the most.
[00:31:36.280] - Jeanne
One of the things that is also so important for me in this conversation, somebody said to me a little while ago, they said something similar, and it's just that just because you're ready to create the boundaries doesn't mean the person is ready to accept it. That was really emotional turmoil for me because that sent me in this tail spin of, Oh my gosh, but maybe I should give them another chance. Maybe I should think this through. Maybe I should do it another way. So for those of us that have relationships also that require boundaries, but we are not ready to end those relationships, can you give us some tips on how we can stay strong in reinforcing those boundaries?
[00:32:15.150] - Eileen
Having some really good ways to check in with your body and, as you said, to ground yourself can be helpful. Things like meditation or even just rooting visualizations where you close your eyes and you feel into the earth below you and visualize however that connection might feel for you can be helpful to calm ourselves before we go into interactions with the person that we know is probably going to test them. Taking those calming breaths, reaffirming to ourselves why we have set the boundary. Even saying it aloud, I find it's really powerful to speak aloud, calmly, alone, the things that I believe and what I know to be true. Also, making sure that if you know you're going into a situation with somebody who will be testing your boundaries, having some time and space afterwards to give yourself that ability to recover because it will take energy. Allotting it your energy, knowing that maybe that day is not going to be packed full of work and other responsibilities on either side. And being kind to yourself that it does take energy. Not beating yourself up that, Oh, I should be able to just say no again and not have it hurt or not have it feel bad and not have it take all this energy.
[00:33:31.030] - Eileen
Knowing that you are a human and it's okay for it to be hard can be very helpful. And then that piece that we've said a few times, having your support network, having your best friend or your partner or somebody who loves you and respects your boundaries and loves that you're setting boundaries to tell you that you did a good job, to congratulate you for doing what you've done and support you in it, or having coach or a therapist or somebody professional even in your corner who can really reaffirm that it's important work that you're doing and that even if the response from the other person is negative, it's so valuable to have that ability to keep doing it.
[00:34:10.820] - Jeanne
Many times the setting of boundaries the first time doesn't happen exactly like you planned. It's more like, Oh, well, that happened. So just give yourself time to breathe and to calm down from it.
[00:34:26.330] - Eileen
Yeah, I'm glad. And it is for sure. Give yourself as much space and time as you need. My main focus in my work is about rest and about how to create more spaciousness and ease and rest in our lives. And you touched on it there, that piece where we're so rushed, we're constantly trying to fit more in and do more. When we're doing that and running ourselves ragged, we don't have the ability to recover from the difficult things that we have to do, of which setting boundaries certainly can be one.
[00:34:58.940] - Jeanne
What tip would you give to our audience if we have somebody that is trying to set boundaries, but they are not in a position where they can create these physical boundaries, or the person with whom they're trying to set the boundary keeps showing up, keeps texting, keeps calling, keeps appearing at the house, or they may be sharing a house with this person.
[00:35:21.160] - Eileen
If it's texting and calling, you can block the number. They won't receive a notification that they've been blocked. They just won't be getting responses. They'll think their texts are coming through and their calls are coming through, but you won't get them. Because it's one thing to say, Well, I'm just not going to respond, but that's hard. If you can make it so you don't even know that you should have been responding, it's a bit easier. You can unblock them at any time when you feel ready to maybe respond to things. If they're showing up at your house, that's a harder one, obviously, but you can simply not answer the door or have a partner or a roommate, if you live with one, go to the door and say, No, sorry, you can. You can't come in. You can't be here right now. If they live with you, that'll be the hardest one. Finding ways to be out of the house for yourself, to give yourself space around your interactions with a person that's that difficult. I would go on to say, if somebody is that difficult to set boundaries with and live with, is there a way to change your living situation?
[00:36:20.810] - Eileen
And that's not going to happen overnight, but sometimes it really is a matter of, Okay, I need to not be living with this person, but in the shorter term, finding activities or places to work outside of the house. I know so many of us are working from home these days since COVID happened, and sometimes that means sharing a lot more space with the people we live with. And so if one of those people is difficult, maybe you find a working space outside the home. Maybe you go stay with a girlfriend on the weekends because I don't generally recommend white lies, but you could say if it's a difficult person who's potentially violent or angry, saying, She needs my house support, which is probably true because we all need support at all times. But yeah, that one would be the hardest. Without the specifics of a situation, it's hard to give advice or tips, but those are creating as much space as you can and considering removing yourself from the situation if possible.
[00:37:21.170] - Jeanne
Eileen, thank you so much. And thank you so much for the insights you've given us in this episode and also for how open you were to the questions I was asking. I'm so, so grateful. And we always ask our guests because we always say in the FIGGI life that there are no secrets to happiness, life happens. We're all just trying to do our best and live our best lives. So what is one thing you do on the daily to live your best life? I start.
[00:37:49.800] - Eileen
Every morning with a gratitude prayer and intention setting. It changes the tone of my day. In the summer, I go outside, I put my feet in the grass, I thank the creator, the universe, whoever you want to call in, and I give thanks for the people and the events and circumstances in my life that I'm grateful for. And starting my day with that sentiment has really changed my life.
[00:38:13.890] - Jeanne
I do that too. I can completely attest to how awesome it is. Eileen, if our listeners want to get in touch with you, want to work with you, where do they go? How do they contact you and where can they find you?
[00:38:26.600] - Eileen
I have a website that you can go to to get information about what I offer program wise and sign up for my email list. It's www.myluminouslife. Ca. And then on Instagram, if you're wanting to connect on socials, that's my easiest or most used platform, and it's @my luminouslife on Instagram.
[00:38:47.880] - Jeanne
Don't worry if you guys are driving, I'm going to put everything in the description for you below, all the links you need to get in touch with Eileen. You also run a rekindled mentorship program, right? So can they find that on your website and apply there and read more about it there?
[00:39:02.550] - Eileen
Yeah, they sure can. In the Work With Me section at the top of my website, the first item on that drop down menu is Rekindled. There's all the details and links to book Curiosity call, which is free with me.
[00:39:14.050] - Jeanne
Thank you so much for being on the FIGGI Life podcast for your time and for your honesty and for your insights. We really appreciate it.
[00:39:20.500] - Eileen
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
[00:39:22.980] - Jeanne
There you go, FIGGI goddess. Boundaries. I will see you again next time. But for now, remember that everybody deserves to be to celebrate the goddess within.
[00:39:34.580] - Intro
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