Episode 25: Boundaries

Well, hey, everybody, welcome to the 25th episode of Don’t lose your balance. My name is Mallory Durrick. I want to thank you all for joining if this is your first time here, welcome, if you’ve been here before, and listened to my episodic life history. Thanks. So today I and I’ve been toying around with this particular topic for quite some time. And I, I’ve been wanting to talk about it, but I haven’t, I thought maybe some of the other episodes should come first. And it doesn’t really matter. But I wanted to talk a little bit about boundaries. I’ve talked about boundaries in the past and what they are and what they mean for me and how they helped me not feel so out of control, I guess, when I’ve learned to recognize what a boundary is, and how to not only define it, but how to express other people, Hey, these are my boundaries. It got it got a lot easier for me. And I’d like to talk a little bit about that because it provided a definite sense of clarity, and most importantly, balance. So boundaries, what are they? Well, there are a lot of things. And the first thing I ever think about when I think about a boundary is a wall that goes up, these are my boundaries, don’t cross that line, or you’re going to come over into my personal space, for example, well, that may happen. And that may be a definite boundary that you’ve defined, but I don’t want to speak of boundaries negatively. And yet in my head, every time I think about a boundary, I think about it being something negative or that I have to most importantly apologize for and that’s where I struggle. I do not want to apologize for having a boundary. If I say no, I’m good I, I don’t need something or I don’t want something. And these are my boundaries that I’ve defined for myself so that I can more or less protect my mental well being. I don’t want to apologize for having done that. And I feel like I have to apologize for having a boundary or many boundaries. Learning to recognize no Mallory, you don’t need to apologize for your boundaries, you can actually just have boundaries, and be okay with it. And if somebody doesn’t like your boundaries, that’s more a problem for them and less a problem for me. And intellectually, I get it. I say to myself, well, if it’s a problem for them, that’s their issue. And they have to deal with that. However, I know intellectually, that I might own it. And I might think, are my boundaries too defined? Are my boundaries inappropriate? Are my boundaries unacceptable to somebody else at the cost of my own comfort level. And this is where I’ve not been great in the past, because I didn’t have boundaries. I didn’t say to people, this is what is right for me, because it always felt so selfish. And that’s where boundaries feel so selfish. But I think if I can embrace what a boundary really is, and what it is for, in my mental health space, and say, It’s okay to have that boundary, the other person isn’t wrong or bad for wanting something from me, but it it may not be right for me. So in order for me to be okay, mentally, I have to I’m sorry, but I have to just say, I’m sorry, you know,

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I’m good or I don’t need that, or I can’t have this as hard. I can’t do that for you. And I feel badly when I say I can’t do that for you because I want to say yes to everybody, but I find that it compromises my own mental well being and is it wrong? I’m questioning myself Is it wrong to define the boundaries that you need for yourself to protect yourself to protect Your own mental well being I don’t think it does. And yet for some reason, there’s been this sort of culture in my life where I’m wrong for having those boundaries, if I’m wrong for for choosing to say no choosing to say I’m busy choosing to say I can’t do that for you choosing which I’ve talked about choice in the past choosing to define a boundary so that I feel good about who I am, and, and what I’m about and what I’m doing for myself, I’m happy, and I’m terrified of ever losing that balance that I’ve worked so hard to achieve. You know, if I look back 20 years ago, I had no boundaries, my boundaries were not were completely undefined in that, clearly, I let somebody in that should never have come into my life, or I didn’t articulate well to my ex husband enough of what was good for me and what I needed for myself, that was not a good thing. Boundaries are talked about way more frequently, publicly on Instagram, and, you know, protecting your personal space. And we didn’t have any of that back in the day, we just didn’t. So if you were going to talk about boundaries, you might have been deep rooted into you know, therapy. But I do want to say that for anybody who might be listening, not only should you have your own boundary, because that’s what I’ve learned for myself, but you need to respect somebody else’s boundary and not make them feel guilty or wrong for having their own boundary, just because it doesn’t suit your personal agenda doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong for having one. And I think that that’s something that happens for all of us in all kinds of relationships, whether it’s siblings or children or, or personal relationships that, you know, romantic relationships, you and I have different feelings about where we should be on something. But these are my boundaries. And I have to stay with those in order to be mentally well. And I think that that’s more important than anything a question, do you really need? I mean, I can’t go back, obviously. But you really need to go through all this trauma in your life, and drama. So it’s trauma and drama, in order to have these sort of epiphanies about what all these things are? I don’t know. But I am here. And I said something in the gratitude room, my goodness, I don’t know if there are certain things he can learn at 20 or 30 years old, do you have to wait till you’re 50 or 60 years old to sort of get it? And I guess you do. I guess you really have to get it. And I remember being in my 20s. And hearing people say, Well, when you’re in your 40s, you won’t care. Well, when I was in my 40s, I was pretty messed up. But when I got into my 50s, and I felt like I was coming out of it. It wasn’t until most recently the end of my 50s which I’m getting close to that it really kind of came together. For me, my mental well being is more healthy than it’s ever been. So I see my life in a way where I’m clear about the boundaries. I’m clear about the way I live my life. I’m clear about about the decisions that I make. And I don’t necessarily need to follow the advice of somebody else, I can listen to their advice and decide for myself. That’s a new epiphany, feeling for me is pivoted a word that’s a new feeling. For me, I don’t really remember choosing for myself, I was definitely choosing selfishly, but I don’t think I was choosing for myself if I was, and I’ve talked about this in the past, if I was taking a job, I might have asked the advice of somebody else, and perhaps follow that advice, because it sounded good. But I didn’t listen to my own voices. Or if I did listen to my own voices, and I didn’t follow advice that might not have been a great decision either. So there is no cookie cutter rulebook for life. But these experiences that I’ve had have taught me some very valuable lessons. And if I could ever articulate that to anybody, it’s this you and only you know what’s right for yourself, right? So do what you do for yourself. Define what you might observe as the things that bring you joy. So find what brings you joy, and then don’t let anybody take that away from you. And in my past, sometimes that would happen. I don’t know how else I can describe it other than to say, if I did something or somebody wanted something from me, and it made me feel colossally uncomfortable. I might have done it anyway for pleasing them. And I think that’s might have been a bit of codependent behavior

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But as a codependent, I had no boundaries. If somebody needed to get something from me, I accommodated them at my own costs and my own peril. And I am really sorry, I did that I am really sorry that it took me Oh, my goodness, how long did it take me to actually figure that out a long time. But I’m here now. So if I say no to somebody, I want it. I want it to be clear that I’m not saying no to be mean. I’m saying no, because it doesn’t suit me. It doesn’t feel right to me. It doesn’t manage well, for me, and I should not feel guilty for that. I should just be saying, Okay, well, I’m sorry. I had to say no. And I don’t want to hear or, well, if you need something from me, it’s not an iPhone I world we live in, I just want to make that very clear. This, this is a problem. Because if I say no, I’m saying no to protect myself. And when I say protect, I’m not talking about something harmful will come to me, I’m saying that I don’t want to have to compromise whatever I’ve got going on to accommodate somebody else. And while that sounds awful when I say it, the truth of the matter is, let me let me give you an example. Last week I, I was starting an opportunity. People who are listening are in the gratitude room, they’ll know what this was. And I, I wasn’t supposed to start until today, the day of this recording, but it had all these other things going on that day, I ended up starting this opportunity, a job. And I had a meeting in the morning. But I also had a conflict for an appointment that I had already scheduled. And I was really conflicted about that appointment. And I didn’t cancel the appointment, even though I felt compelled to go to the meeting. But I thought to myself, nobody is going to die. And I’m not going to lose this job. If I don’t go to this meeting on the first day that I didn’t even think I was supposed to be working. And I’m really glad that I didn’t go to the meeting, because my mental well being said, you need to go to the appointment. I know that’s a little strange. But it’s not really because somebody even commended me for defining those boundaries. And I’ve talked about boundaries in the past, because they come up in a lot of these different episodes. And this person was right, I defined a boundary for myself and said, You know what, I wasn’t planning on starting this job today. And I’ve already got another commitment, and therefore I’m going to keep the commitment. And then I’ll get to the other job later. And I’m very happy I did that. I hope for everyone that they don’t look at boundaries is negative, the way I have looked at boundaries is negative. I don’t look at boundaries as walls, I don’t want anybody to think I’m looking at a boundary as a wall. It’s not a wall. So when people think about the way I live, and the choices that I make, I do not have walls around me, I have boundaries around me, which are lines that I’ve defined for myself that keep me happy and healthy. And I don’t know, what can possibly be wrong with that.

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Is there something wrong with that? Because I don’t think so, I think that it’s a healthy thing to know where your line is. I clearly never knew where my lines were back in my youth. Because we know how that turned out. For me. It didn’t turn out so well. You know, I, I don’t know if I could have had this much clarity about my life and where I wanted to go in my life. But I have a lot of that now. And it makes me very, very happy. And I want to be able to share what I know with other people so that they can have that level of clarity and balance. And we talk about balance all the time. I talk about balance all the time. Because there’s something very powerful in finding that balance wherever that is for each individual person. Only they know where that is. I know where it is. For me. I’m really happy. And I don’t think that anybody can say otherwise. I have the clarity I’ve talked about I have a good mental well being that we’ve all talked about in our gratitude room. And I’ve found this routine for myself that just works and I don’t want to disrupt any part of that. I know that that’s not what life is life is full of ups and downs and all arounds but I am I would think a little more prepared and in a healthier headspace to manage and deal with all that and I hope that is conveyed in the podcasts. It never occurred to me that I would actually get through. You know, this is the 25th episode and I don’t even mind that sometimes I’m sort of talking in circles and rambling because I feel Like when I listened back, I hear myself and I think you do sound like you do have some really good understanding about your life. And that’s not been the case for me, I must have spent 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of dollars in therapy, only to get to a point where gee, if I only had a podcast, and surrounded myself and a community of people on clubhouse, I would have felt better, I have felt more healthy and happy alone. And I’m not really alone. Because I have my community, then, in many of the relate relationships that I’ve been in, and I’m not saying that all of the relationships I’ve been in have been terrible, they’ve all been good, great, and very fulfilling at certain times. But they’ve also been really upsetting at certain times, all of them. And I hope that that doesn’t hurt anybody who might be listening. But I want to say that I’m good. And I hope they’re good. And sometimes, you know, people just don’t belong together and their boundaries that the define for themselves somehow don’t intersect. Do you know what I mean? And if they don’t intersect them, it’s probably not the healthiest of relationships. I’m not saying you know, walk away from each other. But for me, it was probably a good thing to walk away from all of the relationships that I found myself in very compromising states of mind because I didn’t understand what a boundary was. I didn’t know how to define it. I didn’t know how to articulate it and say to the person, I’m feeling not okay, because I’m doing for you and less for myself. So hopefully that got through. Okay, well, if you like this or any other episode of Don’t lose your balance. Why don’t you follow me download it, share it with somebody you know, you can also follow me on Instagram, I have two handles that’s Don’t lose your balance. MSD That’s Mary salmon David or Mallory underscore Duric. I also have a website at don’t lose your balance calm. So I hope that you find your balance along your life journey, and hopefully I’ve made some impact along the way. See ya.

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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am Mallory Durrick. I am a creative. A Marketing Strategist and Web Designer with a small and modest boutique Marketing Agency living in the suburbs of Philadelphia. I am the creator and narrator of this podcast, Don’t Lose Your Balance. This is a culmination of decades of self-help books, countless doctors, numerous hospitals, including rehabs. Once a wife, now divorced, a mother, a grandmother and an addict in recovery. These are things that I am and have experienced.

I’m sharing it all. Baring it all. Hoping to help others; not lose their balance.