Master the Art of Setting Healthy Boundaries & Building Life-Long Relationships EP 1454

0:01Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jospree Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sincero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.

0:44So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there. We think that acceptance looks like everything will be better, when in actuality, it is seeing a person as they are. You can want something to be different until the end of time, but this is the situation. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

1:32Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

1:40Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful. So let's go ahead and dive in.

1:58Why do people, it seems like people have a lot of dysfunction in families. because parents are human beings who have no clue what they're doing. Siblings are human beings who have no clue what they're doing. Aunties and uncles, human beings have no clue what they're doing. We have an expectation based on their role. We think, oh, my gosh, once you become a mother, there's all of these things. Once you become a father, once you become an uncle, like, you'll know how to communicate with kids. No, I don't know how to keep, you know, like, so these things, these expectations, not that they're unreasonable, but the person can't, you know, they can't meet it.

2:45They don't grow up. They have their own, you know, demons they're fighting. They aren't emotionally mature. They're not reading a ton of self-help books. They haven't been to therapy. So our expectation of people, sometimes they can't be met. And that's a tough pill to swallow that although this person is a parent, they may not be nurturing. Although this person is a sibling, they may not be supportive. Although this person is your grandparent, they may have another favorite. You know, like all of these things that happen in family, I think we think of dysfunction as abuse, neglect. But it's also, you know, when someone dies and everybody's fighting over an inheritance, it's also, you know, having issues with your in-laws.

3:36It's also sabotaging your sister's wedding. It's also it's so many things. And that's why I think people identify because, you know, so many people in the family. I mean, pick a person. It's like someone's messed up. Yeah. Yeah. Somewhere. I mean, it's not the nuclear family, but gosh, those cousins. It's somewhere. Yeah. I love in your dedication, you say, we are the answer, not the people we can't control. How do we learn to self-soothe in dysfunctional family relationships? Because one, you're talking about addressing, as an adult, the parent or the person that maybe you caused upset or pain.

4:21It's addressing it and having a conversation, writing a letter. We may not get a good response. Hopefully we do, but we may not. How do we learn to self-soothe and mend and heal even when the other person attacks us or blows up even more? Acceptance. That's what it was. Yeah. It's all about acceptance. But it's such a process. I was talking to a friend the other day who was talking about her relationship with a family member who isn't what she wants that person to be. And she said, I don't know if I accept her. I said you do because you don't invite her into spaces that you know she won't fit in.

5:00We think that acceptance looks like everything will be better when in actuality it is seeing a person as they are and knowing that you are powerless to change it. Yeah. So this is this is my mother. This is my mother and father. This is my sibling. you can want something to be different until the end of time but this is the situation given the situation I have what do I want to do about it often we want the other person to do something about it the person who has exhibited you know all of these things we're like why don't you get sober why don't you start being more nurturing you don't call me more often you're not doing this.

5:45I had a game and you didn't. It's like, the acceptance of that is this person is whatever this thing is, how do I be in this relationship with them or choose not to be in this relationship with them? How do I create closeness? How do I create distance? What can I do to change this situation? Because we're often trying to change people who aren't interested in changing. They aren't going to therapy. They aren't reading these books. It's like you getting the enlightenment and being like, oh, they need to change now that I know this term for them. It's like they're a gaslighter. They must change.

6:26It's like they're not reading that book. You're reading the book. And maybe they don't want to change. They don't want to change. They're fine with their behavior. So what will you do when, you know, they continue to do these things? Acceptance and boundaries is what it sounds like, right? I remember for years I used to be kind of frustrated with my mom when I was like an adult after 21 let's say. It took me a while to become an adult but I'd say after 21, right? I get frustrated with her because I felt like she kept treating me like a child, right? And I didn't like that feeling and I wanted her to change.

7:02And I don't know, 10, 15 years went by she didn't change. and I expressed my frustrations and all these things didn't change, right? She looked at me as her little baby, even though I was a grown man at the time. And it was frustrating. And I had to learn to accept her. And it wasn't until maybe like five years ago where I fully had like acceptance of my mom, like this is who she is. It's not gonna change, but I can create boundaries and make sure I set a boundary for myself so it doesn't affect me as much and just love her for who she is. And it's been a beautiful experience for me. I feel a lot more joy thinking about my mom, knowing that this is the way she is, and it's okay, as long as I put boundaries in place.

7:43So, but why do you think it's so hard for us to accept the people we love the most? Because we would rather put the duty of doing the work on others. In the situation you just described with your mother, if she would've changed when you were 21, Oh, the easiness. Much easier, right? So much easier. But if you had to place a boundary, oh, the work you had to do. Oh my gosh. We get so upset at people for making us. Why are they emailing me on vacation? Because you're responding. How do you stop responding? You know, the work that we have to do in our relationships with people, It is, it's almost like we get upset with them for making us do the work when really, they're just being themselves.

8:40If you don't wanna be treated like a child, how do you become more of an adult? Create boundaries. You create those boundaries. So when your mom is like, tell me about your girlfriend, you're like, I don't wanna talk about it. And then your mom is like, oh, he doesn't have to tell me everything anymore. So it's you doing that work. Your mom can always ask and you can always place that boundary. Exactly. Just say, I don't want to talk about it right now. Mom, let's talk about something else or whatever. And I need you to wash my clothes. I don't need you to figure out what I'm doing with my... You have to be the person to say that because your mom is operating in the capacity that she knows.

9:20Absolutely. Yeah. That's beautiful. What else do you think people get wrong about family dynamics? siblings, parents, kids, and what else do we need to know about this? One of the things we get wrong is that if we are honest about what the relationship is, that we will lose our love for the person. Give me an example. If I say my mother was unkind, that means I don't love her. you know that doesn't mean you don't love you don't love her it just means she was unkind maybe sometimes maybe all the time I don't know but you could still love people who who do things to you or who cause you to feel a certain way and sometimes we don't know that we think if we say anything bad about someone it means that we don't love them that we're betraying them and both of those things can exist.

10:19You know, when I find people talking about their parents, they will say all of these nice qualities because they're trying to make them not seem like a bad person. When we talk about our partners, we'll say, you know, I really love this person. They've been there for me. They always listen to me. And then, you know, like we are trying to say, I really love them and I don't want to say anything bad about them. And we don't have to protect the truth. We don't have to protect the person from everything that we feel about them. One thing we've been practicing in our house, I have two daughters and they are at that age where they bicker all the time and, oh, she's annoying.

11:04And I say, everyone in this house is annoying. you, your sister, your dad, the dog, the TV, sometimes it's too loud. This is normal in relationships. We're not going to always get it right. And if we have an expectation of perfection in a relationship, sometimes I'm going to say the wrong thing. And I want you to be able to, you know what? Sometimes you say the wrong thing. Sometimes you're unkind. Sometimes you annoy me. Sometimes that happens in relationships. And we should be able to talk about the totality of the relationship, not just the good parts. And, you know, they're really amazing in these ways.

11:46But, you know, I felt neglected when that really hurt when you said, I wish you would have done more of. Those are also things we should say. How does someone get someone to trust them? or is it not about them at that stage and it's about the other person and their insecurities well it depends very much on the particulars of the situation um you know so i don't know if there's a generic answer to that i think that you can establish the ground rules explicitly you know and have a discussion about it are we going to lie to each other or not are we going to tell each other the truth to the degree that we can to make that an actual goal and to talk through the consequences of doing that and not doing it and then i would also say whenever a hiccup occurs in the relationship maybe you don't call it out at each hiccup you know because you have to have a certain amount of silent tolerance in any relationship to let small infractions go but if they repeat my rule is three times and it's the rule that we i share with my wife if something happens three times that is causing emotional upset anger jealousy disappointment resentment frustration any of those things anything that you don't want to experience and that you especially don't want to experience repeatedly then you can call it out and and if you if you have three examples your case is much better made than if you just have one and i would also say that when you call it out you know you could say look we were at a party the other night and you were it looked to me i felt as if you were paying too much intense intent attention to dave there was flirting going on there that's what it looked like to me there was some flirting going on there and you know i that made me uncomfortable well you don't say well you were flirting stop doing it you say well this is how it looked this is what it looked like to me and here was my response and then you want to think and maybe i'm a fool and blind and jealous and stupid and i'm misinterpreting or maybe it was a harmless flirtation of the sort that people will engage in because it adds a little bit of spice to a social interaction you want to find out like it it's really convenient if it's the other person's fault except then you're laden with living with that person so it really doesn't help you anyways but it's convenient because then they have to change but you've got to think about this over the long run you're going to be interacting with this person on a minute by minute basis for decades if you're the idiot and that's causing trouble, then you should find out.

14:48So you want to say, well, look, this is what I saw. What's your explanation of what's going on? And then they'll offer you their viewpoint. And hopefully they'll do the same thing. They'll think, well, this is my intent. And maybe they have to go think about it, but this is my intent. And this is what I saw. And I think you're being oversensitive in that situation. And you peel back the explanations layer by layer until you both agree on what happened, and more importantly, on what you're going to do about it in the future. And that's really hard, especially if there is something going on that's not straight, because that will require quite a bit of digging.

15:31It'll probably result in anger and tears and a fight and that's very unpleasant it's it's easier in the short term to avoid that but hopefully the consequence of that is you don't have to have that fight again right you have to come to a negotiated agreement about about that situation and you have to pay attention to your own uncomfortable negative emotions in order to manage that and not and not pretend that everything's all right or that you're nicer than you are or that you're less jealous than you are or or or less blind or see one of the things I learned from Carl Jung the psychoanalyst about marriage was that there is a reason marriage was a vow like the vow is that you stick together okay so now imagine that's a vow okay you do not get to leave period okay so what does that mean well on the upside it means that you don't have to be alone it means that your family will have continuity over decades it means that the narrative of your life won't be fragmented and broken by divorce or sequential divorce it means that your children can grow up and maybe have their children within a continuing family it means that your children will be able to maintain relationships with the grandparents on both sides and the cousins like it's a big deal to maintain that there's huge advantages in it it means that you'll have someone there when you're not well and so will your partner and it'll mean that you have someone to share all of the positive things of life with so there's huge advantages to it okay so why does it have to be a vow well I don't think you can tell the truth to someone who can run away because if you tell the truth to someone and they can run away then they'll run away right right because you're a mess man and not not just because of your own inadequacies but because human beings are so complicated and and have such dark corners and and And have had unresolved problems in their life Sometimes that stem back generations And are twisted and bent in all sorts of ways And it's very, very difficult to reveal that Except to someone who can't run away Now that, you know, I'm not saying that people should never separate I am saying though that it's better not to If you can manage it But then the other thing too is if you can't run away, then you're motivated in a different way.

18:24It's like I'm stuck with this woman and she's stuck with me. And unless we want to have this same fight over and over and over for the next, who knows how long, why don't we straighten it out? And then we can put it behind us. See, the vow gives you a kind of desperation that is another motivation to actually solve the problems. and if you've got a way out you you can always stay hidden you can guard yourself you can protect yourself and even protect that part of yourself that thinks that it can leave if things get too bad now the problem with that in my estimation is is that you're going to drag your stupidity into the next relationship right always do right well generally speaking right and so now you can get very you can you can in under unfortunate circumstances you can get tangled up with someone who's not playing a straight game with you and won't and and it's just impossible but i'm not talking about the limit cases you know i'm talking about the average case the average amount of unhappiness and trouble it's still plenty and then the sorry just one more thing I'd add to that you also have to in some sense shake the illusion that the other person is somehow not you you're so tied up with them that there's no difference between you and them in some sense is that what's good for her is going to be good for you and vice versa one of the things we try to do to the two of us is we try to say yes to each other now there's rules that go along with that which is well i'm going to say yes to you but that sort of means that you shouldn't ask me unreasonable you shouldn't make unreasonable demands i'll say yes as much as i possibly can and then you'll do that in return.

20:27And then we get yes out of the deal instead of no. That's also a huge plus. What do you think are the boundaries that people fail to set the most in these relationships that don't work and that continue not to work over time? What do we fail to set once we realize there's massive breakdowns? Yeah, I mean, I think, and this is the real challenge, is that when you're in a relationship breakdown or things aren't going well, and I hear stories like this from thousands of people all the time, right, where it's like I, in heterosexual relationships, the wife is doing all of the household management and all of the child care and the expectations are only placed on her.

21:15And it's like she's the default for everything. And she has to ask her husband to help and pitch in and babysit his own kids. And she comes to me and says, like, I don't know what to do in this situation. The challenging thing is that at that point, you can't solve that with a simple boundary, right? The boundary has to be like, I am going to go to therapy myself to explore what my options are. Because at this point, the way this relationship is working is not working for me. But if we go back to like some of the things we've talked about, even earlier on in a relationship, I think setting a boundary right away in a relationship, immediately, even before you start dating, can be a super good litmus test for how well you can communicate.

21:56So it's like we're talking about going on a first date, and it's like, oh, by the way, I don't drink. So I'd love to meet you for happy hour. I'll just have a tea and see if there's pressure. See if that is weird. See if they give you pushback on that. Or you can talk about before you get intimate, like, by the way, this is what I said to my husband, like, by the way, you're wearing a condom. And until we both get STD tested and like swap tests, that's going to continue. And like, if that isn't respected, that's an immediate relationship ender for me. Like that's it. Right. So I think it can be helpful early on to set boundaries and relationships just to see how you discuss them, how you each view them.

22:32Do they see it as selfish? And if so, can you have that conversation? Do they push back? How do they handle when you navigate that pushback? I think that can be really important. What about with children? You know, as a parent, I don't have kids yet, so I can't relate to that. I can relate to my experience as a kid being obnoxious to my parents and probably driving them crazy and understanding that it's challenging for parents. How do healthy, conscious parents create healthy boundaries with kids without neglecting their kids' emotions, feelings, and needs? Yeah, I think the two are definitely not mutually exclusive.

23:10So I think the first thing that you can do as parents is model healthy boundaries for your kids. So it is me, you know, saying to my husband, like, hey, I need a half an hour of alone time. I'm going to go to my room. I'll come back out, you know, after I'm feeling a little bit more refreshed. Like when my son watches us do that, he recognizes that like in this family, it's okay to say no, that people don't get mad when you say no, that mom's taking responsibility for her own feelings. So we've been modeling healthy boundaries, but I've had boundaries with my son from the very earliest age, and I have set boundaries on his behalf.

23:41So one of the earliest boundaries I set with him or for him was when you visit grandma or grandpa or Nana and Pop Pop or Auntie Kelly, and you don't see them very often, you don't have to hug or kiss if you don't want to. We have to be polite and say goodbye and say thank you, but you can hug, you can kiss, you can wave, you can fist bump, you can make a funny face, you can high five, whatever you want but you don't have to hug or kiss if you don't want to and so we had this like issue once with my mom where she was like i really want to hug like i haven't seen him in such a long time i only see him a few times a year and i'm like i get it but he doesn't want to hug you and like you need to respect that and she did and i recognized that it was disappointing for her but also what i taught my son was that you have agency and if you don't want to hug you don't have to and so now you know i'll come sit next to him on the couch when he's nine and i'll be like hey do you want to watch Naked and Afraid and do a little snuggle.

24:33And he'll be like, I'd love to watch the show, but I don't want to snuggle. I'm like, cool. That's fine. Yeah, that's good. So we've raised him in the culture of boundaries and he feels now comfortable setting boundaries with me. And boundaries really create a sense of safety for kids. They do because they realize that the adults in their household are taking responsibility for their own feelings, that boundaries are not about pushing other people away they're about you know creating that sense of like family in a way that works for everybody and i think they feel really safe to my kid and one of the biggest boundaries you've had to create for yourself healthy boundaries for you individually separate from family and loved ones and zillions i think boundaries with yourself are so incredibly powerful because they only rely on one person to hold them right and you can immediately reclaim your time, your energy, your capacity, your mental health, your physical space and sense of safety.

25:33That's an immediate benefit from you setting one boundary with yourself. The challenging thing is that if you don't keep that boundary, what's going to happen? If you say to yourself, I'm not going to check my phone in the morning before I do my morning routine, which is one of my most beloved boundaries and the one that I've set for many, many years and the one that I still hold to, if I do rule over and check my phone before I go to the gym and do my meditation, nobody's going to jump out of the closet and slap the phone out of my hand. But you're going to know. I will know. And what's going to happen is that there will be a massive ripple effect to future Melissa.

26:09Really? I think about future me all the time. Tell me more. What is the decision that I'm making right now and how is it going to impact future Melissa? Because current Melissa is going to be so happy to just stay up late and not start her bedtime routine and just do like one more, you know, show on Netflix. But what will this mean for future Melissa? She's going to be really mad at herself because she didn't get to bed on time. And then she's going to fall asleep late. And then she's probably not going to have as good a night's sleep. And then when she wakes up tomorrow, she's not going to be pumped for the gym.

26:36And she might even skip it because she's going to be tired. If she skips the gym before she does this interview, she was, she's like not going to be a good guest because she won't feel grounded and centered. Like when I play it out that way, it makes it a lot easier for me to be like go to bed because future Melissa will benefit. So I have boundaries with myself or I'm not checking my phone in the morning before I do my morning routine, not checking my phone in like the half hour before bedtime. So I'm not checking Twitter one more time or email one more time. I've really strong boundaries. Like when I'm out of office, I am out of office.

27:07Unless something is on fire, you do not call or text me and I will not be checking text messages or emails. So, you know, I think I set boundaries with myself pretty often because I know that they can be like an instant sense. They can give me an instant sense of freedom. And nobody else has to even worry about it. What's the boundary you set in the last two years for yourself that has given you the most benefit? I think I've become more rigorous about what I say yes to in terms of work opportunities. That's good. It's hard as an entrepreneur not to feel like you have to or should say yes to everything.

27:44And like if I don't say yes to this, maybe they won't ask me again. Or who knows what this like lunch or coffee could turn into. But I think, I don't know if we talked about this, but like four years ago I got a concussion. I'm still going through post-concussion symptoms that are triggered by air travel, events like this, speaking events, in-person events. Like any kind of stressor can set my concussion symptoms off. And that forced me to become more rigorous. about what I say yes to. So now again, I kind of have this automatic pause before I say yes to anything. Even something that I think I'm super excited about, it's like quick pause.

28:19Can you work this into your schedule? Will you have capacity to do this? What else is this going to push off your plate? And is that acceptable to you? What are the things you're going to have to make up when you get back home? And then once I think about that, I either say yes or no. And But if I say no, it's because again, I know I'm serving future me. I can be disappointed, but I can also be happy that I've checked in with my own needs. So that I think I've really dialed in on the last couple of years. And I think it's made a big difference in my overall capacity. Wow. Yeah. What boundary are you to set for yourself next year that you haven't done yet?

28:54I don't know. I'm not a New Year's resolution person. I tend to just take on these self-improvement things as I stumble across them. Yeah, like I started my cold shower experiment in February two years ago, just randomly. So I'm not a New Year's resolution person, and there is no one-size-fits-all for boundaries. I won't know what my needs are next year until I get to next year, and I'm in the moment, and I go, you know, my context has changed, my capacity has changed, my goals have changed. Do I still, I'm always reevaluating my boundary. Do I still need a boundary here? And if so, is this the boundary that I need?

29:31Because they should be flexible. And I shouldn't keep a limit in place that no longer serves me. So I don't know. Ask me next year. What do you see since you've been working through this book for a while now? You've heard a lot of conversations from people, single, in relationships, family challenges, different things. what do you see that society needs in general to create better and healthier boundaries around? Welcome to my favorite TED Talk. It's just with social media, with work, with all the political stuff. Just what do people need in general moving into next year, you think? I mean, we need, honestly, so much of the root of why boundaries feels like such an icky subject to so many people and i'm i will say especially women especially moms is because we have been conditioned by the patriarchy and stereotypically rigid gender roles and toxic masculinity which comes from the patriarchy and religious influences and diet culture and trauma and the media we've been conditioned for my entire life and even going back further than that to not have needs, to not have needs, to be selfless, especially as a mom, we are praised the most when we are putting everyone else's needs and feelings and wants and desires above our own.

30:55Like we're not even on our own list. And if we're on the list, we're at the very bottom. And then when we do have a need and we speak it, we either hint about it because we've been told we can't be direct. And then we're disappointed that people aren't reading our minds or we're direct about it and we're told that we're selfish or we're called a bitch or any of those other monikers. So we have been conditioned to not have boundaries societally. And I think there's a lot of unlearning that we all have to do around what it means to have needs and to have those needs feel worthy. And the fact that like you of, you know, your own deletion are valuable enough to advocate for those needs and then to remember that we have the power to advocate for those needs in a way that doesn't involve the other person if i set a boundary with you it can't be dependent on what you choose to do the boundary i set has to depend on me the actions that i am willing to take in our relationship to keep myself safe and healthy Give me an example around that.

32:01We're in an argument and it starts to get really, really heated. And I say to you, please don't speak to me like that. It's really making me feel unsafe. I don't like it when you use those words. It's getting personal and we're not focusing on the subject at hand. And you are really mad and really triggered and you kind of keep going with that, right? I can't depend on you to change your communication style. The only thing I can do is say, I won't stay in this argument if this is how we're going to continue to talk about it. I'm going to take a 10-minute break. After 10 minutes, I'll come back to see if you're ready.

32:34So I can't depend on you. If I go to my family's house and they're talking about politics and we don't agree with politics, I can say, could we change the subject, please? And if they say no, then I have to enact my boundary, which is, okay, I'm going to go for a while. Yeah, remove yourself. I'm going to leave the table. Yeah. Yeah. So all of that to say, we have a lot of unlearning to do about what it means to have needs and to advocate for those needs and to speak clearly and what that means as a woman to speak clearly and directly versus what historically it's meant for a man to speak clearly and directly, right?

33:07A man says it and he's decisive. A woman says it and she's aggressive. There's a lot of unlearning that we all have to do, I think, before we can get to the point where we don't automatically think of boundaries as selfish or controlling or manipulative. And what I'm hearing you say is the boundary doesn't rely on another person's reaction. It relies, or if they agree to it or not, it relies on you. Yes. Removing yourself in a conscious way from the situation. Yes. Independent of how they show up. Correct. Now, I'm initially going to phrase most of my boundaries as a request. Yes. Right? Because you didn't know I had a limit.