Healthy Boundaries, Happy Lives Sexy Spirituality Episode #41 Host: Lezli Goodwin Guest: Savanna Riker, Spiritual Coach, Author and Minister Guest: Sarah Forbes, Spiritual Guide and Transformational Coach Small Talk Lezli, Savanna and Sarah talk: what’s bringing you Joy today? Healthy Boundaries, Happy Lives We’ve brought together a round able of very powerful women today. Each of us are in different phases of life, in different places in our careers. And yet, today’s topic is powerfully present for each one of us. Savanna, give us a nutshell description of how healthy boundaries became such an essential area of exploration for you: This is the biggest thing yet up for me. It used to be a dirty word; I didn’t ever want to talk about boundaries because I didn’t have any. I started digging deep into my past traumas of childhood and the ways in which I felt unsafe. So for many years of my life, I started to wonder why my relationships were so hard with so much dysfunction. Brené Brown, I believe, said, “Boundaries without consequences are merely suggestions.” I didn’t know what a boundary was. I wasn’t modeled that growing up. I didn’t understand how my experiences were informing my relationships going forward. Once I started to grasp that boundaries are very important in my life, I said I have to dive in. I have to really explore what this means and how it actually creates safety between us as human beings. It has been a huge interest of mine for a while now. Lezli: As humans we reach a point where we look around and go wait I might not be doing this in the way that serves me best. In my first marriage I am not sure I really had any understanding of adult relationships at all. The list of things that I didn't do to take care of myself in that relationship could wallpaper a house! What a joy it is to know that with every breath we get to look at it again and see how to do things differently Sarah: I had my second baby a couple years ago. He's two now. After I had him I was diagnosed with postpartum depression. While I was going through that I had a lot of responsibilities and a lot of expectations in my home life, with my husband and my family, and I also had a lot of expectations in my career. I had to learn how to set clear boundaries otherwise I couldn't heal and I couldn't do what I needed to do to find my center again. It was really crucial for me to figure out a way to get clear about what the feelings going on in me meant and once I could get clear about that I could communicate what I needed and what I wanted and really set boundaries. This time period was one of the main reasons that I was able to come out of it so quickly. Postpartum depression can last a long time for people and for me it was about six months and it's because I was working with a professional and was working in my life to really honor my feelings and communicate what was going on in me and letting people know I can't do that right now. I really got clear about the language I used and how direct I was. I've had to maintain that even two years later to make sure that I'm not going back to the other side where I just say yes to everything to helping everybody to being the best mom. We have this idea especially being maternal and having maternal instincts and social conditioning around what it means to be a mom. We have to learn, as moms especially, how to care for ourselves because it's not something we're taught. Lezli: When I was a young mom I’m so glad Pinterest wasn’t a thing yet as I’m super crafty and it creates an expectation that everybody put up their brightest and shiniest and the expectation is that not only are your children going to be clean, fed, and loved, but they're also going to have sculptures for their snacks and handcrafted everything! As a mom/step mom of 5, I'm just glad nobody's been to jail they all still speak to each other! I'll take it! Savanna: The thing that I have found so tricky about being able to set boundaries with people is that I didn't always have the self-esteem and self-respect to know the behaviors that were happening which were crossing my boundaries. I wasn't really clear that I was feeling violated or betrayed, often because it was normalized behavior and how I grew up. So in order to create boundaries I have to have enough self-esteem and self-respect to know when this is OK or that is not OK. If you don't know what's not OK for you it makes it really challenging to not have [boundaries] violated often. Lezli: What constitutes a boundary? There are internal boundaries and external boundaries. They are a way of communicating either to yourself or to someone else that something needs to change, or something needs to stop right there. Determining if something is OK or not OK or doesn’t ...
