If God has boundaries, why are you choose not to have them? It is okay that is it hard, but you can change. In this episode of Chai Beauty, the host discusses the importance of personal boundaries using insights from a book that explores divine boundaries, their roles in personal and interpersonal relationships, and their grounding in biblical teachings. The host shares personal experiences, challenges with setting and respecting boundaries, emotional struggles, and coping mechanisms including therapy. Key topics covered include skin as a boundary, the significance of saying 'no,' dealing with criticism, geographical distance for healing, and emotional regulation. The episode concludes with reflections on how negative and positive consequences impact one's life and the significance of understanding and working through feelings. This season, we are talking about boundaries with two good books. They are Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life Paperback – October 3, 2017 by Henry Cloud (Author), John Townsend (Author) and Boundaries Workbook: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Paperback – February 27, 2018 by Henry Cloud (Author), John Townsend (Author).
Exploring Boundaries: A Personal Journey with Chai Beauty
In this episode of Chai Beauty, the host delves into their thoughts and experiences regarding personal boundaries. They discuss the importance of setting clear boundaries, as outlined in a referenced book, and reflect on different types of boundaries such as physical, emotional, and geographical. The host shares personal anecdotes about respecting others' boundaries and dealing with their own. They also touch on the impacts of not maintaining boundaries, including emotional and physical stress, and emphasize the need for self-respect and personal growth. The episode ends with a focus on processing feelings and the importance of emotional regulation.
00:00 Welcome to Chai Beauty
00:38 Exploring Boundaries in Faith
02:01 Personal Reflections on Boundaries
03:33 The Impact of Boundaries on Mental Health
05:05 Respecting Others' Boundaries
06:01 Navigating Constructive Criticism
06:57 Dealing with Emotional and Physical Reactions
07:56 Overcoming Isolation and Suicidal Thoughts
09:02 Balancing Work and Personal Life
10:03 Standing Up for Personal Truths
11:12 Healing Through Time and Distance
12:38 Managing Emotional Regulation
13:07 Understanding Consequences
14:08 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Hi! I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to Chai Beauty, where I get to share my thoughts, my dreams, my aspirations, my visions for the future, and guess what? You get to be along for this journey, because we are in this together.
And so, keeping with... Um, chapter two and then the handbook in chapter one, um, the book then talks about God and boundaries, and I think that was really beneficial and like how God set clear boundaries about the trinity, what they like, basically their roles and responsibility. And they talk about Genesis, they talk about, um, the limits of what he can and cannot do.
And those were really profound, but then it gets very detailed. About examples of boundaries, so a boundary is anything that helps to differentiate you from someone else or shows you where you begin and end, as we've already talked about, so it then asks you to discuss the different types of boundaries listed and then for each one, note some biblical support.
What does that biblical support say or what examples does it give to maintain these boundaries? And then refer to a time when people honored that particular boundary of yours. Um, what were the circumstances? Why were you able to be strong and what did you learn from those experiences? Consider what hinder you from keeping each boundary strong.
Look at the time when people didn't honor your boundary and try to identify why. So, these boundaries were profound because I didn't think about it. Your skin, words, especially the word no. Your truth, geography distance, time, emotional distance, others, and consequences. Um, then it says, consider the list of boundaries from another perspective.
What boundaries, when they are set by others, do you not need, do you need to do better job honoring? What might you have a hard time honoring boundaries, especially certain ones?What will you do to be more respectful of boundaries of the people in your life?
Um, and then there's a section that really is like, what's within my boundary? What's within my boundaries? So those boundaries can be feelings, attitude and beliefs, behavior, choices, values, limits, resources and gifts and thoughts, desires and love.And then it ends like the end of the book ends with a prayer, but I know I named a lot.
So, think about all the boundaries you need to set within yourself for yourself. And haven't you even thought about these boundaries I've talked about? Cause honestly, I didn't even think about skin being a boundary.
So, when I think about skin being a boundary and how it protects me from infection and all these things that it gave in the book, I was like, your darn right. For instance, I have really horrible hair. scalp. So, I'm, I have dandruff. So, I can't use a lot of products. I get built up like crazy and my skin is a boundary.
I'm not, so high level wise, I'm going to like, I love people and I don't mind hugging them and all these things, but I tell people I don't want affection. Why? Because in my childhood, high level, I had a parental parent that was not affectionate which then turned me into being like I'm now uncomfortable because I didn't get hugs a lot.
I'm uncomfortable like I like it, but it makes me uncomfortable at the same time. So, I'm learning and it's still a work in progress. I'm learning how to be affectionate and be truly who I am as a person because God made me be affectionate, so I need to be affectionate. In that sense. Um, the second is I have a friend like this, and I haven't respected their boundary because like I laugh with my soul and all that I am.
So, like when I laugh you can see me running, I'll be on a table, I can swing from my chandelier. Like I laugh with my whole being and so I grab people when I laugh. I know it's annoying. Um, but that person at one point was like, you. I need you to stop touching me. And I did not respect that boundary. Um, but when they said it again to me, I said, Oop, okay, I respect that boundary.
So, like, when I'm with that person, I'm very conscious of, let me not touch that person. Let me protect their boundary of skin. Right? The second one was... Words, especially the word no. I think we all go through a season where we're like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Um, but with me it's challenging my, I don't like roasting.
Um, that concept of where you bully somebody or not even bully but like you pick out things about them and you tell them about it, I don't like that. I need constructive criticism because it took a long time for me to be able to accept constructive criticism, um, because I took everything personal. Also, I'm an internal, um, an internal person.
So, like I will never. Show you how I truly feel on the outside. Like I don't wear my heart on the sleeve often. When you're giving me constructive criticism, I actually keep it internal and then I think about it all day. And that's really hard for me because then it manifests in a different way. You're like, Chai, how does that manifest?
I was like, well it manifests in a different way. I get like these huge, um, balls. In my skin, so like when something has disrupted me or hurt me really bad, like somebody said something to me, I internalize it so bad that it, I get balls in between, um, probably TMI, but I get balls in between my thighs, um, because like basically I've not processed it, it too it's full capacity and so it has to like come out of my skin somewhere.
The second way I get it is I actually get panic attacks now. Um, I’ve gotten. A seizure from like working and like people telling me things and I'm saying like, I just got to push through. Um, those have been the ones that I can say now the second one, which was like probably my darkest days was like, I went through a season of.
Thinking about suicide in high school because I felt like I was isolated and alone. And then,
after college, I had a really good system in college, so it didn't hurt, but after college and I was on that first year Like if you are that adult that like is on their first year of like leaving their parents’ house, You're by yourself. You're in an apartment. And if you're like me, yeah, you choose that um, um, that geography distance boundary where you just be like, I’m not come home.
Bye y'all um You're really alone. Like there aren’t nobody down the street from you, right? and so That led me to then have suicide and have a plan. So, I, I was like on my balcony and was like, I'll jump. I can jump. Um, but I didn't. Um, but it was, but it was such a shock to me that it took me time to process that.
It took me time to figure out what does that mean for me? And that's when I had to get in therapy about my job and being like, you can't, everything that happens at the job stays at the job. Like. Put up a boundary. This is just your work. You need to work towards it. Your work, but don't let it, like, infiltrate your house.
And so that goes with that fence of, like, opening and closing. Like, there's some things, like, you can't help that. Um.Your job is like, hey, you can go home, you can do your work at home. So now you have the time to do your work at home. But like from nine to five, that's the time you do your work. After five, you don't have to continue to work.
But if you want to catch up, that's fine. But like having that distance, like don't bring that home with you. And that was really hard for me because I worked with a lot of people that were very opinionated. And like I was used to opinionated people, but I wasn't used to people just doing things just to do things.
Um, and it was actually the boundary of like, the next part was like, afterwards, it's truth. It was the boundary of like, that's not my truth. That's not who my soul is. And my understanding that's not who my soul is, I have to then say, that is your perspective. Those are your thoughts. And I don't ever want to push what I believe on you.
But I also don't want you to do the same thing for me. So those or what you think of me, that's what you want to do, and you feel that way, I will respect it and be able to hold tension. And I think we're in a society where we can't hold tension anymore. Like, my truth and your truth can’t be the same. And be okay with that and I've just learned that I'm goanna stand up for myself and I'm goanna stand up for my soul And I'm goanna stand up for my beliefs, but I'm also not goanna push those things on you I'm that's just that's just a strong opinion.
I have like your goanna still do whatever you want to do and then moving forward the geography distance was like I was really 2019.
And if I really be honest, it was not even 2019, it was the end of 2019 because I graduated December from December to all of 2020. I was very hurt because everything I basically, I didn't have the words for it, but I had hit my limitations of like what I could handle and all I could do was lash out. And so, I chose geography distance, I got a job.
And I flew to Seattle. My hometown is in Texas, and I probably come home once a year because I needed time, and the book goes in more details about like sometimes you just need time to heal. Uh, and there's nothing wrong with it. It's just like your heart can't take much. Um, and then the second one is time and how when it comes to time, it does take time.
And they, your little tease.That transform into a big T took time. So it's going to take time for that big T to dissolve into small T's and then you individually start talking to a therapist about these small T's and being like, oh, it doesn't hurt as much as it does or like, oh, I thought I was over that, but something just popped up that has triggered me, but I'm not responding the same way I've done in the past, but it still hurts.
So, I need to talk to somebody about that. And then the emotional distance is the one I think I; I struggle with the most because um, it also incorporates the what's within the boundaries, which is feelings. And I sometimes let my feelings control me. Um, and so just being emotionally regulated has like helped me.
And also understanding like having words. To name what I'm feeling. I'm not just sad. I'm actually disappointed. I'm actuallyangry that you called out my character and that's not who I am as a person and no matter how hard I try and I'm giving you a hundred and ten you still see me as this person and so now I have to Blah blah blah mwahahaha Regulate my emotions to be like it's okay that this person sees me as that because I can hold tension for that um, and then the others and the consequences have been hard for me as well because I've always had a negative connotation for consequences But it's really not it's just god's way of saying no matter what happens There's going to be a domino effect to it now.
It could be good. It can be bad but don't always assume, because your brain assumes it's negative, that it's going to be negative. Um, and then the feelings’ part is interesting, and you just have to work through those feelings. And what's the boundary within, and we can talk about that next. About the feelings.