Amanda: Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amanda.
Laura: I'm Laura.
Kendra: And I'm Kendra.
Amanda: A couple things before we get started. Number one, if you are a night shift worker and would consider being in Lumos's study, they have basically like a sleep mask that can help reset your circadian rhythms. You guys, if we could figure out the sleep problems that we have, that would be amazing. So we are not associated with Lumos whatsoever, but if you are a night shift worker, scroll down and you can click the link and see if you qualify to be in their study. Man, that would be amazing if they can fix that for us. The second thing is just a reminder to leave us a review. It helps other doctors find us. And I would like to share one of the reviews that we got from MHersh31. “This podcast is a must listen for doctors. Each episode is filled with informative, interesting, and uplifting facts and stories that help make the day-to-day difficulties of physician life less of a struggle. Keep up the fantastic work.” Thank you very much, MHirsch31. We love you. So let's get into it.
Today we're gonna talk about boundaries, and I am absolutely stunned that we have gone an entire year and have not talked about this. So it's about time, right? The first thing is a reminder that you and your thoughts are not the same thing.You are the watcher of your thoughts, and so that allows us to check for intrusive thoughts and not be controlled by them. Just a reminder, just a reminder on that. So let's talk about boundaries. Boundaries are like property lines. It's where your property ends and someone else's property begins. So be careful who you open the gate to and allow into your yard. Another thing about boundaries is that this is one of the most important concepts. It's not your requirements for somebody else. It is what you will do if a boundary is violated, and so you don't come up with a list for your spouse, the things that he or she must do. It is what, if your own boundary gets violated, what you have control over. So like for instance, one of our clients had a mother who came over regardless at all times of day and night, not being invited. And she decided for herself, I have to do something about it. This is impeding on my own life. So her boundary became, I will not open the door. She warned mom, and it took a few times, but then it stuck after that. So this goes into the concept of what you sow you will reap. You're going to have to put in some work to establish your boundaries, teach others what your boundaries are. You're going to have to keep consistent with what happens when those boundaries are violated. But in this way, when you start doing the work, your life will end up being much better in the end for the work you put in in the beginning. So relationship boundaries should have consequences. Like everything we do and say in life, you sow what you reap and boundaries are only boundaries if they are enforced. So saying, you know, if to my kid, if such and such happens, you will lose your phone. And then not taking the phone away, is not teaching those boundaries. It's not sowing the seeds of a much more productive home life. You only have limited energy to invest in people, and so choose relationships wisely. Watch, if you have decided what an appropriate loving boundary is for…And this is another thing too, you can pick your boundaries based out of love for both you and the other person. It is a loving thing to establish boundaries.
Kendra: Yeah, and I would say too when you invest in not only setting clear boundaries with people, these are actually relationships that you care very deeply for and that you wanna maintain for a long time. So that's why it is picking your relationship wisely. You have limited energy, you know which relationships are the most important to you, and these are actually things that you wanna apply to relationships that you actually want to hold very dear to you and for a long period of time.
Amanda: I mean, your life is very much dictated by who you're surrounding yourself with.
That applies to health, that applies to nutrition, that applies to so many other things. But your home life too, for sure, has to do a lot with your relationships. So you do wanna consider limiting your exposure to people who do not receive or honor your boundaries. You're going to have to do a little bit of work to teach those boundaries, but it can pay off so greatly for the rest of your life.
Kendra: Yeah. It's very true. And if you've never thought about this before, or maybe you're thinking, oh yeah, I know about boundaries. They were used to manipulate me when I was a kid, or I had a former relationship, and all they did was create boundaries and that was in an attempt to control. So your brain might be offering up very negative thoughts about boundaries right now. I would just ask that you would just maybe consider that actually that was the incorrect use of boundaries. Boundaries are actually a very healthy thing. It allows you to kind of get introspective and find out what you want. You have maybe lived your life so long that you are just a chronic people pleaser or a “do all things for all people at all times”. And you may have come to a point where that is not serving you anymore and you are just worn out, burned out, tired, whatever, and you're not showing up the best version of yourself. So I would just encourage you to keep an open mind when we are talking about boundaries cuz these are actually very healthy regulatory patterns that you can adopt that are actually for you. This is all about you. This is you becoming introspective about what makes you happy, how much energy you actually really have, and only doing the things that actually bring joy and maybe even refresh that energy in order to keep doing more and more of whatever you love. So one of the other things about boundaries is we really need to be clear, and this is kind of what I was alluding to. In order to be clear about boundaries, you're gonna actually have to do some initial work on your own. You're gonna have to turn in on yourself, get in that brain, figure out what makes you happy, what lights you up, and then figure out how to keep that in the forefront when you're actually creating your boundaries. Like I said, to echo what Amanda said, they are for you. It is not to control your surrounding or the people in your life or make them do things. This is about you and how much you actually are going to give someone or something. And then at the end, when it's been met. Then that's it. That's all you got. That's all you have to give. So sometimes boundaries actually are out of fear or they may be because you are trying to affect a relationship or how someone sees you. And that's also very incorrect. We are not trying to manipulate the appearance or the perspective of us to others. We don't wanna do that. When you're setting your boundaries, you are thinking about yourself, what's best for you, how much time, energy, effort, your time, talent, treasure, basically is like what we say, you have to give. So when we decide how much we can say yes to on a daily basis, so this is yes to shifts at work, this is yes to your children's sporting activities or like you know, everybody always needs a parent volunteer. And yes, you can volunteer for everything, but how much do you really have? What other boundaries do you know, church volunteering and missions work and all of the things you have to really analyze, what are these things that I actually love to do? And then what do I have the time, energy, and space for? Because sometimes when we say yes too much, we start to feel that trapped feeling, that it's burdensome, that we really don't have control of ourselves or what goes on in our lives from day to day. And it really can add to that sense of restlessness, anxiety, that uncomfortable, maybe a little bit of paranoia just all the time when you're totally considering day in and day out. Like I just, I'm losing control over everything, all around me and my everything. So definitely you can see the impact on our mental wellbeing, but it also can take a toll on your physical health. I mean, there are only so many hours in the day and you do need to sleep, you do need to eat, and you do need to use the restroom like, like those are just kind of the basics. But you know, you also need some time to let your brain reset. So you have to be able to know that you need some time in your day. Just for what Caroline Leaf calls thinker moments where you just daydream or you just allow your brain to reset. So that has to be a part of that boundary. One of the things I know we've talked about several times and we continue to iterate, is your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship. That is how we're gonna continue to show up the best version of ourselves when we consider ourselves, and what is going to condition that. Like Amanda said, boundaries are like property lines. They need to be clear. Just like when you buy a house or a property, you know, down to the latitude and longitude and this degree and that degree, like where your boundary ends, you might even put up a fence. And that fence might have a gate. And so you just need to be careful who you open the gate to and you need to be aware and hold fast to when people are crossing that fence line. I mean, I, God loved me. I married a cattle rancher. He was in disguise of an orthopedic surgeon, so I thought I was actually marrying an orthopedic surgeon, but I actually married a cattle rancher. There's the smoke and mirrors. We'll talk about that on a different podcast. We have a lot of Angus beef cattle. They do not care where they want to get their grass. They just need grass, so they will violate the property boundaries all the time. We have neighbors that also have cattle, so it is constantly, any day of the week, the sheriff comes over or the neighbors calling y'all cows out. Cow's out, cow's out. Right. So they don't really care about boundaries and you can live your life like this just free for all. Like if the grass is greener on your lawn, you let everybody on and let's graze and let's take, take, take. But when you do not want everybody else's cows eating your grass, cuz you need to feed your own cows, you have to be clear, you have to set up boundary lines. And when people start to understand that that is the space that's actually protected and how important you make this space. You can also stay very in control about how you relate to when someone either gets close or actually violates that boundary line. And staying in control and being emotionally in control and staying as neutral as you can because it's a well-established property line. That actually could prevent even just negative reactions. People are gonna react however they want, but as long as you're saying as neutral, you've established the boundary lines, the consequence, if they cross it and you just put it out there and you hold fast to enforcing the consequence, it keeps that situation very neutral and it gives you back that control your power back. So don't let people take that control from you. You are in control. You set the boundary lines, you set the consequences, and then you have to be very clear. About where they are and what will happen.
Dr. Caroline Leaf did an awesome podcast with Dr. Henry Cloud. The title is: How to Know When and How to Say No”. And it was great cuz they were talking about many different things, but one of the things he mentioned was Socrates once said, “the unexamined life is actually not worth living”. Basically, when you know yourself and you know how you think and what you need, you can articulate it better and you can make it clear to others in those very valuable relationships exactly what the deal is, what the story is. So you have to continually examine your life. And once you set a boundary and you enforce it, I mean this is for a season too. Some boundaries are gonna be there hard and fast. No, no changing, no nothing, no adjustment. Sometimes you adjust that boundary over time or when you're in a different season. But the point is you are in control. You set the boundary, you set the consequence, and you enforce.
Laura: So, different relationships will often require different types of boundaries. For example, in our romantic relationships, marriage, we've given up some of our boundaries, like, you're not allowed in my house past midnight. Or you know, you can't just go in my fridge and grab stuff out. So that boundary is given up, but we still need to maintain some boundaries. So we are not in control of other people's feelings. I think that's important to remember, but we can influence the environment that we're in. When we're tightly linked to someone in a romantic relationship, we can say things, do things, that can create weather, if you will, emotional weather that make it easier for that person to feel relaxed and happier, or easier for that person to feel anxious and stressed. So just being aware, this doesn't mean that we are in charge of making someone else happy. We're not, but we definitely can influence their happiness, and one way that we can influence their happiness is by being happy ourselves or by being in a good, well healthy place ourselves. And part of that is having boundaries. So for example, I know sometimes examples are actually, usually examples are helpful. I'll give you an example. In a marriage relationship, a boundary might be if you raise your voice at me, I will leave the room. A boundary might be, If you do something that makes me suspect that you are not being faithful, we will go to counseling. So what you will do, in response to what happens. And it's not, if you do this, I will freak out, or if you do this, I will be suicidal. If you do this, I will have some very highly dramatic emotional response. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about something that you know ahead of time that if this thing happens, you are gonna do this thing. If you ask me on a date on Friday, I will happily go, unless I have to work, I will be going to work instead of going on the date because I have that responsibility. But the big ones would be things like your interpersonal behavior at home. And a good way to tell if your boundaries are being violated is to pay attention to how you feel in your body. And we talk about this a lot. It's hard for us as doctors to pay attention to the emotions that we're feeling in our body, but if you are feeling inflamed, like activated, you can actually feel like you're having to suppress things you really want to say. You feel indignant, you feel injustice going on. That is an indication that your boundaries are being violated. It is important to identify what the boundary is that's being violated and how to address it before that goes on for a long period of time. That is definitely not something you wanna carry on for a long period of time. So in parenting relationships, traditional parenting sometimes about controlling kids, and we're gonna offer that that is not really what you want to do. Another thing we haven't talked about on podcast is agency, but basically agency is the ability to choose for oneself, and we all are born with that. We all know that it's an important part of our being. In fact, there's a condition called psychological reactance. When we feel like we're being bossed around by somebody, when we feel like our agency is being impinged upon, we push back against that. And so that is why when we try to control children, and violate their agency, especially as they're coming into maturity. They push back so much and there are better ways to develop that relationship and boundaries are a great one. So an example would be, boundary: be home by midnight. And if you are not home by midnight, I will not allow you to use the family car, I will not pay for gas. Boundary: I expect homework to be completed no later than 9:30. If it's not completed by nine 30, then we don't have screen time or whatever. Boundary: Get schoolwork done before screen time. Boundary: get chores done. Consequence. I tell you what, like we knock screens so much these days, but they are actually a very useful tool for boundary enforcement and boundary incentives too. Hey, if you do X, Y, Z, you will get this incentive. Screens are great for that, so as long as you feel like you have control over them. So it's important to respect our kids' agency and give them freedom, maybe a little bit more than you think that they're ready for, and let them make mistakes, be there to help them make sense of their mistakes. Help them to feel loved and be able to use the information they learned in those mistakes as a moment to learn, as a teaching moment.
I love, so I don't know how many of you guys watched The Mandalorian, but my favorite, one of my favorite characters on the Mandalorian is the armorer. So the armorer is, if you don't know the Mandalorian, basically it's a Star Wars show about a bounty hunter who's awesome. Like he's this awesome fighter and he's got this armor that's impenetrable to like any of the blasters and whatever weapons other people have. So, It's made out of this stuff called Bescar, and it's a special metal that belongs to this tribe of mandalorians. Everybody knows that the Besgar belongs with the Mandalorians. So the Mandalorian does this job and he brings back this besgar to the armorer. And the armorer is a woman who takes whatever besgar is brought to her and she creates the armor and the tools that the mandalorians need for their work. And they have this Code of Ethics, a variety of different things, but they really have a heart for what they call foundlings or orphans. And they take care of orphans and when he brings this besguard back to her after he's delivered the baby Yoda. Everybody knows about the baby Yoda from the Mandalorian. He delivers the baby Yoda to whoever was paying all this big besgar money for baby Yoda, and he's talking to the armor about it and you can tell he doesn't feel right about having dropped off baby Yoda with these people. And she talks about how foundlings are important and she says, “This is the way”. So she's creating this armor from this experience that he brings to her she's helping create this armor for him to take back out as a tool and talking about, you know, this is the way, this is the way we do things.
And I think about her and how when my kids make mistakes, they bring it to me and I can help make that into armor for them. I can help make them a tool that they can use to take back out with them later. And I remind them of what we do. This is the way, this is the way we take care of the foundlings. We don't drop 'em off with the creepy dudes who wanna do science experiments on 'em. IIf you did something that is against our family code, let's talk about it. Let's find out how we're gonna make this help you be stronger and how you can remember what the way is. So it's instead of issuing punishment and shame, which of course we're all used to cuz we've been shamed so much in our medical training. Instead of issuing shame when something goes wrong, instead trying to say, okay, this is the boundary that was violated. This is the consequence. But I love you and how are we gonna help you become a strength for you so that you don't have this problem again. And so our job really is not to control our kids. It's to help them get control of themselves. And to teach them self-control. That's our job because ultimately we can't control them. The more we try to control them, the more we will drive them away from us. In fact, this generation that's like just left their homes. A Lot of them are talking about the issues they have with their parents and they go incommunicado with their parents because the parents violated their boundaries. So we don't wanna violate our kids' boundaries. We wanna love them, lead them, and give them the freedom, responsibility, and love that they need all in balance.
And then work relationships. There's many different ways that we can establish boundaries at work. For instance, if we are a leader at work, we're a medical director, we're a department chair, we are in charge of helping create an emotional environment. So we need to be very sure we're showing up as our best selves and helping provide a safe, emotionally safe environment for the people who are working with us. But also giving like those gentle, loving boundaries of, you know, “Hey, your charts are 30 days overdue, I need these to get done by Friday. Or we're gonna have to have a conversation”.”Hey, I've noticed you've been showing up 20 minutes late, pretty consistently for the last month and a half. Is everything okay? And this is what's happening. This is what I'm observing as the natural consequence of this is affecting other people. And if this continues, we're gonna have to have a conversation about X, Y, Z consequences. If it's, if we're talking about boundaries between you and your coworkers, again, you need to pay attention to your body and how you're feeling. If you feel like you're feeling some injustice or frustration. You've got a partner who gives you all the less desirable patients. So you know, someone leaves up all the frequent flyer abdominal pain and all the whatever else, like the drug seekers. You are noticing this pattern that your partner is cherry picking. You know, you don't even necessarily have to tell them the boundary. You just have to know what the boundary is. And so if you're gonna say, I will take half of the undesirable patients, but I will not take the other half. Then you just know your boundary and you stick to it so that you can keep yourself sane. And a good boundary is always gonna feel fair to you and you know it's gonna make logical sense. So I think that's probably a fair and logical boundary.
Amanda: Another example, one of our clients was triggered by another partner that wouldn't pick up the fair share. You know what I mean? And so she had to set a boundary and again, the boundary is what you will do. So her boundary for herself was, I will not be more than two charts behind. Cuz the problem was she was picking up so many patients out of turn that she was charting for hours after her shift. So she set a boundary for herself that I will not be more than two charts behind unless somebody's a level one, you know, coding or something else like that. I will not continue to sign up just because there's an empty spot by the patient's name. Unless I am within two charts worth of work. So like that is the biggest thing is that you can only set a boundary for yourself. So her boundary is not to get more than two charts behind unless somebody's coding. And that seems very reasonable.
Laura: Right. And I think that's brilliant. That's actually a really good boundary for all of us to have to be able to stay up with our charting and you know, the charts come so much faster if you do it immediately after you see your patient anyway, you wait till the end of the shift, that chart's gonna take like five times longer. So, yeah, I think that is a great boundary. But again, you don't have to even say anything to the other person if that concerns you, but you just know what your boundary is and then you know, somebody asks you and you say, well, this is my boundary. Unless there is a true life-threatening emergency. I'm keeping this part of my job responsibilities. I am staying up with my charts.
Amanda: So, like, her issue was, she didn't want to have a conversation with a person. She wasn't a confrontational person, so that's why she made the boundary for herself. That I'm, no matter what, I'm not getting more than two charts behind. That was her workaround. Some people are nice and confrontational, you know, but that's why coaching is like, we figure out a solution that works for you, given your own personality and feels like it's coming from love, both for you and everyone else involved.
Laura: Right. Absolutely. So, in a situation, say you have that partner who doesn't wanna pick anything up, That is gonna be uncomfortable for them. You can still like, you actually can work with that person and not be annoyed. It's amazing because you can just say, oh, you know, obviously they have their thing. I am not gonna allow it to affect me. This is what I'm doing today. I'm doing an outstanding job with my patients, but I am not going to violate the boundary with myself, that self-care boundary, I am not going to violate that just so that somebody who may or may not even need to be here gets seen 10 minutes faster. So boundaries are good. Boundaries are so freeing. Once you get in the habit of establishing them, you will be amazed by how magical, like really, truly magical they are. You just feel so much better and so much more in control of your life experience. Once you know that you can control yourself and by controlling yourself, that's really all you need. Just remember that we are not in charge of managing other people's experiences, you know, unless you're the boss. Like if you are, and that's where I said, you are in charge of creating an emotional environment if you are in charge of other people. If you are a parent, you wanna create that emotional environment of safety and love, positivity and healthy boundaries. Same if you're a boss, but otherwise we are not in charge of other people's experiences and we are in charge of our own. And we need to show up for ourselves. This is like a huge piece of burnout. It's when we are not showing up for ourselves and doing what our self actually needs to stay healthy and sane like we have got to take care of “self doctor” because “self doctor” can't go on forever and ever. People pleasing and doing all this stuff and running themselves into the ground. They just can't. And “self doctor” will be able to keep working a lot longer, help a lot more people and just be better at it if we're well taken care of.
Kendra: Yeah, I would say that this probably, if you have heard us before, like we said, that the relationship with yourself is your priority. This actually could be the first step to like making that a reality in your life is starting with this. Sit down, figure out what your limits are, what your limits of energy, limits of whatever are. Figure out where you wanna be each day. Just sitting down and starting to make that a realization and writing it down if you have to. And then maybe setting some boundaries, figuring out where you end and where you're gonna allow the other people to begin could be that first step in making a little bit of self-actualization and actually doing the work to putting yourself first. So great conversation today on Boundaries. And I will say it's a really funny part of this podcast too. I'm reading Lysa TerKeurst's book, Good Boundaries and Goodbyes, and she's so funny. But one of the things that she said boundaries helped her with was just the level of dysfunction that she grew up with in her home, but it was programming. You just find a workaround and yes, it came from the fact that she was a little bit in that like low poverty. They didn't have a lot of money to always fix things. So there was always a workaround, like just for things in her home. They just figured out how to do a workaround. And so when she actually came into a marriage with you know, not a very tight budget. They had a little bit more to expend and everything. She still would find workarounds. Like she uses an example in her house that she had some wiring done and unless the back floodlight was on, the hot water tank would not work. And so her sister came over and was like, are you really serious that you're allowing this to go on, like this is dysfunctional. We can't make sure the flood light's on all the time and not have hot water or whatever. So sometimes from our own dysfunction, we have actually not allowed many boundaries, and so we've not made those requests. And sometimes that dysfunction starts to bring to light, like, “Hmm, maybe I need to challenge this a little bit. Maybe actually I don't need to always find a workaround. Maybe I should just set a boundary and make it run a little bit smoother and go from there”. So a great book if you wanna check it out. So glad you stayed tuned today as we talked about boundaries. We have had such a fun time doing our free classes, and we have one coming up on May 10th at 12:00 PM. It is on time management, so we invite you to check that out and stay tuned for the details. So if you are interested, you can scroll to the bottom of the show notes. You can listen to the replays of our previous two free classes and stay tuned for the one in May.
So until next time you are whole, you are a gift to medicine and the work you do matters.
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