This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 201 / How To Find The Right Words When Creating Boundaries with Amy Green Smith

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

We’re covering a topic that falls into the category of “we’ve covered it before but it’s worth repeating”. Because I know most, if not all, women struggle with setting and communicating boundaries as it flies in the face of our people-pleasing, helpful and perfectionist tendencies. So we’re going to talk about Boundaries, again, but we’re going to focus more on the actual words and what to say. Amy Green Smith joins us again for her last episode in our 4-part series (if you haven’t listened to our last three episodes, I’d highly encourage you to do that!) Communicating boundaries in a productive and responsible way is going to require practice. Probably lots and lots of practice, given however many years we’ve spent not communicating them. Don’t wait for your mic drop moment – don’t expect perfection – don’t spend endless amounts of time worrying about what the other person thinks about your boundary – just start practicing. Because that’s how you get good at anything. Connect with Amy: Grab Amy's FREE-SOURCES at: https://amygreensmith.com/free       Only 2 spots available in Amy’s Signature Worthy Program! To learn more visit  https://amygreensmith.com/worthy  Like what you heard? Please rate and review  Thanks to our This Is Woman’s Work Sponsor: To learn more about Snooze Fest and our other reTREATS hosted by Nicole Kalil, join my community or sign up here to confirm your interest and get additional information: https://forms.gle/NgLvgfVS7B91FUJE6

I am Nicole Kalil, and on this episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're going to cover a topic that falls into the category of, we've covered it before, but it is worth repeating for all of us. Because I know most, if not all women, struggle with setting and communicating boundaries as it flies in the face of our people-pleasing, helpfulness, and perfectionist tendencies. So we're going to cover the topic of boundaries again, but we're going to focus more on the actual words and what to say, and we're going to do it with a different voice. Amy Green Smith joins us again for her last episode in our four-part series that has been epically good. If you haven't listened

to our last three podcast episodes with her as our guest, I'd highly encourage you to do just that. And while I have your attention, make sure you've joined my community because we have six amazing retreats coming up. From snooze fest for exhausted women who just need a fucking break, to family forecasting for you and your partner, and several business retreats designed for entrepreneurs, executives, and podcast creators, we have an option just for you. Go to NicoleKhalil.com to learn more. Okay, friend, Amy and I recorded all these episodes in just one sitting for efficiency's sake. And now I'm recording this

introduction after the fact, trying to figure out how to best segue us really smoothly right into our conversation. And I'm recognizing that I'm probably not going to do that very well. So forgive me if this is an awkward transition. I'm just going to dive us right in with my first question. So Amy, I am so excited to have another conversation based on the last few. I'm ready to have my mind blasted. So I want to start by creating context. When we say boundaries, what are we talking about? Or what are you talking about? What are boundaries really? Because it's a word that's getting thrown around and, in my opinion, overused a great

deal in today's day and age. So what are we actually talking about? Well, there's a great quote by the activist and writer Prentice Hemphill, and they say that boundaries are the distance at which I can allow ourselves to engage with other people while still being proud of who we are and not self-sacrificing in any way. And I think that's the big difference because there will be a lot of people who say, but I love to give back. I love to be there for people. And that's fantastic. And you can absolutely have a value around that. And we have to make sure that you aren't losing out on something because you're making other people more

important than you. Now, some people will talk about boundaries as like physical, personal boundaries, or, you know, like somebody being able to touch you or not touch you or boundaries with yourself of, I'm not going to allow myself to watch a show unless I get this work done. I tend to focus on boundaries as it relates to interpersonal relationships and things that you are choosing that you will no longer entertain or tolerate in your life. Aligns a lot with my, I don't know, definition. This is not my area of expertise, but the way I've sort of framed it in my brain is it's the prioritization and the putting forward of my own wants and needs as important as

the other people that I love or work with. So it's not negating theirs or making theirs less important. For me, it's a lot of letting go, self-sacrificing and elevating my own wants and needs as equal to, or just as important as. So I want to take a step back. I think when I say confidence, my definition of confidence is firm and bold trust in self. And I believe boundaries are a confidence builder. Why do you think that having boundaries, communicating boundaries, holding your boundaries would help one build or maintain their confidence? Well, we've talked about this in a few of the past episodes, and I think this is such a great example of this with boundaries and the correlation of speaking up for yourself with self-worth. And when you truly believe in yourself, when you believe that you have intrinsic value, there really isn't much more confident that you can get besides that, right? else. And something that I talk about all the time around the concept of speaking up or boundaries

or letting go of people pleasing is not because it's just some sort of arbitrary personal development exercise of, you know, let me learn how to establish a boundary so I can check off the box of personal development. I emphasize this because your self-worth literally depends on it. For example, if I have chosen to stay quiet when I've been offended by something or I've been really bothered about something in a friendship and I chose not to say something, if I develop a pattern of that over and over and over again. That anchors in, we talked about this last week with habit and subconscious and all of that, that anchors in a belief into the subconscious mind that everyone else's wants, opinions, and needs are more important than my own.

And that will then inform how you view yourself. And that will also inform if you feel confident about getting back into the dating scene or creating a new business or getting out there and creating rich friendships. No wonder you're getting in your own fucking way. So when we talk about boundaries, it's not just to make you uncomfortable. It's not just this random you uncomfortable. It's not just, you know, this random buzzword in personal development.

It is because it is directly related to your sense of self-worth. Now, if creating and communicating boundaries were easy, we'd all be doing it, right? So what do you see as the biggest barriers or roadblocks? I think of, you know, the I don't want to hurt somebody else's feelings or I don't want to damage a relationship or I don't want to lose something. I'm sure a lot of that, at least for me, is rooted in people pleasing or for me, worried in being too much or in a lot of people's cases, not enough. What are we worried about?

Well, I think you nailed it. We're worried about causing pain. We're worried about causing pain to someone else or to ourselves. And this is a lot of what we've talked about in past episodes around emotional intelligence. We feel something really uncomfortable and then we make that conclusion that I'm responsible for how that other person feels. So I think a great example that many of us can get on board with is the idea of, let's say you are a queer individual and you're coming out to your parents. And let's say you're in an incredibly religious upbringing and family,

and you know that when you share that element of your truth with your family, they will incur pain based off of their own belief system and what they are responsible for. But because pain will be incurred, we assume that it's ours to carry, that I now need to make sure that mom and dad or whoever are okay with my choices. And I think many of us can get on board with such an extreme example like that and go, no, no, no, you need to live your truth. You need to be who you are. That's a great example of massive self-sacrifice in order to make other people happy. So I think one of the things that we have to reckon with, with boundaries that we don't talk about a lot, is that there is likely going

to be pain incurred. If you break up with someone, if you break up with a friend, if you choose to leave a job, if you put up a boundary with a family member, they might be angry with you. They might be upset with you. And also disproportionately for women, we've been taught and conditioned that we are the caretakers of everyone else's emotion. So we have a lot of cultural bullshit that we have to bump up against and re-engineer. In fact, I've talked about this a lot with students of mine where they'll talk about engaging with different men in their workplaces, and they'll find that these men don't even realize that what they're asking might be incur that out of malice. It could potentially be just conditioning that we can't imagine not thinking about the impact on someone else or what they might be feeling because we are so trained to be acutely aware of that. Whereas for men, they aren't raised

with dolls, right? They're not raised with shit like caretaking. You're going to cook for everyone. You're going to nurse this baby. They get to be the astronauts and, thank God, all that shit is changing. But for many of us, Gen X and analogous to Gen X, we have a lot of that narrative still that I need to take care of everyone else's feelings. So I think part of it is just reckoning with this notion that even if there's pain incurred, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm doing the wrong thing. And it also is a place to flex emotional intelligence to go, you know, some of the stuff we've talked about in past episodes around feeling dichotomous emotion. A lot of times when you establish a boundary, you know, some of the stuff we've talked about in past episodes around feeling dichotomous emotion. A lot of times when you establish a boundary, you will feel both proud of yourself

and deeply saddened. So that, I think it's an important nuance of boundaries that we have to address. So I wanted to make this particular episode a little bit more tactical in nature. And I scripted out a handful of scenarios where a boundary might need to be set or communicated. And I think a lot of us think we need to have the best words or a mic drop moment in order to say or do anything. And I don't think that that's true, but I do think it's helpful if we have examples or I don't know, I think the word templates keeps popping into my mind. So that's what I was hoping to do. Before I dive into these examples, are there any,

I don't know, steps that you might be following as you think about creating a boundary or communicating a boundary with somebody? Yeah, absolutely. So I have sort of a three-step process that's more of like a 10,000-foot view. And it's essentially this. You're going to decide on the boundary is step one. Step two is deliver. That's when we're actually conversing with that individual. And then the third step, which is typically the most difficult, is the enforcement. It is when someone breaches the boundary and you have to go, hey, I really meant it. And so each one of these categories has a lot of different elements inside of it. But the decision piece has to be crystal clear about the specifics of what you will or will not

tolerate. So you and I have talked before about when people say things like, I'm going to charge what I'm worth. Or what are some of the ones that you were telling me about? Or like, you know, I want to work with somebody who's reasonable or doesn't cost an arm and a leg. And I'm like, what do you, like, what does that mean? Right. Or if a partner came to you and said, hey, I just really need more romance. Like, what the fuck does that mean? Like, does that, one person's going to think that it means initiate sex more. The other person is going to think, oh, they want me to plan date nights. You're right. Like it could be all across the board.

Yeah. We throw out terminology that might mean something to us but is so vague that I don't think it serves us. So yes. So the decide factor, the biggest piece of deciding on your boundary is the specificity. How could I actually check a box and say, yes, they responded well, or no, they are not adhering to the boundary? So an example that I use all the time is from a friend of mine who I worked with, gosh, probably 20 years ago.

And she was choosing to raise her children without religion, but her in-laws were extremely Catholic and felt very strongly about instilling some of those values. So the boundary that she had to establish with them was very cut and dry. And instead of saying something like, I need you to respect our religious choices, which is like, well, what the fuck does that mean? She had to be really granular with it and say, here's my request, that you don't take them to mass, that you don't teach them stories from the Bible, that you don't reference anything from any type of dogma, that you don't pray with them, right?

Like she had to be very specific about these are, this is what I mean by this. And the second piece of that is the delivery, going in and actually having a thoughtful conversation. Because you can decide on the content of like, this is what I'm no longer going to tolerate. But you want to deliver it in a way that is most likely to get you heard. But usually when we're upset with something or we have a grievance, we come in like guns blazing and like ready to do battle. But if we can go in softer, we have what is called emotional contagion, where if we show up in a certain emotional state, we're more likely to elicit that same response from someone else. So if you go in vulnerable and soft and say, hey, listen, I know this is an uncomfortable conversation. I really appreciate

you taking the time to chat about this. And I know that we feel very differently about things, you're using vulnerability as a skill, right? So that they are more likely to show up with vulnerability. We can't guarantee how they're going to handle it, but we can control setting the tone as best as we possibly can. So then you deliver the boundary. And I have a little formula for that as well if we want to get into it. But then the third step is to enforce it. And when you enforce it, you have to be aware that a lot of times people are not breaching your boundaries to be an asshole. They are breaching your boundaries because they're not used to the new version of you

that speaks up. They're used to the version of you who doesn't really mean it or who has never really said anything in the past. So we have to know that when people step all over our boundaries, it's not always malicious and ill-intended. We have to recognize, okay, I haven't been this version of me for them to get used to yet. And it's up to me to enforce that and let them know, hey, I really did mean that. So circling back, let's say it's with the same friend of mine, the same example, you might say to your in-laws, hey, listen, Brayden, I don't know, came home and mentioned that y'all had gone to mass. And I really want to be clear, I don't know if perhaps

I wasn't in our last conversation, but that's really something that we do not want the kids to be subjected to. And I don't at all expect for you to agree, but I do expect respect. And so I'm going to ask you again, here's my request, right? And please refrain from any messaging, prayer, church services, books, materials, anything related to that. So in the enforcement, delivering it as many times as you feel comfortable doing, and in your own mind, formulate when is it going to be a consequence? When am I going to say, this is the last time I'm going to ask this? If this happens again, we're not going to allow the kids to come over or without

us, or I'm going to have to hang up the phone, or I'm going to have to ask you to move out, or whatever consequence it's going to be. But that's different for each person. How many times am I willing to enforce it? So deciding with specificity, delivering it using the skill of vulnerability, and enforcing, knowing that it's probably not coming from malice. Great example there. And a big one, you know, not a small, simple, easy one. So thank you for walking through that.

I would like to dive into, you said you have sort of smaller steps under the second. Yes. The communicate. Could we use another example, like maybe a boss who communicates with rage and anger far too much and it's not working for you? Absolutely. So let's talk about the boss. First of all, that's abuse. So we have to acknowledge that speaking up to somebody who's abusive is a different game than speaking up to somebody where you have sort of a collaborative relationship, a best friend or, you know, an intimate partnership,

et cetera. But if anyone in your life is name calling, if they are throwing things, if they are hostile, if they are saying, you always do this and so also, if they absolutely never take ownership, then the way that you communicate with them is going to be very, very different. Because the last thing that I need is a bunch of women out there believing that it's their fault because they didn't communicate effectively with somebody who's an abuser. Now, given that you're in this situation, and let's say you have a boss who yells and screams or who's an abuser. Now, given that you're in this situation and let's say you have a boss who yells and screams or who's really volatile, I think it's worth having a conversation with them

when they are in the best frame of mind possible. This is incredibly important because they are already naturally defensive. They naturally offload anger onto other people. So you want to try to catch them in the best situation possible, okay? And I don't know. It's tricky with this because it falls into the land of abuse. And that can be – that is so unbelievably nuanced. Usually in situations like that, I will call upon defense tactics of like, do I need to placate them at this moment? Like, okay, what do you need? Let's calm down. Or, you know, why don't we take a minute, right? Instead of that's unacceptable

behavior. You cannot speak to me like that, which is warranted, but it may not be safe, right? So we have to really be careful with that. But let's say they're not raging. They're just not the best communicator and they can be a bit aggressive and pinpointing things. So here's the three-part framework that is sort of a blueprint or an anatomy of what to say when you're actually delivering the boundary. It's here's the issue or here's what happened. Here's how it landed for me. Here's my interpretation. And then here's the request. So you would start, let's say there was a specific example where they lost their shit in front of a client and it really impacted the future relationship with the client, how

you converse with them later, all of that. So a couple of things that you can do here, one of which is to refrain from using the word you as much as possible. When you use the word you, it tends to sound way more accusational. So if I said to you, Nicole, you never got back to me versus if I said, I'm not sure if I saw a response to my last email. That sounds way less accusational or you're in a bad mood versus I'm wondering if there might be something else going on from the

day today. Right? So we're just, and it's not a hard and fast rule. It doesn't mean eliminate it altogether, but it can help with mitigating that feeling of defensiveness. So the other day when we were engaging with the Beecham client, whatever, I'm just making shit up. And there was the conversation that kind of went a bit off the rails. There was some repercussions and some impact on me that I really wanted to share with you because I know whenever I've brought things up in the past, the reception has always been phenomenal on your part, to which I applaud you. Right. Whatever. Any good thing you can say about them, try to do it. That's true. Yes. I mean, especially dudes,

you guys, especially dudes. Anyway. But then say, hey, there was a lot of stuff kind of happening over here on my end, and you would have no idea about that unless I shared it. So I just wanted to share with you sort of the impact and what happened for me after that so that perhaps we can come up with a better solution. So what happened after that, so-and-so said this. I think they got a little bit of a fragile feeling about how we do business over here. You can share what was the impact, what was the repercussion. Then go into the request. So here's my request. I would love it if we could handle those sorts of conversations with a much more of a calm yet assertive manner.

I think it is important that they understand that we are the authority, that we have the service, that we're able to provide it. But I do think we need to look like a united front. So my request is going forward, if there's something that's going off the rails, could we have an agreement of like maybe we do a little timeout symbol with our hands or maybe we do like a blink twice with the right eye so that we're in it together and we need to take a quick break so that things don't get too heated. So something like that, but especially in business situations, come with a solution.

Come with something that's going to work better. And if applicable, have it related to the bottom line. Because if you can say this is going to curb employee turnover, this is going to really affect first quarter numbers. If you can pull in bottom line stuff, that usually will have the ear of the person. Yeah. Makes sense. So let's dive into a few examples of what are the right things or the right words in certain contexts or situations. So the first one that I wanted to address was the breaking up with somebody. But to take a little bit of a different perspective, I wanted to talk about

breaking up with a friend. So this is going to be different depending on the nature of the relationship. But one thing that I want to say as a communication coach, that I do not believe that every situation warrants a big sit down, full come to Jesus conversation. And I think friendships can be this way as well. And it really depends on what you would want in return from that person. That can be a really great jumping off point that if you were being broken up with, what would you want from them? Would you want a real clear definition and a reason why? Or would you rather just fade into oblivion? Because there are some situations where you look at the relationship and you go, this is not even

worth it to me to expend all of the mental energy and bandwidth to have this breakup conversation. And that's okay as long as that's true and that's not you evading something that's difficult. Okay? So we need to have some self-awareness there. And also know that it's going to be a different answer every time. But you don't necessarily have to jump to a, hey, we need to talk, which I don't ever suggest saying those specific words. Fear-inducing. Right. Immediately put somebody on the defensive, which is not going to be helpful for you to

deliver your message. But to say something like, I'd like to run some stuff by you or there's been some stuff on my mind. Do you have some time when we can maybe chat a bit, you know, using language like that? But I don't think it's always warranted. I think you can try what I like to call the slow fade, where maybe you're just not as readily available or you... In fact, I did this with a whole group of friends that we were all very, very close. And I just kind of wasn't ever available to go to the events or engagements. And finally, they just kind of stopped inviting me and there never had to be a big conversation about it.

My only caveat here is that if you would have wanted something completely different from that other person, then you probably need to show up and be the person that you would want them to be. And if they were to ask you for clarity, so if let's say you've been doing sort of the slow fade and they reach out and say, hey, I've been feeling really distant or what's been going on? I feel like things have really changed. If that happens, then I do think you need to be honest and be clear. I don't think you need to say things that are gonna deliberately hurt pain,

like, or cause pain rather. I don't think you need to say you're the most selfish person I've ever met or I don't think you need to say you're the most selfish person I've ever met or I don't think you need to be like digs. But I do think you can start off with something like it feels as though we've had multiple conversations where a lot of the focus has been about what's been going on in your world and I'm noticing that I'm hungry for relationships that give me just as much real estate in the friendship to talk about what's happening with me. And this is just feeling sort of like a natural step for me to take a step back.

So you can say what's there and you can also say anything else that's true. So for example, if you're doing a boundary where somebody is asking you to do something for you, help them move, and you really don't want to help them move, and you also have plans that day, you can talk about the plans. You don't have to say, be all out there with all the honesty and I really don't want to do it. Know what I mean? And I'd rather die. Yeah. What you cannot do and be a person of integrity and ethics is to say, oh my gosh, I actually got Beyonce tickets or oh my gosh, I can't, my grandmother's in the hospital. You can't make up fucking lies and be a liar and

expect to attract authentic people into your life. Right? None of us want to attract more liars. So let's not be one. But what you can also do in a situation like that, if somebody is like, hey, listen, what's going on with us? I feel like we're really kind of fading away. You can also say, I'd really love to share with you kind of what's been going on with me and ask for a time to talk and then go through a deeper conversation with them. And again, I think it's about what is the relationship call for is and what would you want from them and what is going to cause the least amount of pain whilst still being completely transparent and honest as best as you can. I think one that I think would be worth, because I think women get this a lot in just their day-to-day lives is, and I don't know if it's a boundary or a response, maybe both, but when people ask personal questions as if it's totally okay and normal, because it was totally okay and normal for a very long time, even though it doesn't make sense

anymore. Like, are you getting married? When are you having kids? Are you going to have another kid? And my response in my brain is like, it's not any of your fucking business. Obviously, that's not the most productive response. So how might we either set a boundary or respond to something like that? Oh, this one is one of my favorites and totally close to my heart because I got married when I was 20 and I've been with my partner for 27 years and we have always been child free by choice. And everyone assumed when I got married that I was knocked up. And I had a lot of fun with it, to be quite honest. So when people would say, and this is not a suggestion, this is just a fun little comedic anecdote.

When somebody would say, when are you having kids? I would go, oh, I don't like them. I love that. I don't really like them. Especially yours. And then I would just kind of blankly stare at them and make it really awkward. But here's why I wouldn't do that necessarily now. Most of the time when we are confronted with that question, it's from people who we, it's usually family or people we get together with very rarely. And so people don't know what else to fucking say. They will go to typical blanket questions like, how's your job? If you're collegiate in any way, they're going to ask you about academia. How's college? When are you going back to school?

Are you in a partnership? When are you getting married? So we have to understand that people are usually not asking that to be a total asshole. It's like we've talked about in the past. A lot of times the things we get frustrated with like that are not coming from ill intent. They're not trying to be a dick. They just honestly haven't seen you forever or don't know what else to say. Thank you for making that point. I think it's so important because I do think that that is true the vast majority of the time. And I still think we need to come up with better questions. Yes. And we need to be able to shut it down. We need to be able to close that door. So one of the things I want everybody to hear is just because someone's asked you a question

does not mean you need to answer it. We naturally think we have to. In fact, the brain will want to tidy up the loop. That's why if you ask yourself questions like, what is the lesson here? Your brain will naturally start searching for the answer. We want to close the loop. So our inclination is, I want to answer that, or I need to, or I have to, but you don't. So it might sound something like this. Oh, the good old question about the kids. To be honest with you, I'm not super comfortable discussing that. I truly hope you can understand. What I'd really like to hear about is the soccer

game that you're a part of or whatever, like change the subject. But you can be very clear that it's just not something that you are ready to speak about. Also, if somebody tries to, this is really great to use as well if there's something that you are ready to speak about. Also, if somebody tries to, this is really great to use as well if there's something that you're offended by. So let's say you're at a family dinner and your uncle starts joking about the queer community or trans rights or guns or abortion or some bullshit. You don't have to open up a whole can of worms right there, but I do operate under the mantra of, I will not allow my silence to make me a liar. I will not allow it to make me complicit with content I don't subscribe to. So in that situation, I would go, not everyone

actually shares that opinion, but we certainly don't need to get into it right now. What I would love to hear about is, and then change the subject, how's it going with your new nail business? I'm so curious about manicuring and whatever. Like changing it, ask somebody else a question, shut that person down, but get really clear. We're not going to entertain that. That's not acceptable. A massively huge thank you to Amy for joining me as our guest, not just on this episode,

but all four mind blasting episodes we've released over the last four weeks. And I have to tell you, I received a message from Amy letting me know that she is newly opened up to one-on-one spots in her signature worthy program. She has never offered this program in a one-on-one format in the past. So this is a very exciting development. If you're a high-achieving woman leader, and I know that you are, who wants to finally believe that you are truly enough so you can establish unshakable boundaries

and communicate with power, you have to check this out. Again, only two spots are up for grabs, and you can apply by visiting amygreensmith.com forward slash worthy. We'll also put it in show notes. If you've gotten some juicy nuggets from her series here on the show, just imagine how your life would change with devoted one-on-one time with her over a nine month timeframe. Again, you can apply at amygreensmith.com forward slash worthy. And let me close us out by saying, don't wait for your mic drop moment. Don't expect perfection.

Don't spend endless amount of time worrying about what the other person thinks about your boundary. Just start practicing because that's how you get good at anything. Practice protecting, prioritizing, and standing up for yourself because that is woman's work.