Lisa Howe’s Reviews > Setting Boundaries: Care for Yourself and Stop Being Controlled by Others > Status Update

“There is no such thing as perfection. No one has their Inner Leader activated 100 percent of the time. Healthy and empowering boundaries are absolutely possible when you connect with your Inner Leader often, rather than always. […] often enough is good enough. Progress, not perfection.”

“The task of your Inner Leader is to act as the CEO of your Protection Selves: validate their feelings, reassure their fears, acknowledge their resentments, meet their needs, and then guide you forward to set boundaries that empower you and serve you to live fully as your authentic self. Your Protection Selves each have coping strategies that help you manage discomfort.”

1) Inner Leader: “I can.”
- Your conscious, integrated self.

2) Guardian: “Protect yourself at all costs.”
- Your parental state.

3) Child: “I’m powerless.”
- Your child state.

4) Rebel: “You can’t make me!”
- Your adolescent state.

5) Conformist: “Perfection is protection.”
- Your image manger.

6) Refuser: “I can’t.”
- Your discomfort avoider.

“Connection with your Inner Leader allows you to set boundaries with others and within yourself that are a reflection of the person you want to be and the life you are out to create. To connect with your Inner Leader, you need to know who you are, […] strengthened by putting worthiness into action by advocating for your personal rights, listening to your intuition, and operating from a place of self-trust.”

“If boundaries have felt unsafe for you in the past, you may respond to them out of habit by being in SOS-mode. […] Coping strategies such as people-pleasing, seeking permission and validation, shutting down, saying yes when you want to say no and offering unfiltered access to your personal resources can occur unconsciously whenever you feel threatened.”

“When we perceive a threat (either real or imagined), our impulsive brain engages and pushes our logical brain offline. We respond with a narrowed range of problem-solving options: fight, flee, freeze or fawn. These survival responses are helpful in the case of actual threat, but not in the case of setting, communicating and enforcing healthy boundaries.”

“You’ll feel a complicated knot of emotions and be unable to manage your responses to those emotions. […] There are simple actions we can take to address this dysregulation, calm your impulsive brain, and move towards empowered boundary setting. […] Your brain encourages you to act in line with what you’ve always done because of the way your neural pathways are wired.”

“Boundaries are built on a foundation of self-worth. Self-worth is knowing you have rights, value and dignity, and deserve to have these things respected.”

“Think of your boundaries as circles of empowerment that teach others how to respect you.”

“Boundaries can feel scary if setting them compromises your physical safety or triggers memories of past trauma.”

Stages of change:

1) Pre-contemplation - “No, not me.”
2) Contemplation - “Well, maybe.”
3) Preparation - “Ok, what do I do now?”
4) Action - “Let’s do this!”
5) Maintenance - “I’m doing it! It is possible!”
6) Relapse - “Oh no, I got off track.”