The Journey of Embodying Needs and Establishing Boundaries
How Pregnancy and Sacred Work are Inspiring Greater Self-Responsibility
👉🏼 Announcement - Offering a new Masterclass “Good Girl” Unfiltered: Embodying Boundaries & Saying "No" (12:30 - 2:30 pm ET) *Recording option available if you’re not available to join us live on zoom.
I teared up watching the little embryo pulsate with a heartbeat on the ultrasound and felt the significance of this good news just days before my next offering is being announced.
Creation is flowing through me on all levels.
And as one of my favorite teachers, Ethan Henson pointed out to me - Motherhood and sacred work are closely intertwined for me.
On a soul level, I yearn for a better world for my children. Because of this, everything I teach, I'm creating from what I've been living and learning.
And I've been going through a profound initiation into motherhood after experiencing a miscarriage in December. And as I'm approaching ten weeks into my second pregnancy, one of the main things I've been taught is how to set clear boundaries and lovingly express my needs.
Historically, expressing needs and boundaries wasn’t easy.
My childhood conditioning taught me that there are so many other people who had needs (I grew up in a family of five kids), that my needs weren't important unless there was a crisis. Although this wasn't what my well-intentioned parents intended, it's what happened.
It also created overwhelm anytime I had a need I couldn't actually meet on my own.
I would feel panic and internal fight.
'I DON'T WANT TO NEED ANYTHING FROM ANYONE ELSE,' said my internal voice.
That internal chaos was me fighting myself, because I didn't want to admit that I had needs at all.
In the first pregnancy, I had little to no energy, and I needed lots of support getting my basic needs met. This really challenged my pattern of trying to take care of everything on my own!
The first trimester and the miscarriage required me to ask my husband, family, and close friends for more support than ever.
Sometimes I would get stuck believing my needs were a burden, and that would lead me to repressing what I needed or, at my worst, fighting to get my needs met. Once I noticed the patterns, I committed to shifting them.
When I could ask for what I need from a place of embodied worth, I could see that meeting my needs was a delight for the people around me. Just like I enjoy supporting people I love, it's the same in reverse.
Finding regulation in my body, amidst feeling reactive, is a shift that's entirely internal and 100% mine to own.
It's allowed me to feel grounded amidst overwhelm.
And it's shown me how to find my center, no matter what.
p.s. I’ll be teaching this in our next Masterclass, and here’s the link to join.
Why The “Good Girl” Was Necessary
In my younger years, I relied on my 'good girl' persona to compensate for not being able to express needs and boundaries.
I believed that 'if I could serve everyone else and ensure their needs were met, surely they would reciprocate the same for me.'
Now I can see that was an unconscious, disempowered place to be.
I was expecting people around me to guess my needs, rather than just ask for what I needed outright.
And since I didn’t want admit that I even had needs, it left me feeling resentment and backlog of anger.
Women are often conditioned to serve everyone else.
We're taught that anger is an unacceptable emotion to show.
We're told to be kind.
And we're expected to be polite.
So, the 'good girl' developed as a survival mechanism.
And breaking into empowered ways of being requires befriending her, so we can access the wisdom she holds.
What I've found is that the 'good girl' in me actually knows EXACTLY what I need.
Because she's projecting my needs out onto the world around me and trying to fulfill those needs for others.
When I can turn the projection around and own that I am the one who needs care, touch, and compassion - I take my power back and create the opportunity for me to actually ask for those things.
The Truth About Saying “No”
Many kids learn that their 'no' doesn't matter when an authority figure in the room doesn't think to ask for consent or check for their boundaries.
There are so many subtle ways we adults cross children's boundaries without even realizing it...
Pinching their cheeks.
Insisting that a child be nice to, hug, or kiss someone.
Walking into their personal space without asking.
Picking them up without asking if that's what they want right now.
As adults, we don't think we're crossing any boundaries because these actions were just part of our lives growing up.
But kids who grow up like this are likely to turn into adults that either:
Don’t set boundaries in fear they won't be respected anyways.
Don’t respect other people's boundaries because that's what they learned as a kid.
Here's the truth: honoring other people's 'no' is inconvenient sometimes. It can create a non-ideal situation that requires creativity to find a solution for. But creative solutions are exactly what I’m signing up for!
When we’re tying to get our needs met, but what we need seemingly conflicts with someone else’s boundary - we have a choice to respond with pressure or curiosity.
I’ve made a commitment to choose to respond with curiosity.
What is the need behind the no?
This is the world I want my children to live in - one where people hear a 'no' and are curious about what else is going on.
I want a world where the goal is to find a win-win, rather than bulldoze what's in the way.
I want a world where saying 'no' results in a response like, 'thank you for your no.'
I want a world where hearing a 'no' feels like love for me and from you.
p.s. If you’re lit up by this world too 👆🏽 here’s the link to join our next Masterclass.
The Path Forward is Setting Boundaries
As I've been shifting from the 'good girl' into self-responsibility, I've had to learn the difference between true boundaries and demands.
A true boundary comes from love, and my capacity to love increases when I say it out loud (from another favorite teacher, Joe Hudson).
A true boundary is one that is focused on ME and the action I can take.
A boundary is not telling someone else what they need to change to make me happy.
The formula for a true boundary is: If X happens, this is what I will do.
It's never about controlling the other person.
An example of a true boundary would be 'If I am yelled at, I will walk away for 30 minutes to regulate my nervous system, and I can continue talking when you're able to talk to me calmly.'
Once I communicate a boundary like this, I am standing in my power and there is more space for love in the relationship.
When I can’t express a clean boundary, or ask for what I need - there’s a natural activation that happens in the nervous system. The repression creates backlogged emotions - like anger - that end up creating chronic pain or tension in the body.
For me, my shoulders used to be rock solid, and I struggled with sciatica pain (amongst other stress related impacts).
Over the last seven years, I’ve been clearing the backlog of repressed emotions and confronting the dysregulation that came up when owning what I needed.
Now, in my work, I’m being called to equip people with how to navigate activation, anger, and reactivity that naturally comes up around expressing needs and setting boundaries.
It's not always an easy process at first. But it can be learned, and it happens through the body.
I believe it’s part of the initiation into motherhood, and it’s how I contribute to a better world for this little one in my belly.
I invite you to join the Masterclass, “Good Girl” Unfiltered: Embodying Boundaries & Saying "No" (12:30 - 2:30 pm ET) *Recording option available if you’re not available to join us live on zoom.