How to Set Boundaries that Heal | Ep.27

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no hope back unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry blinds, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci Dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go.

Hello, dear one. Welcome to this week's episode. I am so late in getting this to my editor. Oh my goodness, it's Monday night. And I'm in my podcast station was actually my closet with a whiny puppy. And I'm just now getting over food poisoning. All it was so bad. And you know what was crazy. And this is why I'm bringing up the food poisoning. And it's not crazy. I mean, this is I think what most people experience but it really just show us the shows us the wisdom of our body. Me as as I was sick, and then laying for hours on the bathroom floor because it was cold. And I was just like, this is the only place my body wants to be. And during that time, my brain registered what my body was saying and knew exactly what it was that made me sick. Have you experienced that before? Like I'm laying there. It's funny. I'm laying there sick as a dog thinking, Oh, this is so cool. I have to share this on my podcast. And I just think it just really illustrates how wise our body is. For me it was dip that was in the fridge and I ate it. And it was tasty because it was full of garlic. So it didn't feel bad or taste bad. Sorry. But holy man, it was and I got so sick. But I'm feeling better today I finally got some energy went for lunch with a friend. And yes, and now I'm sitting down here to get my podcast done. My editors gonna kill me because I'm so late. But that is okay. So tonight, what I'm wanting to talk with you about in this session is boundaries. And I'm wanting to do this because well, first of all, last episode, I shared about an experience that I'm having in a circumstance in my life where I'm really showing up for myself. And a lot of that that I talk about really stems from a healing boundary. Okay, so there's the difference between boundaries, that kind of society teaches us to set sort of, we hear boundaries all over the place, there's so many different memes about them on Instagram and Facebook. And I just really feel that when we want to come from a healed place, we want to come from that whole place who we are and really owning that whole part of us. Like that I don't need actual fixing here, I just need to rediscover and reclaim my wholeness, my enoughness when we come from that place, setting boundaries is very different than when we're coming from a place of I need to protect myself, I'm not safe. Everything out there is like here to destroy me, right? These people are here to hurt me, this is gonna hurt me. I've been hurt in the past. So I just have to set up all these boundaries. So people can't get in, right? So people can't Well, not necessarily so people can't get in. But so people can't hurt me. So people can't offend me. Okay, and that is what I call the outside in approach. It comes from a place of fear. It comes from a place of like, Oh, it's scary out there. And I need to protect myself. And it really stems from that primal brain, that brat brain we talk about, right? So she's always looking for threats. That is what she's wired to do. She will never stop doing that. But what we get to do instead of that, like outside in approach of oh my gosh, the world is scary. I need to protect myself by setting all of these boundaries all of these walls around me. Instead, instead, what I invite you to do is to take the inside out approach and it's very different and the feeling around it is extremely different. So the outside in approach when you're protecting yourself and you're setting up all these walls, feels tight. Like for me when I think about boundaries.

I've tried to set in that way, it feels like really defensive, right? Like I'm being so wronged and I have to control everyone's behavior so I can feel better. Instead, the Inside Out approach is like, soft, it feels peaceful, it feels respectful. And it's gentle. And it's so much more effective. So the Inside Out approach takes this thought pattern, instead of, I have to change everyone. And by setting these boundaries, and I have to control their behavior, even if you don't realize that's what you're doing, that's what actually you are doing. Okay? So instead, it's a suit it's thinking.

So instead is thinking you are an adult. And you can do what you want. You can say what you want, you can behave how you want, and I will take care of myself, regardless of your actions. It's very, very different from, if you do that, I'm going to do this. So you better not do that, or this is the consequence. It's not setting consequences, that type of boundary setting. And if you don't see me on the video, I'm like doing air quotes, okay, boundary setting in that way, it's actually an ultimatum. Again, it's trying to control others actions, and trying to set boundaries so that you can feel better, meaning you want them to stop so you can feel better. And here's the thing, when human beings are given an ultimatum, it actually usually perpetuates their behavior, because it creates resistance. It again, it goes back to that primal brain, if we're feeling controlled, we actually feel under threat that feels stressful to us. And therefore, we will usually perpetuate that behavior. It is, it's just the way we're wired again. So trying to create boundaries to control other people's behavior, quite often will do the opposite. And in the end, it leaves you feeling unheard, and seen totally disrespected. And they too, are feeling disrespected, and controlled. And it just is, it's chaotic and messy, and doesn't feel good for anyone. And again, it rarely actually works because of the fact that people were will resist it.

So how do we set boundaries that heal the Inside Out approach number one, so I'm going to get to tell you like six steps, I think it is all they're all in my brain, but six different steps to creating boundaries that heal from the inside out. Number one, you want to come from a deep place of love for yourself, I am whole, I am enough, I am worthy of living according to my values. So this is not I am needing to protect myself because other people out there are going to hurt me this is other people are going to do what they're going to do. And I get to have my own back, I am safe, I am able to feel any emotion that comes my way. And I am going to set these boundaries, according to what I'm going to do when they behave this way to take care of me.

Number two, understand this understand that they don't actually have to change for you to be okay. Your boundary is about you. It is actually it has nothing to do with them. Again, we're not trying to change their behavior here. Because that ultimatum will probably make it worse. And if it doesn't, it just it's just a yucky feeling all around. So when you understand that they don't actually have to change for you to be okay. And that the boundary is for you. It's not for them. So to make them change, oh, it's a total game changer. Everything shifts when you take that approach. Number three, you need to decide what the boundary is right what what you're going to do to take care of yourself if they behave this way if they take this action, so you need like a clear action on their part. And then you need a clear action on yours. For example, I have a very clear boundary to really have my own back as well as my daughter's. And this boundary is I am not open to being around my mom when she is putting herself down about her boss Edie about her weight about anything like that, okay? Yes, I have compassion for her, I have loads of compassion for her. But I was also raised in this home where I heard it all the time from her and my grandma and my aunts. And it really created so much dislike for myself with a my own body. And it led me down, big time path of disordered eating. So I shared my story. And in I think it was episode one, actually. So go back and listen to it. Because you'll get to know me better that way. And, and in there, I talk about this, I talk about how we had a Thanksgiving dinner. And after dinner, my whole all the women in my family as the guys went and ate dessert, all the women went wait themselves and talked about all of their diets and what they were going to do to lose the turkey weight. And that made such an impression on me, it's such a huge impression on me that it played a huge role in my diet history. And now it plays a huge role in me just really be an advocate for embodied eating and healing my relationship with my body and food, and helping others do the same. And so, because of all of this stuff, right, that I lived with, with my mom and my aunt's, my grandma, I have a very, very strong boundary that I will protect my daughter from this, she is so impressionable, you know, almost 15 years old. And we talk about body confidence, we talk about embodied eating and how to have a healthy relationship with food in your body. And I'm not open to having my mom put down herself in front of Celeste. So when she does, because my mom still puts herself down, okay, this is not going to change. She's in her late 60s, and I would love for it to change, but she doesn't have to change for me to feel better. And for my daughter to not hear this stuff, okay, she does not have to change. My mom is an adult, she's free to do what she does. I love her. So we go back to point one, right, we want to come from a deep place of love for ourselves. And if you can, for the person that you're having to set the boundary around their actions, I love my mom deeply. But when she comments about her weight, and she talks about her body in front of my daughter, my boundary is I asked her to stop. And I reinforce our main principles of what we really believe in why Celeste is you know, growing to be an embodied eater. So we I talk about that, and I reinforce it for my daughter so that she hears the truth, so that she hears that and it can really get back down into her into her heart, right? So she can really imprint the truth of who she is and how her where her value comes from. And, and then if my mom doesn't stop, we remove ourselves from the situation. And I've done this and I will give her a hug. And I say okay, Mom, I love you. We're just gonna go now we're gonna go for a walk. Okay, and my mom absolutely knows and understands this boundary, she totally understands that this is what I do. And she's very uncomfortable with it. The last time was at my son's birthday party, and my mom was talking about she said something like, oh, I don't know why I'm so fat. I hardly eat anything. And she said this in front of all my kids and a lot of the other kids. And I did I set this boundary actually asked her to not say that. And then she got quite upset after. And here's the thing that's really important. This is actually my Oh, yeah, this is actually my next my next point. So you can expect people to be uncomfortable. This does not mean there needs to be chaos. This does not mean there has to be like a big blowout or anything. My mom was uncomfortable. She felt embarrassed. She actually knows my boundary, I voiced it to her this was not out of you know the norm that I actually said something when she commented about her body. And a big part of this is when you set boundaries, to take care of yourself not expecting to them to change. They are going to feel uncomfortable, and you get to choose to be okay with other people's discomfort. That is a really important point here. One of the reasons why we have a hard time setting boundaries is because we are uncomfortable with other people's discomfort. So what often will happen if you're doing it from like the outside in approach of that protection? It's like okay, you are not allowed to behave that way in front of me. If you do, I will do this fill in the blank. And then what happens is that they do it. And then we are so offended, because we're feeling like they're not respecting us. And then we drop our boundary. Because it's like, well, it didn't work. I tried to set this boundary, and they did it anyway. So the boundary doesn't work and they're disrespecting me. And that creates so much harm in the relationship. So instead, that inside out approaches, they can do what they want. And if they do, I'm going to take care of myself this way. And they're going to be uncomfortable, most likely. And that's okay. I can love them through it. I give my mom a hug. When we leave. I tell her I love her. And yes, she's uncomfortable. And that's okay. Okay, so do you see the difference? boundaries aren't easy to set this way, right there, they it is a challenge because you do have to really know your values, and really know what you need. And then love yourself and love people enough to be able to set these in a way that is gracious, and loving, right and full of compassion. That's really, really important. And that actually goes back to one of the pillars of embodied eating compassion. When you think of the model, and you think of why people do what they're doing, because they have a thought, that leads to an emotion that leads to their actions. So with my mom, for example, she has these very, very, very deeply, deeply conditioned thoughts about food in her body. And that is where I can get really compassionate. My mom's not trying to offend me, my mom's not trying to harm my daughter. Absolutely not. She's lovely. But what she's doing is she's acting out of her own emotions. And I have so much compassion for that. And at the same time, I can set the boundary in the way that I need to for myself and my little girl. Okay, hope this is making sense to you. Again, just please reach out to me on Instagram, drop message me and ask me any questions you have, I can clarify it on a future podcast, and I can even message you directly, or email me at Freedom at Chauncey dawn.com. I love emails, I love messages. So let's get chatting about this because this is a really, really important topic. And when you can really learn how to set boundaries in a way that heals, it really will just set you free in so many ways. Okay, the next point is you have to be prepared to keep the boundary. Okay. It's hard. Like I said, it will make people uncomfortable, sometimes, but that's okay. Along the lines of being okay with people's discomfort is loving yourself enough honoring your boundary enough to follow through. And what's really cool is that you don't even have to tell them that this is a boundary, right? When we're setting boundaries from the outside in, in that protection mode, then it's like, I have this boundary and you can't do this, or I'm gonna do this. And again, it creates all this chaos in this gentle loving Inside Out approach. You can tell them like my mom knows that boundary I was telling you about. But you totally don't have to. So again, if you're not looking to actually change someone's behavior doesn't really matter if they know. So sometimes it's appropriate to sometimes that feels most like love, and sometimes it's not. So that question is a very valuable one to drop into what feels most like love, hear what feels most like love for myself? What feels most like love for this person in my life? How can I really drop into that and act in love and compassion and grace, grace? graciousness? I don't Yeah, that's a word wasn't sure. And Grace, okay, so. So that is how we set boundaries from that deep place of love. It changes everything, you will find so much freedom in this. And you will learn more and more and more how to have your own back. And the thing that's really interesting is that you will find that when you really get clear on this, when you really get clear on people are allowed to be people and they're going to do what they want to do. And it's not your job to change them because it won't work anyway. Right? When you can get really clear on that and just set these boundaries for yourself to have your own back. You're going to find that there's actually not that many times you actually have to set a boundary and that alone brings so much freedom

So here's some examples of boundaries that I have, I don't have many. But when I'm looking around food and the diet culture, there's a couple that I have for sure. And one is, if I'm sitting with friends or a friend, and they start talking about their diets about body, you know, shaming themselves or others about weight loss, or whatever, my boundary is that I actually just sit back, you know, my body language, I take myself out of the conversation, and I just don't go there, I don't participate in the conversation. If it's just a one on one friend that I'm talking with, I will change the, the topic of the conversation, maybe I'll excuse myself and go to the washroom, but I just don't, I just don't involve myself. And that energy alone often shifts the conversation, which is really, really powerful. And obviously, my friends will know what I do. But it's really interesting to me, how many of them are still bringing all this stuff up. And that just shows, again, how deeply ingrained the diet culture is, it's just part of our brains. So this is where again, we can drop into compassion. And when I'm sitting with my friends, and they're talking about all this stuff, there's no negative feelings towards them, I'm not judging them. Really, it's just I sit there, and I just have so much compassion, and so much gratitude that I have found this, that I have such a beautiful relationship with food in my body that I'm still working on every single day because it is nonlinear. And but just so much gratitude to be on this journey. And you know, to be able to actually sit back and not engage. And that in itself just feels so expansive, and very, very empowering. So I already talked about my mom, that is a huge boundary. And that that goes like my mom, my aunt's whatever, anyone in my family who talks about their bodies and put themselves down in front of my daughter or sons. And another one that I have, which I really found has brought me a lot of ease in my life is if I have a friend or acquaintance whoever on social media, and they're posting about their latest diet, or they're trying to sell some sort of product for dieting, or they post a meme about, you know, that really like buys into the day cultures lies, I just go oh, my gosh, I send you love. And I notify you, I don't go blocking them, there's no reason to do that. But I actually don't want that stuff on my feed. So I will just go and notify you still remain friends. There's no problem there, you can still contact them, there doesn't have to be any chaos or weirdness there. It just won't see their stuff. And that is so liberating. Because we really want to build this beautiful ecology where we're just really like fertile soil, to be able to grow this beautiful relationship with our bodies and with food that we're working on. So we don't want that junk in our face, right? We don't want to be going on social media, and for that stuff to be popping up. Ah, but again, you don't have to make a big deal about it. It doesn't have to bring it down. You don't have to call them out or make a comment. You can just notify and remove yourself. That is good. That is a beautiful way to honor your boundary. My son just walked in and making all this noise. Like I'm recording a podcast, please get out and he's like, Hi podcast.

Can they hear me? And obviously you couldn't I'll edit that part out. But he says hi. So there you go. Evan says hi. Oh, that's what happens when you're recording an episode when all the kids are home. This is why I usually do this when they're in school. But anyways, yes, I hope that this episode brings you a lot of ease when it comes to setting boundaries that heal. I call it healing boundaries because of the Inside Out approach that we talked about. Coming from a place of love coming from place of compassion. You don't need to protect yourself, honey, you are whole, you are safe. Okay, you can grow your relationship with food in your body in a way that feels empowering and deeply honoring and setting healthy boundaries from the inside out. Is one of the best ways to do this. You've got this. I love you. Thank you for listening please pass pass this on to someone who needs to hear it because we set boundaries in our society and pretty messed up ways that just create a lot of chaos and a lot of hurt and a lot of confusion. I love you. Take care. Good night