I’ve noticed that I’m much better at drawing a line in the sand and setting boundaries than I used to be.
I am able to (usually) kindly and gently say no thank you to this, and no thank you to that, and I’m building my life around saying yes to the things that make me feel good.
Part of that is having the faith that I will be ok no matter what might happen as a result of my saying ‘no’, which is something I used to fear. But I have just recently noticed another part.
My daughter came home from school and told me the teacher had given them a new seating plan and the girl sitting beside her now was being disrespectful towards her things.
Thinking I had this all figured out I said, “hunny you just need to set some boundaries with her, people treat you the way you allow them to”.
She then told me she had been trying to set boundaries with this girl, which amazed me because I wasn’t brave enough to set boundaries in middle school, and the other girl didn’t care. My daughter had asked her not to use her things, and to put her things back and the girl didn’t care, she was using them anyway, and not returning them.
Shoot.
I recently heard Brene Brown say there is a lot of shame around parenting because while we are all wanting to do a good job, we are also keenly aware that we are screwing it up all of the time. This was some of those moments for me.
I didn’t know what to tell her aside from punching the girl or telling the teacher, neither of which is a great life skill. In the end I was hoping she would figure it out and teach me how to do it.
That’s when I started to realize the “other part” of why it’s become easier for me to set a boundary.
I have chose different types of people to be my friends. I spend my time with respectful and caring people who want to do the right thing by others.
These aren’t the same kinds of people I have always spent my time with.
I used to spend my time with people who were sure to only do what was best for them, what made them look good, or gave them what they wanted. People who didn’t seem to notice if I set a boundary, they would walk all over it anyway because they thought they knew what was best for me, or they didn’t really care – I’m not sure which.
There are all types of people in this world and we need to be able to navigate our way through all of them. I’m not going to lie, some people make it a whole bunch easier than others to do that.
If I ever get this figured out, you’ll be the first to know