Setting Boundaries and Breaking Free from People-Pleasing

Ready to break free from toxic cycles and take control of your reactions? I'm here to help you heal from challenging relationships, especially those with emotionally immature or toxic mothers. I'll show you how setting boundaries can break the cycle of people-pleasing and enhance your personal growth. By saying no when necessary, you can build trust in your relationships, ultimately creating a more authentic and empowered version of yourself.

We'll explore the root causes of people-pleasing, uncovering the fears that drive this behavior, like fear of conflict, rejection, and judgment. It's important to know that true transformation comes from doing inner work, addressing these underlying fears, and gaining the confidence to assert your needs and desires.

In this episode, you'll learn the following:
1. How setting boundaries can positively impact relationships.
2. The underlying fears and insecurities that drive people-pleasing behavior.
3. The necessity of doing inner work to address the root causes of people-pleasing.

Get on the waitlist for the next 2-day in-person BRAVE retreat:
https://www.brave-method.com/workshop-waitlist

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💗 Dr. Steph
@DrStephanieLopez
www.brave-method.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Hi, I'm Dr Steph and I'm here to guide you on your journey to healing from a difficult relationship with your mother, whether she was narcissistic, emotionally immature or just plain toxic. I want you to know that you are, in fact, not broken and you do not have to suffer from anxiety or explosive emotional reactions like lashing out. You can break the cycle. You are a strong, capable woman who can handle any challenge that comes your way, and I'm going to show you how to have the ultimate control over your reactions so that you are unstoppable. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome back and happy Tuesday, if you're listening to this on release day.

Speaker 1: 1:34

I just hosted a two-day retreat last week and it was freaking incredible. Okay, I don't even know where to begin, but I want to share it with you. It felt so good and six women attended and just seeing their breakthroughs and aha moments and reactions fueled my fire and reminded me why I do this work. So this experience is really unique. It's not just me talking at you, which one of the women was like. I thought you were just going to be like in expert mode, talking at us, telling us some concepts, and it was not that and I was like I know, and it's hard to explain, isn't it? And she's like it's so hard to put into words. This is a very unique experience, a unique combination of immersive experiences that bring about aha moments, revelations and breakthroughs. So I walk you through using a number of different tools to bring things from the unconscious into your conscious awareness, which, by the way, most of your behavior is being driven by unconscious things, unconscious thoughts, experiences, beliefs, all of that. So we need to bring it into your awareness. Self-awareness is really increasing. Your self-awareness is really what's going to help you be most effective in life. I just wanted to take a few minutes also to share some of the feedback that came from those two days, things that I heard where, like that, she was shocked at the depth of openness and connection in two short days. She did not really come expecting to feel connected to anybody in the room and there were a lot of breakthroughs even just after one day.

Speaker 1: 3:37

Women said they felt inspired by how easily they could activate choice and change in their life in terms of anything they wanted in themselves, and one woman said this was disrupting, and my response back to that is you know what I actually see myself as being here to disrupt the way that things operate, and I may use a few choice words along with that. But yeah, like, like, I'm here to kind of mess up the way that things, that we think that things are, so that you can see the truth of who you really are. Another woman said I feel so challenged in a good way, challenged in terms of the way that I think and the way that I've been showing up. Another said it was epic and so powerful and she couldn't believe these six women. All of them were so different. They came from different cultures, different life experiences. They have their cross of her, you know, decades in terms of age, and she's like you were able to help all of us with such different problems, and I want to talk a little bit more about why that is. But the last thing I wanted to say is just, you know, another woman said I wish I would have known about this decades ago, and I hear that so often and I feel sad and at the same time, I feel grateful that they are there, because it is never too late.

Speaker 1: 5:12

So how would you know if a retreat like this was a good fit for you? I mean, honestly, if you resonate with anything that I go over on the podcast. It is for you Like, truly. It's my favorite way for people to come into my world, because the way that I show up in those two days is I am going to blow your mind so that you walk away a totally different person and so much closer to that ideal version of yourself that you have longed to be, whether that is, you know, feeling more capable, feeling calmer, feeling at ease, feeling just confident any of it. So the next one that I'm going to host is after the holidays, in January, and I just want you to know get on the waitlist to be notified if you're interested in coming. You can go to wwwbrave-methodcom. Slash workshop waitlist and all of those on the waitlist, just because I like to mix things up and have freaking fun. Everybody on the waitlist is going to receive a special, limited time offer. So if you think, oh my gosh, this sounds incredible, I want to go get your name on the waitlist.

Speaker 1: 6:29

Now I want to just talk about what these women came here to achieve, because I think that you're going to resonate with it. At the beginning of each of these retreats, I ask women why they are here and what they're here to learn and there's always overlap in responses across workshops and inside of workshops, and the things that I hear generally fall in line with overcoming anxiety, overcoming perfectionism, fear and self doubt. The topics that came up with these six women expanded beyond that, so I want to share them with you. One, actually, I think two, of them said letting go of people pleasing, setting more boundaries, letting go of perfectionism, increasing self esteem, being okay with backlash or others being upset, breaking generational cycles, not getting triggered, getting more comfortable with change, letting go of control, increasing self confidence, improving communication, ditching defensiveness, listening to my inner voice and increasing self acceptance. That was a huge list. I don't know how many things I just listed out, but it was quite the list.

Speaker 1: 7:46

And guess what? This two day sets the foundation and gives the tools to meet all of these desires, all of them. And if you're like what? How the F? Is that possible? Like what on earth? Like one of the women actually a side tangent she afterwards, she's like I think that if you tell people this, they're going to think it's a gimmick. And I'm like you're not the only one. I had a client like not too long ago, before she signed up. She's like I'm just so worried that it's a gimmick. Or maybe she told me afterwards, I can't remember, but either way I know it sounds too good to be true but it's not, which is why I'm doing this work, anyways. So how the F is all of that possible in two days? And that's why I talk about how the work that I'm doing is revolutionary and that's why clients say that about this work too, because I'm not just teaching you how to make behavioral changes. Behavioral changes are a symptom of what's underneath. So you're experiencing and making those underlying shifts. You are tackling the root cause which results in the behavior changes you want, and this today really sets that foundation. So again, if you're considering coming, just to hop on the waitlist to get notified about the next two day, you can click the link in the show notes or go to wwwbrave-methodcom. Slash workshop-waitlist. All right.

Speaker 1: 9:24

So I want to bring to life one example, just elaborate a bit more about what I'm referring to when I say behavior is the symptom and we need to actually address the root cause. Lots of women come to me and they want to overcome people pleasing and they want to learn how to set boundaries and just full transparency. This is something that I historically struggled with because setting boundaries was never modeled to me, so of course I struggled with it right, and if you have an emotionally immature mother, that may be true for you too. Let's talk about common reasons why people don't set boundaries. First, sometimes it's a fear of conflict, maybe like a low tolerance for negative emotions or low tolerance for the possibility of someone being upset. Sometimes a fear of rejection or fear of judgment. Sometimes low self-esteem, recognizing that what you want matters too. It's not you matter more, it's not they matter more it's you matter too. Also, maybe taking advice around manners a little too literally and this is being communicated to you by someone who tends to take things very literally. For example, maybe you were raised to hug that uncle that you don't want to hug because that's the nice thing to do and you don't want to upset him, and so if you bring that into adulthood and take that manners advice literally, you may choose not to set a boundary there because you have a belief about what you should be doing.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Now, what else causes people not to set boundaries? Well, really believing that the extent to which you are loved and respected is tied to pleasing others. So just maybe pause this and think through how many of those fall in line with the way that you are showing up, how many of those resonate with you. In many ways, we can boil this down to fear Fear of losing love, fear of anger, fear of being rejected, fear of hurting others, fear of being misunderstood, fear of being perceived as selfish, fear of what others might think, fear of conflict. So if we boil it down to fear, does that resonate Like when I said all of those things? Maybe how many times have you thought or said to yourself yeah, like I don't want to feel those things, like being unlovable, feeling angry, feeling rejected, all of it. Can you see yourself in these things? I know I can, my historic self for sure. So I want to share a story that you know.

Speaker 1: 12:27

The moment was rather insignificant, to be honest, but it hit me in a way that it shifted the way that I see things and, like I said, I historically did not set boundaries and very often fell into people pleasing mode. Well, there was oh, actually, you know what? I think this is an important distinction that I didn't say so far. So how do I know that I wasn't just genuinely being nice in these moments, because, were though they are those moments as well. Yes, we're like I'm it's a genuinely being nice and it's not what we would consider people pleasing. Basically, in the moment or later, I would feel obligated to do something. I would feel irritated by the person, frustrated that I had to do something, resentful of the person and, in some situations, stuck. Stuck in the situation. So you can think through and ask yourself okay, how many times have has one or more of those? You don't have to resonate with all of them, but has one or more of those been true for me? And then you'll know like, okay, I'm not genuinely being nice, I'm falling into people pleasing mode, okay, so back to the example that I was going to share.

Speaker 1: 13:47

I had this moment where I set a boundary and basically I just said no, that I didn't want to do something, and I don't even remember what it was that I didn't want to do, but I said no and her response was shocking to me. She said thank you for saying no and I was like huh. And then she said when you say no, I trust your yes more. When you say no, I trust your yes more. I literally got goosebumps on my arms as I was saying that like what I hadn't realized before that that, because I was so agreeable, people started to question if I would actually tell them if I wasn't okay with something and then, because of that, they didn't know if they could trust if I was telling the truth, which impacted our relationship. Has that ever crossed your mind that actually setting the boundary and saying no could improve your relationship with somebody rather than having all of these fears come up? I had never thought about that, and so how often are you showing up as a people pleaser and lacking boundaries and then creating a situation where people really can't trust your? Yes, it's kind of wild to think about it like that.

Speaker 1: 15:17

On another side note related to this, check out the episode from July 11th. It was titled Breaking Free from the Good Girl Syndrome. If you're resonating with this content, I think that you will like that too. So I just wanted to make that note, and I also want to step away from this example that I gave and address something that you may be thinking. Sometimes people are like well, I just need to know how to set boundaries and, to be honest, I can teach you how to set boundaries all day long, because probably you didn't ever learn how to set boundaries, like how to frame up that conversation. At least, that was true for me. That's been true for basically all of my clients.

Speaker 1: 16:01

One of the most common things that I work with people on is communication Like how do I handle hard conversations and arguments? Essentially, so that matters? Yes, it does matter, and it's only going to be so helpful until you address the root cause Right. It's helpful to know how do I set a boundary in a way that's not going to come across as selfish, brutally honest, defensive, like how do I really frame that up? And learning what to say will not shift what's underneath. It won't erase your people-pleasing tendencies, it won't make all of your fears you know, all those fears that we went over it won't make all of them disappear and it won't suddenly give you the confidence to set the boundary. But what will? Doing the inner work? And that's where the true deep, long-lasting shifts happen. Doing the inner work. And I'd be honored, of course, to guide you through that journey.

Speaker 1: 17:07

So if you have questions about this, send me a DM on Instagram also. I just feel like playing today. So we're going to add something to this. Send me the word audit A-U-D-I-T to learn more about the shifts that you personally need to make. So I'm going to walk you through a personal one-on-one audit and we're going to figure out next steps for you specifically. Thank you, ladies, for listening today. I hope that the rest of your week is amazing and I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening today. If you're ready to heal so that triggering situations no longer control you and so that you can feel empowered, brave and thrive in any situation, dm me the word brave on Instagram and I'll send you a training where you will learn three of the most common mistakes driven women are making that are keeping them stuck in negative emotions, and what you can do instead.