Boundaries: Rejection or an Act of Kindness?

Welcome to The Honest Place. A space for honest conversations about self worth, identity, leadership, parenting and the inner questions so many of us carry. What you are about to hear is an edited recording of a live honest place conversation. In this episode, I reflect on boundaries and on a question that has been very alive for me lately: Are boundaries rejection or are they an act of kindness? I speak about over functioning, belonging, resentment, family patterns and the way many of us learn to confuse endless availability with care. Let's begin! Today we are going to talk about something that has been very much alive in my life lately Boundaries. The topic of today's conversation is called Boundaries Are they a rejection or an act of kindness? My background is I grew up in Russia, I grew up in Siberia and I didn't see boundaries being modelled around me. Especially emotional boundaries and especially in women. So what I remember is that over functioning,

taking care of everyone else around you, taking on more responsibilities that it is sustainable to take on. It was not only expected but it was also praised. So I'm thinking of people around me and especially women around me, my mother, my grandmother, family friends, teachers, how much they were caring, work, childcare, cooking for everyone, making sure that everyone's homework is done, Summer houses growing their potatoes and cucumbers. So all of these things were really piling up and no one really questioned whether or not a particular person can carry that much. So as I was growing up I saw this model around me and my own expectation was that this is how life looks like. So at that time for me it was school, it was learning piano and I played professionally for ten years. So not only playing it with the teacher but also taking regular exams, participating in all sorts of competitions like math, sociology and this is what I was carrying with me as I started my adult life, as I started my family. So all these expectations were as a baseline of my way of existing

and I can say that I became a professional over functioner taking on all of these responsibilities and helping wherever you can, volunteering wherever you can was also a way of showing that you love people around you, you care about them and I think it was also a way to earn belonging in your community, in your friend circles. And belonging is one of the basic human needs. So in my own life, in my work and in my family I didn't really have any boundaries around what is sustainable for me and what is not. So how it looked like if let's take two years ago I started growing my startup. I had two young children. One of them was at school, one of them was at preschool, so two different schools. I obviously had family commitments too like house needs to be kept clean and cooking needs to be done in lunch boxes and family traveling plans need to be settled and I consider this a baseline that this is a way to exist so when a school or preschool would offer me an opportunity to take on something in addition, for example a volunteering role, I wouldn't think twice. I would most likely say yes and this is what I did.

I easily took on additional volunteering roles like leading a silent auction at my daughter's preschool, like helping my son's school PTA in running events. So looking back it was totally unsustainable. I didn't have time. I didn't sleep enough. I was already barely functioning in all of the areas, all the essential areas of my life. But still I felt like I need to be helpful, I need to show that I care and I need to belong in these communities. And how else can I show that I want to belong and I want to be helpful rather than taking on these additional responsibilities? And eventually it led me to a place where I couldn't function like that anymore. Combining work, all of these volunteering commitments, family commitments, I ended up feeling really unwell. So my own body said to me that you cannot continue like that. You need to set the priorities. But I must admit that over functioning and trying really hard, working really hard, taking more projects than I can It really took me to some good places. It really helped me advance my professional position, which was important as someone new to the country I moved to The US only six years ago I felt a huge need to find ways to contribute, to find ways to involve myself in different

projects, to find my professional role there. I would take on every opportunity to do a speaking engagement. I would take on any opportunity to participate or even host professional circle or professional event. It really helped me to belong professionally to all of these circles and all of these places. It helped me to get into the rooms that I couldn't even imagine I could possibly get into to speak at the big institutions which also seemed to be out of reach for someone with my background. It helped me establish professional relationship that I didn't know were possible for me. So there are upsides to not having boundaries around your time, around your capacity but it became unsustainable at some point and I really had to reconsider what can stay and what must go so I can continue being intentional with my time and contributing meaningfully to the projects that I'm involved in to my family, which is one of my top priorities with two young children. So here is where the need to set really clear boundaries has appeared in my life. And at that time I was reading and listening a lot to different

self development books and podcasts and one of my favorite people when it comes to boundaries is Brene Brown. I've been reading her books one after another in the last six months or so. I encountered a phrase by clear is kind, unclear is unkind. I remember looking at this phrase and reading it once and twice and I've read it many times trying to understand how clarity and kindness can be connected. It didn't make sense to me. So I always considered myself a kind person. Kindness is one of my values. When I agree to take some additional commitments like volunteering at school it is my way of showing kindness as I thought. But when it comes to clarity, in these moments when I'm offered to participate and volunteer, it was clear to me that I was already at my capacity. So, if I were to be clear regarding this offer, I would need to say something like: You know, I really appreciate you thinking of me, but I'm at my capacity right now and I cannot take this additional role. And thinking about this, I couldn't connect it to Kindness. Isn't it unkind

to refuse to help when technically I can help? I have the abilities, I can write emails and gather spreadsheets and I have night time where my work is done and my kids are asleep that I can sacrifice to take on this additional role. So it simply didn't make sense to me why being clear can also be kind. As Brine explains it, we cannot really show kindness when we are not clear about what we are capable of and what works and doesn't work for us. So, for example, if I take a volunteering commitment without saying that I don't have a capacity for it, I don't have time for it and later I let people down or I still do the thing but at the same time I become so tired and so angry and resentful. Both of these scenarios are not kindness. So her point, Brenna's point is that to truly be able to show kindness and to be kind we need to be clear about what works for us and what doesn't. So my old way of being kind was take on an additional role, be helpful when your help is needed, say yes when someone needs you

and I'm learning a new way of being kind, being clear about what works for me, what I can realistically take on right now, what I have capacity for. And if I have to say no, it's kindness. It's kindness to myself, it's kindness to my family who will get a mother that is not exhausted and preoccupied. And it's kindness to the other person or organization or team that I'm saying no to because I know that I won't do a great job or I won't be happy about this opportunity that I took on. So, I want to share an example with you of how setting boundaries has been helpful for me lately. And my example will come from my family. So, my old way of functioning and being a good partner and a good mother was to wake up before everyone else in the morning Make everyone breakfast Get the lunch boxes ready Wake the kids up, get them ready for school, make sure they are in the car on time to leave for the school drop off However, I would do the same thing on the weekends So despite waking up from Monday to Friday at seven a. M. Taking care of everyone I would also wake up around the same time on the weekends because

kids are going to wake up in half an hour and they will be hungry and who else is going to make them breakfast? And I ended up being really exhausted and tired because I didn't really have the opportunities to sleep in, to catch up on this additional few hours of sleep that many of us enjoy having on the weekend. Motherhood is a role that does not give you a break no matter weekends, no matter holidays. And it really didn't work. So what I did with my family is I told everyone that Guys, I love you, but I also need to get my extra few hours of sleep on the weekend. So on the weekend you can wake your dad up. You can ask your dad to make your breakfast while mom is catching up on sleep. And it worked! It worked for the kids who heard very clearly that mom is going to sleep on the weekends. We cannot wake her up. That is the person who we turn to if we are hungry, if we need to turn on TV or for whatever reason on a weekend morning. And my partner also knew that, Okay, Svetlana is going to sleep in on a weekend. So if kids need something, I need to wake up, I need to make them breakfast. I need to help them with that. And I didn't know that my partner can cook. And once I told my family that I'm not going to wake up to make breakfast on the weekends, I learned that my partner is very good at making scrambled eggs and he can pour cereals for the kids

and everyone can be happy So it worked wonderfully because I would wake up not at seven but at nine at ten sometimes and I would be in a really good mood. No one was bothering me. I could take a shower, I could slowly drink my cup of tea and the family is already set up for the day and everyone is fed. So the clarity of setting up expectations of what works for me and what doesn't was an essential thing here to make my family's schedule work for me. Another thing that I want to talk about is how setting boundaries can reorganize our relationships and how setting boundaries can reveal the capacity for different relationships in our life. So on one of the podcasts I've heard I've heard Brene Brown saying that boundaries always come hand in hand with grief even if it's a grief of an expectation. So that's an interesting one because when I started setting boundaries I obviously had expectations. I had expectations of how my family would adjust, how my work partnerships would adjust, how my participation in different communities would change and not all of my expectations were met. So, some of the relationships

were able to work with the new things that I stated are working for me and they were able to change shapes like the example of my family and breakfasts on weekend mornings and some of the relationships simply revealed their capacity. So once I shared the structure that works for me, sometimes I learned that the relationship was based on me over functioning and taking on more than was sustainable for me. And yes, there were relationships where my expectations didn't prove to be possible in real life and they were relationships where me setting boundaries revealed the capacity of such relationships. And this is where the grief part comes in because some of the relationships had to be ended at this point. It's either me continuing to over function and saying yes in situations where it's not sustainable and it doesn't work for me, which is a self sacrifice, or being clear about what works for me and not trying to solve the other person's or the other party's concerns about it, their emotional load about it. So

saying what works for me and leaving the response to the other person to carry. And that was an incredibly difficult thing for me to do. The way I always functioned is I tried to make sure that everyone is comfortable, that everyone likes me. This is how I was always earning love and belonging of people around me, of friends, work partnerships, teams. So it was a really, really difficult and scary thing to first figure out for myself what clarity looks like for me and what structure works for me going forward. And then to say it out loud to other people. It was terrifying. As I'm saying this, I still feel how I felt in some of the moments where I had to set the boundaries in real time. It felt so unnatural. It felt like I'm going against all of the rules that I set for myself throughout my entire life. If I were to describe a physical sensation, was like I'm floating somewhere in the water trying to stay above the water and breathe while doing something incredibly hard that was dragging me down to the bottom. So those were some of the most challenging moments of my life when I had to set expectations and reveal clarity

and name my boundaries. And I know that some people might have perceived it as a rejection. Because when your default mode is over functioning and not ever questioning whether or not it works for you, just doing what works for everyone else around you. And then suddenly you tell that it doesn't work for you. It can be received as rejection. And that part was really hard for me. So I had to really sit with very uncomfortable feelings and emotions at these times. I would love to hear where you could really benefit from setting boundaries in your life right now even if you can share one word like work, family, your partner, your parents. I see that for one person mother is a difficult area regarding boundaries. I totally get it. Mothers can be difficult. It's one of the most difficult relationships, right? So we are shaped by these people growing up. We base so many of our beliefs on what our parents have taught us and especially on what they have modeled to us. Let's be honest, not every parent is able to accept that we are grown up people and we can make our own decisions in our life.

For many parents we are still children even when we are 30 and 40 and so on and they have expectations. Right? So I don't know what is it specific to your case and your boundaries with your mother, but for me I think it's expectations. Yes, my mother has a very specific view of the world that she expects me to fit into and I'm not quite fitting in into this framework that she has set so it's hard I want to share three questions with you that I'm offering you to think about. The first question: Where do you feel that setting boundaries is the hardest for you at this time of your life. The second question is: What do you fear will happen if you set those boundaries? The last question is: What can change if you become clear about what works for you? So sit with those questions at some point. It's always really helpful to self reflect. And that's it for today! I am really grateful to those of you who joined me for this

second week of The Honest Place. Thank you for discussing boundaries with me. I believe that they are kindness and the way of taking care of ourselves and the relationships in our life even when they are really hard to set in the first place. Thank you for listening to The Honest Place. These conversations happen live every two weeks on Instagram. You are very welcome to join them live if you would like to bring your thoughts or questions into the space. You can find me on Instagram svetlanakazkov. That's S V E T L A N A K A Z C O. And if this conversation resonated, let me know what stayed with you.