Today, we’re looking at our third and final obstacle to boundary setting…

…and that is trying to find the “right” way or the “right” time to communicate what we need.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve put off setting boundaries for years because of this.

All the while, my frustration, resentment, and in some cases, anger and despair kept mounting, leaving me feeling stressed AF and unfulfilled in my relationships.

If I did manage to build up the nerve to communicate what I needed and the experience didn’t go smoothly, I would blame it on my saying things wrong or choosing a bad time.

In truth, there’s no such thing as The Right Way where, if only we can figure out what it is, we’ll never have to feel uncomfortable.

Adhering to this thinking makes boundary setting about two gajillion times harder than it needs to be.

We might spend massive amounts of energy racking our brains, going over every possible way to say what we need, but every option feels too harsh, too demanding, too confrontational, too defensive, too long-winded–you can’t win!

In this headspace, we’re fixated on how the other person might respond, and we’re caught up in trying to control what they’ll think and feel about our boundary.

This is really, really hard, because, in reality, we can’t control how other people think and feel (unless you’re a cult leader, in which case this probably isn’t the course for you).

But learning how to clearly and kindly communicate what we need, while letting the other person manage their own thoughts and emotions?

Now that’s doable. Very doable in fact.

When you have tools like the Internal Family Systems Exercise you’ll be learning in the course, you can take care of inner child parts who believe it’s your job to manage other people’s responses.

Instead of trying to force those parts to stop caring about what other people think (good luck), you can help them feel safe.

And when our inner parts feel safe, they naturally release old programming, like people pleasing or feeling guilty for having needs.

So, if The Right Way to set boundaries doesn’t exist, what do we do instead?

You’ll learn plenty of clear strategies in Get Free: A Course in Setting Boundaries that will help you figure out how you want to say things and when…

…and not based on some imaginary, universally “right” way, but based on what you need to feel supported and safe while doing a brave thing.

What’s great about this is that there are so many excellent ways to support yourself in any situation–meaning, there are so many ways to get it right!

Contrast this to the pressure of feeling like there’s only one right way to do things, but you just can’t seem to figure out what it is.

We’ll also talk about how, if people lose their shit when you set a boundary…

…99.9999% of the time, this is because they’re not skillful at honoring boundaries, and it has nothing to do with how or when you did it.

In the course, you’ll learn how to skillfully deal with those challenging interactions.

While we might not be able to eradicate all discomfort while setting boundaries, we can absolutely learn straightforward techniques for taking really good care of ourselves when feelings of discomfort arise.

This is exponentially more effective than waiting months or years to communicate what we need as we struggle to find the “right” way, and then beating ourselves up when we can’t figure it out.