Soberful by Veronica Valli

Author:Veronica Valli [Valli, Veronica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SEL006000 Self-help / Substance Abuse & Addictions / Alcohol, SEL031000 Self-help / Personal Growth / General, HEA010000 Health & Fitness / Healthy Living
Publisher: Sounds True

Entrenched Beliefs

Before we get into how to set boundaries, I want to explain why it can feel so difficult at first (and it will). Many of us were raised to believe that we are responsible for how other people feel or that our own feelings are insignificant. When we have these beliefs, we can’t have boundaries. We can have one or the other but not both. Letting go of these beliefs isn’t going to happen overnight. It is a process of unlearning deeply entrenched behavior. Most of these behaviors are automatic and tied to beliefs hidden in our subconscious mind that we have no idea about.

When we think we’re responsible for other people’s feelings, we believe we have to modify, adapt, and change our behavior so that others are happy, or so they’ll find us acceptable. What makes this challenging is that we really have no idea what other people’s feelings truly are, so we are guessing. This takes up an enormous amount of energy and bandwidth. We can tie ourselves up in knots. And here’s the kicker: despite all that energy and effort, we still may not make the other person happy. Then we feel like we have failed.

The first step in changing this situation is accepting that it isn’t your job to make other people happy. I know for some people that can feel like a revolutionary and earth-shattering statement. When we have built our identity around pleasing others and discover that this has been a mistake, the ground shifts beneath our feet.

It does not mean that we don’t care about how other people feel or that their feelings don’t matter. It’s that we are responsible for our emotional experience, and others are responsible for theirs. I take responsibility for my feelings by choosing my responses and by maintaining healthy boundaries.

The other faulty belief is that our own feelings don’t matter. This belief can come from our childhood conditioning. Maybe we were told to quit crying about something that made us upset, or to “just get over it.” Maybe our feelings were ignored, minimized, or brushed away. The lesson we would learn from this as a child would be don’t have feelings, your feelings don’t matter. My family didn’t “do” feelings; feelings made everyone uncomfortable. It was explicitly and implicitly communicated to us that it was unacceptable to discuss our feelings and that we should shut them down. So I stuffed all of mine inside, and they sat like a powder keg within me. I didn’t know how to listen to them or respond to them. My feelings were a foreign country, and I didn’t speak the language. I was emotionally illiterate and therefore incapable of having boundaries. I was also conditioned to believe that I had to make my mother happy and only do things she would approve of. This then carried over into my adult relationships, and I would agonize over things I said or did and whether I was approved of or liked.

Learning to have

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