Gardening in High Heels

cultivate a beautiful life

Need Boundaries? Ask Yourself This.

This week on Sunday Lately, I wrote a bit about boundaries and how they felt limiting. I’ve always thought that having boundaries meant you said no a lot. And in a sense, that’s true, but so much more goes into it than just saying No.

Oooh, I can hear you now… “Angelica, how much more?” I’m glad you asked! Why? Because I have struggled with setting boundaries (I have an aversion to the word no) and just a little mindset shift has been helpful for me so maybe it’ll be helpful for you, too.

Setting boundaries doesn't have to be a hard and fast yes or no. It's all about honoring your intentions and asking yourself one simple question. So helpful to look at it this way!

First, a little backstory.

I used to think that boundaries were constricting and that it meant choosing myself over everyone else in a greedy way. When presented with the option, I always picked everyone else over myself. It’s just how I am. I’m a people-pleaser. And it got to the point of resentment. I’d feel resentful for doing things for others. That’s not cool, man. I wanted to help.

It goes hand in hand with not asking for help. I see asking for help as a sign of personal weakness, that I’m admitting defeat and saying that I can’t handle it, which is another conversation straight from Daring Greatly by Brene Brown for another day.

What were we talking about? Right, boundaries. I’ve noticed that I’m most resistant to things that I know will take a lot of work but will also help me the most.

Setting boundaries in and of itself felt constricting, like I always had to say When presented with Situation Y, I must always answer with Z. And I didn’t like that. As much as I like plans and order, I want to have the ability to change my answer. But you can’t do that when you think boundaries mean always answering the same way (no) to certain requests.

See my conundrum now?

My question up until recently was: how do you hold yourself to (seemingly inflexible) boundaries while wanting to be able to change your mind?

It isn’t about asking What would make me happy? which, I mean, is a valid question, but that’s so vague and takes a lot more work to get to the heart of why you’re saying yes or no.

Instead, ask yourself: what will make me feel comfortable saying yes to this request? Repeat that with me, chickadess. What will make me feel comfortable saying yes to this request?

Kinda like saying yes to the dress. But not. Because this isn’t a dress. Anyway.

Re-framing how you look at boundaries as This is how I want people to treat me feels better. It’s not no, it’s I’d appreciate your understanding that I cannot do that right now, but I can help you this way. You’re still saying no to the request (really, still saying yes) but doing so in a way that feels more comfortable.

And of course, that also means that you get to say yes to other things, too. Like projects you want to do or collaborations that really excite you.

It’s all about honoring your intentions and your values. What do you prioritize? What will make you feel in control? What will make you feel like yourself?

As a recovering people-pleaser, I’m always trying to figure out how to value others’ requests while still making myself feel free and giving of help.

To get a little woo-woo here, setting boundaries teaches the Universe what you truly prioritize, too, and lets it know what opportunities to send your way way. For example: if the Universe knows I’ll say yes to anything, it’ll throw anything my way. If it knows I only want to be open to work on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, it’ll send quality opportunities to me on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Cool, right?

To recap: life with boundaries looks like more intention, more flow, more flexibility. Life without boundaries looks like resentment, restriction (ironically) and constriction. Oh, and constantly feeling like you need to please everyone before you can start on yourself. Life without boundaries seems kinda like the loser here, no?

Where do you feel like you need to have a few more boundaries but are stuck putting them in place? Let me know if this trick worked for you!

Would you change?

There’s this site that has 36 questions and it’ll apparently make you fall in love with anyone. I kept it bookmarked in my inbox because I knew some day, I would be stuck for a topic, but I didn’t read any of the questions yet. I went through them and stopped at 19 (though all of them are thought-provoking) this one hit me, hard:

If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?

I would laugh louder, dream bigger, adventure harder, relax faithfully, meditate purposefully…basically everything we are encouraged to do to live a full life right now.

It’s so easy to say, “Oh, I have my whole life to do that, it can wait.” Or maybe you’re thinking, “I have my whole life, I don’t want to screw up my relationships, finances, others’ opinions of me, etc,” so you don’t do anything at all and just use the insanity definition of “I won’t change anything but maybe the outcome will be different.”

The interesting thing about this question is the deadline. One year. That puts some immediacy on it. And forces you to look at what’s really important to you. Think about the things that you’d change if you only had a year. Those are the responses that are important to you.

Personally, I would speak my truth more, try to erase uncertainty in my choices, re-learn how to play guitar, make something big (like a quilt), meditate by a river preferably with a waterfall that I could jump off of, cultivate deep passion, travel around to meet you lovely lady readers of mine, take lots of pictures and actually print them out.

Some things are project goals that I can check  off, others are maintenance goals that have to be worked at each day.

What would you change if you only had a year? Interesting read about standing up for what you believe in and changing hard habits.

I know there would be some people that would run away and hide or who would make all the necessary preparations (which is much more likely what I’d do) so your friends and family are set up.

I’d really like to think that I’d be brave enough to find my voice and my feet and make some kind of impact, even if it’s something small. There’s 365 days to do something, anything.

So if you only had a year, would you change anything?

PS: need some ideas to get your change started? Molly Mahar has eight ways to improve your quality of life (super simple things) and I have a list of people I like to get inspiration from when I’m stuck here.

Rebelling

I am rebelling today. I just want to write and publish something. I don’t want to have a perfect picture or a meta description or even a strong, compelling title.

So I’m just gonna write and hit publish and damnit, that’s that. I may come back and edit it. I may just let this sit here until I convert this blog into something else. Who’s to say.

I used to love blogging for it’s simple way to have a record of what I was thinking that I could update anywhere. I didn’t need a journal or my special pens, I just needed something connected to WordPress. Now, it’s more of a chore. You need to make sure you have keyword-rich posts, beautiful images with alt tags, meta descriptions, and suck the joy out of putting fingers to keys.

So. After my great body realization yesterday, I came to a great mental realization:

I’m stuck in a “should” loop. You know, when you say, “I should do x, y, and z…” and the inevitable “buuuut….” creeps in.

I should be making client calls but…………..

I should be writing a blog post but…………..

I should weed the flower beds but…………..

I should…………..ad naseum.

I don’t know about you, but I should be am getting really sick of that nonsense. Why do we do this to ourselves? Where is the line where you say, “Clearly this isn’t a priority for me. Instead of feeling bad about it, let me drop it off my list”?

For me, the but………. phase takes over. Instead of making a plan and sticking to it for the day, I get apathetic and don’t want to do anything. So I know there’s adulting to be done, but I don’t want to have anything to do with it.

Does it happen to you, too? How do you shake the shoulds off?

PS: Looking for some other musings about “shoulding” on yourself? Check out this and this.

You are strong

I’m not one for body love. My body just kind of…is what it is. Growing up, my mom was always focused on trying to keep pounds off, not embracing what she has, so it’s been programmed into me that “This is what I have, make it something it’s not,” instead of, “This is what I have, be proud of it.”

I will always have baby fat that I can’t get rid of. And I know I look better in person than in pictures. And I have dark circles and crooked teeth and my calves are huge.

But I was looking at a picture from the Pittsburgh Marathon yesterday and I have to say… I am insanely proud of what my little 5-foot-massive-calf-muscle body can accomplish. I ran 5k on Saturday and then 13.1 miles on Sunday (and not for the first time. This was my 5th Pittsburgh half and 6th half marathon overall). This is what that looks like…

Angelica Half Marathon

I don’t give enough credit to this body that carried me over the finish line in about 2 hours and 25 minutes. Sure, I’ve run faster and my body is kinda like, “WTF mate??” right now, but damn, I want to savor this accomplishment. And not brush off the fact that THIS IS F’ING INCREDIBLE.

I am proud of what I can accomplish. And I want you to be proud of what you can accomplish, too. It doesn’t matter if you run, lift, or just make a choice to eat an apple instead of Oreos (because really when faced with that choice, I will always pick Oreos.)

And it isn’t just fitness. You’re mentally strong. You go on day after day, trying to make each one better than the last. Probably with little praise, help, or time spent celebrating your wins.

I mean, I can’t be the only one who doesn’t savor the moment..

So this one’s for those who need to take the time to stop and think about what you can do. What your body, mind, and soul can do. We are fucking awesome. And we all deserve to sit back and say, “Hell yeah, I rock.”

You are strong, damnit. Don't forget that.

What have you done this past week that proves you’re strong?

No One Will be Perfect

I was reading an email from Marie Forleo talking about her website overhaul. She said,

We’ve hit more delays, stumbling blocks and snafus than any of us could have imagined. And while we’re experienced makers in our ever-changing digital world, this process affirmed a few very important principles every modern creator should remember.

And it just hit me. No One is an ideal candidate for a job. No one is 100% flawlessly, perfectly suited for the job. Marie said right there that everyone on her team is qualified and experienced and even they ran into issues. No one is absolutely perfect!

Everyone runs into unforeseen problems. Everyone makes mistakes. If you wait for the ideal candidate to come along, you miss out on the awesome hard worker who will bust his/her ass to do what they can to make you succeed.

Not everyone is an ideal candidate but don't let that stop you from doing your thing and working hard to make magic happen!

 

 

I’d rather work with that person that a robot. What about you?

Also, this bears repeating over and over:

…don’t make yourself crazy trying to get everything perfect. Not only is perfect just not possible, you’ll wind up tinkering away into eternity and never actually launching! Always focus on progress, not perfection.

Instead of worrying about making it perfect, just do the damn thing.

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