StandUP Wellness

There's a lot of talk about boundaries lately. Marla would like to share her version.

Deckster is a cuddly monster and gives out love-boops regularly. Marla is a bit choosier about who boops her face. Her boundary (value-based limit of what she will do or endure) is "I am in charge of my face space." When Deckster behaves in a way that bumps up against Marla's boundary, she responds with a low growl and whine (request for behavior change to help her honor her boundary). Deckster, who believes his love belongs everywhere, chooses not to hear this and moves in closer for a full boop. Marla is then faced with her boundary dilemma. She is feeling anxious about her space being disrespected and angry that she is not being heard. While Deckster's behavior provoked these feelings, Marla is ultimately responsible for her experience. She is at her limit of what she will endure and wants to honor herself. She shows her teeth to communicate her boundary more clearly, "I do not like this and will snap my teeth to help you leave." Deckster boops, teeth snap, and Deckster turns to leave.

It would be easy to say we should be training Marla to not snap, because "Deckster just loves you, Marla! He means well!" But her feelings about who is in her face space matter as much as Deckster's desire to show his love.

We are often taught to keep peace across a relationship by dishonoring ourselves and disrespecting our own boundaries. We go beyond our limit of endurance or do things that conflict with our values. We believe that saying no, speaking up, or leaving a relationship will make someone else feel bad. This displacement of responsibility for emotions and experience is what makes boundaries in relationships difficult.

When we're in a relationship we want to behave in ways that respect each other's values and authenticity. We are allowed to negotiate which behaviors work or don't work for others. When things don't line up, we have choices about keeping the relationship.

Over time Deckster has learned Marla's boundary and gives less face boops. Marla is willing to accept leg and chest boops instead. Well, most of the time... ❤️

When we equate apologies and accountability with wrongness we're likely to meet up with some pretty strong ego-defenses. No one likes BEING wrong, especially if someone else is hurt. Most often we try to minimize that impact by focusing on our intent or how the other person misunderstood. These are defenses against wrongness and invalidate the hurt. We're so focused on how the other person SHOULDN'T hurt, cause that makes us wrong and ashamed, that we can't hear, much less acknowledge, that impact we inevitably have on others. Sometimes people demand apologies of us because they need us to be the wrong bad guy. Then we defend by refusing to apologize, and the impact goes unacknowledged again.

Relationships need the space for hurts to occur and be repaired by acknowledgements of the impact we have and flexibility away from the story of every hurt having a right person and wrong person. If we can redefine apologies as acknowledgement, then we have space to use them in a repair without coating it in a defense. When we stay flexible in our narrative of how the hurt occurred, we stay away from label-shame and resentments.

Get connected by hearing the people you relate with, acknowledging your impact on them, and allowing all of us to be human in our relationships. Mistakes, misunderstandings, and all.

Far too often what stands in between us and the hard earned beer (or other reward....) is believing we should feel 100% good while earning it. We hate taking the risky leap unless we've built up some confidence! But confidence is not the absence of anxiety or having a guarantee that it will go well. It's showing up EVEN THOUGH we feel bad and afraid, and believing we can handle whatever happens next. We don't have to fix our feelings or wait for them to pass before we make our move. Prep how you can, do it anyway, and celebrate your efforts!

Marla had a hard adjustment with our last move. A COVID puppy with a herding/guarding instinct living out of town was not ready to have neighbors, walk on a leash on sidewalks, or get invited into businesses. This magic moment for Marla brought to you by...
1) a year of training efforts worth about 4 billion dollars in treats and deli meat
2) private lessons from who mostly trained us humans which is what really needed to happen
3) the patience of staff and patrons of (especially our pal Erica!!) who let us struggle without shame
4) our own willingness to try, even though we were nervous and had plenty of bad experiences under our belt to justify not trying again!!

(Dugan also did well but celebrated with a nap on the floor. Way less compelling photo)

When we expect others to know what we won't say, we train them to not trust what we DO say. Read it again.

We are sold the idea that if someone really knows us, cares for us, or loves us that they will KNOW and we shouldn't HAVE TO say what we really mean. Hate to burst the collective We're-Good-At-Stuff bubble, but we SUCK at this and it doesn't do our relationships any favors to assume the other person is magically skilled at a nearly impossible task.

Know your needs. Ask for them to be met. Even when it's uncomfortable. Or risky. Asking is no guarantee you'll get it, but it's got a much greater chance than denying those needs and hoping someone else reads through your lines.

*tThatWouldBeFun

Feelings are information. Feel envious? It means you want something. Use that info to guide you in getting what you want. Begging absolutely helps.