Rachel:
You're listening to Relationship Coaching with Rachel. This is where you learn how to ditch the drama with your mama. Did you know that you have every right to say no or yes to your mama without feeling guilty? Do you know that you have the right to make a mistake, to change your mind, to do whatever you want without feeling bad, without feeling like you're getting into trouble? And did you know that you have the right to communicate your boundaries or limits, or even your deal breakers in your life? Well, I am going to teach you just some basics around mama drama. You can call this your mama drama boundaries guide.
Rachel:
Now, if you want to quick overview of some boundaries, I've got a couple of podcasts I'd love to reference. You can refer back to episode 21, where I just talk about just simple ways to create healthy boundaries. And you can also refer back to, for a really good example, episode 49, which is my client's success story of baby stepping her way to smart boundaries with her own mother. So you'll get a chance to listen to that if you want to. So just some reminders with boundaries, you can always say no or yes without an explanation. Sometimes we get into this long, drawn out explanation after we say no.
Rachel:
And sometimes it's because we feel guilty or we feel like we owe someone an explanation. We over explain, and as adults, we get to behave any way we want to. There's always a consequence. There's always an unintended consequence, but in general, we get to do whatever we want. Just a quick kind of hard truth that I want to just share with you, what happens when you do not follow through with a simple boundary is going to be the result of you not following through. So if you say no, then you say yes because you feel guilty, you're probably going to start building up this, I like to call it a resentment account. It's like a terrible bank account.
Rachel:
But over time we just make deposits in this because of what we are doing and not doing. One of my favorite helpful thoughts that I have learned over the last couple of years, and it's not the most positive thought, which I think we all want to immediately go from a negative thought to a positive thought, but for me, and for a lot of my clients and my friends, what's helpful is a more neutral and believable thought. A little bit more positive. You're ready for it? I think I've said it before. I've probably said it a lot. You get to decide. Why do I love this so much? It's because I didn't think that I got to decide, and that I had the power to make decisions in my life.
Rachel:
I felt like I had to run everything by someone else. And that's probably because I felt like I always had to ask for permission. My sister and I make the joke that we have been such rule followers, the 13 items or less. To this day, you will not catch us going into that line with more than 13 items. And so I was telling... She and I were talking the other day and she's like, "The funny thing is even when the cashier says, "No, no, no, go to this one." And you're like, "No, but I have 14, possibly more than 14 items, and it says 13 items or less, we both do the same thing." So what is so hard about creating boundaries with your mama? Well, I've talked to a lot of people over the last few months, a lot of women, and there's a common thread that runs through these conversations.
Rachel:
We're afraid that we're going to get in trouble, we're going to disappoint her. And most of all, the thing that stands out, most of all, is that we are afraid of her reaction when it comes down to it. And I am talking with a client and I'm like, "Yeah, why are you feeling this way? Why would you think this?" Like, "I just don't want her get to get mad. I don't want to upset her." You are not that powerful. She's going to get upset or not upset based on her own thoughts and emotions. And I know that's hard to believe right now, but stick with me. You might be thinking, "But you don't know my mom. You don't know my situation."
Rachel:
Well, I'm telling you, I do not know your particular situation, but I'm probably very familiar with it. Now, do you see yourself in any of these scenarios? This is kind of a good... Put yourself there and if you're like, "Ooh, that's me," we need to talk. If it's not you, no problem. Now, these are subtle, but very common boundary issues that we tend to have with our mothers. And what happens when we have them with our mothers? They're usually folding over into our other relationships if we haven't done the work. And notice that we're not looking at... In these scenarios, notice that we're not looking at her behavior right now because the people that I talk to, the first thing that they're wanting to do is like, "Okay, great.
Rachel:
How do I change her? How do I stop her from..." Fill in the blank, you all. I've heard it all. So do you see yourself in the situation where you say yes when you want to say no. That's very, very common. We just feel obligated. Do you inconvenience yourself for other people, or maybe, this is another one, okay? You're overly self-sufficient meaning not asking for help, even though you're completely done, exhausted and you're starting to get resentful and better and snippy. And these are really common, so don't beat yourself up where you're like, "Ooh, that's me on all of them or that's me on two of them."
Rachel:
Now, here are some interesting and helpful thoughts that you can think. So, remember, when I'm talking about helpful thoughts, I'm not going to the most positive, like it's all rainbows and butterflies because our brain knows that is BS. It's not believable. So you can maybe say to yourself, "I'm taking care of myself when I create boundaries with my mom." Ask yourself, how is that possible? Be honest, how are you taking care of yourself when you create boundaries with your mom? Also, you could have the thought, "I'm not going to control her." Well, that's impossible. We all know that. We can't control other people. You could have the thought like, "She can act however she wants to, and I get to decide if I want to be around that."
Rachel:
That's a helpful thought that you can think or, "I'm allowed to have my own tastes and my own mind." And here's another one, "By setting boundaries with her, I'm getting lots of practice, setting boundaries with myself." Listen, you're doing this for you. This is all about you. If she wants to do the work, she can do the work, but you all know she's not going to, okay? You get to do this work. I consider it a privilege to do this work and to help more people do this work. I get to light the path for you guys. Now, I'm going to remind you that although this could take a while to master, it does not take long to learn and implement, to start practicing this.
Rachel:
Because when you decide, you get to decide. When you decide that you are going to move in the direction of setting healthy boundaries for yourself, we're not doing it to other people, you will get lots of practice, probably on a daily basis. Listen, I have boundaries with my dogs and sometimes, as my husband calls it, I fold like a lawn chair because they're just so darn cute. "You cannot have my food, even though you are so cute while begging for it." Now, I have four parts to setting a healthy boundary, and I'm just going to go through these. I'm going to give you some examples, two. So the first one is why. Why do you want to set this boundary?
Rachel:
I will say, if you were trying to set the boundary to change somebody else, that's not boundary setting. That is straight up manipulation. It will not work. It might have unfortunate consequences if your mom looks at it as a challenge. That could happen. So number one is why. Why do you want to do this? Now, this is about you and what you value and what you want to create in the relationship with her, with other people, and mostly yourself. How you want to step into the world. Your why might be quality time versus wasted time arguing, or if you're just...
Rachel:
Maybe you want to stop being the "dutiful daughter." That you just are there for all of it, all things to all people. When you're all things to all people, you cannot be anything to yourself. All right, so number two is you want to make the request, okay? It could be something as simple as, "Don't call me every day." That's a little blunt, but whatever works for you or, "I'm only available after a certain time." Listen, you don't have to make the request. It could be subtle. Just make sure you're clear on the request. You don't want to confuse people. You don't want to assume that they just know automatically because chances are that they don't.
Rachel:
Most people are not going to be able to read your mind. The next one is the action. Know what action you're going to take if the person, if your mother doesn't honor your request. So if you were to say, "Hey, let's talk on Sundays around 3:00," what action are you going to take if she keeps calling you every single day other than Sunday? Maybe you can say, "Look, if she calls it other times, I'm not going to answer." And then the fourth one is you want to state the benefit. Now, you can let her know, you can write this down in your journal, how will it help the relationship? This is really why... It's your why. Why are you doing this? This goes back to the first one.
Rachel:
"When we talk once a week versus five times a day every day or different times, I'll be able to focus instead of trying to do everything, and talk to you, and get my family fed, and do the laundry, and try to have a meaningful conversation." Now, let me make a disclaimer. I have this typed out in bold in my notes, you do not have to make the grand announcement. I know your brain is like, "I'm going to be super dramatic about this." You can do it, but I'm just going to say it might not work out the way you think it's going to work out. This doesn't have to be said the exact way. These are ideas. You can decide and not tell anyone. This doesn't have to be said at all.
Rachel:
You could simply and quietly set the boundary, which is something that I have practiced doing. And it tends to work out for now. This has worked out really good for me. And you could just not take someone's calls until a certain time, or on certain days. And what I started to realize is that I was taking calls and calling. I was doing probably just as much calling as I was receiving, but I was doing it to avoid something else. It was usually my work or this thing that was really hard that I didn't want to do and I'm like, "Oh, I'll just answer the phone." So I had to really look at my own why. And it started to become very interesting, my own pattern.
Rachel:
So I really want you to do this, thinking about this for your benefit, instead of trying to use a boundary against somebody, because that's not really what it's for. And if you do make a grand announcement, something that could happen, one of those unintended consequences, but is very possible, she might take it as the ultimate challenge and make a game out of it. Now, you're going to be very tempted to turn this setting boundaries thing into a long, drawn out explanation. Now, this might be your go-to action in attempt to subtly apologize that you might find yourself backing up a little bit. So I have learned that I started just doing this just for me, nice and quiet.
Rachel:
And this is where you can just create some practice for yourself. So I have another example, and this is one of the most common examples. I'm just going to say it. It is uncomfortable, but some mothers comment on appearance, unwanted comments on appearance. Now, this is very common, which is why I'm bringing it up. Of all the women I've spoken to over the last couple of months, there's a big, I call it body image drama. And for myself, I will tell you that I've said words like, I don't want to discuss my appearance. That's my why. Why? It's my body, it belongs to me, and I'm the one who gets to comment it if I want to. I typically don't want to talk about my appearance, okay?
Rachel:
So the request, which is the second step is discussions or comments about my appearance is off the table. The end or something like, I'm just... I've said these words, "I'm not talking about the way I look. I'm not discussing it." You could say, "Please don't do this again," or I usually follow up, "There's so many awesome things to talk about and fun things to talk about. I don't really want to spend my time talking with you about the way I look," okay? It's very clean. I've made my request. I've given my why. And sometimes if it continues, you might have to take the next step, which is the action. "If you continue to comment on my appearance or my skin are my weight or whatever it is, we'll only be talking on the phone, or we won't be able to go to lunches often because I'm just going to be so uncomfortable.
Rachel:
That's just not the topic I want to discuss." And then the benefit. You can state the benefit. "Look, when you don't comment, we don't have this conversation about the way I look, there's room for more fun, productive conversations," or again, whatever you are comfortable with because all of our situations are different. But that one kind of bubbled up to the top for me, because there's a lot. There's a lot going on. And it could start out as like, "I love your outfit and or, but it would look so much better on you if you just lost a little weight." Oh, my gosh. I'm just like, "Please don't do this." So if those conversations continue with your mom, this is such a great way to, or a great opportunity to start really thinking about, even if you're not going there yet, thinking about how to resolve this for yourself.
Rachel:
Not that they're going to change because they might not. Chances are it's a 50/50, right? And here's probably what you're saying now. "Yeah, you don't know the repercussions if I set a boundary." Listen, I've said all this. I've said the exact same thing that you have. That's why I'm here. "You don't know her. You don't know the repercussions. This will not work for her because she will..." Fill in the blank. "She will give me the silent treatment. She will rage." Let's see. Someone said, "She's passive aggressive and she'll just do it more, or in a weird, sneaky way. She's a narcissist. This is just what she does. She thinks it's her job to criticize." That is giving all the power away to someone else, okay? Or, "If I say something, she'll just do it that much more."
Rachel:
Maybe, I don't know. The sad and most common one, "But she's my mom. I've never, ever told her no. But she's my mom." That is not a reason, you guys. We can love our moms and respect our moms and be our own people, persons, people. You're an adult. You get to decide. Okay. So what? The relationship might be at risk. Maybe. I don't know. Well, this is an opportunity for you to get some practice. Yes, it can be difficult and it might get tricky. You might think that this is too hard. You might think this is just going to be a disaster. Well, you might have to do this more than once. These kind of things take practice. Look at yourself, look at what you have practiced, how you have practiced with your mom up to this point.
Rachel:
This is going to be new for her and new for you, but you're going to get so much practice. You're going to see some changes. So what if she gives you the silent treatment? Decide right now, write it down, what you're going to think if she does. Okay, put yourself into that future self of you. You've set the boundary and now she won't speak to you. Okay, so now what, what's the plan? Put yourself there. Plan ahead of time. Decide what you're going to do and say or not say, right? This is all about you. You can do this or, "She's really going to come at me if I do this." Well, she might. Again, decide ahead of time. Also, can I just remind you that emotions only last 90 seconds?
Rachel:
She gets to have her emotions. She gets to have her own thought process. She gets to pout. She gets to scream. She whatever. You don't have to show up for all of that. Now, you might make some hard, but beneficial decisions for yourself. You might decide to, and there's a big thing out there, it's going no contact. I'm on your front row if you decide to go, no contact, low contact, take a break or continue, but that's probably not why you're here. You're probably like, "I want a relationship and I want to figure this out. I don't want to have to go no contact." Most people don't want to do that. This is going to be hard. You're thinking this is going to be hard. And I'm going to tell, you're making yourself miserable already, okay?
Rachel:
You might as well do the hard thing for you and have your own back. It's going to be difficult, but this short term difficulty versus what you've been doing throughout your whole probably adult life, choose your hard, right? But what you're doing is you're taking steps to put yourself first. How beautiful is that? Now, listen, personally when I started this process, it was difficult because I was making it difficult. I was fighting it. I was trying to arm wrestle this thing, you all. It was not fun. But when I'm just like, "I'm just going to work on myself. I'm going to work on myself, not changing anybody." So what it felt like for me is it felt like, I had put myself in my future self.
Rachel:
I'm going to lose everything. My family's not going to speak to me because I'm setting a boundary with my mom. I'm not going into no contact. I'm just setting a boundary. There are things that she's not allowed to do. That's not okay with me, but in my head, it felt like I was going to lose everything. It felt like I'm going to make people mad. I was afraid of not only her reactions, but the reactions of others who were also afraid or not ready to put a stop to this, to take the steps for themselves. Like I was going to freak people out by just doing the hard thing for myself, and other people were going to get mad at me. I was breaking some kind of rule once again, or I had this other thing in my head like, "Oh no, they're going to feel like they have to pick sides."
Rachel:
No, there's no sides to pick. The side that I'm on is me, okay? So that's just not true. But what I did, I just started working on myself every day, diligently. Yes, there were tears. There was a lot of confusion. There was a lot of things to process, and it was some of the hardest work I've ever done, and the most important work I've ever done for myself. So it's impacted my life in so many positive ways, but I do have to plan ahead of time, and I am no longer going to put up with my own knee jerk reactions of just automatically thinking that the other person has to change. All right, so you might be very, very uncomfortable right now taking about...
Rachel:
Me talking about taking this first step. Of course, you're uncomfortable. You're thinking about it. You're like, "Oh no, no, this is not going to work," but it's okay. It was the same thing with me. You might be highly sensitive. Hey, Impass out there, I know you're still listening. You might have a finely tuned nervous system because of the experiences that you have had. Your body, congratulations, is doing its job. Your fear has protected you in some ways, but this is your opportunity right now to start to give yourself what you were not given. The sense of safety, the sense of you get to make decisions for yourself and own them. You get to be wrong. You get to be right. You get to celebrate. You get to be sad.
Rachel:
And you can be afraid of this big, big thing and develop healthy boundaries. You can do both. Life is 50/50. She may not respond the way you think she should, but she's responding how she's going to respond. So plan ahead of time. So now, I have some real fun, they might not be fun, they're fun for me, action steps for you. I've got two me really simple meditations for you. I'm going to ask you to... If you're driving, obviously don't do these. Wait until get home. Create a space for yourself. I have a meditation station. I set my booty on my meditation cushion and I have it all set up. I get up extra, extra early to make sure I do this, otherwise, I'm not very much fun to live with.
Rachel:
So I know myself, meditation helps. So the first meditation is that, oldie but goodie, the 16 second meditation, where you'll just inhale for your own count of four, and then you'll hold that in for the same count of four, you'll slowly exhale for the count four, and then hold that out for the count of four. Yes, it's about 16 seconds. I recommend doing five, maybe 10 rounds of this. You can set a timer for three to five, 10 minutes. This is a beautiful way to help you fall asleep, by the way. And then if you want to graduate to the next one, if you want to try something new and a tiny bit more challenging, in this meditation, you will inhale. It's a three part breathing exercise. You will inhale for the count of one, hold for one, exhale one.
Rachel:
Then we go to two. Inhale for one, two, hold for the count of two exhale for the count of two. You're going to move up to three, do the process, and all the way 4, 5, 6, all the way to 10. And when you're at 10, you're going to work your way down. Then you're going to go back down to inhale for nine, hold for nine, exhale for nine, all the way back down to one. Here's the little sneaky benefit that's going to come with this. You are counting and breathing and holding and trying to remember what's next. And I know when you're at 10, you can't wait to get to get back down to nine because it's a little bit easier. That whole time, you are regulating your nervous system, which is a bonus. Yay meditation, but you're also not thinking about the drama with your mama.
Rachel:
Listen, you can't think about those two things at once. You're thinking about your inhales, your holding and your exhale. So try either one of those meditations out. I love sharing meditations. And then I've got a writing exercise for you. If you really want to dive in a little deeper, I'm going to get you to get out your journal. I want you to write her name at the top of the sheet of paper, and then you're going to write the boundary that you want to set. Now, your brain is going to say, "Yeah, but if she would just change, if she would just stop doing the thing," the boundary that you want to set is for you. What are you going to do when she says those things?
Rachel:
So you're going to write her name on the top of the sheet of paper, you're going to write the boundary that you want to set, okay? And if you're not sure, just think of the things that you want her to change. And then you're going to write down your why. What will it do for you if you set this boundary? And then you're going to write the why. The why and the request and the action and the benefit. You're just going to go down the list. This is where you get to start. You get to start practicing in your mind. First on the sheet of paper. You get to practice boundary setting in a healthy way.
Rachel:
You might find yourself letting go of some people pleasing tendencies or letting go of some of the labels that you have around your mother like the dutiful daughter. Explore those thoughts. When you do the work with these little things, when you plan ahead of time, these big things, these seemingly big events won't seem so big. They won't seem as uncomfortable. Now, if you could use some more coaching on this, you can go to rachelkhudson.com and click the tab that says work with me and we can schedule a free consultation. Thank you so much for listening today. I will be back next week with more helpful tips, advice and tools so that you can ditch the drama with your mama.
