Welcome to the final installment of the 30 Days To Empowered Self!
Listen to this week’s lesson on Empowered Love Radio
Boundaries are vital. We have all been taught that it is fundamental to look after our houses, cars and bank accounts. But how many people were taught how to protect their emotional self?
The truth of the matter is: How people treat you and influence you is directly affected by your boundaries.
If we don’t have clearly defined boundaries we will inevitably allow treatment and behaviour in our life which does not serve us. We will look to the outside world for our definition of self – and we will hand our power over to others rather than be our own solid source of self.
When we don’t have healthy boundaries in our life we expect other people to supply them for us. The irony is this: they don’t. In fact the people who we wish to grant us safety and emotional security are the people who are most likely to violate our boundaries. The boundaries that we are failing to create for ourself.
We need to understand that these people are in our life pushing (and maybe even throttling) our boundaries for a very good reason. They are teaching us as per their behaviour to establish and execute our own healthy boundaries – which is a vital part of becoming a healthy source to self.
A simple rule about boundaries is this: Whatever you will tolerate will become a part of your reality.
Unhealthy boundaries and co-dependency is deeply interconnected. As you start establishing clear and defined personal boundaries in your life, you will be able to let go of trying to be someone that other people want you to be, and you will start defining who you wish to be in order to create authentic results and happiness in your life. Then you will see that people in your life become much more supportive, genuine and healthy and work with you in win / win ways.
Through my own experience and observing the growth of many people, I see time and time again just how important boundaries are in relation to claiming your authentic power and achieving your goals.
In fact this is vital, because without effective boundary setting, life will hurt you…and for those who have been narcissistically abused, getting boundary setting right is incredibly important, or you could run the risk of keeping defaulting to your painful and fearful belief systems that have caused you so much pain in the past.
The narcissist was your wake-up call to get all of this sorted – and you certainly don’t want to keep attracting the painful lessons because you haven’t.
In the new Quanta Freedom Empowered Self Course there are 3 modules specifically dedicated to releasing the fear of laying boundaries, aligning with what you will and won’t accept in your life and becoming an effective boundary setter.
These Modules are backed with specific Quanta Freedom Healings to really get congruent and solid on an Inner Identity level with boundary setting.
Day 1-3 Identifying Your Boundary Malfunctions Exercise
This exercise is very important. As you will have understood by now as a result of working with the 30 Days to Empowered Self Exercises, we really need to inner investigate ourself in order to be able to make the necessary inner changes.
Virtually all people have had difficulty with boundaries. None of us were educated on the importance of boundaries, let alone how to set them, and we did not know the wonderful benefits of them in our life.
We were all conditioned to just believe that good people have good things happen to them. I love the expression that a subscriber posted recently – that this is like expecting a Lion not to eat you because you are vegetarian. He he!
We all need to understand rather than point the finger to the outside and get incensed and devastated by people’ s poor behaviour that we need to take responsibility, take our power back and ask ourself “What is it about myself that is attracting and allowing this abuse and bad behaviour in my life?”
That is what this first exercise is all about…
Our personal boundaries are not anyone else’s job – they are our own, and people were always going to treat us at a level of how effectively we do or don’t respect ourself.
Before you can work on fixing the areas in your life that you struggle to lay boundaries with, you need to identify what is holding you back from setting boundaries.
I want you to go back into your adult life and think of the times where you have been hurt the most by outside influences.
List these events and the people involved and how you did react ineffectively (such as got hooked in, tried to justify yourself, tried to change someone else’s behaviour, didn’t honour yourself and leave, took responsibility for someone else’s poor behaviour by apologising, or reverted to clinging on if threatened with rejection, abandonment, punishment, being replaced etc.)
Please list these events and write about what you DID do that was ineffective…
Then ask yourself ‘What was the fear within myself that stopped me from honouring myself?’ and write whatever comes up for you.
Day 4 What I Will No Longer Accept Exercise
Having limits is the knowing of what you will and won’t accept in your life. We can only have limits if we clearly define our truth and are willing to back it up regardless of what other people are or aren’t doing.
In personal relationships we need to know what our ‘deal-breakers’ are.
Here is a shortened version of a list that I have firmly in place – after doing a lot of deep inner work on my boundary malfunctions. These were the most severe boundary violations I suffered in narcissistic relationships.
- Pathological lying
- Malicious / vengeful behaviour
- Inappropriate, over-the-top declarations of undying love (love bombing)
- Adultery
- People who smear others
- People who refuse to take personal responsibility for poor behaviour
It’s not hard to come up with our personal list, because these are the things that have come into our life experience which we did tolerate and which have hurt us.
Now it is time for you to decide your reality, and list the things that you will no longer allow to be a part of your reality. Put a lot of effort into this list, make it as long as you like.
Healthy Ways to Say ‘No’
In your everyday life you may experience many times when you are not listening to your emotions and you may say ‘yes’ instead of honouring yourself and saying ‘no’. This may not be necessarily ‘abusive’ situations – although you may find that people are taking advantage of you – because you aren’t saying ‘no’.
For example a next door neighbour may get you to keep picking up her kids from school. Or certain family members have you running errands for them, even though you have your own busy life.
You may not want to hurt their feelings, you may have always struggled with the fear of what people will think of you if you do say ‘no’, or you may have been conditioned to believe that self-sacrificial behaviour is the right thing to do – to give and give until it hurts and then keep giving!
The following list is extremely helpful for you to start realising there are healthy ways to say ‘no’ and honour yourself, in a way that is respectful, and in a way which people will actually appreciate you being up front and direct with them.
It is always awful for people when you become squirmy, indirect, grant false hope or let people down at the last minute because you did say ‘yes’ when you should have said ‘no’, or if you make some false excuse they find out about afterwards, or if you get resentful because YOU allowed this person to use you up when you did not want to comply!
So here are the ways that you can say ‘No’ healthily.
1. I’m not comfortable with that
This is a great way to say ‘no’, because you’re providing emotional honesty by honouring and expressing the truth of what your body is telling you.
2. I have another commitment
It doesn’t matter what the commitment is, it may simply be time with your family, reading a book or having a bath! You have no need to justify or explain what this commitment is! (This is a personal favourite of mine). This technique builds integrity and healthy self-esteem as opposed to lying to get out of something.
3. Something has come up that needs my attention
Don’t feel guilty that you’re letting people down if unexpected things occur that throw your schedule off. It’s ridiculous to offer help when your life requires urgent attention. Know that individuals will find another source of support if you choose not to be available.
4. I’m not qualified for that job
If you don’t feel that you have adequate skills, it’s better to admit your limitations upfront, which if you don’t, could potentially turn into a lose/lose situation.
5. I need to focus on myself/my personal life/my career
You are entitled to focus your energy on any area of your life that you wish to. Don’t feel guilty! It’s a healthy practice to treat your personal time like any other appointment.
6. I know you’ll do a wonderful job
People often ask for help because they doubt their own abilities. Let them know that you have the confidence that they will succeed. You may be empowering them rather than disabling them by making this statement.
7. Not right now, but I can do it later
If you really want to help someone but don’t have time, say so. Offer to help at a later date, and if they can’t wait for you, they’ll find someone else.
8. ‘No’
Sometimes it’s okay to just say no! Especially if other methods of saying ‘no’ are being argued.
The following is in relation to abuse, unacceptable behaviour and of course narcissistic tactics to project on to you, maim you, hook you in or abuse you.
Establish NO CONTACT – pull away, do not engage, and take care of yourself and create boundaries around yourself. Narcissistic behaviour is NOT acceptable in any shape or form, and any interaction you have, such as trying to prove your innocence, get approval or safety, or change the other person’s behaviour will damage you and continue to damage you.
Day 5-7 Reframing Poor Boundaries With Verbal Strategies
This exercise is about the mapping out of how to turn around your previous times of saying ‘yes’ when you really needed to say ‘no’.
Be very clear that engaging in and being present for abuse to take place is effectively saying ‘yes’ to it…
In this exercise I would like you to work on the times in your life, from the simple everyday frustrating ones which drain your energy, up to the most abusive times in your life when you were damaged by bad behaviour.
Make a list of the situations in your life that you have had difficulty in saying ‘no’ to.
Write out what you would normally say and act out in this situation when you hand over your power, and then below it write how you would reframe this situation using the ‘healthy ways to say no’ list above.
1 Week Left to be Eligble For a Quanta Freedom Empowered Self Course
Remember to be eligible to go into the draw for a brand new Quanta Freedom Empowered Self Course you must post your progress questions in each of the 4 weeks in the 30 days To Empowered Self.
I will be closing the draw 1 week from now, on Tuesday the 5th of March 11:59PM Australian EST.
So put it in your diary and make sure you finish your progress questions before Wednesday to go into the draw.
The QF Empowered Self Course is a complete training in your growth and spiritual and personal empowerment.
The course thoroughly (and more deeply) covers the topics we touched on during the 30 Days to Empowered Self as well as many more in over 200 pages packed full of information and exercises for you to go through.
Plus 10 hours of Quanta Freedom Healings to transform and align your belief systems and Inner Identity with who you want to be. These healings can be performed as often as required to create yourself on the inside as the authentic being you wish to be.
Some of the things you will learn in the course are:
- How to become solid and whole within without needing anyone’s approval or validation
- The key to creating healthy and respectful relationships
- How to consciously and deliberately choose your thoughts and feelings
- How to unlock the barriers within yourself that have been separating you from your goals and living a fulfilled life experience
- How to unlock your authentic power and attract what you want from life
- How to attract love, support, integrity and truth from the inside out.
- The 5 key steps to being assertive and laying boundaries with confidence
I will be announcing the prizes a couple of dates after the 5th of March when the Quanta Freedom Empowered Self Course is launched.
Thank You!
Thank you so much everyone for dedicating the time to work on yourself and participating in the 30 Days To Empowered Self.
Working on yourself takes courage, self-honesty and self-dedication. Words honestly cannot describe how proud I am of all of you! I am so happy for you that you have been able to heal and evolve so much!
I am overwhelmed with joy as to how successful this series has been, and I will definitely think about doing more series like this in the future.
Let me know in the comments if another series like this would be something you would like to do in the future, and please remember that I’m always interested in your topic suggestions.
Here are the Progress Questions for you to answer and post this week.
Exercise One:
How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
Exercise Two:
How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore?
Exercise Three:
When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life?
I look forward to answering your responses soon!
Thank you, you have provided such helpful information and comment. You touch all bases and that is very rare. You must be very rich in spiritual gifts to have come so
far and I wish you well in every way and in the healing of others.
I have to agree with Anna because I have experience dealing with alot of gifted therapists and I recognise melanies gift’s too:)
Exercise One:
It was abundantly clear when I reflected on times when I allowed my boundaries to be compromised. For me the bottom line has been that when my boundaries are tested- and when I did not maintain them it was directly related to my personality of fear… fear of powerlessness – specifically that which arises from fear of external sources abandoning me or thinking less of me (worthlessness)= sense of powerlessness. The irony is that EVERY TIME I do not hold true to myself and my boundaries (self integrity) that is the powerlessness. And since participating in this challenge, I have seen how my integrity to self and practice of keeping true is what makes me empowered .. no room for powerlessness there:)That is WOW for me.
Exercise Two:
Writing down and feeling into what I will not accept (using the 6 self integrity mantras) made me feel POWERFUL 🙂 It really is a beautiful transformation to “get it” and apply it.
Exercise Three:
Again I have to say that the 6 integrity mantras are KEY for me in keeping true to myself and my boundaries. I repeat them to myself and it truly has been a wonderful method toward increased awareness of my intention and self integrity. When using this method to reframe, it is extremely empowering..
Mel, I am so grateful for the blessing of these past 30 days. I have additional tools to use every day to continue to AUTHENTICALLY encourage,support, and respect myself.. and when doing so I am able to feel into when my boundaries are being pushed and respond in a way that is my reality and my power. Truly wonderful.
Thank you for these past few weeks, I would welcome and participate in any future challenges.
Hi Rhonda,
Oh yes, this is so very true it is the feelings of powerlessness that can cripple us, and cause us to hand our power over rather than set and hold boundaries…It is great that you have found out what your ‘powerlessness’ was about.
Yay – how gorgeous to replace powerlessness with the authentic power of honouring yourself!
Fantastic result with exercise 2!
That is lovely in exercise 3 you have been able to effectively reframe, and that it feels powerful for you!
You are so welcome Rhonda, and I am so pleased that you have got so much out of these 30 days 🙂
Mel xo
Hi Anna,
you are very welcome.
Thank you for your lovely compliment.I certainly needed to find my answers to heal me…and I am so happy I can help others too as a result of this…
It was all meant to be 🙂
Mel xo
I had the day off today so I spent the day working on my exercises. It’s always nice to relax and spend time working on yourself. Today I read back on some notes my therapist wrote out years ago and it was interesting to reflect back and see how I have been playing out the same patterns.
Exercise One:
This was kind of a fearful/frustrating/sad exercise for me because I realized I have had poor boundary function with every area of my life from family to friends, romantic relationships and work. It was hard to go back and re-live all of it. This has been going on my entire life. It’s so true what you say, I had the misconception that if I was a good person then good things would happen to me. I always believed that what you give you get back. I used to say this to myself all the time. I had no idea that giving too much was a bad thing. I also thought if I gave more to others than myself I was a better person for it. I let people use me and take advantage of me because I thought I was being a ‘good’ person by doing that, and in return good things would happen to me. And quite the opposite kept happening, I kept finding myself in more painful situations.
Some of the reasons for the pain were fear of not being liked, fear of not being accepted, fear of being alone, fear of upsetting others, fear I was not good enough and fear I will hurt others. I was so focused on other people all the time. I thought if I had enough people that liked me then I would be good enough. I was so dependent on other people to make me happy.
Another big factor was I avoided confrontation at all costs, even if it meant taking on the responsibility of other people’s poor behavior. I thought it was easier for me to take it all on than accept there was a problem and hopefully it will go away as a result. What I did not realize is that it had been accumulated inside me this whole time! I never wanted to acknowledge there was a problem; I was safer staying in a space of ignorance.
Exercise Two:
I felt stronger and more powerful. There is a part of me that still wants to play the victim and blame my pain on other people’s poor behavior that I tolerated for so long, but I need to keep reminding myself I LET them treat me poorly. And that if I stay the victim I will keep attracting people that also play the victim (a huge thing I noticed!). Not sure if it was Melanie that said this, but I remembering hearing, “when you change, people in your life either step up or they leave.” I keep thinking about this saying because since I have been in recovery the last 6 months I no longer am friends with the people I used to be friends with and at the same time some old friends I lost touch with have come back in. I am noticing a ‘in with the good, out with the bad’ transition happening. And although some days I am wistful about the people that are no longer in my life, I know in the long run my life will be much more at peace without them. I keep thinking that the ones that are no longer in my life were the ones unable to ‘step up’ sort of speak.
Exercise Three:
There is still a part of me that has to learn how to say ‘no’. I do believe I am a stronger person and am more hesitant on saying ‘yes’ to everything, but I still sometimes worry about what others think and how I might make them feel. With some areas of my life I am becoming quite good at saying ‘no’, but I sometimes do slip and go back to my old habits of committing to saying ‘yes’ before really thinking if I want to do it or not. I think this will just be a matter of practice for me since I am so used to saying ‘yes’ to everything without thinking about it.
It has helped in so many ways to narrow down my close friends and people I can trust. I have cut out most of the ‘toxic’ people in my life, and I really only engage with a couple people that I truly trust. In a way this has helped because I am not so tempted to say ‘yes’ to too many things because there aren’t many people in my life asking me for things anymore. Moving forward, I want to keep it that way. I like only having a few friends I speak to once in a while and the rest of my time can be focused on me and my pursuits.
I was watching on the Oprah channel the other day what Pastor Rick Warren wrote about the levels in which we as humans live. He said we are all living in either one of these three levels; survival, success or significance.
“Survival” being the first level, meaning we are just ‘getting through’ the day, not really living and just barely making ends meet. The second level is “success”, meaning we have obtained enough success to achieve some level of freedom, whether it be monetary or extra time etc. And the third level is “significance”, meaning we are living our true purpose in life.
He was saying that just because people are at the “success” level there is still something missing in their life because they have no reached “significance” yet. He was also saying it’s possible to go from “survival” to “significance” without achieving “success” first.
I found it very interesting because I definitely feel I was living in “survival” this whole time and I am now trying to achieve “significance” and I think it’s more important than achieving “success”. That’s huge for me because I always thought I would be complete if I achieved “success”.
Hi GA,
Wow you have got through so much material here!
I agree – I LOVE days of fully concentrating on working on myself too – it is such a gift to self – and makes outer life go so much easier 🙂
With exercise 1, as hard as it was to face it was wonderful that you did go back in to it, and fully claimed it.
Once we start claiming these unhealed parts truly they do start moving from non-integrated (and playing out to sabotage us) to integrated (dissolving and healing).
You have really claimed them by going into the pain and bringing up the reasons as to ‘why’ this was occurring. Brilliant job 🙂
This is great with exercise 2 that you are really getting aligned with truth – and your solidness to self. Definetely on the right track.
In regard to Exercise 3, yes it will be practice for sure, and if targeted with energetic healing would just come ‘on-line’ as your natural state of being – which is the real honouring and valuing of you without the fear and the pain of the ‘reasons’ regarding why you haven’t.
Being a target now to heal and improve this is totally now doable, because you have the ‘reasons’ to target.
I agree that ‘success’ will not produce ‘self. Outside significance will not either…it has to be authentically ‘internal’…
That is wonderful that you are going for true solidness within!
Thank you so much for your post and your efforts GA 🙂
Fantastic work!
Mel xo
Just want to say I enjoyed your response. I have same issues. Thanks, jan
Yes GA, you nailed it. I just want to add that growing up Roman Catholic certainly shaped my ideas of how being good would be rewarded, and that self-abnegation was deserving of high marks. And, as when I was a child, ‘being good’ would get me things I wouldn’t otherwise have been given; rewards were scarce, and only for ‘good behaviour’ which was often procured under false pretenses. In adulthood this translates into getting taken advantage of. Like that lion metaphor- we vegetarians will get eaten! HA! While the N is superb at pretending to be good! Maybe I’ve ‘been good’ for a bit too long!
Thank you, I had said to my partner more times than I can count… you are in survival mode… Fight mode… surviving isn’t living, I want to live, I outgrew merely surviving years ago… sadly I realize we were both hoping our relationship would catapult us toward living significant lives… something we both wanted but both failed at miserably, especially in our partnership. I really appreciate this input it helped put things into perspective.
I think that I have made compromises of all sorts because of a fear of being alone. There is this guy recently who keeps asking me to go to the casino with him, I have told him no on several occasions because it’s not “my cup of tea”, but he carries on asking , even after I have explained why I don’t want to go there.In all honesty , I am not afraid of him per se, but somewhere in my mind I am questioning is this guy crazy, am I safe with him, why does he not listen and respect what I am saying. It sort of links into a deep fear and insecurity I have but I don’t know where it comes from, although I know it’s part of my wound.I sort of feel it’s something to do with my mum and maybe it’s her stuff and not mine, there is all sorts of abuse in my family ,the very worst and most evil , and I feel like I am becoming more aware on all levels that it is not the true expression of my soul and I no longer need it .
Hi Andrew,
thai is great that you are realising that these ‘uncomfortable times’ are all signals of unhealed wounds and the ‘people’ who are pushing on them are truly meant to so we can heal them…
This man in your life is a gift…
And if you really feel into this uncomfortable / painful feeling he is bringing up – and ask it – you will get your answers.
Mel xo
Hi Andrew,
You are making such breakthroughs in connecting things. It is so good to hear. I feel you will respond deeply to the Narp program when you begin it.
My childhood background is quite similar to yours re the abuse and abandonment you have mentioned.
Not so in the loss of your twin.
Three siblings unknown to me until adulthood, so lost in that sense. No attachment as a child to humans to speak of.
So always enjoy and relate to your posts very much,
Keep up all that hard work. It an out worn cloak now…
The childhood history, being the Abandoned One…in the so called family..I don’t need it now, it’s not who we are Andrew, it’s not our true identity.
So I’m reading about why I choose this all in my pre birth Soul Plan…umm…I’ll let you know when I,m clearer on that! Must be balancing past lives I think. Now I need to learn how to access the Akashic Records.. ….
I really I wish I had known all this thirty years ago ,
Not discover it all now I’m a Great Aunt aka Nanna!
Let’s keep at it.
Do you know that anything we don’t resolve/ make peace with we might have to balance in our next incarnation?
I really don’t want to be stuck with any of this in my next incarnation.!!
Hi Val,
I got the book you reccommended, The souls Plan, and i’m near the end already. Since I made the last post i’ve been feeling really guilty because although there is alot of things happened in my ancestry that are unsavoury , I am not judging it, I realise now the great ammount of love that went into creating all that stuff, so I guess I am just practising forgiveness and non judgement because it is like doing it for myself too. Thanks for listening anyway,and anyone else too
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Yes totally, it really changes one’s perspective.
The change for me is in like you said not judging it means there is no longer the need to make it my identity and sounds like that shift is happening rapidly for you….
Ihave you done any reading on the Akashic Records?
Val
This has been a wonderful process and has really helped me see how far I’ve come and in what areas I still need work.
I would really appreciate any suggestions about the following: My main strategy for allowing people to cross my boundaries in abusive ways is to simply dissociate. I just go into a sort of trance and don’t allow myself to focus on the truth of what is happening. I’ve been doing it since I was little, and when I get that sleepy, trance feeling, I can hardly think a coherent thought. I have been working hard on reciting the truth of various situations to myself, but I need more strategies for staying in the present moment. Zoning out has always been my main method for dealing with abusive men, and I can testify that it is not an effective way to handle things!
Thank you and love to all!
Hi EJ,
I am glad the process is really helping you 🙂
Ok what is happening is that you are ‘checking out’…there is about some wound that your ‘system’ avoids by disassociating…
What you need to do is feel deeply in and find the wound underneath the ‘checking out’. The checking out is just a coping mechanism – it is not the reason for not honouring yourself…
The reason is underneath…
I hope this makes sense. Do you have energetic healing tools (QFH)…because if you do, you can feel into and remove the ‘checking out’ – setting up the goal that it is safe to find what is underneath it – THEN access what is underneath it, and then shift and transform that.
Then you will be free to be present and create boundaries.
I hope this makes sense – and once these shifts are done ‘correctly’ it should completely stop happening.
Mel xo
Thank you, Mel. Yes, I can work with this and as I feel into it, waves of terror come up. I can’t wait to explore and release this. I have an intuition that this is the deep, underlying Wound of Wounds, and now I am ready to face it!
Hi EJ,
That is wonderful you wish to face it and be free – that’s what it is all about for all of us, facing these biggest wounds and transforming them – and then we are free 🙂
Mel xo
Hi Mel,
I am so much grateful to you…it may sound odd knowing of my medical field in Psychiatry…yet I got poisned and wrecked by NPD.BPD wife….I am recovering…..hanging there….I have not missed anything from your postings….I just wanted to thank you for all you have provided….
Hi John,
you are so welcome.
Truly all the knowledge in the world is no defence!
It is all to do with what unhealed parts we have not got to yet!
Our mind / choices will always find a way to excuse the knowledge (logic / training) and keep lining up with our unhealed parts…(until we heal them :))
You are so very welcome, and I am so pleased you are recovering 🙂
Mel xo
Hi Melanie! This was a great exercise. Til I started working with you I did not even have a concept of what boundaries were. The first exercise was very enlightening and I was able to define very clearly where my boundaries were weak or even non existent. The reasons are very clear and as I worked backwards through my collection of dysfunctional relationships I could see the pattern emerging..fear of abandonment, fear of being alone, needing to gain love and approval from outside..
Exercise two was very empowering! My list was quite long and as I was writing it I could feel a very strong sense of creating boundaries that felt good and right for me.
Exercise three .. also empowering!I feel that now I not only have clear boundaries in place but that I also have clear strategies for maintaining those boundaries… and I feel good about that.
This has been very illuminating and I also see now how that if I had not had that excruciating awful experience with the Narc, I would not have been able to define these boundaries so clearly. I actually feel a deep sense of gratitude for this experience (I never would have believed I would reach a point where I could acknowledge that! But I have)
I feel transformed and free. I feel so much more in touch with myself, more in love with myself and my life is going in a direction I never would have believed possible.
It feels like a miracle!
Thank you so much you darling lady for making that happen. I could not have come so far without you. Blessings and love xxx
Hi Carolyn,
I am so pleased you are now understanding ‘what’ boundaries are. I totally relate I previously had no idea either!
That’s great you can see the patterns that poor boundaries allow to happen in our life.
Yay – I am so glad that exercise 2 felt empowering for you!
Same for exercise 3!
Wow – this is big – because when we do bring focus to, and start healing self, then absolutely we can understand it was all so meant to be!! 🙂
I am soooo happy you are getting so much out of your self-work lovely lady, and you are so VERY welcome!
Many blessings and love to you too Carolyn…
Mel xo
Hi Mel,
We are having an ‘interesting’ problem with boundaries with a new contractor in our workplace. He persistently invades the personal space of all the staff, especially (but not limited to) pressing himself up against the back of our chairs when he comes over to our desks to talk to us. He also likes to poke female staff in the ribs and punch us on the shoulder.
I personally told him to back off, and he did for a while but he’s slipping back into old habits. He even told another female staff member that complaints have been made about him in other workplaces.
I thought he was saving this revolting behaviour just for female staff members until he started having conversations about an extremely personal/intimate medical procedure, with anyone that would listen (my male boss included). He didn’t tell me specifically, but had a detailed and graphic phone conversation with a medical clinic while seated at a desk next to mine, so I couldn’t help but overhear. But for those fortunate (or unfortunate?) enough not to be sitting so close, he had to actually go and tell them directly, with all the graphic, intimate details. Everyone was so horrified that they didn’t really respond (I guess they are not accustomed to defending their boundaries from such attacks either) so he never really got the metaphorical slap in the face that his behaviour warranted, from anyone.
I know this is a bit off-topic for your website, but it is interesting that I’m the only one who has personally defended their boundaries with this person, so your program is obviously sinking in with me, but I’m not sure how this scenario specifically relates to my own personal history since everyone seems to be a target. But how do we deal with this kind of thing when it’s so blatant, so indiscriminate, and in a workplace setting? And when he doesn’t get the message? We’re only a small business so no HR department or policies or handbooks to fall back on.
And what kind of person behaves this way anyhow? I’m not assuming it’s NPD but is it indicative of a disordered personality?
Hi Amy,
Yes this is a very interesting situation.
As you stated the people there are not defending their boundaries – so therefore the dynamic of people are ripe for such a character to emerge…and every target is feeling the uncomfortable feelings or NOT standing up for themself – presenting a true healing opportunity of boundaries – if they choose to accept.
I would request a meeting with boss, and others if possible so that he can be directly confronted regarding his behaviour.
Truly I don’t know enough about him to classify. Very poor peripheral, very poor respect of boundaries, his own and others – narcs are generally a lot more sneaky than that to go after narcissistic supply.
See what you can do about speaking up – and if you don’t have the ability to do that – then absolutely keep doing what you are personally (it’s great that you are) and allow others to have their own boundary setting healing oppurtunities.
Mel xo
Hi Mel, another great week and I have to say, for me, the whole 30 days exercises came in perfect order as what I uncovered in exercise one this week, would have probably been too painful for me to look at at the start of the month; however, it is a testament to how far I have come on since then because I was able to look at my ‘findings’ this week without them crippling me.
Exercise 1.
Well, what can I say, I clearly had NO boundaries, in fact, the more my non-boundaries were violated, the harder I clung on and I find it astonishing, seeing it in black and white like that, the lengths I went to try and hang on to the so called relationship, having been single for almost 15 years prior to this I would never of imagined that I could behave that way and when I went in deeper and then deeper what was revealed to me was that I thought I was nothing, literally, nobody, nothing, non existent and so on seeing this, I was able to see clearly why I would hold on to something I thought was giving me at least some kind of status/identity in this world. I remember talking to a friend quiet some time ago about how I realised that what I had been doing was ‘handing my power over’ but it is not enough to just know this or think you know it, you have to keep going deeper and deeper until you get to the core of it so although I found this exercise a little shocking, I am also very grateful to it, I never before realised that I actually saw myself as ‘nothing’!!!
Exercise 2.
This exercise was very empowering and now I am understanding more about boundaries I can see how it is a no brainer to have them and it was pretty easy to write the list about what I wont accept in a relationship anymore and it feels like by the time I do get into another relationship it would be impossible to NOT have these boundaries and I am already practicing them in other areas of my life and it feels great. Its so liberating asking myself – does this feel good, does this feel like something I want to do and I am asking myself these questions without thinking now!!!! Finding your website, working the NARP program and now this has all fit into place perfectly as I have been kind of isolated from the world for quite some time now and now I am reintroducing myself to life but with all these new skills and awareness, its fabulous. It actually now seems ridiculous to even imagine that I would continue to be in the company of somebody who chose to lie to me or behave in anyway that I would now find unacceptable!
Exercise 3.
It felt great re-framing my responses on paper and it was especially great to use your examples of being clear and to the point rather than making excuses or giving reasons, what I found was that even if the reasons are genuine, they’re not necessary and in fact when I give reasons I don’t feel as confident and it actually leaves room for me to question/doubt myself so I am going to practice just being very clear and saying no without justifying that to anybody, including myself. I think it will take a little practice but already recently I have had a couple of opportunities to say no and on each occasion I have first of all said I will have to think about it and then I said no but with reasons but that’s ok, I feel great that I even said I would have to think about it and then I said no so maybe next time I will be able to say no without giving a reason. I will write out the ways you have given us of saying no and I will post them on my wall along with the other stuff I have written out so I can look at them daily until they are my natural response. Of course I will try to balance this with helping where and when I can but at the moment I am still in recovery and I’m not going to compromise this time in order to help others but one day I will be glad to be in a position where I can be of help to others without it being a detriment to me.
Thank you so much Melanie, I think your actually a genius as well for the way the 30 days were organised and I really do believe that I am making real solid progress in my life, well I know I am because even the daily mantras we started at the beginning, I am not able to get up or go to bed without saying them, I really am not giving up on this until I truly am in my own power, I still have resistance to doing this work at times but I recognise that and just give myself a little talking to and then get back on with it or give myself a little break and then get back on with this ~ I just remind myself that my life is nothing without getting to the bottom of my non existent self esteem/healing and learning new ways of being so I have to put the effort in now.
Thank you so much.
Hi Karen,
Isn’t it incredible when we start to dissect boundaries, how we really do discover how we didn’t have them?
This is fantastic that you were able to go to the core wound to discover ‘why not’.
It absolutely feels and sounds like you are shifting powerfully – well done!
Yes, practice and continuing to work on your ‘inner’ will make boundaries easier, and easier and valuing and honouring self will become your true way of being 🙂
Karen, I love hearing your level of commitment, and I know you truly do mean it! I love that you are claiming the transforming of your life with both hands, taking full responsibility and doing the work – this is the total recipe of healing and becoming your authentic self..
You are so, so welcome, and I am so pleased you are getting so much out of these processes as well as what NARP has done for you 🙂
Bless!
Mel xo
I was at a meditation retreat earlier this evening where there “Isn’t it incredible when we start to dissect boundaries, how we really do discover how we didn’t have them?” was a similar beautiful discussion about the second quality of mindfulness…learning to look at that feeling “hmm….upon dissection i see that i don’t have any boundaries here” without REACTING but feeling curious and looking more deeply as you suggest over and over….Though you add the wonder and creativity and wise use of the energy available to us now with QFH. You are truly awesome, Mel. Meaning we are all truly awesome because what you are doing is being you True self! Of course it has your wonderful beautiful personal stamp that is You being You! Thank you truly for being a way shower for us to live the wonder and delight of what we are and what is.
Hi Living The Dream,
Hun yes we are all truly ‘awesome’ once we claim our Truth and heal the parts of us that feel much less then whole….
Thank you LTD…what other way is there to live, if we want to be free? You are sooo welcome, and I am so pleased you are truly feeling the energy of your True Self, that is glorious 🙂
Mel xo
Hi mel
I would like to express my deep gratitude to you for all your dedicated work In helping people and myself recover and heal ! I have worked hard on myself for the past 6 months once i’d established no contact ! I knew i was totally dedicated when i changed my mobile number so as to not risk any contact from him and blip! I have discovered and been honest with myself about where I had very little if any boundaries. Tho with a narc they’ll push them regardless! I discovered that once you set up boundaries narcs really don’t fit into your reality. I have pulled away, healed and will never compromise my health Again!!!I don’t feel I need to prove myself or get validation from outside of myself because I am now loving , loving me! I can now without an emotional charge on the experience know I truly loved him but realise the love I have for myself is a healthy one ! At first when looking after myself and healing felt a bit alien it has now become a part of my everyday life! I feel alive !! Thank you once again you are a true inspiration !
With love x
Hi Victoria,
thank you for your lovely words, and you are so welcome…I am just so pleased my material has been able to help you 🙂
This is so fantastic that you have become your own source of validation and love – this is key, and by the very nature ‘of that’ – you cannot be a match for a narc – they are no longer your reality.
Narcs are the entire model of no ability to be any self-validation or self-love, as no True Self exists – it has been totally engulfed by the False Self.
What we learn from this experience, if we choose to take responsibility and heal is that our ‘love’ for the narc was ‘love for a mirage’ – there was no ‘real’ person there to love, and what this really meant (when we go deeper) is that we had not yet genuinely learnt what it was to love and validate ourself..
This was why we so susceptoble to falling in love with something that did not exist…
You are so very welcome, and I am so glad you feel genuinely alive – this is also a ‘vibration’ which puts you on a completely different level to a narcissist.
Narcissists literally are ‘dead’ unless they have narcissistic supply relecting back and granting them a ‘self’ (I need outside energy to know I ‘exist’)…
You truly are becoming your authentic self – the true “I am” energy – which is joy and Life and Oneness!
And that is glorious….:)
Mel xo
Hey Melanie!!
Exercise One:
How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
When i found your website, i was literally crippled by pain following and ended relationship with a Narc.
Well today i was thinking loudly as i spoke to my sister and enquired about my brother and sister in law who i havent spoken to in a while. I went on to call them but i guess due to time difference they could not answer. THEN THE PAINFUL EMOTIONS SURGED AND I COULD NOT IGNORE THEM!!!!! Then i realized how i had handed over my power to them hoping to be cared for, loved and adored Only TO BE Severely ABUSED WHEN I NEEDED THEM MOST BECAUSE BEING CODEPENDENT, I EXPECTED THEM TO DO Every Thing FOR ME!!!!
How true Melanie, when you expect others to provide you with love, faith, acceptance and security, you are most likely to be HURT!!!!!!!!!!!
So i am old enough to be a mother and i could not stand up for myself……..Am glad, i do not have any children as yet cause i would have INJURED AND HURT and broke them just the way i was broken!!!
I feared laying boundaries because the only way i KNEW LOVE WAS By being WHAT OTHERS WANTED ME TO BE!!PERIOD!!!! There was no OTHER OPTION FOR ME GROWING UP AND AM CLAIMING AND OWNING UP My WOUNDS CAUSE I WANT TO HEAL AND HEAL GOOD!!
Exercise Two:
How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore?
I began by saying to myself that i will not tolerate black eyes, swollen cheeks, etc from being hit by a Man……I dont know what script to follow to execute these but i will start with the independent Mantras…Second, i will not tolerate being taken for a ride, i will stand up for myself and remove myself from any situation that compromises my mental integrity and self perception….
Next i will not tolerate lies… I will walk away and cut off people who lie to me….I have never done anything like this before!! i feel like a Rock Star!!!The Rock Star i thought existed in the Narc!!!
Surely, it was deep wounds from my family of ORIGIN THAT I KEPT REPLICATING WHEREVER I WENT!!!!!!!!!
Exercise Three:
When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life?
Honestly i will need to come back to these articles over and over again particularly when i feel not centered. It is only through the EMOTIONAL PAIN AND STRUGGLES THAT i have been able to know that i have unhealed wounds. I may falter but when i get centered, i usually know what to do…
My desire is to NEVER BE Physically ABUSED AND THAT IS Why AM GOING DEEP DOWN EVEN WHEN TIRED TO DO THE WORK…..Every day as i continue to heal these wounds, i feel more ENERGETIC, Happy AND COMFORTABLE IN My SKIN!!!!I COULD NOT TRADE THIS FEELING FOR Anything!!!!
Thank you Melanie!!!!!!!!!
I have ways to go, but at least now i have a sense of sanity and being…I want to protect and love myself the best way i can learn how and know how…….This is a journey to freedom and i sure NEVER want to go back to THE HELL I CAME FROM!!
Hey Rachel!
Yes, it is so true that when we have this expectation of others, rather than being that source to ourself – we will always be let down. This is a wonderful awareness that you understand now 🙂
This is great that you have been able to define what you will no longer tolerate in your life – fantastic…and knowing that you are worth so much more.
I am so thrilled that by facing the pain, you are emerging each time healthier and more solid – that is exactly what happens when we are truly committed and doing the inner work.
You should be incredibly proud of yourself Rachel, your application to ‘self’ has taken great courage and conviction, and the results are truly paying off! 🙂
Bless!
Mel xo
Exercise One: How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
I notice a belief that I have not “handed my power over” and it feels like a soul belief. The soul memory of times I truly did not have the power to stop what was happening (you suggested this was back in my time line in week 1 and I emailed you. I am not sure if you didn’t get it as I sent twice, but never heard back from you) is my reality. No amount of pep talking myself into believing I have the power to control what happens to me can change the reality that I do not always have that power.
It feels like a second arrow I wound myself with when I am hurt and then blame myself for it happening, because it’s my fault, I made it happen from inside of me. Like the person above with a perpetrator at work victimizing everyone in the workplace…how can ALL of them be to blame for his behavior because they are creating it from inside of themselves?
Absolutely there are some situations where I can say No and it works. And I am going to try more explorations as well. I notice though in efforts to work on it that our world here (perhaps our classroom?) has truly included for me times of outside influences being more powerful than me. Feeling I attracted or allowed it doesn’t feel true at this point due to the old soul wounds and a sense that I was innocent, it wasn’t about having been ineffective.
I appreciated very much the opportunity to feel into what is real for me about “good people have good things happen to them.” I have been wanting to read Victor Frankl I think “Man’s Search for Meaning” as week one you mentioned 7 Habits of Effective People and I scanned the start of my copy again. Covey refers to Frankl as a person who was in a concentration camp on his way to death when he found a way to accept what was happening not as a victim, to be in the power he did have while accepting the power he didn’t.
How to do that is my question as I am not at a place of feeling I control everything from inside. I need to be responsible for my inside AND it doesn’t seem that means I control all of my experience, outside influence.
The most clear feeling I have had so far is that clear, defined personal boundaries are a commitment to live a spirit guided life committed to divine destiny, to participating fully. That I can know ahead of time what that is? Does mystery play a hand? Or this other reading I saw above about our Soul planning it’s learning? I prefer that I can make it all as I wish, Light, Love, Safety…and I don’t know where the unknown fits there, the Sacred Mystery…which feels like it gets to play a pretty big hand. (Maybe religious upbringing is deep here…catholic church many, many years.)
I really dislike feeling like I could escape the discomfort of the Mystery and make it all light and Love and I am just unwilling (“bad”/wrong/lazy/spiritually ignorant)….are there people who are truly finding they are able to control all of their outside experiences?
Again glad to explore these questions here and see what Truth they reveal…Thank you, Melanie.
Blessings to All. <33
Hi Living The Dream,
Yes I beleive for all of us = things do get set up in our timeline.
I am so sorry I haven’t seen your email. I did receive emails from others reagrding our conversation back in week one, but did not see yours. Can you please try again to [email protected]….I hope I didn’t miss it, and I deeply apologise if I did…
Re the victimsing in the workplace situation he will ‘target’ those people who are not standing in their power, and will leave alone the ones who do lay boundaries…
This is very true that we don’t ‘control’ outside influences, we actually don’t have any control over ‘the outside’…what we do have control over is how we respond to outside events. How effectively is always in relation to ‘where we are’ on this topic within ourself.
The more unhealed wounds we have relating to the event then the less effectively we will respond – and in fact we will react to it…And the more likley it is to keep presenting in our expereince until we do heal our wounds in relation to it.
I believe there is an element of ‘unknown’ absolutely – and I feel that the creative part of us is always given the opportunity to be more aligned with Soul truth (which does include what our desires are)and we are given all the opportunities to define and become our truth.
I hope this makes sense 🙂
Mel xo
Hi Mel
The total lack of boundaries for me stems from being an only child with a mother who emotionally and psychologically abused me, enmeshed me and used me as an extension of herself. As an only child with a single mother I had no other model to understand this was far from normal. I retreated into fantasy worlds and dissociation without knowing I had done so. Of course abuse was natural for me so as I began having relationships that were abusive I didnt expect anything else. However, I did somehow have enough self respect to leave my alcoholic husband and later a severe NARC live in BF so I had something within but then I would start to second guess and blame myself for what happened, beat myself up, feel guilty for being so stupid as to go there in the first place and expose my son to such horrible environments which he in turn thought was normal.
Why did I do this? fear of not being good enough, of being abandoned, and of life in general. ALthough I am alone now and working too rebuild what is left of life, I feel a deep deep terror of managing general existence. I just feel I cant manage it – earning a living, paying the bills, making friendships work – I feel like a fake. I want to hide and run away which I have done my whole life. Run away and start over on the other side of the world – while I’m unpacking and starting over I have an excuse for why I failed and why Im not functioning like other people.
I understand how I kept drawing NARC relationships to me. I even did it recently living with a NARC landlady but I gave notice and left after two months. Even though I had spent time protecting myself energetically from her, I still noticed huge emotional damage which shows how much worse negativity can occur in love relationships like this. I never honour my heart source and listen to my inner self. I dont trust her. I had huge resistance to moving to the new place after I gave the deposit but I just squashed it and told myself I was afraid t start over. At lea a correct fashion. However, what I dont understand is the random terrible things that have happened to me.
Worst of all my son was abducted by his father who becasue he couldn’t get him across the US/Canadian border without my permission, accused me of hitting him and engendering horrible court battles. I felt that I had dealt with NARC ex clearly and without getting into battles. When he said we could sort it out without lawyers I agreed thinking it was more whole. Instead he was hiding his income and lying and left me struggling and working too hard so that I was away from my son too much.He was so furious that I left him, he spent the next 9 years plotting how to get our son away from me. SOmehow I pulled this toward me = I know the helplessness attracts some NARC partners but I have this collapse from exhaustion in dealing with life. Even when Im doing well, I cant keep it up. I get terrified of losing everything again and just plain exhausted. I look at others working and keeping going for decades and lifetimes and wonder why they dont collapse from exhaustion.
Hi TJ,
Yes, what you described with your mother is a very common form of not being able to define boundaries.
This is great that you are getting to what the feelings of powerlessness are all about – because it is only be claiming them that they can diminish.
The security fears and fear of devestation and loss can be huge for many women – it truly is often imprinted into our DNA – and from my expereince it is the targeting of these fears with energetic healing that can transform them into the knowing that life and Source does support, we can create and life does ‘have our back’.
It can be very difficult logically to imagine how we can ‘have’ these beliefs, or create them – when this has not been our previous experience.
Which all comes back to the knowing and aligning with the power of being a Creator – which is ‘we need to believe it to see it’…so working on transforming our fearful beliefs is our only true solution in order to be able to create a different reality.
Your stuff TJ, has been hard, and for many people it has been – incredibly so. But I do beleive that we weren’t given more than we could deal with – and we can heal.
Thank you for working these exercises through and being honest with yourself and posting here…
Hugs…
Mel xo
Hi Mel
I would just like to say how happy I am to be in this little community and greatful to be receiving the support I am , as I am sure everyone else is too.
0
Exercise 1,
My boundary malfunctions are quite simple really for me to think of. I think I used to feel that I never reacted in a way that built a healthy ego sense of worth or made me feel like a hero in situations where I handed my power over.I read something not long back that adrressed this problem in my way of thinking and it’s like sometimes we don’t react the way we would have liked because we kept ourselves safe inorder to prosper at a later date. Also I think that our souls and guides will give enough prompts for us to take necessary action if we are in danger and we will only be given challenging situations if there is a lesson to learn or if we are not learning our lesson.One example for me is that I went into the city when I was about 14 to buy a new jacket. I knew this bunch of older boys and one of them bumped into me on purpose and pretended that he had dropped some drugs down the drain. He blamed me for it and made me use the money I had to buy a new jacket to buy him some new clothes to replace his lost drugs.I could have run away but he put me off by threatening to stab me if he ever saw me again. At one point I could have told a policeman that was close by , but I kept on thinking that he might get me at a later date.Another boundary malfunction is around my cultural identity. Being mixed race has been challenging especially as I look ambiguous, I could pass for anything from a latino,southern european, asian or arab. I grew up in a white family and my ethnic origins were not really an issue until I got to about 9 or 10 years old.The social services began insisting that I do what was called identity work and learn about my ethnic origins.Although in the long run I feel this was to my benefit , it felt like it drove a wedge between me and the family I lived with. All of a sudden my brothers and sisters were calling me racist names and their behaviour toward me was very rejecting and I took it to heart. Since then it’s almost as if every work situation I have been in has been a repeat of this rejection playing out. I found people that were stuck in attitudes about asian people from colonial times and I was just never resourced enough to deal with it because it was so comfortable and familiar,and I had the beleif that I know they would reject me if they knew who I really was. The thing now is that my soul is tired of the fear of rejection and any attempt to mask my feelings feels like I am losing my soul. I feel more aware now to listen to my feelings and risk stepping out of what is familiar into something new and fresh that embraces who I am instead of wanting to keep me as a second class citizen.
exercise 2
I think my issues have mostly played out in work situations with authority figures rather than intimate relationships.I guess the only thing left for me to do is find some form of self employment.
exercise 3
I guess that it is more about being genuine and authentic and in that way I avoid the triggers for handing over my power.
In relation to the race issue that I’ve mentioned , I am trying to cultivate an attitude of “so what”, because if you react to other peoples negative attitudes in a negative way your sort of supporting their beleifs that their must be something wrong with you because you’re not like them.I beleive in freedom of speech more than I do in any right I may have to control someone else or thier point of view, so I don’t seek to change others, I seek self love that creates a new reality.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I am so pleased you are enjoying the exercises and this community – that is lovely!
It is very true that our ‘inner’ has usually a survival program that is linked with the ‘event’ that is playing out (often way our of proportion) to the actual event – that is if we react destructively.
Or we may be numbed out to ‘accept’ something rather than know it is not okay…and this will be to do with ‘survival’ as well.
It is powerful Andrew that you are claiming the wounds of your childhood and the ‘racist’ discrimination – because by validating and ‘soothing’ (accepting)your pain regarding this – absolutely you can heal it.
This is wonderful that you can choose not to react to the outside, and allow others to ‘be their views’ and know it dos not need to affect your identity ‘how YOU feel about you’. What you will discover is that when you no longer have the trigger, (when you have healed it) these events will get less and less.
Mel xo
Another good article.
Consider also that if one has been in a relationship with a narcissist/narcissitic personality type/other toxic personality there’s a good chance that your social network, at least those parts regularly involving that person or that person’s friends & acquaintences, will be somewhat dysfunctionl–often in subtle ways. Also, a narcissitic personality (say one’s ex partner) can often induce dysfunctional dynamics into a group, even including your old friends.
Breaking free & restoring one’s boundaries (which often are not that significant of an issue) can be greatly facilitated by getting a new social network — or working discretely to build a new one before breaking free.
Very often, some elements of one’s boundaries are influenced by the values & behaviors of the group one is in. Many groups are like dog packs–each member has a role & position in the “hierarchy” and if/when one starts to make adjustments the reaction can be concerted, and very subtle & subconscious by all involved, to maintain the status quo. That, too, can really mess with one’s mind, and you might not realize its happening.
In management there’s a toxic dynamic called Groupthink–in which the group self-regulates information to ensure a desired decision/course of action, even it its doomed to fail.
Another is the Abilene Paradox–where a group will, out of a desire to maintain what the members think is harmony, reach a decision for a course of action that everybody doesn’t want (i.e. instead of agreeing on something to do that some really would enjoy & others are only slightly interested or indifferent–they choose the thing that everybody dislikes, maximizing group dissatisfaction).
Hi Ken,
that is very true that narc posion is insidious and does infiltrate often a large radius.
I totally agree that No Contact involves all acquantainces and contaminated people – and the establishment of new healthy and unaffected individuals – as well as the retaining of uncontaminated friends / family.
Thank you for this point and the mention of these references which people can look up.
Mel xo
The Ordeal of the Whistleblower http://fairwhistleblower.ca/wbers/wb_ordeal.html really outlines what happens when you blow the whistle on the N.
Stunning. It’s not you, it’s them, and the institutions that back them up. But, we still have to blow that whistle- I’m convinced of it. And with Melanie’s insights and website and information, we do not have to feel alone!
Hi Mel, did quite well with identifying my boundary malfunctions and am certain I will never again be the recipient of such insidious abuse. It all seems like an unreal nightmare when I read back to myself my years with my ex narc. This was the big wake up call as I also documented abuse from my parents and sister and to a lesser degree co workers and bosses. My boundaries were non existent. I thought I was such a good person and could not understand why repeat undesirable situations kept occurring. Wow, I am so empowered now and am very aware of the reasons for my previous pain and fear. Poor boundaries and expecting other people to make me happy plus trying to change myself to make others happy and stop them from not loving/liking me or abandoning me has been the problem all along. I was brought up and socialised to be this way. Well those days are over. Thank you Mel xx
Hi Jane,
That is great that you felt confident identifying the boundary violations 🙂
It is incredibly liberating when we do finally understand that ‘being a good person’ has very little to do with boundary setting….We need to be ‘a good person with effective, clear and self-honouring boundaries’ in order to have a ‘good’ life!
I am so thrilled these days are over for you Jane! Wonderful 🙂
You are so welcome!
Mel xo
Exercise three –
I feel both empowered by having tools to deal with difficult situations but at the same time feel it may be hard for me as experience has so far shown this. Recent dealings left me shaking with fear in standing my ground with others who were hurling abuse and other tactics in order to shake me. But I believe the program will show me how not to get involved with these personality types in the future – we simply won’t be a match.
At other times, I am afraid of being victimized and have a tendency to stand up for myself hard rather than in the calm centred way I had visualized – I am afraid of being overwhelmed, engulfed, beaten down by certain people. I want to let this go. I look at other people and think “I bet you never have these sorts of problems with people in life”, it just wouldnt happen to them so somehow I must be drawing it, creating it but I havent yet worked out why totally. Every time it seems to be working, it slips off again.
I feel like a different person over the last decade – a person I never would have thought existed inside me but I am really determined to battle out of this feeling of victim. I have learnt a new word – Response Ability – To have the Ability to respond in a manner that creates the desired outcome.
Hi TJ,
It is really important to understand that the experiences we have had – when were powerless – definetely left trauma and residue. We need to heal that out (if we have the tools to do it) to then have a better ‘platform’ to start with.
Then if we have cleaned up the unhealed wounds – (the trauma and the beliefs / experiences) which caused and drive these wounds (reactions) then it is so much easier to drive the shiny new car (the new beliefs) into our garage.
Then it is so much easier to respond effectively…absolutely.
Mel xo
Exercise One: How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
ANSWER: My life has been fraught with me reacting ineffectively. It has never been about me or what I need or want. That’s just how it’s always been … that’s how I was taught to be. My life has apparently been to serve others and all I do is get stepped on as a result … but this behaviour is going to stop immediately. I now understand how important it is to define who I want to be in order to create authentic results and happiness in my life. It’s up to me!
Exercise Two: How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore?
ANSWER: It feels great. It’s final, it’s set, that’s it … no more!!
Exercise Three: When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life?
ANSWER: I know how important boundaries are but I feel like this is going to take some time for it to feel comfortable/natural … but practice makes perfect. And again, I’m worth it!
Thanks again, Melanie. I feel so much stronger already!
Hi Chantal,
That is great that you have recognised how important it is to define who you wish to be – great stuff!
Yay re setting your limits of what you will no longer accept! 🙂
Yes, Chantal they do take practice and the more we work them through energetically – such as with QFH the easier they become ‘normal’ as well…
I am so pleased you feeling so much stronger, and you are very welcome!
Mel xo
Hi Mel, Ex 2, how did you feel about writing out what you will no longer accept in your life anymore. I felt relieved to see the list as these things have been in my subconscious for months and I have not addressed them. I have decided to leave my part time employment and focus fully on my business and allow myself some down time as a result of this list. I have felt resentful with some aspects of the list and kind of blamed others for taking advantage of me. I have actually allowed this to happen. Many things on the list I have dealt with in the past week or two. I have said no to requests of others and their lives have gone on and I have honoured myself. I am also taking more responsibility in areas of my life and am going through fear to joy. Thank you again. I am seeing so many changes in myself and my attitudes to life thanks to this 30 day challenge. A friend at work said to me last week that she has seen dramatic changes in me since a year ago. This is largely thanks to your guidance. Ex3 when you reframed your boundary malfunctions to say no, did it feel empowering or a struggle. Honestly it felt difficult for some and others were easy and felt right. But the more I put these boundaries into practice, the easier they become. XXJane
Hi Jane,
This is great that you have got your list down, and that you have relaised that the power lies with you – no longer accepting this stuff in your life.
Lovely that you are moving forward into joy and personal freedom. That is so wonderful that you have got so much out of this 30 Day Challenge 🙂
Mel xo
Exercise One:
How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
I can see it happening when I let it happen. I am becoming increasingly clear on when and why I allow my boundaries to be violated in real time, and when that happens, it’s easier to remedy it right then and there, and as a result my self-esteem has increased greatly. Fear of abandonment, rejection and disapproval are the biggest things for me, as well as the belief that I am ‘better’ than whoever is busting through my boundaries, therefore I can extend them ‘grace’ and be more ‘flexible’ and allow the boundary violation. I also expected others to be responsible for me therefore I felt the need to let them call the shots. Not anymore!
Exercise Two:
How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore? It’s an affirmation of previous weeks’ exercises and it feels wonderfully validating, that I am on the right track. I discovered this past week that I still have some blind spots, but now that they’ve come to light I can more fully honor those boundaries and be aware. The sense of confidence and esteem is huge. The biggest things for me were controlling behaviors, ridiculous expectations, and anything that resembles narcissism or codependent behavior in me or others, while realizing that we are all human.
Exercise Three:
When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life? I’ve done a lot of QFH sessions on the underlying fears, so it’s become easier and easier to uphold my boundaries, however going back and re-framing past failures was like a cleansing, a re-writing of the past that includes forgiveness for myself for what did happen. It was cathartic. I also want to share that during my healing journey, I started out with small boundaries, probably because they seemed easier to maintain, and the past week has seen me tackling the big issues for me, and it’s amazing how much more centered and complete I feel, no matter what life throws at me. I still have a ways to go, but I’m getting there. Mel, I can’t thank you enough. Many blessings to you. xoxo
Hi Veronica,
it is so true that with the self-awareness and reframing ourself that we will respond entirely differently – and this is what creating healthy self-esteem is all about!
Fantastic that it is NO MORE to falling into these unconscious patterns!
This is great that writing out your limits was so empowering 🙂
Fantastic that you have been addressing the fears and the issues with QFH because that is where the really powerful shifts can take place – and it certainly does make the job so much easier!
You are progressing so nicely, and I am thrilled you are having powerful results Veronica. Please know you are so welcome 🙂
Mel xo
Exercise One:
How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
Yes I have to LISTEN to my inner self!! LISTEN!! Most of what I wrote I can remember my inner voice telling me what to do but I have been too stubborn or second guessing. Yes the pain and fears relate to my other issues identified- no self love and self doubt.
Exercise Two:
How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore?
Liberated, positive and an uplifted ‘clean’ feeling. Why should I put up with that anyway? I now know Im better than that and that I can give myself permission to feel and be better than that.
Exercise Three:
When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life?
It was definately empowering and created a feeling of being in a safe space, like I have permission to be in charge and safe. Its possible I may catch myself out from time to time but I will know better and hopefully rectify my ‘not true to self’ actions. I will at least acknowledge and know better.
Hi C,
Oh yes – how often did we not listen to our inner self and hand our power over instead? This is great that you have been able to get to your reasons as to why you did this!
That is awesome that you had a ‘clean’ feeling – that truly is clarity – and very empowering 🙂
This totally carried on for you in Exercise 3!
Great stuff 🙂
Mel xo
Hello Melanie! Hello everybody!
Here are my answers for this week’s exercises:
Exercise #1: In the past I have accepted treatment and behavior which hasn’t served me because of my fear of feeling lonely. I tend to seek the company of unavailable people because normally there is less competition to earn their attention. I am also afraid of not being good enough and being rejected by people whose behavior could serve me. In reality, people and situations have been a match for my perception of self-worth.
Exercise #2: I was surprised at how quickly and easily I wrote down my list of what I will no longer accept in my life. The more I refelect on this list the more sound and clear it seems to me.
Exercise #3: Reframing my boundary malfunctions regarding healthy ways to say ‘no’ was great because something clicked inside me when I realized that saying ‘no’ to someone is not necessarily hurting that person. Being true to ourselves when we feel we must say ‘no’ in fact helps the other person realign with their own truth because that truth could have never been our false ‘yes’. Both of us will win.
This month’s self-empowerment journey has been very useful to me and I am amazed at how much we can learn about ourselves through journaling! Thank you Melanie!
Hi P,
lovely to say Hi to everyone! 🙂
That is great in Exercise 1 how you saw that these inner wounds were creating a self-fulfilled prophecy (as inner wounds always do!)…great awareness!!!
Terrific that Exercise 2 and your list felt firm and clear…
I love that you have deeply felt the true win-win of honest solid boundaries. When we honour self genuinely we absolutey honour all of life (because Life and us are ‘one’).
Great stuff, and thank you for posting 🙂
Mel xo
For exercise one, I went into my last two relationships, both painful and disempowering for me. My ineffective responses included overlooking hurtful behaviors, stuffing my feelings, going along with a life style that wasnt my own truth. As you might expect, my fear was the fear of losing the relationship, of being abandoned, of being alone and lonely, of displeasing him. I also looked at other boundary violations with non-romantic situtions and there I found the fear was of making the other person mad, not being perceived as “nice” and of being percieved as selfish. I think this is standard co-dependency behavior on my part.
Writing about what i will not accept anymore felt like making a laundry list of the bad things that happened in my relationships. The behaviors they displayed that hurt so much are the behaviors I cannot afford to accept anymore. It felt good to have my eyes opened. It felt a little scary that I may always be alone because I perceive those behaviors as typical male behaviors and if I dont accept I will be alone. Then I remembered that as my reality is honored and my integrity falls into place, I will not be attracting those types in the future. I will definitely extend any dating phase longer before I jump in emotionally, I must consider it a Discovery Phase. I expect to do better at this next time around, if there are any next times around. Because I do feel better about being single, it doesnt seem like I have a scarlett “S” embroidered on my forehead anymore. I’m starting to be more comfortable in my own skin and get my groove back.
Reframing my responses: This felt empowering because I have never known how to say no politely. In highschool I would accept a date with someone I didnt lke at all because I couldnt say no. Often my mom would cover for me and tell the guy we were going out of town, or I’d gotten sick, etc. I had no backbone even then. I would say yes and then fret about how to get out of it. I appreciate the list of how to say no. I especially like “I’m not comfortable with that” and “Not right now but I can do it later.” I have added, “Let me think about it, I’m not sure at the moment but I will get back to you on this.” I want to practice these until they become second nature.
The hardest part of enforcing boundries for me will be in not accepting unacceptable behaviors in romantic relationships. I have a high tolerance for overlooking what I dont want to be true. I also fear I might overreact and reject a decent person out of an abundance of caution. No one is perfect. However, on that note, I believe that keeping alert to the behavior, granting a break if there is reasonable doubt, and weighing the entire gamut of their behaviors will help in that area, as well as TRUSTING MY GUT more, you can usually feel if something is truly just not right. Also, taking time to build a relationship, not allowing love bombing to spin a fantasy that blinds me to reality are also what I must do. Overall, this has helped me so much in seeing the need for boundaries and in having the integrity to enforce them and be at one and at peace with the results of enforcing them. Thanks for this very educational exercise!
Hi Cindy,
This is great that you are directly confronting the reasons why you stayed in these relationships – I am sure many people can relate with you – these were absolutely my standard patterns as well…
What you will discover is the more that you work on yourself and heal, the more you will absolutely feel a different vibration, a True Self vibration and you will have all the ability to shift your beliefs regarding men, and your beliefs regarding yourself and your connections with men – then the possibility of abuse will feel so like it just can’t and won’t even happen…(It is totally possible for you to achieve this). And you will be toatlly clear that you are so soild that if it did you would identify it and WALK and not look back!
It is wonderful that you are feeling comfortable being single – because this is an essential platform of self to never tolerate abuse again…so know you ARE doing a great job of creating YOU!
Excellent that you now know there are ways to healthily and assertively say ‘no’.
YES in your last paragraph you are totally on the right track – truly…
Keep up the fabulous work Cindy! 🙂
Mel xo
Exercise One:
I was so amazed to look at my life experience and realize that I have so many boundary violations, a lot of which came from relationships with men. I realized that my need to be loved by a man has made me a subject to lots of boundary violations. I had fears of being abandoned and not being good enough and I also had fears of being replaced by someone better. I realized that these feelings came from my childhood when I really wanted my brother to love me but he was often verbally abusive with me, so in my relationships with men, I try to earn my brother’s love and I put up with abuse thinking that it will earn me that love. That was a huge breaktrough for me.
Exercise Two:
I felt amazing writing out what I will not accept anymore. It was so empowering to list all the things that have made me cringe and feel discomfort but yet for some reason I had allowed in my life and declaring to myself that I will not allow it felt like a huge burden was lifted of my shoulders
Exercise Three:
It definitely felt empowering to me to reframe my boundary malfunctions and I will definitely be more self aware and not allow intrusions in the future. I do hope that I remain firm in this because it is crucial for my happiness and self esteem to not allow others to over step my boundaries. I feel now I have the tools to recognize when there is a boundary that is being pushed and I have ways of effectively dealing with it. It feels great to know it’s ok to stand up for your boundaries, and that I shouldn’t be afraid to do so. Thank you Melanie1 The last 30 days have taught me so much about myself! You are truly a great teacher! Blessings and love
Hi Andara,
Again these inner fears are identical for so many people, and it is great that you were able to claim these inner wounds. Fantastic that you see ‘where they came from’.
Very good that exercise 2 felt so confirming and empowering for you – and that you were able to get very clear with this 🙂
Please know the more and more inner healing that you do on these ‘gaps’ absolutely it will become a solid part of you – that just IS! And you will know your worth and value and not hand it over again. That’s wonderful that you now know you deserve to have boundaries and honour yourself!
You are so welcome Andara, and I so happy that you have committed to and enjoyed these 30 days! 🙂
Mel xo
Exercise Two:How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore?
It was hard. I was raised catholic and I felt like I don’t get to decide what I want and don’t want. God sends things to my life and my job is to be a good christian which generally means unconditional love and not judging my brother.
I also have learned some non violent communication where one learns to see the feeling and the need under the action, so I have a hard time coming up with a harsh judgment.
I feel like I have a silent list of things I know I will need to walk away from…whenever a situation is no longer serving the most beneficial experience for all beings. And I feel that is an alive intuition in a way.
I also see that clearly have some nonverbal agreements and steer clear of certain energies. Writing it out as a list was harder than knowing the silent list is there. That too I may consider to be God giving me real time signals that that’s enough.
Exercise Three: When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life?
This felt like “normal” language for me and most of the time it’s no trouble to say it when it needs to be said…the times I wrote out where I am more triggered are the times I will feel more challenged and need to be focused on holding it clear.
I look forward to continuing to reflect on the possibilities declared here.
Hi Living The Dream,
It is really good that you were able to feel the resistance, and know where it came from.
It is also important to understand that if we aren’t able to be solid and clear about ‘what is no longer our reality’ because we feel like it is a ‘judgement’ that it is going to be hard to walk self-truth at these times.
Definetely the bigger picture version of God is not about accepting suffering, it is that God (Life) honours what we decide to honour about ourself.
It’s great that you went into the triggered times (which is always a signal of boundary violation and struggling to not let that occur) and that you can feel into the reframes for these times.
It is always wonderful to challange our comfort zones and grow, and you are doing a really good job with this 🙂
Mel xo
Thank you for your insights. A few questions come alive when I read.
“It is also important to understand that if we aren’t able to be solid and clear about ‘what is no longer our reality’ because we feel like it is a ‘judgement’ that it is going to be hard to walk self-truth at these times.”
The shape of it here is that walking in self-truth for me means being present to what is rather than laying down my mentally generated agenda as to what truth is. Walking in self-truth means that I am fully present to what arrives in my experience, in my body, in my cells. Not mentally telling myself what I think it should be and then seeing if reality is conforming to that.
When I approach things like that I am reminded of your great article I read when I first discovered the site about why need thinking to change, “We know we aren’t going to be free until we can evict the thoughts of the narcissist and what he or she did to us from our mind – once and for all.
The problem is that the natural human response to evict these thoughts is….. to do more thinking!
This is incredibly ironic because we are trying to get off this particular bus, yet we end up putting our foot down and driving harder!
You can NOT stop thinking by doing more thinking.
Your mind is the enemy keeping you in pain and torment.
Moving on requires being able to move past your mind and heal.
If you don’t, your mind is going to keep battering you.”
I don’t know how to reconcile that what it feels like for me to write it out, predecide what reality will be (control?) etc is like THINKING….which itself is part of the problem. So, having a sense inside of what I will or won’t accept, trusting in the moment that I will be supported in the most beneficial response for all beings for me is walking in self-truth.
“Definetely the bigger picture version of God is not about accepting suffering, it is that God (Life) honours what we decide to honour about ourself.” Also is confusing to me deeply, because absolutely in my cultural exposure to the greatest wisdom traditions all of the ancient teachers Buddha, Jesus, Zen have infact said that it is about accepting suffering. That infact the cause of suffering is resistance to it. We are to admit it’s truth and then allow that to open our hearts, to be the cause for compassion, to love our brother and each other and ourselves. Accept suffering and grace and help each other.
This idea that we are causing suffering to ourselves and God is just satisfying our having placed an order for pain because we don’t honor ourselves…how can I feel it is true when it doesn’t feel true?
How do I integrate honoring what is with full presence (being) feeling that IS the self-truth and generating my own ideas through my mind (thinking) and then approaching everything through this mental filter that I have to constantly hold in place?
And my subconscious mind is constantly sending out it’s own prompts that are way stronger and informing my experience more than any list I have written from my mind? Self truth for me means also being aware of those firing off and being as responsible as I possibly can for my choosing in the moment. As well as welcoming those into awareness each time they arise.
I am challenged to feel the energy in writing just from a mental idea truly has the power to create. It seems like boundaries come from what is true deep inside of me. Is the list like “Fake it until you make it”?
Thank you so much for your help. These questions spring from deep inside around whether there is a difference between empowerment and wisdom? And seem to be at the core.
Not only a wound blocking some realization, but deep questions about what living self-truth is.
Peace all.
Hi Living THe Dream,
you are very welcome – and you have posed some very good questions here…
Truly there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ other than what feels right – and feels like it is serving you – as opposed to it is not serving you.
And for different people this may be a different expereince. For example for me…allowing someone absuive to be in my space and not having defined it is not my reality and being present for that – for me ‘feels wrong’…everything in my emotional resonance would be affected by that. Signalling to me – ‘this is not healthy for me’…and of course there are levels of abuse that I am clear about – as to what abuse is…for example someone having a bad day and being agitated – that’s fine my vibration does not have to get dragged down or affected. Someone having a bad day and projecting something at me, ‘dumpmastering’ rather than taking responsibility – and / or pathological lying (as another example) absolutely Not My Reality – and I am clear a firm boundary or my withdrawal if not honoured and a detachment of my presence (temporarily and ultimately permanently) is what honouring myself means..as per listening to my emotional frequency and being very aware of ‘what is true for me’ and ‘what is not true for me’.
And in no way is this a ‘judgement’ of it shouldn’t be this – the truth is ‘it is what it is’ I have no need for someone else to change who they are – an dthey are more than welcome to living their life by their own model – but I can certainly choose to live ‘Who I Am’…that is discernment – not judgement.
Judgement is what I used to do before awareness and healing. ‘You are wrong and I will make you be my version of ‘right’
My process now for me is ‘knowing’ and my own act to myself of self-love (rather than allowing narc abuse) – it is as a result of realising what my body (emotions) have been telling me all along (which I didn’t listen to for decades) – so it is not a ‘thinking’ thing – it’s simply an establishment of what I will and won’t live with in my life.
I truly believe pain is inevitable and I believe suffering is optional and needless.
We grow through pain, the realisation that the pain is a signal to embrace it and make the changes within us that are causing us to suffer (due to unhealed wounds / faulty beliefs etc)..and if we ignore the pain, reject the healing opportunity and / or project it out at someone else, or run from it then it becomes prolonged suffering – the pain keeps coming and coming until we ‘get the message’..
And if we don’t we are looking at a life time of suffering.
So no I do not endorse that suffering is necessary – and I certainly don’t see how if we are stuck in suffering how we can benefit ourselves, others and life in win / win ways…
Suffering loves company – it only helps keep others in suffering.
True compassion to me is showing by exmaple there is another way – a way to create joy and alleviate suffering.
I don’t like the mental filter to incorporate new changes – because I believe the mind will always struggle to break away from the deep Inner Identity programs that are really running the show – that is why I love doing processes that shift the ‘being’ at a much deeper level than the ‘mind’.
Then the mind does not have to keep struggling and be employed constantly – we become ‘knowing’ rather than trying to maintain a state simply through continual ‘thinking’ – which never works!
The ‘decision’ in the mind is simply a direction which then committing to deep inner processes creates as a way of ‘being’.
Then it is not ‘fake it till you make it’ – it becomes an integral part of who you are…and of course the courage to ‘do’ differently in real time – which in a sense is ‘faking it till you make it’may be a part of this as well until the new changes do become ‘second nature’.
Great questions and I hope this helps!
Mel xo
Learn to compose himself, the article from an additional supply
Exercise One:
How did you go with identifying your boundary malfunctions? Were you able to tap into the reasons for your pain and fear and why you have handed your power over at these times?
Boundaries are one of he harder things for me as I second guess myself. I was aside with parents with horrible boundaries. In my childhood setting boundaries , angered people an their disproval and rejection was clear and scary. I was in an early relationship that was emotionally business and it was not until I was out of it that I started practicing boundaries ( still not perfected). In my most recent relationship with N my boundaries were improved. I had more issues here with ” letting things go” i should have questioned more and later finding out I had been manipulated, lied to and cheated on. The lies we’re so well crafted and I was o in love that I did not see them. So still need work on boundaries 😉
Exercise Two:
How did you feel about writing out what you will not accept in your life anymore?
I think that this is a wonderful exercise. I am not apply that I am in this situation of having been betrayed but am thankful for what I am learning looking back in retrospect that I ” should have seen” and or what I gained in the relationship.
Exercise Three:
When you reframed your boundary malfunctions regarding what you can do now in order to say ‘No’, did this feel empowering to you, or do you still feel this may be a struggle at times in your life?
I really liked your ways to say no and am definitely going o use them NPD share them with my daughter.
Oops. That posted before I was one.
I have shared a lot of this with her, in hopes that she can have more knowledge than I had at her age & a better chance at fullness earlier on.
I’m crossing my fingers for the drawing. I really want o try your program…but cannot afford it..
Also, loving everyone responses. Thanks to all for sharing!!!
where can i find week 3 of the 30 day of empowered, i really would like to do this 4 week processes completely i am staring today if i can get a link or be sent it. i did find week 2 and 1