If you want to accomplish anything in life — achieve audacious goals, have healthy and loving relationships, cultivate meaningful connections, or even create some peace and freakin' quiet for yourself — you need to become a master of setting boundaries. But when we say "boundaries," what do we mean?
Well, we're not talking about ultimatums. We're not talking about avoidance of others. We're not talking about limitations either. Boundaries are a set of personal guidelines or rules you set as a beyond your default-living human to safeguard your well-being and your values.
But why are boundaries so important? What do unhealthy boundaries look like? And how can you tell if you have issues with boundaries in your own life? On this week's episode of Beyond Your Default, George and I pull back the curtain on our own evolving relationships with boundaries over the years to answer these essential life questions and more.
Questions We Discuss
When we say "boundaries" what are we really talking about? How are boundaries different from ultimatums, avoidance, and limitations?
What's the difference between internal boundaries and external boundaries?
Why are boundaries absolutely essential to this journey?
What are some of the common reasons folks can end up having boundary issues?
How have George and I struggled with boundaries throughout our lives? Were there any catalyst moments that pushed us to change our approach?
How can folks tell if boundaries are in issue in their life?
What does setting healthy boundaries look like?
Look, sometimes setting boundaries will not always please people — what should those moments tell us?
What is one question you want to challenge our listeners to think about over the coming week, when it comes to their own boundaries?
Signs You May Have Boundary Issues
Overcommitting: Regularly taking on more than you can handle or feeling pressured to agree to every request or opportunity.
Difficulty Making Decisions: Relying excessively on others for decision-making can be a sign of unclear personal boundaries.
Tolerating Disrespect or Poor Treatment: Continually allowing others to treat you disrespectfully without addressing it.
Feeling Overwhelmed or Drained: Consistently feeling exhausted or overwhelmed, especially after interactions with others, can indicate poor boundaries.
Neglecting Self-Care: Consistently putting others' needs before your own to the point where your own well-being suffers.
If you want to accomplish anything in life — achieve audacious goals, have healthy and loving relationships, cultivate meaningful connections, or even create some peace and freakin' quiet for yourself — you need to become a master of setting boundaries. But when we say "boundaries," what do we mean?
Well, we're not talking about ultimatums. We're not talking about avoidance of others. We're not talking about limitations either. Boundaries are a set of personal guidelines or rules you set as a beyond your default-living human to safeguard your well-being and your values.
But why are boundaries so important? What do unhealthy boundaries look like? And how can you tell if you have issues with boundaries in your own life? On this week's episode of Beyond Your Default, George and I pull back the curtain on our own evolving relationships with boundaries over the years to answer these essential life questions and more.
Questions We Discuss
When we say "boundaries" what are we really talking about? How are boundaries different from ultimatums, avoidance, and limitations?
What's the difference between internal boundaries and external boundaries?
Why are boundaries absolutely essential to this journey?
What are some of the common reasons folks can end up having boundary issues?
How have George and I struggled with boundaries throughout our lives? Were there any catalyst moments that pushed us to change our approach?
How can folks tell if boundaries are in issue in their life?
What does setting healthy boundaries look like?
Look, sometimes setting boundaries will not always please people — what should those moments tell us?
What is one question you want to challenge our listeners to think about over the coming week, when it comes to their own boundaries?
Signs You May Have Boundary Issues
Overcommitting: Regularly taking on more than you can handle or feeling pressured to agree to every request or opportunity.
Difficulty Making Decisions: Relying excessively on others for decision-making can be a sign of unclear personal boundaries.
Tolerating Disrespect or Poor Treatment: Continually allowing others to treat you disrespectfully without addressing it.
Feeling Overwhelmed or Drained: Consistently feeling exhausted or overwhelmed, especially after interactions with others, can indicate poor boundaries.
Neglecting Self-Care: Consistently putting others' needs before your own to the point where your own well-being suffers.
What Is Beyond Your Default? "Everyone keeps telling me I should be happy, but I'm not." “I feel stuck.” “I have a calling, but where do I start?"
Right now, you have a choice. You can continue living within your default norms, playing it safe, clocking in and out every day, and scraping by to achieve what's supposed to make you happy hopefully. Or you can choose to accept the challenge of living beyond your default. Stop wishing to live your "best life” and start living your best life. Success leaves clues. And they're waiting for you to discover them.
George B. Thomas:
What I would even say is most times, if you think about this, you have historically bad journey with boundaries and it leads into the being a people pleaser many times because of the limitations that we've put in our lives due to fear, due to insecurity, due to pain, due to everything that you've talked about. And, Liz, we don't realize that we can renovate. We don't realize that we can put a window in that room. We don't realize that we can hang a pretty picture or we can put an extra extra door in. We don't realize that mentally, physically, you know, affirmationally that we can renovate the space that we feel that we're destined to live in.
George B. Thomas:
And this is almost the foundational piece of what we've been talking about because of this podcast. Renovate your life and live a life beyond your default. Don't get stuck in the room. Don't get stuck in your limitations. Don't get stuck not having the right healthy love based boundaries in your life.
Liz Moorehead:
Welcome back to Beyond Your Default. I'm your host, Liz Morehead. And as always, I'm joined by George b Thomas. George, how you doing?
George B. Thomas:
Liz, I am doing great. I have to be honest with you. I couldn't wait to get on this call with you. I am 7 days in a streak of walking every morning as part of my morning routine. But, also, knowing myself, I figured this would happen.
George B. Thomas:
I'm on a 7 day streak of morning devotions as well. And so here's what's funny. The way that I can come to you and say that I have a 7 day streak with the devotions, the way that I can come to you and say I have a 7 day streak with walking every morning is because I've set some boundaries in my life around those two things.
Liz Moorehead:
Oh, that's nice. Now for our listeners who may be just catching us right now, maybe this is your first episode, maybe you didn't hear last week's episode. George, you are referring to our January challenge
George B. Thomas:
where
Liz Moorehead:
both you and I are going to be integrating just we're not reinventing the entire wheel around our morning routine, but we were challenged to integrate one thing into our routine for the month of January. I wish I could say mine was going as well. The first few days of the challenge were challenging.
George B. Thomas:
That's why I said challenge.
Liz Moorehead:
I know. I know. It was one of those things where I was the, you know, Susie go getter sending out our little calendar reminder saying, hey, our challenge starts today. And I did great on day 1, and then day 2 while I was actually taking some time off for the first time in about 7 or 8 months, I completely whiffed my morning. I slept in a ton, which I am grateful for, but one of the things I will say is going into our recording today.
Liz Moorehead:
I got my meditation in today. I got my meditation in yesterday. That was what I had said I was putting into my morning routine because I had it in my daily routine, just not in the mornings. And so far, it's been great.
George B. Thomas:
Let me be completely honest why I started this episode with that information. I don't know if when we meet again, I'll be able to say this Because we're getting ready to go on vacation. We're getting ready to go on a cruise. And I have been playing the scenarios in my brain of how do I actually get up and still put forth the devotions, the walking, in an understanding of that I'm gonna be completely out of my normal environment, completely busy, busy, air quotes there, ladies and gentlemen, with all the festivities that'll be happening around family being in town and all that. So I'm hoping and praying for the best.
George B. Thomas:
However, we'll have to see when we record again how it went.
Liz Moorehead:
Well, as you already teased at the beginning of this, one of the key ways in which folks can set themselves up for success to hit their goals has to do with everybody's favorite b word. No. Not that one. Boundaries. We've talked about them before.
Liz Moorehead:
We've mentioned them before, and now we are dedicating an entire episode to them because boundaries are the guardrails. Right? The guardrails that are meant to keep us on our path, foster our growth, and also sometimes just create some freaking peace and quiet. Right? Just make it so we can enjoy our lives and on our terms.
Liz Moorehead:
But George, let's dig right into the discussion. Let's start with when we say boundaries, what is it that we're really talking about? You know I'm a girl who loves definitions. What are we talking about when we say boundaries?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. It's interesting. I really feel like the community should be forewarned that there will be more coming from me and coming from us around boundaries because I found this research and this deep dive into oneself around this topic very intriguing. It was a little bit of a struggle, but it was a struggle of love, to be honest with you. And when we talk about boundaries, Liz, what I think is that, historically, most humans fall prey to generational dysfunction around what learned boundaries should be or are accepted of them.
George B. Thomas:
The other part of this, if they haven't kind of had this generational dysfunction around it, they're just flat out confused. Right? Because if you bring this up in certain circles, you'll say boundaries and people will say, oh, yeah. I have rules in my life. No.
George B. Thomas:
No. No. Rules are not boundaries. Boundaries are not rules. Rules are guidelines to set, to dictate, or to control others' behaviors versus boundaries or personal guidelines set by an individual to protect our own well-being and protect our values, which, by the way, if core values, like, you anyway, if you bring this up in conversation, you might even hear the word ultimatums, which I really think is a funny word.
George B. Thomas:
I don't know why I giggle. Like, it's like tomato or ultra. I don't know about ultimatums. And here's the thing. An ultimatum is a final demand, which your boundary is not, by the way.
George B. Thomas:
So you can think about boundaries in this conversation. And it's like, yeah. I have boundaries. I avoid that person like the plague. Oh, that that's not a boundary.
George B. Thomas:
That's just simply casting somebody out of your life. And then not to mention, like, you'll have a conversation around boundaries and then people think it's about their limitations. People are confused about personal limitations, and limitations are these, like, places that we put ourself into based on fear. We've talked about that on the podcast. In securities, lack of belief in our self or self belief.
George B. Thomas:
Boundaries are about knowing and communicating what is acceptable and healthy for oneself and the relationship. I wanna go back to something I said, Liz, because I think this is a really important piece. Boundaries are personal guidelines and individual sets to protect their own well-being and values. Now you have to let that sink in. So many times when we think about boundaries, we think of them as being external.
George B. Thomas:
It's these fences. It's these walls that we put in place. They're only these boundaries, notice that word, that we set with others. I wanna make sure that for the rest of this podcast episode, that the listeners, that you, that I, that we're thinking just as much about when we think about boundaries, we think of them as being internal just as much as we do external, which sounds weird because I'm literally saying that we have to protect ourself from ourself with our well-being and our values many times in our life. Now, Liz, I'm curious, though, because, by the way, we're just talking definitions.
George B. Thomas:
How have you historically defined boundaries in your life? I love that facial expression, by the way.
Liz Moorehead:
It's interesting. I think I knew how to spell the word boundaries for a really long time, and I think it took me a really long time to realize I didn't have any, which, you know, this is something that gets fascinating because the perspective that I come I'm coming from and I'm gonna throw throw out a term here that I know people just like, I'm not dismissing it or diminishing it, but I think it's just very popularized right now. I'm a reformed people pleaser. But if we were to peel back the layers on that a little bit, what that really means is I was reading a bit about this this morning, and I went, oh, hello. That's me.
Liz Moorehead:
I think sometimes, a lot of times, people will think of boundaries as external because they are used to setting boundaries and having people negatively react to it and then they adjust their boundaries in order to please others because they take someone negatively responding to a boundary as a sign that there's something wrong with the boundary. Now, the reason why I bring that up in terms of how I define it because I know we're gonna get into that more later. I wanna put a pin in that for right now because we have a whole section of this conversation dedicated to communicating and holding our boundaries with society writ large.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
The reason I bring this up is that that was something I actually struggled with a lot, which is what made me realize I didn't have them. And I did some reading on something called parentification. I don't know if that's the technical term for it, but essentially there are a lot of people who struggle with boundaries in adulthood are children who were put into adult roles by their parents growing up. And that could manifest itself in a lot of different ways. Parents who treat their kids like adults.
Liz Moorehead:
Parent and I'm not coming for you parents who have really good relationships with their kids. I'm talking about where there is a dependency on the child to wear a caregiver hat in a way that is not appropriate. So, for example, for me, I had an alcoholic mom. I had to spend a lot of time taking care of her and I was between the ages of 6 14. So there were no boundaries and there were a lot of challenges for me growing up because the caregiver like, as a kid, you're not advocating for yourself.
Liz Moorehead:
As a kid you don't even know you're supposed to advocate for yourself. You expect your parents to not make demands of you that are inappropriate, but we'd like that. We don't. We can't choose our parents and things happen and life happens and, you know, whatever. That's fine.
Liz Moorehead:
But when I think about the boundaries and how I've defined them is I'm not sure I ever said this to myself, but when I was younger, boundaries for thee and not for me. I could never get myself to a place of self worth and self respect and self love where I thought I didn't even know how to have a conversation about boundaries with myself. I wasn't even thinking that way. I was constantly in this fight or flight response mode due to years of programming of, oh my gosh, why is he upset? Like, being very hypervigilant around other people's emotions rather than even taking a second to think about regulating or guarding my own.
George B. Thomas:
I love this so much because, Liz, you're literally knocking on the door. You're talking about what I alluded to at the beginning is this generational dysfunction around learned boundaries. And it's funny because I'm gonna be real honest for just a couple seconds. 1, as I was getting ready to go through the process of getting ready for this, I said to myself, self, I wonder what you're gonna learn about yourself during this little journey. I came to the realization that I too am a recovering people pleaser.
George B. Thomas:
I came to the realization that I I am a person who has this dysfunctional boundary, you know, scenario. Liz, listen. I can remember. By the way by the way, the first thing I wanna say about this, though, is when I say generational dysfunction, I don't necessarily mean it's a completely bad thing because it might be the thing that you need that actually creates you to who you need to become in life. Anyway, what I wanna pull out here is when I was a young child around 10 to 13, I had parents who were doing the best that they could do.
George B. Thomas:
Both of them were working, and one was going to college. Now if you think about that, there's nothing inherently wrong with freaking going to work and going to school to try to better yourself. The only problem at 10 to 13 years old, I would come home from school. I would be alone. I would make my own dinner.
George B. Thomas:
I would take care of myself in the evening. And so this is one of the reasons we made the decision when I got married of, like, nobody else is raising our kids and will always be home for them. Right? So it made us who we needed to be for our children because I went through this generational dysfunction, and I set boundaries of, I don't care if we're financially skyrocketing. I don't care if we're not getting exactly where we need to get this fat.
George B. Thomas:
By the way, and when I say I, I mean we, my wife and I, right, set these boundaries. So it was this historical programming that when taken and seen and turned for the positive can actually be exactly what you needed in the moment to become who you need to be and serve who you're gonna serve in your life. Anyway, I told you I love this topic.
Liz Moorehead:
Like No. I completely agree, though. To interject here, I completely agree because I can't believe I'm sitting here saying this on this mic right now. I never thought this would be a point that I'd get to, but I literally look back on my life. And did I choose my parents?
Liz Moorehead:
No. Would I change my path? No. Because this is the work I'm supposed to be doing. So that, I think, is a conversation we need to have for another day of the path we walk.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. But let's keep digging in here about boundaries and why they're essential to our journey.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. So let's actually because you know me. I like a good definition. I like to really define the thing that we're talking about. So and I kind of, again, alluded this at the very beginning.
George B. Thomas:
I said fences are walls. No. No. No. I want the listeners I want us as we move forward to think of boundaries as property lines.
George B. Thomas:
FYI, most property lines are invisible. You really can't see them. Now can you put a fence on your property line? Yes. Could it be a fence that everybody could see through and is transparent and, like, you're not hiding it?
George B. Thomas:
Yes. Could it be the, like, wall of all walls and you're like, what the frick are they doing behind there? Yes. Which, by the way, that might actually tell you a lot about the person that you're dealing with. Is it a really small see through fence or the wall of whatever?
George B. Thomas:
Right? The great wall of China in the backyard, like, of your by the way, I'm talking about not physical fences and walls. I'm talking about in your mind and the boundaries that you're setting in life to stay away from other humans. But when I start to think about this, if you're coming from a place of love, which by the way, when you're setting boundaries, it should always be from a place of love of yourself and love of others and trying to streamline the relationships and have the most aggressively passionate, healthy relationships that you wanna have on the planet. Because we only have a certain amount of time to have these relationships that we're gonna choose to continue or choose to cut.
George B. Thomas:
By the way, you can listen to an historical episode where we talk about the people that you need to bring with you and the people that you need to shed from your life. But I think about a couple words, freedom and responsibility. Boundaries to me equal freedom and responsibility. If you think about this as property line, let's go to, like, the house where you buy, like, some land with a house on it. If we think about freedom in that sense, it's to do whatever you wanna do in the property that you own.
George B. Thomas:
Like, we're looking at moving in about a year and a half, and I have told a copious amount of humans I do not wanna go into an HOA. I wanna go to a place where I have a little bit of land. Why? Because I wanna be able to do what I wanna be able to do. And when it's my land, other people don't have the freedom to do what they wanna do on my land.
George B. Thomas:
They can do what they wanna do on their land, but not on my land. I get to do what I wanna do on my land. Now I am literally talking about house and land at this point. But responsibility, you're you're responsible for your property. I'd have to do the upkeep.
George B. Thomas:
I'm responsible for my property. I can only tolerate what I wanna tolerate. I can only allow what I want to allow on my property. Now if you shift this from the freedom of owning your own home, owning your own property, and and the responsibility of taking care of that property you have, now if you take that and you go inward mentally, spiritually, physically, whatever. Now all of a sudden, like, in life, boundaries define who you are, how you show up, who you will be.
George B. Thomas:
It gives you these boundaries, give you the freedom and control of the relationships and conversations you'll have. Boundaries actually show you how responsible you're being for yourself and for those around you. Right? So freedom and responsibility are like these 2 so, again, think about internal, think about external, think about them as property lines. And maybe even if you go inside of your mental house, think of them as they always have a door that you can choose to open or not open.
George B. Thomas:
I love the little hotel doors. Even our house has it. The peephole. You can look out. I look out the peephole.
George B. Thomas:
Right? Oh, that's somebody selling bug services. I ain't opening the door. I ain't opening the door. Somebody selling bug services or Internet services.
George B. Thomas:
I don't need either of those. I look out to people. Oh, that's my best buddy. I'm a open the door. So think about your boundaries as this ability to look through the people.
George B. Thomas:
The ability to see, do you wanna let that in your life or not?
Liz Moorehead:
I love that. And I love how you actually think about them as literal property lines and boundaries. Right? Because think about this idea of, do you wanna build your own castle? Do you wanna build your own little kingdom?
Liz Moorehead:
How are you going to know where to build, fortify, or do anything if you don't know where your own lines are? If you don't know what it is that you're protecting or cultivating.
George B. Thomas:
And would you ever build anything else on somebody else's property? No. Why? Because you know that it would get demolished. You have no legal right to put your garage on your neighbor's property.
George B. Thomas:
You stay in your little section.
Liz Moorehead:
George, you've been very interesting in this conversation in that you have been wielding some extremely powerful definitions, but I heard you when you said that you were also a recovering people pleaser. So I want you to talk to us candidly. Let's talk candidly. What is your relationship with boundary setting and has it been healthy as it is now?
George B. Thomas:
Well, that's saying that it's healthy now. I'm not even sure if it's healthy now. Like, literally, when we first started doing the research on this, I was like, this is interesting. We're gonna talk about boundaries. I don't know if I have any.
George B. Thomas:
And then when I started to break it down, I realized, holy shiz. Like, I actually have quite a few boundaries that I have in my life in a bunch of different ways. But, no, I will tell you that, historically, I have not been great at setting boundaries, internal or external. Now I'm gonna draw a line in the sand and try to not sound like a dick for the next 2 minutes. K?
Liz Moorehead:
Oh, boy.
George B. Thomas:
Because, historically, I'm the type of person who I need you to love me. I need you to want me. I feel like there's some song lyrics in there somewhere. Like, if if we're not not. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:
Exactly.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. We'll Exactly. Yep.
George B. Thomas:
If we're not good, I'm not good, historically, right, to a fault where, like, oh, you wanna go do those 7 things that I absolutely hate doing, and it feels like somebody's putting their fingernails on a chalkboard the entire time we're doing it? Okay. Let's go. I mean, just terrible. Just terrible.
George B. Thomas:
People pleasing. But it's a trained response because when you live in a war zone, you're willing to jump on all the grenades for the safety of the others around you. Right? So now here's the thing. Here's where the, oh, man.
George B. Thomas:
I might sound like a dick moment comes in. Frankly, right now, I don't care. I don't care. If you like me, you don't like me. If you wanna hang out with me, you don't wanna hang out with me.
George B. Thomas:
Those people who wanna like me, wanna hang out with me, wanna be, like, the besties, wanna be heading in the same direction, sweet. We can do that. But I had to let go of all of that. Like, I had to let go of the need for people to be in my life for me to feel okay about myself. I don't need others to love me for me to love myself, but that wasn't always the case.
Liz Moorehead:
What changed?
George B. Thomas:
A healthy dose of I don't get no. I'm I'm just kidding. I finally reached a point in my life that I started to believe in myself. I stopped running historical narratives. I stopped believing in the historical dysfunction.
George B. Thomas:
I did start to set these boundaries. And as you set more boundaries, as you believe in yourself more, as you love yourself more, you find that more actually start to show up because some things that once were acceptable just become unacceptable in life. I I don't know, listeners, if you've ever dealt with their list if if you ever dealt this, where you got to a point where something happened, and you're like, how did I ever accept that? How was that ever okay? Like, I shouldn't let anybody treat me that way.
George B. Thomas:
But the fact that it was me treating me that way, like, what is going on right now? I feel like maybe I've been listening to too many Katt Williams TikToks lately because I feel like I just, like, had his voice for a second, but it's like, holy crap. Like, how it's just unacceptable. And I got to that point in life, and I think the listeners need to get to that point in life where, like, the historical baggage, previous episode, by the way, it's just unacceptable. And you start to create the boundaries that get you ready for a life that is beyond your default.
Liz Moorehead:
It's so interesting to hear you say that because my mind went in a number of different directions. Number 1, it reminded me of, quite frankly, what has happened over the past couple of years and more acutely, I would say, over the past 9 to 18 months where, you know, my ex husband and I, we we tried to reconcile, we tried to make it work, and it ultimately ended up not working. Hence why he's my ex husband. And a lot of it came down to things that were acceptable to me before were no longer acceptable because we had been separated during the pandemic. So I was the most cliched cliche since the cliche came to cliche town.
Liz Moorehead:
I was a divorced woman living by herself with a cat and I didn't see anybody in person for a couple of months, you know. And I remember that whole year was just this really transformative year where I challenged myself in a lot of ways that I hadn't before. So there's that piece of it that I find fascinating. I think there are those moments and we've talked about running into past versions of ourselves, where we run into past versions of ourselves when we walk into rooms we have not been in since we were somebody else.
George B. Thomas:
Since
Liz Moorehead:
we went through some sort of massive growth point. What I find interesting about it is you look around that proverbial room, so to speak, and go, how did I ever function like this? There are no windows in this room. I don't even know how I got in this room because there's no door. It is amazing what we will consider acceptable when we give ourselves away by slow degrees.
Liz Moorehead:
I think the other piece of this that I really love that you talked about is this idea of people pleasing. Because ultimately, what we're actually doing, and we need to have a more substantive conversation about this. I feel like I'm you this week going and we need an episode about that.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
What I find fascinating about this whole thing is that if you are sitting here resonating with this idea of, oh, maybe I've got a boundaries issue because maybe I'm a bit of a people pleaser, We're not actually pleasing ourselves. We're trying to heal a wound that is within, and it has nothing to do with anybody else.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. And what I would even say is most times, if you think about this, you have a historically bad journey with boundaries, and it leads into the being a people pleaser many times because of the limitations that we've put in our lives due to fear, due to insecurity, due to pain, due to everything that you've talked about. And, Liz, we don't realize that we can renovate. We don't realize that we can put a window in that room. We don't realize that we can hang a pretty picture or we can put an extra door in.
George B. Thomas:
We don't realize that mentally, physically, you know, affirmationally that we can renovate the space that we feel that we're destined to live in. And this is almost the foundational piece of what we've been talking about because of this podcast. Renovate your life and live a life beyond your default. Don't get stuck in the room. Don't get stuck in your limitations.
George B. Thomas:
Don't get stuck not having the right healthy love based boundaries in your life.
Liz Moorehead:
It's amazing how we grow in these different phases, and and we go through these inflection points of what was once acceptable is no longer acceptable. Because I will say what has been a particularly illuminating challenge over the past 6 to 9 months, so after the divorce, was looking around my life and realizing the reason I felt so overextended, the reason I felt so overwrought, the reason why I felt in sometimes surrounded by folks that weren't really in alignment with me was because I had set up a bunch of boundaries and then opened a bunch of doors and said walk right on in. So I think what can be a challenge for some folks in terms of setting boundaries is, do you even know how to talk about what you want for you? Do you even know what peace looks like for you? Do you even know what those values are?
Liz Moorehead:
And I started asking myself those questions of you know, I was doing some little short form exercises. I used to be part of this writer's group where in the morning we'd all get together virtually and we'd journal and sometimes we'd get prompts. And one of the prompts was, how would you describe your values? What are your values? And I think we can walk through our lives thinking, oh yeah, I value things like trust and honesty, but I hadn't really sat down and said, oh, these are the things that I value for me.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
And so it was a bit of a terrifying moment, but it became that moment of, well, cupcake, it's time to pick up a paintbrush. Time to paint your own masterpiece. Stop doing paint by numbers based on what everybody else is telling you to do.
George B. Thomas:
Boy, I hope the listeners rewind that right there. I mean, I'm bouncing on my chair. I'm a little giddy right now. Like, if you're in a life where you're painting by the numbers, it ain't your masterpiece. It's somebody else's brain that you're just cloning or duplicating.
George B. Thomas:
Like, you're not being you. You're not even really being creative. You're wasting time doing somebody else's stuff that's already been done before. Like, oh, just rewind that and listen to it again.
Liz Moorehead:
So let's talk a bit about how folks can tell if they have issues with boundaries in their lives. Because boundaries are a bit of a tricky challenge to identify because you have to get really clear on understanding what the symptoms are of not having clear or healthy boundaries in your life. So can you talk us through that?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. I think there's a couple different things where you can tell that you don't have healthy boundaries in your life. If you find yourself just generally over committing to things, regularly taking on more than you can handle or feeling pressured to agree to every request, to every opportunity. You just might not have some boundaries in place. If you find it difficult in life to make decisions, relying exclusively on others for the decision making that can be done in your life, then you might be unclear on your personal boundaries.
George B. Thomas:
If you're willing, we alluded to this one, Liz, a couple of times in this episode, tolerating disrespect or poor treatment from yourself or from others. In other words, if you're continue allowing others or yourself to treat you disrespectfully without addressing it, without drawing a line, without saying that's unacceptable, now you you you just might might have some boundary issues. If you're sitting here listening to this episode and you feel overwhelmed or drained, it might sound like this. Well, you just look tired all the time. You just feel tired all the time.
George B. Thomas:
Feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, especially, by the way, after interactions with other human beings that might be in your life. Like, if you walk into a room and you come out and you feel like you've been in 7 rounds of a boxing match with Muhammad Ali or some other heavyweight champion of the world, you might wanna think about your boundaries. And by the way I keep
Liz Moorehead:
waiting for you to say you might be a redneck, by the way. Like, I keep waiting for the check. I keep waiting for the just the way you were saying it sounds like Jeff Foxworthy. Anyway
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. Yeah. You might be you might be a boundary, hater if yeah. We could do a whole stand up on this bad boy. But listen, the worst one, the most ugly, terrifying, corrosive thing that if you're like, that's me, is neglect of self care.
George B. Thomas:
If you're consistently putting others' needs before your own to the point where your own well-being suffers, it's time to get some boundaries put in place. So any of those are, like, potential signs that we got some work to do.
Liz Moorehead:
One of the key moments for me in the past couple years, particularly and this will resonate with folks who may feel like they have some relationships in their lives that may need some reevaluation. When I noticed that others were holding a boundary for themselves, that were I to do the same, there'd be a problem. That's usually the sign that you have unhealthy boundaries with a person or people in your life or have become a magnet for those who have expectations that others around them will not have boundaries because their needs supersede their own. The other thing I will say about this conversation as I'm listening to it is the realization that it can be a challenge to identify the symptoms of a boundary issue, but you also have to remember that having boundary issues can often be a symptom itself of something greater. So going back to our earlier part of this conversation, George, you know, I alluded to the fact that when I really struggled with boundaries throughout most of my adult life and it is still something I'm working on.
Liz Moorehead:
It is still I'm still learning how to draw boundaries, how to hold boundaries, how to adjust them as needed, Either out or in as as is healthy and appropriate. It comes from a place healing other wounds within myself. Like the same root cause or root challenge that I'm working through not only causes boundary issues, but it causes stress and anxiety issues. It causes issues with how do I perceive my limitations? How do I talk to myself about myself?
Liz Moorehead:
There is a level deeper where you have to think yourself worthy of healthy boundaries in order to establish and hold them.
George B. Thomas:
The more you work on yourself, the more you start to know yourself, the more you love yourself, the more you love yourself, the more Seth, leave it in. I'm doing it on purpose. By the way, Seth's our editor. He does an amazing job. The more you love yourself the more you love yourself, the more you expect from yourself, the more you love others, the more you come on.
George B. Thomas:
Like, we're not reinventing the wheel here. This is why I said love based. This is why I started out with love based. I just shook my whole desk. Holy crap.
George B. Thomas:
This is why I started out with love based boundaries. You have to love yourself. You have to work on yourself. You have to go through the journey, and then you because you asked me, George, when did it change? When I realized I loved myself so much that I knew I deserved to have him in place.
Liz Moorehead:
That's so much more profound than what my catalyst moment was. I apologize for the swearing, but this is the most accurate. I woke up over the summer when I am so fucking tired. I am exhausted. I have built an entire life that has exhausted me.
Liz Moorehead:
I am exhausted beyond all comprehension. There is no way for me to please or serve or win in my life the way I have constructed it. Now, like I said, that's why I brought up the idea that having issues with your boundaries can often be a symptom of something greater, but it is something you need to pay attention to. As I've gotten better with my boundaries, my circles have gotten smaller. The things that I focus on have gotten smaller.
Liz Moorehead:
My life has gotten simpler, more streamlined. I'm still tired like a normal human being
George B. Thomas:
Of course.
Liz Moorehead:
And I'm not that kind of tired. I'm not that I'm never gonna win at anything.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. There's a difference between being tired because you played the game and being tired because you're a punching bag. Those are 2 totally different types of tires.
Liz Moorehead:
Punching bag.
George B. Thomas:
Oh my god.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. Like, that's the thing. The way I grew up, I mean, it was something where I had as an adult woman, one of the most painful and profound moments in my life was when I had to ask my mother to move out. This was about, oh gosh, I want to say about 6 years ago. She had moved in with myself and my then husband at the time.
Liz Moorehead:
All of a sudden, all of the abusive cycles from when I was a kid started cropping up again. Things that you don't think you're going to deal with when you're in your late 30s, Right? At that point, I'm an adult. I can handle myself. But we were having situations where she had unrealistic expectations of me catering to her every need and whim whenever she felt it appropriate.
Liz Moorehead:
And that's just kind of the tip of the iceberg. But I remember there was that moment of going, I know I've been trained my whole life to think this way but no, this is not okay anymore. And I think sometimes, you know, this goes into my next question. Right? Like, what does setting healthy boundaries look like?
Liz Moorehead:
I know you're going to get into that. The big thing for me though is that sometimes it's going to take a moment of you standing up for yourself and people reacting in a way that is negative. But the first time you bet on yourself is the moment when everything becomes possible.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. And you gotta bet on yourself. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Liz Moorehead:
Go for it. Go for it.
George B. Thomas:
I just I just saw a detour sign. I saw a detour sign, and I gotta take it.
Liz Moorehead:
Do it.
George B. Thomas:
I I gotta take it. You said I'm an adult, and I can handle myself. Ladies and gentlemen, when when you come to the realization that there will always and forever an inner adult in you and an inner child, you will start to make different decisions in your life because you will realize that that child never goes away. That child is always in there. As a matter of fact, it's exactly what I tap into when I say I don't go to work, I go to play because I let the inner child out, but that inner child has some scars and bruises.
George B. Thomas:
And when you start to realize that your inner adult, I'm an adult. I can handle myself, is leaving the inner child all alone. You start making different decisions. Anyway, that's a little detour. We gotta get back on the main road here.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. So let's talk about what does setting healthy boundaries look like, George?
George B. Thomas:
Man, you know, again, at the beginning of this, I was like, do I even have boundaries? Which I'll share. Hopefully, we have time before this episode is over for me to kinda share some of the what sound may be insignificant boundaries. But when we talk about what setting healthy boundaries looks like, There has to be and I feel like we've been setting everybody up for success. If you started with episode 1 or 2 and you've listened along the way Well, if this is your first episode, keep going.
George B. Thomas:
But then go back and set yourself up for success because when you're gonna go and create these love based healthy boundaries that we're talking about, there's gonna be a need for reflection, and there's gonna be a need for self awareness. Because with reflection and self awareness, you'll give yourself a clear idea on what internal and external boundaries need to be drawn in your life. Now I said drawn because remember property lines are drawn on a map. By the way, do you have a map of your life in your brain? Do you have your property lines drawn on it?
George B. Thomas:
If so, then you can take the next step to clearly communicate them. By the way, reflection, self awareness, draw the boundaries, and communicate them with yourself and the others in your life. So reflect, self aware, draw, communicate, and then give yourself permission to set personal limits. Listen to the freaking feelings that you're having when you're doing the reflecting. Listen to the feelings that you get because now you're becoming more self aware.
George B. Thomas:
Respect for others boundaries. Alright. This one's important. Lean in. Listen up.
George B. Thomas:
If you want others to respect the boundaries that you're reflecting on and because of self awareness you're drawing in your life, then you should get attuned to how to pay attention to. If you're gonna communicate your boundaries, you should probably get good at listening to others. Because if you want them to respect your boundaries, you should probably be able to respect theirs. This isn't a one-sided game. This is like a tennis match.
George B. Thomas:
It's 2 people. It's 2 teams. It might be multiple teams if we're talking about family or coworking. But once you realize I respect other people's boundaries because I want them to respect mine, I've taken time to reflect, and I have am self aware and drawn out, and I've communicated, then you can bask in the freedom and flexibility that those love based healthy boundaries give you in life. I feel like I'm preaching today.
George B. Thomas:
I don't I don't even know what's going on right now.
Liz Moorehead:
Yeah. You are. Well, can you give me an example of a boundary that you have for yourself?
George B. Thomas:
We got to the point where I was like, and this section is gonna be empty, and then it wasn't. So it's funny. And, Liz, I know you've been with me in person, so you've seen me do this first one. By the way, I have I have a list that I just wanna go over quickly. I have set a boundary to flip my phone when I'm with a human.
George B. Thomas:
I will not let the screen be seen. It'll be on silent, and I will flip the phone because one of my boundaries that I set is that if I love myself enough, I love the other people enough, then I need to be in the moment. And a simple gesture of just you're talking to them, the phone does a thing, and not looking at it. Nothing is that important, people. Nothing is that important.
George B. Thomas:
Another one is and we talked about designing your own life. I will define who I am and who I will be. Meaning, I will stop listening to historical things I've been told. You'll never amount to anything. You started small, you'll stay small.
George B. Thomas:
Mm-mm. No. No. No. Only I can define who I am and who I will be.
George B. Thomas:
Another boundary is always stay humble. Oh, we've talked about that. When you're 26, 27, and get in a motorcycle accident because of your ego, you're always watching out for that bad boy to creep back in. So stay humble. Here's another boundary.
George B. Thomas:
No illegal drugs. No marijuana for this guy. Nope. Not happening. Right?
George B. Thomas:
Why? Because I need a clear head. Now here's the thing. I didn't say anything about brandy, whiskey, and any of those things because I like that with a good little cigar every now then. I'm just saying.
George B. Thomas:
I'm still human, ladies and gentlemen. You can judge me if you want to, but I love me a good cigar and a little shot of whiskey. We're gonna go there. But I gotta keep a clear head, so nothing in excess too. And not that I haven't historically, because trust me, whoo, I used to like the part I still like the party, but try to maintain.
George B. Thomas:
Here's a big one. So some of these are life. Right? Some of these are work. I have a boundary of don't let any client treat me or the team in a wrong manner.
George B. Thomas:
And you know what that boundary leads to? I'll straight fire you. You'll be gone. Talk to one of my team members or me in the wrong way. And guess what?
George B. Thomas:
I don't need your money, and I don't need your chaos. By the way, same thing in life. Don't let friends treat me or family treat me in a toxic way. Sometimes you gotta shed those relationships. I got cousins I haven't talked to for, who?
George B. Thomas:
I could probably say decades at this point, like, almost forever. Right? Because they're just toxicity has no place to exist. That's a boundary in my life. Liz, this was a funny one.
George B. Thomas:
When we originally started GBT, and we're doing a voice and tone workshop, I said, I only got one rule. I only got one rule, which by the way, I realized it's a boundary. No douchebags allowed, and we found that funny. But, no, don't break my values. Watch where I put myself.
George B. Thomas:
By the way, this is a work and a personal one. I have been at some events speaking from stage and been in a situation where I started to feel uncomfortable with the other sex that I was actually around in the room and went right up to my room and stayed there the rest of the night by myself because I needed to stay beyond reproach. It's a boundary. Wow. And when you know that that boundary is there, you know when you have to activate that boundary.
George B. Thomas:
When you know oh, this is getting a little funky spicy. Let's get the out of here. Time to go. Oh, I'm tired. I'll see everybody in the morning.
George B. Thomas:
That's what it sounds like, by the way. I just get real tired real quick. Always say what needs to be said.
Liz Moorehead:
From now on.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. Jeez. George got tired. Always say what needs to be said. People love this, by the way.
George B. Thomas:
Oh, you're just the type of guy, like, if it needs to be and I say it in a loving way, but I don't hold back. Like, hey. You probably need I don't know why I'm supposed to say this, but I think you're supposed to hear this. It needs to be said. Work ends at a certain time.
George B. Thomas:
Now I can't always follow this one, but, man, I try to follow this one. And last but not least, because this one really burns my butt. I'm going on 1 in 5 days, by the way. I might be running a business. I might feel like I'm important to a lot of people who pay me a lot of money, but they don't pay me enough money not to take time with my family and go on vacation.
George B. Thomas:
There'll never be enough money in this world. And so as a business owner, being able to take time and take that vacation, like, that's a boundary. Like, 1, if not 2, every year has to happen. It's a boundary. There's a reason that we need to check out, refuel, and come together as a family even though we're a theme, family and team, by the way, for the rest of the year.
Liz Moorehead:
We've already talked about this a bit, but I wanna ask you more explicitly about this. Sometimes when we set boundaries, we're not gonna make other people happy. In fact, sometimes they may negatively react to those boundaries. What do you mean you're not taking that call right now? What do you mean you're not coming out?
Liz Moorehead:
What do you mean you can't do this for me? What do you or just a general aversion. Why does that happen, and what can we look to those moments to tell us?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. It's funny. As again, I would tell people to rewind what Liz just said, and that stuff sounded selfish. That just sounded like a selfish human being. Like, that sounded like somebody that didn't have their own boundaries in place.
George B. Thomas:
Right? And it's funny because, Liz, you actually were bumping into a little bit of, like, for all the high performers or people who are working for to be high performers. A lot of what you said was literally around time, by the way. What do you mean you're not posting everywhere on social? What do you mean you're not gonna check my email immediately and respond to me in the next 12 minutes?
George B. Thomas:
What do you mean you're not gonna take that phone call? Like, you're flipping your phone? Oh my god. Are you serious? Yeah.
George B. Thomas:
Listen. There's just no need. Anyway, I could totally go down a whole, like, entrepreneur. If you're trying to be everywhere, you're a shadow of yourself. Like, whoo.
George B. Thomas:
Anyway, I've had to learn that lesson hard, by the way. Give me the original question. I'm sorry. I went on a tangent, Liz, which is not surprising for
Liz Moorehead:
me. But Sometimes setting boundaries is going to create friction with other people. Sometimes people will react negatively when you set boundaries, particularly new ones where you didn't have them previously. Why does that happen, and what should those moments tell us?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. Couple things. 1, did you skip a step that we already talked about? Meaning, are they upset because they didn't even realize it was a boundary? You never took time to actually communicate it to the people that would be interacting with you.
George B. Thomas:
If this is your family, you might have an epiphany, but you don't tell anybody that you had an epiphany. And so they're still programmed on the old system and softwares, but I've done an upgrade. Well, great. You coulda told us that there was an upgrade. Heck, Windows has done this to us a bunch of times.
George B. Thomas:
We get ready to hop on, do a meeting, or Zoom has done this to us. Sorry. There's an update before you can I wish you would've told me? So have you communicate? Are they pissed because you didn't communicate?
George B. Thomas:
The other thing is you gotta come to the realization that it is not your job to make other people happy. It is your job to make you happy, and the true people will be happy for you if you're happy for yourself. Or at least the true people that you wanna have around. So I want you to think about that. How selfish do you have to be?
George B. Thomas:
By the way, you might be internal and external, internal and external. How selfish do you have to be to be mad because somebody is trying to do something to have a better life or build a better relationship because they're building boundaries out of love. By the way, why would they be pissed? Because you're building a fence or a wall. Why would they be be pissed?
George B. Thomas:
Because you're not looking at it as a property line? Why would they be pissed because this is the Heisman trophy of I'm avoiding you? They're mad because you're not actually setting boundaries at all. You're being a selfish human going in the wrong direction, not trying to make anybody happy. Whoo.
George B. Thomas:
My goodness.
Liz Moorehead:
The other thing I would add here as well is that I'd love your point about communicating a new boundary, but there are gonna be occasions where you set a normal and healthy boundary, and you have a baked in expectation that it's not gonna be an issue for other people. Sometimes it might be. Sometimes it might be. And I mentioned this earlier, where I'm sorry. I'm not gonna be available to speak to you for 3 hours every single night about the drama that is happening in your life.
Liz Moorehead:
I'm just simply not always gonna be available to pick up the your phone the phone. That shouldn't cause an argument, but it has. I've had experiences like that where I have put myself in positions where I basically become a service for other people. Like like, software service list is a service. And again, I set the expectation that those were that that was okay, that those norms were fine, but when I started to pull back it created some friction.
Liz Moorehead:
There wasn't necessarily a moment where somebody pointed and said, well, I expected you to be there every night when I needed you to call and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, there was never anything like that, but it did hurt some relationships. And I think you just need to it did. Here's the thing. It made me reevaluate who I wanted to have relationships with.
George B. Thomas:
We've talked about that. Can I go? Can I go? Can you tap me because
Liz Moorehead:
you're bouncing out of your chair. You're bouncing out of your chair.
George B. Thomas:
Oh, boy. When does growth happen in times of discomfort? Did that person get discomforted? Yes. Are they growing?
George B. Thomas:
Maybe. Is it because you actually had healthy boundaries in place? Absolutely. Is there anything wrong with that? No.
George B. Thomas:
What are your expectations? I don't know, but what are theirs? Have they listened to episode 21, how to set healthy expectations to cultivate confidence, self trust, and growth? I don't know. But it seems like there's a trifecta of things happening here.
George B. Thomas:
Maybe you gotta put people through difficult times so they can go through the growth that they need to go, so they have the right expectations, and they realize they gotta set some boundaries of their self as well. I need to breathe.
Liz Moorehead:
Hoo doggy. Either way
George B. Thomas:
I'm just saying.
Liz Moorehead:
My pussy.
George B. Thomas:
Bit of the people pleaser coming out. Like
Liz Moorehead:
But that's the thing. Let's say you have a relationship in your life that is not healthy. They are going to negatively react to a boundary. It doesn't matter if you give them a 60 day lead notice of by the way, 60 days from now this boundary will be in place or you don't communicate, they will have the same negative reaction. Like, that's not going to matter.
Liz Moorehead:
Notice where you see friction. Yeah. George, you look like you're about to
George B. Thomas:
pop like a cherry. Listen.
Liz Moorehead:
Do it. Let it out. Let it out. This is a safe space.
George B. Thomas:
Listen. Sometimes we've had these conversations because we're trying to help you grow. Sometimes I feel like we're having these conversations because you need to realize that they're a tool for you in your life. Episode number 9, the importance of relationships for your journey through life. If they gotta go, they gotta go.
George B. Thomas:
That's just plain and simple, and I know that it doesn't feel right, and it's gonna hurt, and it's gonna be a moment in time. But if they gotta go, they gotta go. How do you know if they gotta go episode 22? That's how are they living in a victim mentality, or are they on the same road as you trying to be a victor? I can't answer that, by the way.
George B. Thomas:
Only you can answer that with the relationships that you've chosen to have in your life.
Liz Moorehead:
So, George, let's end today's conversation with a challenge because you know I'm a girl who loves a challenge.
George B. Thomas:
I love a good challenge.
Liz Moorehead:
What is one question you want our listeners to think about over the coming week when it comes to their own boundaries?
George B. Thomas:
Do you have them? I could end the podcast right there. Do you have them? But you know me, Liz. I like to break the rules.
George B. Thomas:
Do you have them? Do you know if they are yours or ones that others have programmed you to have? When's the last time you've done a boundaries audit in your life? Do you have boundaries for the important parts of your life? Meaning, if I sat down with you right now and I said, can you help a brother out?
George B. Thomas:
What are your mental boundaries? What are your physical boundaries? What are your spiritual boundaries? What are your financial boundaries? What are your relational boundaries?
