36. Sexy AF Boundaries

Keegan Losleben41min

Michaela Soleil

00:04

Welcome to the sovereign heart podcast, where we get to talk about what it takes to live love and build relationships from the unlimited potential of your heart. My name is Michaela rossole. I'm the polyamorous dating and relationship coach, artist, lover, communication, nerd, total water bender and heart centered weirdo, and I'm so honored to be alive at the same time as you how great is that the world is a changing place, and so are the ways we love and support one another, within and beyond the paradigms of monogamy, polyamory, nonviolent, communication, polarity, tantra, attachment, twin flames, dating, kink and more. There is one

Michaela Soleil

00:47

thread that weaves us all trust, a nutrient that is only created from a willingness to go first, the discernment to call a red flag, red crystal clear communication and a little bit of faith in the unknown. I am so excited to be on this journey with you. Let's dive in.

Michaela Soleil

01:12

Hello, beautiful, sovereign hearted beings, and welcome to another episode of the sovereign heart podcast. My name is Michaela grossole. Welcome to this space where we get to get so curious about how we love and create relationships from the sovereignty of our hearts. I'm so excited that you're here and that you're listening, and thank you for being here. Yay. And today we're talking about boundaries,

Michaela Soleil

01:36

because boundaries are sexy. Boundaries

Michaela Soleil

01:40

make us feel good. Boundaries help us feel more connected to our energy of self of selfness, of the sovereign, hard hearted selfness that is you when you are in your highest good and deepest truth, centered, calm, grounded all of the things, all of those things, boundaries help us come back to they help us know ourselves. They help us know where our edges are, where our sticky points are, what is ours, what is not ours, and where is the line between those things so important and so sexy to know your boundaries and to be in a space of continually getting curious what your own boundaries are and what the boundaries are for the people that you love, so that you can have continuous conversations about what those are and how you can best care for each other, love each other, respect each other, and really just create relationships that are coming from, or rather opening up into the possibility of sovereignty, right? Because when we're creating relationships that are just on old habitual patterns or CO dependency, things like that, makes it really difficult to know where we end and where somebody else begins, and it makes it really difficult to move beyond this part of just, I love you so much, and I just want to, like, share everything, and like, smoosh all together with you, and like, merge myself and get all up in your business, and you get all up in mine. That's an important part of connection. It's an important part of attachment. It's natural right to want to, like, fall in love, to want to fall into those places. And also it's those pieces of moving beyond the initial attachment, the initial bond, that happens, into a more kind of experience of so much love, so much care and so much respect for somebody's individuality, so that they can continue go to go, and you can continue to go on this path of individuation while you're also growing closer and closer together. So this is the heart of relationships, right? And also what's coming to mind right now is something somebody mentioned to me recently, how, if you like, watch animals in nature, like little, little, let's just say, like little moles in their little mole homes under the earth, you'll notice that they hang out, like, if there's multiple that they hang out pretty close together. They always have a bit of personal space. Like they are never just piled on top of each other. Maybe little like, you know, little pups or something like that. Like babies, you know, will all like puppy pile and stuff. But adult animals actually have a tendency to say, hey, here's my space. When I'm just relaxing, I'm chilling, I'm sleeping, I'm doing my thing. Here's my personal space. And you'll notice they all strategically, and you can see it with like birds that land on the power lines. You can actually see that they're perfectly spaced so that each of them has just enough room that they could stretch out their wings and fly if they needed to. And I think that's such a beautiful metaphor for how us humans, you know, need to can learn. Learn from from animals as well, to know, oh, that's what healthy boundaries looks like. That's what it looks like to just have your own personal space while also being able to be close and connected to other beings, other animals, other people, right? And so before we get into and I have a little infographic for you that I'm going to drop in the show notes, so that you can follow along with me as I go through it. So go ahead and like, get that ready for yourself, if you'd like, or you can just listen, and that would be perfectly fine, especially if you're driving. Please do not try to look at the infographic. Thank you. Saved me first. But before I even get into that, I want to briefly go over the difference between a boundary and an agreement, because this is something that I so often see in relationships, but especially in open relationships, because there's a lot of a lot of the time there's a lot of ambiguity around what the actual agreements are, when you're in, like, a monogamous partnership or a marriage, a lot of the agreements are kind of, like a lot of the time, unspoken and kind of understood to be the same thing, which there are pitfalls of that in and of itself, because then we don't talk about what the agreements are right off the bat, we Just assume, and then everybody's assumptions are slightly different, but I do see this more so in open relationships, just because agreements are more likely to be shifting and changing as you grow in your non monogamous journey, as you kind of learn different things about yourself and what you want and what your what you need, and what your partners need, and everything like that, that the agreements will shift perhaps more frequently than they would in a monogamous partnership or marriage. And so I want to bring this up, because the difference between a boundary and an agreement is that a boundary is this is what I'm okay with for my personal space, right? That little bubble, my little bird, bird wing expanse, right? The birds on the on the power line. This is what I'm okay with. This is what's good with me. This is what's not. This is where I draw the line. This is what I feel comfortable with. This is what I welcome and invite into my space. And this is what's not so for me personally. You know, it could be that I love, you know, feeling connected to other people I love, you know, you know, greeting somebody, and my boundary in that, if it's somebody that I don't know very well, there's just an acquaintance is to have a moment of, like an ask before receiving a hug. Not like a full on, like, Can I hug you, but just a moment of eye contact and maybe, like, arms open, looking at me, like, very clearly engaging me in. Do you want a hug? And I get that moment to actually decide. So that's, that's kind of my,

Michaela Soleil

07:58

like, my boundary, right? Is like, I need a moment of check in. I need a moment of pause before I engage in physical contact with somebody, especially somebody that I don't know very well or I don't see very often. I really need that moment of pause. And so the difference between that and an agreement, right? So that is my boundary. I can't control, I'll take it here first. I can't control if somebody else comes up to me and just goes right in for a hug. I can't control their behavior. That's not up to me. They don't necessarily know that I would prefer to be, you know, have a moment of check in before receiving a hug. They don't know that. That's not their job. It's my job to know that about me, and it's my job to then inform them of this boundary that I have, and they can decide whether or not that's something that they're interested in, that's something that they're willing to do, or not. I would never be sitting here and going, this is my boundary, and so you have to do this. And like, if you don't, then I retract my love and I attract my my care and my respect, or something like that. For you, a lot of people don't even understand this concept of, like, pause before touching or something. You know, it's kind of a different concept. It's new for some people. And so to expect somebody else to adhere to my boundary without me doing anything and then making them wrong and making them bad when they don't. That's, that's like, that's, that's kind of an unhealthy way to have a boundary and to and to not really engage in the world in a way that that helps you create that and helps you live in a way that you can live within your own bounds, within your own limits, within your own tolerance of life and connection. So I guess the difference between a boundary and an agreement would be that same situation, say I have a partner and it is my preference. Right to to receive a moment of check in, a moment of eye contact, a moment of, are you open to touch right now? Or just some kind of gesture to let me know that they want to engage with me physically, so that I have a moment to switch out of my more logical brain. A lot of the time I might be busy engage in something else, thinking about something else, not really thinking about connection or open to it in the moment. And that moment of check in allows me to actually slow down, shift out of whatever logical state that I'm in, or other kind of state maybe I'm a little bit dysregulated or stressed out or tired, and go, Oh, okay. Hug, hug, incoming, right, like, touch, incoming. Shift, little bit of a shift into, Oh yeah, okay, I do want that, and then I can feel more open to receive that, versus receiving that hug, without the check in, without the ask, without the little gesture of, Hey, are you open and are you like, are you here with this? Right now, that doesn't feel as good, right? It kind of goes beyond my boundaries. And then it's my responsibility to have a conversation about that and let them know, hey, when I don't receive that check in, this is how I feel. This is what goes on for me. This is this is how it impacts me, and this is how I would like it to be different in the future. So the agreement, right? That's the boundary, the agreement is. Then I would talk to that person, I would talk to my partner and say, This is what I need. Is that something that you are willing to engage in with me? Are you willing to collaborate with me on being able to uphold this boundary? Because it's my boundary. It's my responsibility, but in relationship, we have the opportunity to bring these parts of ourselves, including our boundaries, to the table of the relationship and say, Hey, instead of just me caring for this, ultimately, it is my response, my responsibility, but can we both care for it? You know, it's like if you had a child and then you were dating somebody you wouldn't like. You wouldn't expect that person to then become that child's parent or something. But if they were interested in that, if they're interested in creating care, then you could say, Hey, how are you willing to collaborate? Is that something you're interested in? Is that something that you actually want to engage with, and, you know, care for this child in some way, and what are your limitations in that? What are you actually available for? What are you not? And then you can have a really clear conversation about what to expect and what you can't. And so in that conversation, coming back to this example of the touch and the boundary here is if I'm having that conversation and trying to make an agreement or some kind of collaboration, and I get a hard like, No, I'm not willing to do that. I think that's stupid. I think it's lame. Why do you need that? Like, why do you need to get you know, why do you need a check in before hugging like, what's wrong with you? Like, if I'm receiving that kind of feedback, that's when I get to make an informed decision on whether or not I want this person close to my life, right, whether, like, how close I feel comfortable having this person in my world. If that's not something they're willing to collaborate with me on, then I don't know how close that I would really want them in my personal space. If I know that I'm going to receive touch or a hug, or something like that when I don't want it, when I'm not open without that check in. So that gives me the opportunity to either say hey, like, thanks for having this conversation. You know, I appreciate you, and I think I'm just gonna, you know, I don't even have to say anything, right? Like, I just get to go over here and do my thing. And if there's a conversation that needs to be had about, hey, I'm distancing myself a little bit because I don't feel as comfortable, I don't feel as safe knowing that this is an agreement that you're not willing to participate in. Now that's different than having, you know, one time somebody's like, oh, I can't do that. I don't know how to do that, and immediately going to that place of, like, oh, I need to distance myself. Like, I need to not have you part of my life. That's not always the case. Sometimes it's just a continual conversation, and you need to have a couple more, you know, talks, or just look at it in a different way, or give some deeper understanding of like, you know, what does touch mean and like, what does it mean for you, versus what does it mean for me? And then there might be a deeper understanding of, like, oh, you had a childhood where, you know, touch was kind of difficult, or you have some hypersensitivities, or you you're neuro divergent, and touch is like, a big thing for you, right? Like, then there's these deeper layers of understanding, and that's what helps us actually come back to that sense of collaboration with each other. So the goal is always to come to collaboration, but the collaboration and the agreement is not the boundary right. The boundary is still yours to maintain and to take care of and to check in with right, and then to have those continuous conversations of. Like, you know, hey, my boundary has actually changed. Can we have a conversation about that and shift our agreements? The reason that this is so important to talk about is because a lot of the time I see people making a boundary as an agreement. So instead of saying, Hey, this is my boundary, can we have a conversation about how we can honor and respect that in this relationship, I see people going, my boundary is that you can't ever touch me before asking

Michaela Soleil

15:30

and so that's, that's the agreement that you want. But saying this is, this is my boundary is saying I'm placing this boundary that's mine on you, and now you either have to adhere and say yes and get my love and my support and my connection, or you say no and you lose that love and you lose that support and you lose that connection. And so that kind of puts somebody in a really difficult position, especially if it's not something that they have an easy yes to, right? If it's not something that they're immediately like, yeah, I can understand that. And I want to, I want to be there for you in that way. If there have any hang ups and stuff like that, then it becomes something that you're placing onto them to say, this is something you have to do that you don't have a choice in and if you don't, then this relationship is over, or I'm mad at you, or there's a conflict, or something like that. Do you kind of get the difference there, right? Like, the difference between, I take ownership of this, and then I reach out and I ask for collaboration, and then we maybe create an agreement around that, versus, I'm not taking ownership of this, I'm putting it on you to take ownership of, and I'm trying to, like, not be the one that has to be responsible for that anymore. So I hope that's really clear. I hope that that kind of brings some awareness, because I see this crop up so many times, especially when people are triggered, especially when there's like, your partner sleeps with somebody for the first time, or they're out on a date for the first time, or whatever it is, something new that you haven't experienced before, that there is a tendency to then immediately go into like boundary as agreement setting of like reaching out and going, hey, you know, like you can, you can no longer, you know, ever text this person or I don't know, like you can no longer post on social media when you're out on a date. You know about your date or something that's trying to make a boundary as an agreement. Instead of saying, Wow, I'm really activated. I'm really triggered by this. Can I hold myself through that? Can I then call myself, find regulation, come back to my partner when we have that time, when we have that space, and ask for a deeper conversation that can maybe come to collaboration, and maybe the collaboration isn't Hey, you can never post on social media when you're out on a date. Maybe it's more about me creating care for myself while my partner is out on a date, and I might feel triggered, and I might feel a little bit upset by that, that maybe I need to make sure that I have a support person, a friend, or something to do with myself that will help me feel regulated. Or maybe I just make my own boundary, that when my partner is out on a date, I'm not going to check my social media feed, or I'm not going to check theirs, or I'll put put it on high like hide mode, or whatever it is, so that I can honor my own system and my own experiences without trying to put my boundary on somebody else. So now let's circle back to that infographic that I mentioned slash, let's just talk about what healthy, sexy, beautiful boundaries actually look like, and what do they look like when they're not fully intact. And by intact, I just mean I like to think of like your own personal bubble, like we're talking about those animals, but this bubble that you have around you that's, you know, ideally, there's input that's able to come in for you to be able to connect and receive connection with others, and you're also able to find a sense of expressing yourself, and, you know, allowing yourself to to give and to create connection and things like that and that happening in a healthy way, in a balanced way, in a sort of you know, you're not overextending yourself, and you're also not shutting down and making yourself completely unavailable from connection because your boundaries are either too strong, because you know, you maybe been hurt in the past, so it makes sense to have those boundaries. And I don't mean like your boundaries can be too strong. I like strong boundaries. I think it's beautiful. But perhaps the better word is, are they too rigid? Because rigid boundaries. These lead to this kind of energy of shutting down, closing down, being unavailable for connection, either way, you know, receiving or giving connection and support and care. Or are they a little bit too porous? Are they a little bit like,

Michaela Soleil

20:17

you know, instead of a bubble, there's like, giant gaps or holes in the bubble that you're unconsciously taking on too much from others, taking on other people's emotions as your own, or are you putting your emotions and your experiences on somebody else and saying, Now, this is your responsibility. And so that's kind of the examples when our boundaries are too porous. So let's talk about this in a little bit more nuance, and then talk about what healthy boundaries actually look like as well. So on the line of porous boundaries is there's, there's really kind of two possibilities here. And so as you follow along with the infographic, if you are, you'll see on the top left is, you know, porous boundaries that are overly absorbing input. So this kind of looks like, this really looks like over receiving

Michaela Soleil

21:15

and a place in which we absorb and allow in what is not ours. And this kind of creates an experience of losing our sense of self, losing that grounded connection, that regulated center that we know ourselves to be, when we're kind of just over taking on right? So there's there's a porousness, but we're overly absorbing the input and taking on so much that is not ours. So the strategy to move out of that and move into healthy boundaries is allowing yourself to actually give back. I do a practice with people sometimes of actually taking a conscious moment and putting outside the room anything that is not yours, or that is not important for you to be thinking about or worrying about right now, right so consciously taking a moment, and if you're working on creating healthy boundaries, you can even say you know anything that is not helpful or needed for me to work on my healthy boundaries and my deeper relationship with What that looks like for me. I put that outside of the room. I put it outside of the room, just for now, right? And it's a practice of what does it feel like when I actually create more space for myself with the power of my mind, with the power of my energy. I also like to to bring in an element of using your hands as with like, as if you could kind of, like, push, push a little bit, and make a little bit more space for yourself, for you to have, like those little birds on the on the power line, you know, to have space for your wings to expand, that is so so, so important. And can give you that sense of, oh, this is me, and this is not me. It's such a discernment and such a process. And so that little practice of putting it outside of the room, giving yourself a little bit more spaciousness, can be a great first step towards moving towards healthy boundaries. So if you have porous boundaries, you can also be overly intrusive with output. You can also be kind of on the other end of this of the spectrum of over giving, right? So like over giving your time, over giving your energy, you know, kind of intruding into others experiences, inserting our thoughts, our feelings, our opinions or a sense of self into them. So like believing that we are, you know, kind of everything, and we're all at once, right? Because our boundaries are so porous. And so if we have a feeling, if we have a thought, clearly it belongs to somebody else as well, right? And so we have this kind of sense of over extenuating ourselves, over giving ourselves into this place of trying to almost kind of get into the thoughts and feelings of somebody else and sort of have an impact on those because we want to be, you know, we want to be felt. We want to be felt, we want to be known. We want to be heard, we want to understand. And so by kind of over giving and over, like dumping our emotions on somebody else, or understanding our experiences to be their experiences as well, and not understanding that they have a sense of self with their own boundaries that's different than ours, it can give this kind of distorted idea of relationship and reality, where we start to project everything that we're experiencing onto and into the other person, and not really able to discern what is me and what is them. So this is a great place where you can actually do the opposite. So a strategy to move towards healthy boundaries is do the opposite of the practice we did before. Of like pushing out. But in this practice, you're actually going to call back in. So you're really going to consciously notice all of the tendrils, all of the threads of your awareness, your emotions, your thoughts, your feelings, your experiences that you kind of have, we often have so many fingers in all the cookie jars. And so I actually like to imagine as if you had little tendrils, you know, like, if you're a tree and you had a root system, or if you, you know, were a magical being that had tendrils of energy out of your fingertips, if you're, if you're into that sort of thing, you can actually consciously call those tendrils of your awareness, and it doesn't, you don't have to see the imagery. The imagery is helpful for some people. It can just be an intention and a feeling of calling your awareness back from all the people, all the places, all the things, all the experiences, all the realities that you maybe have had your your sticky fingers in right and taking a moment to consciously bring that back to you and saying something like, I call myself back, I call my awareness back to the present moment. And that doesn't mean that you're gonna feel completely grounded and centered, or you're gonna feel completely present. I don't think presence is really like, either you're present or you're not present. I think it's so much more along the lines of, can you bring even 1% more presence to this moment? Can you bring even 1% more awareness to yourself here and now, to you and the limits of you, and where that is, where you end, where somebody else begins. Can you call yourself back into your little bubble and really call yourself home? And that's going to create this sense of, oh, so I'm not actually everywhere all at once, which, like, yes, esoterically, we all are everything, all at once. Watch the movie if you don't get it right, and also having that sense of and we're not and we're individuated. We are individual beings at the same time that have a unique frequency and a unique soul, a unique blueprint that we're here to experience and and be in and so calling ourselves back into that space can be so helpful to add a little bit more definition to that sense of boundaries and come back into that more balanced, healthy boundary kind of space.

Michaela Soleil

27:36

So the other possibility, and you'll see on the the right side of this little infographic, if you're, if you're looking at it with me, are having rigid boundaries. So having rigid boundaries is really where, you know, we can feel protected. You know, we feel like that sense of like we know where our limits are. It's, it's, there. We're here, they're there. We're protected, but we're not connected. We're protected, but we're not actually open to connection. So in the top right, you'll see blocking input, and this is where we're under receiving. We're not allowing ourselves to receive the connection, the love, the support, the care from others, and we block out love and input from other people. So this looks like really not being where, like the porous boundaries with like being intrusive, might be putting our thoughts and ideas and opinions onto somebody else and saying, This is what's right. Like you have to believe it my way, blocking input might be unavailable to even hear a perspective outside your own, unavailable to be able to receive the love and the care that other people might want to might want to give us, right? So this is where we can invite a sense of what is safety to you? How do you experience safety? Right? Because when there's rigid boundaries, what I think of is somebody that has created a sense of self and a sense of being in the world that you need to put on a mask, you need to put on a certain like armor, to be able to feel safe in the world. And I think that's a beautiful process, right, to really find what that is for you, especially if you've been somebody that has had porous boundaries, and you're learning to develop them, there can be this natural process of taking on so many boundaries and getting so, you know, protective of your beautiful self, that it does become a little rigid, it becomes a little bit like you have the armor, but now you don't know how to take it off. So my curiosity there would be, where do you find safety? How do you find safety? How are the parts of you that are protecting you? How are they showing up? How are they. They interacting? How are they trying to protect you? And if they're doing that in a way that's protecting you from getting hurt, but also not allowing in, like not allowing love in either, maybe there's a conversation that you can have with those more protective parts of you, with the parts of you that are putting up the shields and the armor and putting that on every day and going, Hmm, now I'm safe. Can you have a conversation with that part of you that safety is something that you also want to include, experiencing safety with others, experiencing a sense of connection while also experiencing a sense of safety. And that can be a journey to go on, especially if you've experienced trauma or abuse or anything like that, to really start to allow that armor to become more malleable, allow it to become something that protects you, but also can open right, like the soft heart that's underneath the armor, that can also receive and open to the love and the care that you're really wanting and that you're really needing. And so then the last place here that we'll look at is having rigid boundaries, but restraining output. So this is where it looks like kind of under giving, and we restrain ourselves from expressing or giving to others. So it's kind of like this image that comes to mind of a shell that we create around ourselves, or like a cave, and we kind of put ourselves in that cave, put ourselves in that shell, and don't come out. Right? It's kind of like the egg that never hatches. And my reasoning for saying that is that there is a necessity to that time, of not giving, of not being there all the time for anyone else, of not expressing ourselves with others. There's actually a really beautiful and healthy process of that, like the metaphor of going into the cave or being in the little egg or something, of this beautiful space for transformation, this beautiful space for deeper inner wisdom, especially if you are an empathic person, to have times where you give yourself that conscious space to reset and recharge, especially if you're Somebody that tends towards having these rigid boundaries where you do restrain yourself and you do, you know, stop yourself from sharing your feelings or your opinions or your thoughts, you know, for for whatever reason, giving yourself this time to go inward and be with your own feelings, your own thoughts, your own experiences, allowing yourself to fill up with yourself and to feel good with yourself can help you start to soften into the possibilities that you can actually share some things with other people. And so there's also, there's, there's something here, you know, as I'm talking about this around really allowing the amplification of that, of wanting to be restrained, of wanting to be, you know, in that safe space, in the safe cave, safe little egg, where you don't have to share anything with anybody, you don't have to be there for anybody, right, giving yourself that time consciously, right, amplifying that a little bit because usually when there's rigid boundaries, it's somebody feels like they're over giving, and they get resentful. They feel like that. They're they have lots of thoughts and feelings, and it's not safe for them to express them. What I think about is, do you feel safe to express that with yourself? Are you taking the conscious time where you're not expected to be giving where you're not expected to be there for other people or something like that. I am somebody who needs a lot of this time, a lot of this time, to just be with myself and just, you know, not have to be being there. You know, I support people for a living, right? I have conversations with people. I hold space. That's what I do every day, and so giving myself that time to actually say I don't have to give right now, right allows me to reset, allows me to recharge, and allows me to come into this place where I'm happy to give my time. I'm happy to give my energy. I don't feel depleted by it, and I get to have a balanced sense of myself, while also allowing myself to be present for to connect, to love, to give. And as you kind of go on that journey of giving yourself, that time, amplifying, if you're somebody that tends towards this, you know, rigid boundaries and like not wanting to express and not wanting to, you know, give anything because you're like, Oh, I just, I don't have the energy. Give yourself even more time than you think you need. Give yourself the self care that it just feels a little bit extra, that just feels like a little bit more than you think, that you know you need, or that you think that you deserve, or something like that, right? Give yourself that time. Give yourself. That care, give yourself that connection, and it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to then show up into your relationships and into your life and go, all right, I get to give from this full place, and that allows you to make those little steps of, you know, coming out of the cave and experiencing life, because there's a whole life, a whole beauty out there that you don't experience right? When, when you only stay in the egg, you only stay in the shell, you only stay in the cave, right? And the longing, usually the heart longing, the sovereignty of our hearts, want to experience that. We came here to this human experience because we wanted to experience being human. And so when we shut ourselves down to, you know, part of that experience, it does create this kind of rigidity. And so my feeling is that the antidote to that, I guess you could say, is to amplify that need. Let it be okay. Let it be known. Express it with people that you do need self care time, maybe more than others. And trust me, I've been on that journey, and it's, it's, it's challenging sometimes, but it's, it's possible, right? It's possible, and it's possible to then be able to get to a place where you do feel you can show up, you can have those healthy boundaries. You can really feel like you are full, right? And you get to give and you get to show up from that full place. So finally, we come back to the very center of this little infographic that says healthy boundaries. And for this episode, we call could call them sexy boundaries, where you feel connected and protected, like we talked about. So this is where there's a sense of like a balanced input and balanced output, which looks like giving and receiving in harmony, a place where we can connect with others while also maintaining our sense of self. We share our feelings and opinions while respecting and allowing others to be distinct and separate from us. So this is the place that all of those little tools, depending on you know what section you found yourself in, those tools, will help you come back to this centered place, come back to finding this sense of balanced input and balanced output, and something on the lines of balance, because I'm a Libra and I Love balance and all the things and peace and beauty is that sometimes balance looks like imbalance for a while, sometimes balance looks like

Michaela Soleil

37:31

the scales tipping all the way one way, and then the scales tipping all the way to the other way. And then they kind of start to pendulate, and they start to find that sense of balance again. So I don't want you to listen to this and go all right. I gotta, like, have healthy boundaries immediately. And this is super important. It's like, if you are in one of those places where you are finding yourself with super rigid or super porous boundaries, and you, you know, recognized yourself in any of these places. Let yourself be in that place. Let that be okay. Stop making yourself wrong about it. Don't make it like this, this crazy, big to do, to do or a big deal right? Be with it and get curious about smart strategies for moving towards healthy boundaries. And if that looks like you've had porous boundaries for a long time, and you need to flip over and have some rigid boundaries for a while and see what that feels like, then do that right? Or if you've been super rigid, and you're like, I'm gonna experiment and try something that's out of my comfort zone for me personally, in the way that I've done that, because I have tended to be somebody that I don't know has experienced rigid and porous boundaries in my life, but for a lot of the time, I think I do have more rigid boundaries than anything, and to actually get myself out of those patterns. When I stayed at community for a month I was or rather, a couple weeks I was staying at community, and I had the option to either stay in a tent by myself, or, like, like, stay in a room like a private, private room, or I could stay in the dorms, and I'm an only child, and so my sense of my own personal space is a huge part of my boundaries, a huge part of me feeling centered and grounded and connected to myself and having healthy boundaries. However, that can tend on the side of becoming super rigid for me. And so by putting myself and so in this situation, I decided to put myself in the dorms. Could have done the other two. It could have just stayed how I usually am and been in my own little personal bubble. And instead, I decided to stay in the dorms and do something that was a little bit more challenging for me, with the understanding and with the kind of idea that it would be an experiment of, can I still experience healthy, sexy ass boundaries, even while in a situation that might lead me towards feeling a little bit more rigid, a little bit more nervous, a little bit more i. Oh, I don't know, like, I don't know if I can handle this. And that kind of thing, of putting yourself in a situation that you wouldn't normally do is just one way, right? And I'm not saying that you need to do that, but for me, it was something to challenge myself and to challenge my ideas about my own boundaries and what I could actually do and still feel healthy and still feel connected, and still feel grounded and centered. And what I found from that experience is that I actually have much healthier boundaries than I thought, and I don't need as many rigid kind of rules and restrictions around, you know, my personal space and how I want to live and stuff like that, to feel grounded and centered and regulated and good, and still able to give and receive in balance. So when you put yourself out of the comfort zone, when you allow the scales to tip one way or the other, try something different than what you normally do, you might actually surprise yourself. You might actually surprise yourself on you know what you're really capable of, and you know how you can actually feel more grounded, more connected, more centered than you thought you could so that's just one little example of how you could go on this journey. Obviously, it gave a lot of different tools and practices here. Yeah, please, please try these things out. And if this is something that you're working on, I'd be happy to have a conversation with you. I have a couple spots for individuals and couples, for dating coaching, for relationship coaching right now, for open relationship or any kind of relationship transition or challenge that you're experiencing, I'd be happy to have a conversation with you about how I can be there for support,

Michaela Soleil

41:34

especially around creating sexy as fuck boundaries. Because Wow, how good does that feel? So I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day, and I will see you next time. Okay, bye, bye.

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