Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen, and (Finally) Live Free

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So, let’s make the distinction between preferences, desires, and deal-breakers. Preferences are things that could go either way. It’s like a nice to have, right? I would, I would like it but it’s really like I have a preference to have coffee over tea. Most of those things are not like relationship ending, earth-shattering, but they’re still important that you know what they are and that where you can, you honor them. Why shouldn’t you get what you want as much as possible if it’s not trampling on someone else, right?

So we have our own specific flavor to understand like, “Oh, it’s hard for me to say no because when I answered these questions about what did I observe growing up,” one of your parental impactors might have been someone who had the disease to please or who was very dependent on validation from outside. That would impact you, because as a kid, let’s say it’s your mother or your maternal impact or maybe it’s an aunt or whoever, but we want to be like them, like we are unconsciously drawn. Like, “Oh, this is what being a woman is, selfless.” Break Free From Over-Functioning, Over-Delivering, People-Pleasing, and Ignoring Your Own Needs So You Can Finally Live the Life You Deserve! Who is on your VIP list? Who are you willing to help whenever? Only those with whom you have mutual respect, and share mutual value. This list can change and you do not need to inform them when they are on/off the list. Terri Cole: I would. And I think that the thing that’s really important though that I find that women in general are always questioning if they have the right to have deal-breakers, like, like setting limits. So like, “Am I being unreasonable?” You know?Terri Cole: Yeah, that’s, that’s so mind-blowing when I got that in my life that a lot of my clients would be like, “But, I don’t know, I kind of feel empty, I’m not sure. But, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I mean, my relationship is perfect. We never fight. Like it’s just perfect.” I was like, “Well, I don’t know, you might feel empty for lots of reasons but just because you don’t fight actually doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re being seen or heard or known, that you are deeply connected to this person. So you’ve mastered the art of avoiding conflict, and that’s one thing. But is that, does that really, is that the marker of an excellent relationship? It’s not.” It was a new feature, and it was being added to the book at the last minute. I didn’t have many or good examples, and there wasn’t much of a description for why we needed this new surface type aside from, “It allows curvature continuity and treats profiles and guide curves the same.”

Inner Child. When you are young and your need is not met, you are likely to make a decision from that 5-year child’s perspective. Try to attend your inner child. I’m like, “Y’all think that’s okay to say to some that you really…” Just, it’s kind of mind-blowing. So I love this book for that as well, to be able to take care of yourself in a really healthy way while we are living in this modern society where there are so many inputs, you know, that you’re choosing to participate in. But, yeah, so I’ll stop there and see if there’s anything you want to add. My biggest problem with boundaries is giving certain people what they want and then resenting them for not allowing me with an opportunity to say no to them. Terri Cole says, "You have an obligation to yourself that no one gets beyond the velvet rope without your express permission" which is fair and true but my problems are rigid boundaries. People do get beyond the velvet rope I have set, I cannot control people and then I feel like I've betrayed myself or am a "weak" personality which is what led to this boundary breach. The reality is this doesn't make me weak rather I need to develop a more accepting and flexible attitude by not expecting people to constantly meet my needs, or there wont be peace in my inner-self or in my relationships.

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So I’m just going to read two just to give people a little teaser because you got to get the book to have all the scripts that Terri puts together. So, one example for saying no, speaking of saying no, “I have other priorities but I’m sending you good vibes to figure this one out.” I was like, “Yes, all right.” I have other priorities. It’s like, “That’s true. That’s very true.” Or, I like this one, “For someone who negates your feelings: I’m telling you how I feel, not asking for your opinion.” I was like, that’s why Terri is from Jersey, Terri and Marie. I was like, “Yep.” Marie Forleo: Yeah. And it doesn’t lead us to peace and it doesn’t lead us to freedom, and it doesn’t lead us to allowing other people the space and the grace to live their lives and take care of themselves. I love it. Since becoming a Boundary Boss is a process, Cole also offers actionable strategies, scripts, and techniques that can be used in the moment, whenever you need them. You will learn: How to manage “Boundary Destroyers”―including emotional manipulators, narcissists, and other toxic personalities I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book is for women who are exhausted from over-giving, overdoing, and even over-feeling. If you're getting it all done but at the expense of yourself, give yourself the gift of Boundary Boss. So I started learning more about boundaries and how to teach them. About five years ago, I created a course about boundaries and tested it with about 50 women. Now I've refined that course and I've probably now had 2,500 women in 195 countries go through it, which is mind-blowing. So that's the book, it is basically the fruits of almost 24 years in the trenches with clients. So there’s two things that I always see happen. One, is that every person is like, “I literally can’t wait to get a bullhorn and tell everyone like, there’s a new boundary sheriff in town. Everything is going to change. I’m not doing this anymore.” They want to literally have a conversation with everyone. I was like, “Okay, how about we have no conversations, not like that because it almost is discharging the anxiety that you feel about changing the dance, right?” We’re unilaterally changing our relationship, relationship dances, and that brings up anxiety.In Boundary Boss, psychotherapist Terri Cole reveals a specific set of skills that can help you stop abandoning yourself for the sake of others (without guilt or drama) and get empowered to consciously take control of every aspect of your emotional, spiritual, physical, personal, and professional life. Terri Cole: And actually when you think about when you master anything, when you get to the end of this journey, you’re actually doing it with ease and grace, and when appropriate, love, because it won’t always be appropriate. Like, it could be your boss, you don’t have to be so loving, but you know what I’m saying? So, understanding that the, the beginning you might react, you might have this very energized sort of overreaction when you finally say something because you’re so waiting for someone to be defensive or to be mean or to do something. So you’re like, “Yeah, Betty, I’m…” Betty is like, “Holy crap, I did not know that was coming.” But you will find your place in the middle. So, we do a lot of sort of role-playing in the book so that you’re able to say it. The SOLIDWORKS Boundary Boss Base tool is an often overlooked, but very useful tool found on the features toolbar. It’s very similar to the lofted boss base tool and it’s possible to create pretty much the same geometry (with subtle differences) with both. We think it’s worth investigating…

I mean, we make sacrifices all the time. We have families, we have spouses, we have partners, we have friends and family. Sure. But in general, I mean, I negotiate for my preferences all the frigging time because I want to, because I believe that my husband cares, I know he does, what I think and what I want. And I care about him too. So it isn’t like I’m trampling on him. If he says, “You know, Terri, actually, this thing is important to me.” I’m like, done. You also have the option to introduce guide curves, which will also influence how the geometry transitions between profiles. As you can see below the loft is following the guide curve as it transitions between profiles. And why do we do that? And what is that about? And part of it is really looking at your life experiences and that there is something in there for us. I know for me, I really like helping people, I actually still do, but now I do it healthily not at the expense of myself.We’ve selected the same three Sketch profiles that we did in the loft tool, which yields a similar result to the loft tool shown in our very first image. There are also various options on how your guide curves influence your loft. When creating a loft, a point on one profile is connected to the corresponding point on the next profile using connectors which can be seen in the image below: Wilding: In the book, you talk about high functioning codependency. Can you talk about how this shows up for people in a professional or work setting? Marie Forleo: Oh, my gosh, I love you so much. Yes. And I want to highlight, I want to underscore something that actually builds off this quite nicely. You wrote it on 64. “Your healing comes from having the courage to ask for what you authentically want regardless of what the other person does.” And I think that there’s so much in that especially for, for those of us who might be feeling just like we’re out in space in terms of boundaries like, “Whoa, how do I even get a grip on this?” And I was like, “This is an, this is an epidemic.” This isn’t just like, “Oh, I had this experience.” I had this experience and worked my butt off to learn how to do this. And then I saw all of these other women. And that is what really led me to become obsessed with helping other women. I started, you know, a course a bunch of years ago. And really beta tested all of this in a course. Because I was like, “Will it work with lots of people? Can I make it so that it’s understandable and digestible and actionable?” And the answer was, yes. But I had five years to sort of do that before I wrote the book.