Hello, and welcome to the Piper Harris Coaching Podcast, where I share how you can rebuild your ruins, find growth, freedom, and fulfillment in your life. Through my podcast, we dive into topics surrounding women, couples, positive psychology, Christianity, shifting your mindset, and how to overcome behaviors and thoughts that are holding you hostage in your life. My name is Piper Harris, and I use my over 20 years of experience as a mental health counselor, coach, business owner, wife, and mother to dig into deep and complex issues that you're facing and empower you to overcome and harness the courage to chase after your best life. Thanks for joining us today, and welcome to the Piper Harris Coaching Podcast. So welcome everybody to your Monday. Some of you all have today off uh for Indigenous Peoples Day or Columbus Day. So welcome. Thank you for joining me today. So hopefully, um, those that I'm streaming to, you can hear me. Please interact with me today, leave your comments, your questions. I'd love to hear from you. And those of you that will be taking part in this as a vlog or podcast, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a while. Again, welcome. And I am Piper Harris. So you can see today that I have uh titled this Closed Fist Open Hand. So in recent weeks, I've been talking a lot in my podcasts or vlogs or newsletters with individuals that like my newsletters surrounding the topic of boundaries. So boundaries are necessary for our lives. Absolutely. They not only identify and define the parameters of our personal lives, like how many showers you're going to take a week. And by the way, have you seen the absurdity that's surrounding Ashton Kutcher and um Mila Coonis's bathing their kids? None of your business, people. Who cares? Anyway, I digress. Or listen, boundaries of when your workout routine is, or even how you take your coffee. Boundaries are simply putting a line that marks the limits with topic topics that you'll choose, or it's a dividing line, right? It separates areas and limits. So boundaries are also included where you put the dividing line on the topics, like I said, what you'll discuss in the grocery line with the checker, or if you go to church, or if you're blue or red team when it comes to politics. So boundaries are in everything. Boundaries are also something that we've been talking about that is absolutely imperative to our mental health. We've learned in the least in recent weeks with my vlogs, podcasts, all of that, that learning to give reference to others in our lives should be something that we give knowingly and willingly. I talked a lot about this a couple of weeks ago. Reverence is something that we give because we want to, not because we are cajoled into it, or even that we use reference, we want, excuse me, we want reverence from others. We manipulate it and we require it by others, hoping to cajole, you know, an individual or a certain outcome to take place. So reverence is something that you give willingly, and it is not something that you expect in return. In fact, one of the quotes from a couple of weeks ago, I believe it was those that expect reverence have no civility, have no civility. So we've also uh learned that many of us have been raised to lack boundaries. So, meaning this, our attachment figures, so mom, dad, aunts, uncles, whatever it is, whoever raised us, they trained us in certain ways. They they trained us by um creating certain behaviors in us. So sometimes we lack the ability to create healthy boundaries in our life because we were taught to ensure the needs of our attachment figure. So many times this shows up when um a child grows to an adult and they have to parent an adult. Other times it's simply that the attachment figure in that kid's life required all the attention on themselves, right? And it taught that child to make them smells small as possible. So when we learn these kind of distorted boundaries, basically, I have no personal boundaries or autonomy. I have to acquiesce and give reverence to another person, it can follow us up in adulthood. And that can show up as people pleasing, heightened anxiety, depression, uh, corrosive relationships, body dysmorphia, so many things. Now, boundaries can also be created in us on the totally other side of the spectrum. Excuse me. So some children, some children are raised in environments where they they are given complete reign over the universe. Okay. We all know those kids that are never told no. Um, I remember I had a friend from high school, and her children, after college and all that, had visited, and her kids were being insane in my house and disrespectful. And I said no. And she stopped me. She said, I do not tell my children's children no. And I thought to myself, well, then how do they know what the bounds are? It was just such an odd thing to me. So these kids they lack any understanding of how to create healthy boundaries that include compromise because they're at the center of the universe, right? We all know those, right? So these children oftentimes grow into adults that require, absolutely require esteem given to them. We know these adults too, don't we? So routinely, they only talk about themselves. They struggle to have any conversation that's not about them. They don't think about asking you questions about yourself or really even caring. And if they ask you questions about yourself, then you're you, they're checking a box because they want to get back to talking to themselves, right? Talking about themselves. And they don't see any issue with changing the rules, the appointments, or plans, because it is all about feeding their need to live within their narcissistic boundaries of their personality. So additionally, we have talked over the last few weeks about how we can kindly and assertively set boundaries with different people in our lives. We've discussed that that is very important for our mental health and discerning which individuals can be within our boundaries. And a lot of times I talk about these circles. So you've got your inside circle, circles on the outside, you've got about four or five circles, and learning to define who's allowed in the innermost circle and what those boundaries are, what you'll discuss with them. And you just kind of go out. But you have to learn to discern and define those boundaries with those and who should come in and who should stay out. And this takes very hard, very hard examination of our thoughts and our behaviors, as well as really digging deeply into our attachment figures. In the last year, I have really integrated cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and attachment because it really gives us this bird's eye view of what we have learned from our past. It's not saying we're focusing on the past, but recognizing that there's certain behaviors that were continuing as adults based on if we felt like we had a secure attachment at home, based on if we had permissive parents, or maybe we had overly strict parents, or maybe we had completely negligent parents. So it's very important to see because as we're growing up and our brain is developing, which is crucial, y'all. We build so many neural pathways when we are young. During that time is when we form attachments. We learn what it means to have an attachment with families, with people, with any relationship. So when we have an unstable attachment figure and we we can't figure out how do I find my footing? Where's my anchor? If we don't recognize that, it follows us into adulthood. So in the recent year, I've really brought in attachment theory to CBT because CBT is just phenomenal and it's action, we get goals done, we do all of that, but it is so wonderful because we bring empathy and understanding to behaviors that you've learned and recognizing I can change them. So it is very exhausting and painful, and many times um it's also empowering because when we go through this process, when we willingly step into working with someone like me or doing self-work, we recognize that we are deserving of healthy boundaries and we begin to start setting them with people. However, and this is something that I haven't talked about in the last couple of weeks, and it dawned on me, it's very important to talk about this. There can be times with a snapback effect. Okay. This is this means when we have peered behind the proverbial curtain. We have seen our true selves and how our lack of boundaries um developed in us as children, right? Now, what happens is the boundaries now are so firm in our lives with others, we find ourselves alone and rigidly living where no one can step foot into our inner lives. It's not good. We lost trust, and our boundaries have become these walls that continue to just build higher and higher and higher, leaving everyone out. Or in the case of maybe recognizing narcissistic qualities, which honestly is very hard because it's hard to get someone to recognize they have narcissistic, selfish qualities and have them be reflective enough to want to change them. However, I have met them. And what happens, their snapback might be something that, although they were so selfishly motivated and they noticed it, what happens, the snapback entails ingratiating themselves and trying to earn forgiveness by relaxing every single boundary in their life and other allowing others to manipulate them like they used to do. It's almost like they deserve, you know, the pain and anguish. So all of this gives us whiplash, doesn't it? You're like, okay, well, Piper, am I supposed to have boundaries? Am I supposed to not have boundaries? Yes, but consider the word boundaries is like in everyday vernacular. It's paraded around us in the news and articles and blogs and Snapchats. And how do we balance boundaries? How do we create healthy boundaries, but not have snapback, not have snapback? So, excuse me. Well, interestingly enough, and I think about this a lot, as a coach and a counselor and training, we're taught that we can personally disclose things, but only if it's going to help the client, understandably, because it's not about us, it's about the client. But then I really grapple with, do I want you all to know me? Because don't I want to just be seen as the expert? And so I struggle with sharing my ugly warts and my difficulties with you all. I also struggle with, is this professional? And I think what I've come to the conclusion of is it's my choice. I'm going to choose. I'm going to choose to share these things with you. So, in that vein, I ran headlong into my own snapback. You know, I've worked for years now seeing how my attachment figures had an impact on my boundary setting. And I've had to recognize how the lack of boundaries I set in my life came from this desperate wanting of love and attention. And what happened though is this only served to attract um people that took advantage of it. And unfortunately, that does happen. Givers attract takers. It just kind of happens. So my people pleasing got to an all-time painful high. It led to a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, and a lot of regret. And I had to learn to establish healthy boundaries in my life. So the first thing I did was I started with my personal worth. You cannot create healthy boundaries until you find your own worth, until you have intrinsic worth, meaning something inside of you. You are not going to anyone else to fill a void. I had to step back and see myself as this broken, needy woman that was searching for significance in others. I had it wrong. This process was not fun. It's not fun to one recognize that you were searching for unmet needs in all the right wrong places. It's not fun to come face to face with that. It's not fun for me to part of what I did was go to others and ask for forgiveness. In fact, it's so funny. I'm getting involved with a group at church and working to be mentor there. It's called Regen, Regeneration. And part, it's a 12-step program with Christian biblical worldview. But part of it is repentance and going to people and asking for forgiveness. And as I thought about this and mentoring individual, I'm like, yes, I've gone through this. I did that about five years ago. And I thought, oh my gosh, Piper, there's more people. There's more people. And in fact, I was driving home the other day and I saw one of the people walking. And I am butting up against apologizing about repentingness, but we all have it. We all search for significance. We all place our worth on other things and lack boundaries, lack these boundaries that are healthy and fulfilling and life giving to others. Boundaries should not be something that takes away from someone else. Yes, boundaries don't allow certain people in, but they should never be yielded as a sword or as a whip saying, get away from me. So again, this process that I went through, it was not a lot of fun. But as I said, I recognized that I am in a snapback right now. I pulled my rubber band of boundaries so tight that there was no give in that band. And it snapped back. You know how that is when you pull that rubber band and it smacks you back, and it has left a painful sting that I can't ignore. So what is that sting? And this is something I want to ask you. Maybe you're in the same spot of life as I am. You've worked really hard on creating intrinsic worth. You've really worked hard on creating healthy boundaries in your life, but there's a snapback. So what I'm seeing is that my need for boundaries has turned into judgment. I've seen that my boundaries for self-love and love of myself, I've swapped them for an unwillingness to accept others. I'm seeing that my boundaries that I've told myself are healthy have stripped away the gentleness and kindness that I was afforded during my time of discovery and healing for this staunch belief that I was the only one and I'm the only one that's right. This isn't fun either. Part of the process of reconciling our minds and our hearts is recognizing when we screw up and we get it wrong, too. So overcoming the past and attachment figures and all that was very difficult. But now I'm having to look at it and say, hold up, Piper, you've distorted it. So Dr. Burns, um, whom I love and adore, and I'm part of his team CBT clinical network, said once that um intimacy requires humility and a willingness to examine your own failures in relationships. Boundaries are relational with yourself and with others. So I have lost my view of the intimacy that I fought so hard for. And it was through the work of Jesus, and it's what he required of me. I closed my fist tightly around my heart and those boundaries, and I no longer allowed others in. So just this week, um, as I do every single morning, I cozied up on my favorite um corner of the couch, my pop piping hot coffee. And yes, it's my corner of the couch. I am 100% Sheldon. My family will attest to if I see them in my couch, I tell them to move. Pretty sure I would do that to anybody that comes to my house too. But anyway, I take time every Monday morning, um, excuse me, every morning to pray and study. So after prayer, I dig into Bible study. But this one moment, right before I was about to study, I had a thought. So I have been faced with some really irritating issues. And I'm sure you all have these irritating people, really. Let's just be honest. Because we're talking boundaries, boundaries are relational, right? So I had this thought in an instant. After I'm done with Bible study today, I'm gonna text them and I'm gonna tell them what I will and I won't do. I'm gonna tell them what my boundaries are. I mean, it was just a fleeting thought. And keep in mind this was after prayer. So wouldn't you know? And I just laugh about it, that God, in all his sovereignty and wisdom, kind of laughed at me and was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, really? Hold on. Let's talk about this. It seems that you think um that's what I would like you to do. And so, in just a few moments' time, that thought that I had not offered up into prayer, like, nope, I'm not talking to you about this. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna set my boundaries, turned into this time of reflection. And it showed me that I'm someone who has lost touch with the gentleness and the kindness that I was given through my healing. And I turned it into this callousness. Now, if I think about it, and I'll get to this, it's not because I think I'm better then. It's still not accepting that the boundaries I've set will keep me safe. Does that make sense? So I started reading in 1 Peter chapter 3, and it talks about that wives are called to submit to husbands. Now, hold on a second before you turn this off, and you're like, I'm out, I'm not submitting to my husband. Just wait. That's not the whole point of what Peter was saying. What he's saying is, ladies, let the world see. Your beauty, which is pure and gentle and kind. We are not submitting to being abused. I am not saying that. But how many times do you think you need to mother your husband? That is not your job. And what Peter is saying is submit, but hold on, just listen to me. You can you can you can do more with a different choice, a different behavior. Peter is not saying roll over. In fact, he echoes what my mom used to say to me all the time growing up. And I'm willing to bet your mom said this to you too. You'll get more bees with honey than you will with vinegar. Am I right? So then um Peter continues to say in verse four of chapter three, but rather what is inside of the heart is what is important. So what is inside my heart at that very moment when I was like, I'm gonna send this text message was anger. But when I carefully dissected that anger, and anger, y'all, is always a superficial surface emotion. It's a safe one. There's always something hidden underneath it. So I had to see what was beneath my anger and that control, that position of control. And what it was was hurt. It was fear of being hurt again and wanting to control that happening again to me, the disappointment and hurt of what other individuals do. So I'm just gonna control it with my boundaries. And so that solidly put me focused on okay, inside the heart. I need to think about inside the heart. And this is what I do a lot of times in my study. And I would really suggest that with you too. If you're learning to study the Bible, it can be very, very confusing. And I want to tell you that scripture, the Bible should not be an encyclopedia for all of your pain. It's not a topical thing. The whole Bible, in and of itself, is directing us to the characteristics of Christ, and that those characteristics are something that we should embody. And that by embodying those characteristics, we can find healing in different things that are going on in our lives. So I honed in on this word inside the heart, inside the heart, because I was definitely getting conviction. So conviction for those of you that aren't familiar with the Bible term, it's a wake-up call. I could feel this big, like wake-up call, Piper. You need to pay attention. So it was so funny. And I'm just sitting there kind of chuckling as I'm going through this process. God's like literally saying to me, Um, oh yes, you thought you were going to send that boundary-filled snide text, but I have other things to talk to you about first. So inside the heart had me go to Romans 7.22. So the reason I could see inside the heart is in some versions of scripture, it'll have like little annotations of additional verses that are similar. So I jumped to Romans 7.22. So you know how this works. And it talks about the inner self that delights in God's law. Now, I might have already lost you. You might not believe in God, but I do. And what I have learned about what his law is is this love him above all, and then love others. Period. So that snide text that I so desperately wanted to send definitely did not show my love for others. So I bounced back to First Peter chapter three and continued to read in verse five. And this is where it says, put their hope, and again, they're talking about women, wives, in God, and also adorned themselves in this way. So adorned, okay, go with me on this. Why don't we use this word more often? I mean, when I think of the word adorned, I think about a Christmas tree. I think about the twinkling lights and the tinsel and the ornaments, and it's big, beautiful tree is standing next to a crackling fire with everybody sitting around it, admiring its beauty. Go with that visual, that image. Okay. So that gets me thinking again. I'm thinking about adornment. And as I'm feeling this conviction, I'm digging more and more into scripture because I know there's something for me to learn. And that's what I want to tell you. Your transformation, your healing is never done. But if you are hoping to be one and done, that's not how it works. It's not how I want it to work for you. That intrinsic worth, what it does is it keeps pushing you to grow and to continue to change. Your work is never done on yourself because your work is not just about you. Your work has a massive influence on the people in your life. Our healing is not just about us, it's about influencing others to find healing for themselves. So, as I said, I felt this conviction and I kept digging into scripture, and I'm trying to understand what God's telling me. Although, if I'm completely honest right now, I knew what he was telling me, but I was honestly looking for a loophole. So I looked up the word adorned in scriptural, and I thought, okay, where's other scripture where it says the word adorned? And this sent me to Proverbs 3, verses 21 and 22. And it says this maintain sound wisdom and discretion. They will be life to you, an adornment around your neck. I got it. Message received. So what I want to say is I had been gripping my boundaries so tightly in my fist that I had lost focus. Yes, I have done painstaking, painstaking mental and emotional work for myself. And I've learned to place healthy boundaries. But more importantly, I grasped my fist closed to protect myself and I disregarded, I disregarded the grace and mercy I had received through Christ during it all. Again, if you don't believe in Christ, gosh, I wish you would. And I'd love to talk to you. But I'm willing to bet when you went through your healing process or you're in a healing process right now, there is someone that has given you so much grace and mercy during this time. And if you reflect on it, you are so grateful for that grace and mercy. In a snapback that never should have happened. I chose to close my fist in self-protection rather than open my hand and show the gentle work that Christ did with me and the gentleness that was brought into me and healed me. And he's just saying, hey, I wanted you just to show that to others. Remember, your healing will influence others. So sure. It's just a text message, right? I could justify my need to send that Snide text message. It's a boundary, right? It's necessary. But is that really it? So that brings me to my last point about boundaries, which we've been speaking about for weeks. Boundaries are absolutely necessary for our well-being. They are. However, they can become a prison. They can, that only allows our focus to be on those that hurt us or whatever they're doing to us. It puts blinders on us. It can. Rather than accepting who they are and you choosing to respond or not, we all have a choice. Part of healing is recognizing we can choose. We no longer have to fall prey to the attachment style that we were raised with and how it taught us to relationally deal with people. We have a choice. So this reminds me of something called disarming acceptance. Okay. So if you have done the hard work to heal, I am so grateful that you found it. And if you're currently working to develop these healthy boundaries, hear this. Snapback is potential. So I also need you to have a boundary in how you respond. That's part of boundaries. Recognizing those boundaries of snap back too far and too little. And we can do this through something called disarming acceptance. So disarming acceptance is really truly exemplified for Christ by Christ. He had this way of disarming people. He disarmed them through acceptance. Now, that is not acceptance of choices and behaviors or how they acted, but it's purely his disarming acceptance of the human being in front of him, the one he desperately loved. He wasn't abdicating his beliefs. He was opening his hand to anyone that would grasp it. And so he had this way of disarming people. He will walk into these arguments and he had this way of disarming people. And it was filled with grace and mercy of acceptance. So the goal of disarming acceptance for you in your life is you can accept people for who they are. You can and how they behave. And let's be honest, you and I have some behaviors that are pretty bad. Before we start pointing out everybody else, you need to look at yourself. So most times, what this does when we have this um disarming acceptance where we tell ourselves, I'm just going to accept this individual for who they are. There's a couple of things that happen. Number one, if the individual is pretty assaultive, it will usually stop them. And again, you can see this in scripture when Christ is up against the Pharisees and he has this very disarming presence and it was his acceptance. I swear it was his acceptance. And it just disarmed them. I mean, they just stood there like, wait a second, what just happened? So it can do the very same thing for you if you're in a situation where someone is really asking you to break your boundaries or you're really wanting to fight back, you can disarm them by like, okay, you are who you are. So it many times will stop that individual's behavior. Now they might do it over and over and over again, but it'll stop it in that situation. But what it also does is it lessens your anger. Remember my superficial feeling that I was having that superficial emotion. So what disarming acceptance does is I'm simply accepting who they are and how they believe or they behave, excuse me. But here's the kicker. If you, like me, resist these people and set these nonsensical, harsh boundaries without acknowledging your feelings and reasons behind those boundaries, they will come back and blame you and defend their truth, you know, why they are the way they are. Then you're right back on the hamster wheel. So if I send a text message, what's going to change? These people are who they are. It's not going to change. So where's the change? It's acceptance of who they are and acceptance of, okay, this doesn't diminish who I am. I can still have healthy boundaries with this individual, but I don't have to have the harshness of these boundaries and create a snapback. So just to close things up, sometimes in our healing and our personal work, we have a tendency to forget the greatest gift we have received. And that is of empathy, whether it's working with someone like me, your counselor, your family, your friends, or learning true, self-focused empathy and love. Um, more importantly, more importantly, it is given to us freely by Jesus. I'm telling you, yep, bringing Jesus back to it, y'all. We have closed our fists over the empathy that we feel and we've received. So instead of the goal of using disarming acceptance, which is rooted in empathy, we've chosen correction. Disarming acceptance is rooted in empathy, not correction. Does that make sense? Now, Christ definitely corrected, but he never ever took away his empathy. An open hand chooses to respond or not, chooses to hold on to that intrinsic worth and healing that we've gone through, chooses to open that hand so that rubber band doesn't get so tight that there is a snapback and a painful stink. So I finished my Bible study, I wrote in my journal that in fact I changed my mind. I'm not gonna send that text message. Remember, conviction. I want to end with this. I want to adorn myself with sound wisdom. I want to adorn myself with disarming acceptance of others, the broken, mean-spirited, narcissistic, hurtful humans. Because I'm them too. Boundaries are beautiful and they are vital to your well-being. But just remember there's a snapback. And ask yourself if you would like to look like that adorned Christmas tree that bat beckons others to bask in your glow, adorned with disarming beauty, or do you want to continue to grasp your fist tightly and have no one that wants to sit with you? So those are my thoughts today. Closed fist, open hand, boundaries are vital and they are healthy, and we need them. But beware of the snapback. Thanks all for joining me, and I will talk to you next time. Thank you for joining me today on the Piper Harris Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please be sure to share it on your social media, share it with your friends and your family. And if you have some more questions after listening to today's episode, head on over to piperharris.net and you can schedule a time for you and I to continue a conversation where I hope to explain to you how you can find your poema, harness it, and find healing and vitality in your life. Thanks again. I appreciate you, and you'll hear from me soon in future episodes.