Boundaries: Say No Without Guilt, Have Better Relationships, Boost Your Self-Esteem, Stop People-Pleasing. Jennie Miller
I can have as much as I want.’ Another child voice might be saying, ‘I don’t like the taste but if I have a drink I can be more fun.’
The voice that may be missing is the nurturing parent saying, ‘But what’s best for us?’ Note that the Adult at the table will be weighing up the opinions but perhaps cannot get a word in edgeways for all the chatter going on. Many people will recognise this sense of internal debate which seems to accompany habitual behaviour. You may even feel the urge to reach for a bottle in response to the mental chatter as a way of silencing it.
So, what’s going on? Once you commence the habit you are knowingly shutting up the Adult voice, forcing them away from the debating table altogether to prevent their moderating influence on the internal melee. Another way of looking at this is to imagine that the consequence of your ‘bad habit’ is to allow the Child and Parent voices at your debating table to run the show with all the chaotic results and misunderstandings you can imagine.
This internal debate will have a knock-on effect not just on how much time or energy gets put into the habit, but on your external behaviour too.
For example, the critical parent voice, being judgemental and defensive, may get free reign and you might hear ‘you don’t know how to behave’ or ‘you’re useless’. These types of remarks are directed at yourself or let loose on others. Alternatively, indulging in our habit may see that internal Child let out to start dancing on the table and ignoring societal conventions, resulting in risky behaviour.
So, who were the loudest influencers around your table?
If it’s the child, perhaps you need more opportunities to let go in your life? If that one glass too many equates to the only time you get to dance on the tables, why aren’t you letting that side of yourself out in your life as a healthy part of it? Perhaps consider going to a comedy club or taking up salsa.
If the loudest voice is venting spleen at another, what is it you are not saying when you are sober in that relationship? If the anger is voiced at yourself, why are you so harsh on yourself? If you are dealing with this quietly every day, then the lack of self-kindness needs to be addressed.
Remember: a healthy self-boundary means taking all of those voices into consideration, but the Adult makes the decision.
So how about creating some healthy self-boundaries instead, whatever your habit. Bear in mind that habits can travel in packs. Changing one may well inspire a healthy knock-on effect on others, so if this sounds like you, start with a self-boundary around one habit that feels doable. Once that boundary feels secure, you can work on the others. Here are a few tips:
• No ‘day off’ your habit? Ask yourself why that is. What is keeping you in this habit? Take a ‘day off’ a week as a starting place; make sure that day has something nice in it, like a special meal, luxury bath, dance class, game of footie, or favourite TV show.
• Once the first day is established, you may notice you are pleased to be in charge – and not the habit. Think about your pasta jar.
• Make it difficult to indulge your habit. Don’t keep quantities to hand – whatever it is.
If you notice that you really can’t or won’t put changes regarding your habits in place, do talk to a professional about it. You might need some extra support to help you make the changes.
Draw the Line: parents know what’s best for their children, but all too often fail to offer the same level of care for themselves.
See yourself making changes to your unhealthy habits not as a series of denials but as chances to add to your quality of life and experience. Habits mean what they say – you keep doing the same thing for the same reason, but not understanding your motivation and so you don’t reap the reward you really need. For example, if you can’t sleep without a sleeping pill, wouldn’t it be better to establish the cause of your insomnia and treat that instead? Or to resolve the stress that has you reaching for a cigarette or bottle every evening?
Note down how you feel now about your unhealthy habit and what action you intend to take in your Learning Journal.
Social Media and E-mail Protocol
Now we are going to look at your online life, social media and the ubiquitous overflowing inbox which seems to demand attention all the time. It would be difficult to find someone who received hundreds of letters through their door every day – all of which needed opening and reading - yet who doesn’t see a deluge of new e-mails every time they log on? We all know that most will be junk of some kind, but that doesn’t ease the fear that among the links to supermarkets and notifications of sales, there isn’t one crucial message which must not be missed. We’re confident that drawing a line around your inbox is one boundary everyone will benefit from – and learn to enjoy too.
We will also show you how to assess the time you spend staring at screens and how to build a healthy boundary around your Wi-Fi use. We also cover using self-boundaries when establishing or seeking friendships online, the shaming phenomenon and online safety.
By the end, you will have a clearer idea of your own relationship with the online world, and the tools to create healthy self-boundaries so you can navigate it more securely.
Draw the Line: your phone is not human, merely a conduit. Remember that none of these conversations are face-to-face.
When we say social media, we’re including every kind of interaction and relationship online, whether it’s someone you know on Twitter, a business contact on LinkedIn, a gamer friend on World of Warcraft, or family members on WhatsApp: the same basic rules apply to all these online communities. After all, social media is not the preserve of teenagers on Instagram. We’re all at it – in some way at some time. For the first time, more than half of all online adults who are 65 and older (56 per cent) use Facebook. Roughly half of Internet-using young adults aged from 18 to 29 (53 per cent) use Instagram. And half of all Instagram users (49 per cent) use the site daily. The share of Internet users with college educations using LinkedIn reached 50 per cent. And women dominate Pinterest: 42 per cent of online women now use the platform.
So, how much time do you spend on social media every week? You may be staggered to know that the average adult is probably online almost a full day and night each week. According to the communications watchdog Ofcom, in its Ofcom’s Media Use and Attitudes 2015 report, the average adult spends more than 20 hours online a week (which includes time spent on the Internet at work). And 2.5 of those hours are spent ‘online while on the move’ – away from home, work, or place of study. Young people aged between 16 and 24 spend more than 27 hours a week on the Internet. It’s practically as much time as you spend in a full-time job.
Of course, much of that time will be related to work. And surely, it doesn’t matter if we then check in with our friends through Facebook after work … We can spend as long or as little online as feels good, can’t we?
Well, perhaps not. The medical community are increasingly warning of injuries related to overuse of Wi-Fi-related technology, including repetitive strain injury and back problems from too much intense use of phones. A 2014 study found that looking down at a mobile is the equivalent of placing a 27kg weight on one’s neck. According to Kenneth Hansraj, a New York back surgeon, writing in the journal Surgical Technology International, an average human head weighs about 4–5kg, and tilting it down to check Facebook, send a text, or to Google the weight of a human head increases the gravitational pull on the brain. The stress this places on the spine, Mr Hansraj says, ‘may lead to early wear, tear, degeneration and possibly surgeries.’
What is more worrying is the effect of all this online activity on our mental health and relationships with others. A Columbia University study has found that we are becoming so adjusted to using Google that our brains are rewiring themselves so that we look to information online before using physical maps, reference books or, crucially, asking other humans. The research, which was published in the journal Science in 2011, says: ‘It may be no more than