This fall, my friend Bridget Cooper invited me to write the forward for her book Feed The Need, which got me really excited. I mean, I love this saucy minx’s message. If you’re a people-pleaser, this book will have you at hello.
Do you know how to get wild mustangs to accept being penned in? You build one side of the fence and let them get used to it. Then another. And another. And, before they realize it, they’re surrounded on all four sides with no way out.
People with boundary issues are a lot like mustangs. They spend their lives keeping their heads down, avoiding conflict, steadying the rocking boat, bending over backwards, settling for the bare minimum, acting chipper instead of complaining, putting their own needs on the back burner, pretending that they’re happy, worrying, walking on egg shells, and selling their hopes and dreams right on down the river. They roll over and play dead because they want nothing more than to be loved and deep down inside they feel utterly unworthy. They believe that if they do everything right, if no one has an excuse to be mad at them, then they’ll never be abandoned, or fired. They give up their spirit to others one small chunk at a time, and before they realize it, they’re someplace they don’t want to be with no idea how they got there. Worse, they have no idea how to get out.
It happens one wall at a time. Solely focused on tamping down trouble, they forget what they’re about. Before they know it, they’re trapped by a dynamic they didn’t intend to create. Soon, they can’t recall what it was they ever felt or wanted out there.
Sound familiar? If so, help is here. Feed the Need is the escape guide you’ve been praying for. If you’re sick and tired of feeling sick and tired; if you’re overwhelmed, resentful, and afraid; if you can’t remember who you are or what you want, separate and apart from other people; if you’re ready to run away from home, quit your job, join a quiet little abbey or a monastery, hold on, Bridget Cooper is here. She’s going to bust you out of your corral. She’s going to show you how to take back control of your personal and professional life, one fence post at a time.
Like Bridget, my husband and I coach, speak, and write on the topic of creating healthy boundaries. Walt, he came out of the womb saying “no.” He drew lines in the backyard sandbox. He probably took personal responsibility for his own needs and wants by the time he entered grade school. He doesn’t always get what the commotion is all about. He doesn’t understand why some of us are so afraid to own our opinions or wants, why we dance to the tune of other people when it’s the last thing we want to do. But, boy, can he teach folks how to get out of their own way so they can create the life they want, a life of sanity. He helps professionals develop nurturing rituals and habits of success that allow them to become the respected, centered leaders they yearn to be. He spells many of these out in his latest book, The Power Principles of Time Mastery: Do Less, Make More, Have Fun.
As Bridget says, “If you’re not getting your needs fed personally, you carry this experience with you into the workplace.” If you want to play big, then you’ve got to take care of your self.
As the product of an alcoholic upbringing, I, on the other hand, had to learn boundaries the hard way. I spent a lot of years sacrificing my needs and wants for the sake of others, because that’s what I’d been taught. This was part of my belief system. I’d learned that my feelings were never as credible or important as those of my loved ones, particularly my man. This is one of the reasons I’d followed my former husband to his home country of Iran, a rather inconvenient place for a clueless young American woman to wind up in. So sure of himself, so comfortable in his own skin, so confident in his opinions, his essence seemed an elixir to the rudderless girl I was. He was my perfect antidote, my own North Star. By focusing on his needs and wants, I deluded myself into thinking that I’d never be required to figure out my own. What was good for him would naturally be good for me, or so I thought. Making him happy, I told myself, would create for me permanent security. And when things started falling apart, as they surely will when you take yourself out of the equation, I was quick to blame myself. As Bridget says in Feed The Need, “When you aren’t getting your needs met, you’re apt to behave in dysfunctional, destructive, and desperate ways.” Instead of hashing out issues with my husband, defining what was bugging me, demanding or negotiating a solution like a healthy adult, I said and thought the most horrible things about myself. I flirted off and on with an eating disorder; starving myself when I was a little too close to coming unglued; binging and purging when the anxiety level spiked too high from baseline. I abandoned my self in order to remain in a relationship free of conflict. I feared losing the relationship far more than losing my self. All, in a foreign country where I could barely read the street signs.
Now, all these years later, I can still get depleted. I can still grow resentful. It’s an old habit, I tell my coaching clients, this putting others first, sensing their needs and changing my plans to accommodate, forgetting to attend to myself, just like them. Even though I know better, I STILL spend a lot of time anxious and scattered, because I refuse to figure out what I need to do to get centered. I look to solve other people’s problems instead.
But not Walt. He’ll go for his run, journal, meditate, and take the time to plot out his day. He feeds his needs. He makes his wants and desires known, shows assertiveness, has the tough conversations when he needs a reality check, operates with defined expectations and agreements, honors his own time and energy. He doesn’t run himself ragged, betray his own interests, try too hard to make others like him, have a hard time saying no, or give away the shop for free. He doesn’t allow resentment to build until he’s forced to pull the plug on a situation or a relationship. So when the sh*t hits the fan for clients, or family members, or friends, he’s there for them, fixing what needs to be fixed, staying steady through the storm. Because he’s fed his need.
And that’s what Feed the Need is all about. Identifying your own needs, and those of others so you can thrive. Fail to meet your own needs, and you’ll destroy yourself. Fail to identify the unmet needs of other people, both in your personal and professional life, and forget about prospering.
We teach people how to treat us. When you begin the re-education process, you will get guff. People like it when you do what they want you to do. Feed the Need is about holding steady through this challenging process of growth and transformation. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water. You can salvage valuable relationships by taking 100% responsibility for your own needs, changing your mindset and approach, and developing powerful strategies. You can fill yourself up, and, as Bridget says, “do the same for the people in your world without killing yourself (or murdering them) in the process.”
It’s your time. Saying no starts with saying yes to yourself first. When you speak up, tell the truth, get real, value yourself, trust that you are enough, the whole world opens up. The corral walls come tumbling down. Step out. Have a look around. Enjoy the sense of tranquility and freedom this wisdom will buy you.
