Transcript for this weeks message:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of The Horsemanship Journey Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host. Thank you for taking the time to be here with me today. If you're the parent of a teen, this is your podcast.

I want to give a shout out to J.W. Brooks, sporting my new black hat today. Whether it's for work or for dress, I think J.W. Brooks hats, custom hats, I think are the best in the West, the best in the world that I've tried. And I've tried a lot of custom hats. I have some experience in that area, even tried to be a hatter at one point when I was a young man. But that's for another day.

Anyway, today's topic is, a lot of people are asking, and I think a lot of people get confused about, around the topic of boundaries. Okay? So, I just want to talk a little bit today about boundaries. So, boundaries area way that we basically, they're a way that we take care of ourselves. Okay, they're not something that we do to or create for other people. Okay, I think of a boundaries like a fence. My great grandpa used to say that good fences make good neighbors. Okay, now he was in the sheep business, but I think that was literal meaning and a much more broad meaning too. In that when we have clear, clearly understood agreements upfront, we were able to maintain better relationships basically. If we both maintain a clear understanding of how we're going to be in this thing together.

When it comes to, okay, so when it comes to boundaries ,here's a couple of things. I like to look at it this way. And that is, is that I have my own little nation. Okay, we'll call it Shane's Nation. And inside Shane's Nation, I make the laws. Okay? I get to make the laws, and I create this fence around it. Okay, and inside of that fence I get to make laws for my kids and for employees and for horses, employees and children. Okay? I get to make my own laws, and then boundaries or the fence. They're different things.

Boundaries are not for necessarily, they're not, I don't view boundaries as for minor children, horses or employees, okay? Because we can, we have consequences for that group of people. Now, if you're your own adult that doesn't classify as one of those things, you're not a horse, okay, you're not my minor child, and you're not my employee. Then I would, you may have a boundary; no, they wouldn't have a boundary. I may have a boundary against certain things that would apply to adults.

Because here's the deal, adults get to do what they want, okay, what they choose to do. And when we try to control them, the relationship just disintegrates. It doesn't go well, ever. We can't control employees, horses, or kids either, but we do because of the nature of the relationship. We can have consequences for behavior, okay, that we set up and that's what I call the rules inside of Shane's Nation. That's what they apply to, and they have consequences, okay? Because if I'm paying you, if you're on the payroll, I need you to abide by the rules or there's a consequence. If you're my child that I'm legally responsible for and morally responsible as a minor child, if you don't abide by under the laws of Shane's Nation… If you're my minor child, which I don't have minor children anymore right now, but if you're my minor child in my example, then I can impose a consequence if you break the laws of the rules, my rules, because you're my minor child.

And the same thing as with horses because of the nature. I have a stewardship over this horse. And so, in order to have, you know, I want the horse to come my way, and I have a desired result for the horse. I want him to do what I want him to do. And in order to do that, there can be a consequence, right? Consequence is not a punishment. They’re a different thing ,difference between a consequence and a punishment, right? Consequence is if this, then that, and it hopefully is coming from a place of love, right? Not from, not from punishment. Okay? It's just, it's kind of self-explanatory, I hope, the difference between consequence and the punishment.

So, let's come back to boundaries, okay. A boundary, if we just kind of think of it as a fence around us of the way things that we will accept things to be in our lives. So, like for example, you know, if you physically, if you push me, if you physically harm me, if you strike me, if you, you know, say the f-word or you're constantly swearing, if you smoke in my vehicle if you, you know whatever, okay? These are things that you will not expose yourself to. Okay, so remember, just because you have a boundary that still means that the other humans and horses, they still get to do what they want, okay? But a boundary is stating what you will do if a request that you make is not honored. It's not like, well, I'm going to do whatever. If you do this, then I'm going to do this. I'm tired of you; I'm putting up a boundary. That's not how a boundary works. A boundary is stating what you will do, okay, if a request that you make is not honored.

Boundaries are how you will act in a certain situation. So, they have a clear consequence of something that you'll do, not what you will do to them. A consequence that does not apply to them, it applies to you. For example, if you smoke in my truck, no, if you smoke in your truck with me, I will have to get out. That could be an example. If you walk into my house without knocking, or if you come to my house without talking to me first, I'm not gonna let you in. Those are a couple of examples. So, if you do that, if you smoke in your truck when I'm with you, I will get out. If you are using the F-word all the time, I'm gonna go away from you, okay, while you're doing that. If you come over to my house, like I said, and you didn't make an appointment, I'm not letting you in. And I'm not even talking to you. You can knock on the door all day, but the door's going to be locked. I'm not letting you in. If this, then that.

So, what is not a boundary violation is just requesting what we want people to do, making a request of what we want people to do with a consequence. Consequences, when we want people to do something, and we put a consequence in it, that's called manipulating, okay? Unless like I said, for kids, employees and horses. That's trying to control other people. Trying to manipulate, trying to force or trying to punish people in order to get them todo what we want to. And it never has a good outcome, okay? People are just gonna… And we can make requests, and sometimes if people want to do that, or if they're willing to do that, then that's great. That doesn't mean that they're going to, and that's not, that's not a boundary. A boundary doesn't apply to that, okay?

So, if when you don't set boundaries, okay, what you do is you end up with a lot of resentment. Okay? And so that's what's, basically that's people pleasing, right? And a lot of times what happens is, is that we've been, we have been doing things… We've been allowing things to happen to ourselves for a while, for a long period of time, and we, they’re things that we didn't want, okay? And that we didn't want to accept. But we've been accepting them.

And why have we been accepting them? We have been accepting them because of what we want other people to think about ourselves. We're trying to control what they think about us. And so therefore, we accept these things that we don't want, right? We do things that we don't want, or we are around behavior that we don't want. We agree to do things that we don't want. We let you in when you just show up. And we let you keep walking into our house. And we smile through it, and we grit our teeth. And inside we're just like seething, okay? And it comes out.

People think that, you know, they may not know really what the problem is because, “Hey, I just walked in your door, and you didn't say don't walk through the door. So here I am. I don't know why the hell you're so unhappy.” And so, when we allow things to happen, which we're not honest about with other people, a lot of times we get to a point and they're like, “I'm going to boundary you.” And this is where it comes in, right? “I'm sick of what you're doing.” But see the thing of it is, is really what the problem is it's not what they've been doing, it’s what you've not been doing, okay, what we have not been doing.

And trust me, I know all about this. I have a, sometimes I still have a hard time, like we all do when, when, specifically when we know people are coming from a place of good intent, right? They're just being kind. They're just trying to show up and be there for us. Or, they're just, you know, they really need our help. And so why can't we just do it? Or, you know, what the hell's our problem? They're trying to help us, and we don't want their help. Or different things like this that we're, basically it's called people pleasing. Which is, is that we accept, or we do things that we don't want to do in order to influence what somebody else thinks about us.

And as a result, we resent it. And the relationship suffers. Whether we know it or not, it's suffering. They may not know, and it just creates this bad dynamic, okay? And a lot of times when we finally reach the breaking point, “Oh, I got a boundary.” And we tell them, “I'm not doing this behavior anymore.” A lot of times people are shocked. Like if you've been people pleasing and you start setting boundaries, people don't… They're just like completely flabbergasted of why this is happening a lot of the time. Because it seemed so just fine for so long, I don't know what your problem is now.

So, here's the, I'm going to come back to the basic to the guideline that I started with. We get to make rules for, rules or I call them laws in my example of Shane's Nation. But we get to make rules for our minor children, and we get to have consequences. And the same things apply to these consequences. What I'm saying is, is other adults in relationships that we have with other adults, consequences are just trying to manipulate, right? They get to do what they want. If it is a true boundary violation, if we set up a boundary, okay, then what we're doing is we're taking care of us, and we're also respecting the relationship.

But back to kids, horses, and employees, we make rules and then we can impose consequences for those rules. That's important to know. The same things that I'm going to talk about in establishing boundaries apply to establishing consequences for our kids. And horses and employees, okay, same things goes. Okay. Then the first place is to most important is to come from love.

Okay, so here's the steps. Basically, the first thing is to work through your emotions first, okay? If you're frustrated, if you're angry for what's been going on, get to a place where you're peaceful and where you're calm. That's the first place to go, okay? Because the thing of it is, is the reason you're frustrated, it's not because what they're doing or what your kid's been doing. It's because you haven't been speaking the truth, and you haven't already set up proper boundaries.

With horses, here's an example with horses. With horses, I have a rule, okay, or a law in Shane's Nation with horses, that says that a horse doesn't come into my space. And I define my space as arm's length, okay? A horse does not enter my space or my arm's length space, okay? That's my rule. And if they do, there'll be a consequence. I may wave them off or step towards them or show them a little bit of, increase their, show them a little bit of pressure somehow. Even if it's just a look, if it's a step towards them, if it's to, you know, some sort of training aid so that I communicate to them, “Hey, you're inside my boundary, and I need you to back off.” And if they understand that, if I've taught them that before, then usually they don't come into myspace. Right? And it's very easy to establish these when we come from a place of love. And most of the time they don't always respect that. Sometimes they'll come into my space, and I'll have to say, “Hey, you're in my space. You need you to back out.”

Another time that we use like a physical boundary of what I'm talking about with horses is here at our place in our barn. We have a boundary when it comes to feeding. Okay. When it comes to feeding, we go into the stall and we, you know, put hay of some, some sort of forage into their feeder. When we take the feed cart into the stall where the horse lives, we ask the horse to go to the outside of the stall. Okay, so there's an inside portion and an outside portion. There's like a door, a space there, and a little, you know, an outdoor from this wall. So, we ask them to go out to the outside while we come in with the feed cart and feed until we go back out. So, and we've established this. That's a boundary.

Okay, and then if you increase the boundary, we're going to say, “Hey, you know, there's going to be a consequence.” But it's not, um, the consequence should be appropriate to the boundary to the, however you broke the rule. Okay? So that's what that, those are examples of how those things would work with horses.

So, when a lot of times with horses, if they keep coming into our space, so they keep breaking the rules, we can, you know, get frustrated. And, you know, then we would like, we have the potential to overreact if we're getting angry, right? And so, coming from a place of anger or frustration, it never works well. So, the first place is to get right within ourselves. Like I said, whether this is a consequence for breaking one of the laws that we have or one of the rules in our household, or if we're going to establish a boundary for an adult. Which means, which is different, which means that it's not something that a consequence that's going to affect you as my child or my horse. This is something that a boundary is different. That is something that I'm going to do if you do this. Okay? And that applies to other adults.

So, once I've got myself into a place where I'm not frustrated; I've come to a place where I can come from a place of love. Okay, and I've realized that it's because of what I've been allowing, not what you've been doing. Okay, then it's time to have a conversation. Okay? And I'm not going to expect them to change. Okay? If I've been letting them do it for along time, they may or may not, you know, believe that I'm going to follow through with what I said I'm going to do. And, so not necessarily, you know, being mad or, you know, I'm just going to have an expectation that they may or may not break my boundary after I've established it.

Okay, so I'm going to let them know the boundary calmly and coming from a good place. And then here's the bit, here's the hard part. A lot of times that we, the reason that we're not having boundaries and we feel like we're getting locked on is because we're afraid to follow through with it. Okay? If somebody keeps walking into your house all the time without knocking, somebody you love, and they just are coming there because they love you and they want to see you. It's pretty hard to say if you do this, I'm going to lock you out, and then do it. Okay? Because you know that they're coming from a place of kindness and love, but it's just something that you don't want to have.

The alternative that you've been doing in this example, is that you're getting angrier and angrier. And it's truly affecting everybody around you, and your relationship with them and everything else. It's notworking. Okay? And so usually what happens is it just blows up, and then it can permanently damages the relationship to some degree. That's usually what happens. So, just know that they might not honor your boundary once you set it up, even if you're coming from a place of love.

The thing of it is, is most of us just don't or won't follow through. So, you must follow through. Speaking the truth to people, when you know that they have good intent, it's hard. Okay? Being, even if you're coming from a place of love, it's difficult. And so, we avoid the difficult. And then we pretend, and then we wonder why we don't have good relationships. And it doesn't seem real, and we're unhappy with it. We have resentment. It adds to all this drama and all this dynamic that's just disastrous. And eventually, it probably blows up. Okay, done that, and most of us have.

So, we complain about what the other people are doing and what they do. And they just keep doing this, and they just keep doing this. And I can't believe it. But the thing of it is, is we've been allowing it. I heard somebody say the other day, if you're being run over, it's because you're throwing yourself on the ground in front of the bus. Okay? You're just laying there, okay? If you didn't establish a boundary, then that's why. Okay?

So, I heard somebody else say that we should love and honor ourselves enough to tell other people the truth. Okay, for the sake of ourselves and for the sake of the other person in this. Okay, and for the relationship, which I believe is true. I think that if we come, I think that just because somebody is coming from a place of good intent, and coming from a place of kindness, is not enough that we have to acquiesce or to do things that we don't want to do if we're going to resent. Okay, and that if we approach this with love and kindness, then how they feel about it is going to be their responsibility. And we can let it go. And they may not like it. And they may have their feelings hurt because they're probably going to because they've been doing the same thing and they're coming from a good place. And this just sounds totally unreasonable.

But the thing of it is, is in the end, it's going to pay off. It's going to pay off for both of you in the end because the relationship is going to be genuine. It's going to be solid, and it's going to be stronger. And all this resentment is going to eventually hopefully go out of it if they choose to maintain the relationship with you after you set the boundary. Because here's the deal. You have to be willing to sacrifice the relationship for the sake of the boundary. That's how, if they make a boundary violation, you have to be willing to sacrifice the relationship. Okay?

So, if I say, you know, if I set the boundary and you keep breaking the boundary, then I have to, I must follow through with it. Okay? We're responsible for how we feel. It's not what they're doing that's the problem. It's what we allow to have happen in our own nations, right? In our own lives, inside of our own circle of influence, inside of our own world.

If people choose to be hurt, or they choose to be offended, you know, that's not on us. If we come from a place of love, then that's what we can do, come from a place of unconditional love. If you don't feel peaceful, if you don't feel loving, if you're just trying to manipulate their behavior so that you don't have a consequence, if you're blaming, if you're negative, if you're frustrated, you're not ready to set a boundary. Okay? Remember, people and horses get to do what they want. And bad boundaries, or no boundaries… Bad boundaries mean ones that you don't enforce, or no boundaries, are a disaster. Okay? You feel like you're getting run over all the time.

So boundaries can be amazing tools to improve relationships when they come from a place of love, okay? Recap on the difference is that for horses and kids and employees we have rules or laws, and we can have consequences for those. And we want to set those up the same way that we would set up an end boundary for an adult. Coming from a place of love and having a consequence that's appropriate for the behavior. Okay? That's important. The biggest part is coming from a place of love. Adults and kids and horses, they're going to do what they want. And so, the most important part of this is, as we know, is how what's inside of us is going to come out. So, if we're loving ourselves and we're committed to that, then we are developing the capacity to love our kids and to love all of the people that we deeply care about more. And that's why we're here.

Thank you for joining me today. And remember, you cannot fail as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasing It.

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