Edges- Boundaries for gentle mamas

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This episode is for conscious, connected mamas, who are walking a path of gentle discipline. With that journey comes the piece around boundaries.

When we embark on this gentle parenting journey... it is a journey, it often requires us to let go of boundaries.

The arbitrary boundaries, the societal boundaries that are dictated to us, the lines in the sand that would say things like-

"Children should never do this"

"Children should take no for an answer”

“Effective parenting is done in this way”

 

We start letting all those go. The boundaries or rules that assume that adults know best for children and that we should control them.

Becoming mothers, we also experience so many other changes in our boundaries. We let go of many physical boundaries, we’re breastfeeding at all different times when our babies are asking for it, we may be co-sleeping and we’re often really touched out, we’re carrying our babies and holding our children a lot. Our physical, personal space boundaries have a massive shift and a reorientation.

So there's a big journey around boundaries.

 

Then, there comes a time when our children are no longer babies, that we need to re-learn how to claim our own boundaries again, how to navigate healthy boundaries.

How to reclaim our space in the relationship and our needs and our wants, when we've let go of so much - so many boundaries.

And mothers don’t often go there because boundaries can have such a negative connotation. We don't want to enforce arbitrary boundaries so we don’t go there and reclaim our boundaries at all.

 

So, given this situation so many mothers (ourselves included) have found themselves in, we’ve created a whole other term that describes boundaries from a totally different perspective.

They're NOT those arbitrary lines in the sand that have been created out of context or read from a book and they're not necessarily consistent rules to adhere to:

“I have to be consistent about this is bedtime no matter what. This is our bedtime routine, and this is the time we go to bed. And that's the boundary we set, because we need to keep control of boundaries or everything will fall apart and it will all turn into chaos”

It makes sense that many mothers do use those externally imposed and rigidly adhered to boundaries, because it is the most culturally accepted and learned way of feeling in control.

We need to feel in control, to feel like we can create the situations and relationships we truly want without feeling out of our depth or out of control.

Often when mothers reject boundaries we do feel out of control, like we've lost our sense of control over what we need.

This new term, this new approach to boundaries is a middle ground, a place of balance, and we call it your EDGES.

So, instead of adhering to boundaries (which you've probably already rejected in many ways), the way you can reclaim yourself in the relationship is to get to know your own EDGES.

 

It’s so common to get to a point where gentle, cooperative parenting turns into permissive parenting.

eg. Feeling like you need to say yes because you want to really, really honour what your children are needing and what your children's desires are... to the point where you’ve lost connection with what your needing around the same thing. 

For me (Kaya), I remember getting to this point where I really did not know what I needed in a situation until I'd lost my temper at my children. And then I realised I totally couldn't cope with what I'd said yes to but I had already become disconnected from them. I had this belief that I would be like depriving or dishonoring my children if I stopped them from doing something. I became so disconnected from my own edge that I really didn't know what I needed. I had to get way out past my edge, and then lose it, and have meltdown before I could know what I needed.

Probably every mother has done that, I too (Lisa) have absolutely realised many, many times that I am operating way outside of my edge - and too far after the fact. And it's always come from this desire, this willingness to go there for our children, it comes from a place of "I'll do anything for them."

It comes from a beautiful place but when it's too much and too far you lose connection with yourself, and you create disconnection with them, because you lose the plot somewhere along the line. It gets messy and you yell, you scream or you just cannot cope, and get overwhelmed.

 

So understanding your edge and honouring your edge is ultimately about maintaining connection in your relationship.

It's a responsibility as a mother to know what you can hold, and stay in that connected space.

For some mothers, knowing your Edges, begins a journey of more letting go, of widening a little bit and not being so tight with your edges, of saying yes a little more.

But we’re guessing that for most of the mothers watching/reading this, it's the opposite. You're so far out past your edge and not claiming your personal boundaries- from that desire to so go there for your children, to be so free and open, and let our children be that unique individual that they need to be.

 

Imagine your Edge as a ring around you. Your edge is the space where, if you go out past it, you're going to start feeling disconnected.

Disconnected from your values, disconnected from your children, disconnected from yourself.

You'll start to feel more and more out of control, out of your comfort zone, out of a place where you can stay in a connected conscious space.

The further out you go or the longer you stay out way past your edge - the more likely it is for you to lose your cool, to feel out of control, for you to be more sporadic in your emotional outbursts.

Inside this ring is where you feel in control and you feel safe. It is the zone in which you know you can safely know you will stay connected and loving, gentle, conscious and aware. 

 

And this edge that you have, this ring around you is not a static ring, it changes. Sometimes when you’re feeling like you're really topped up your ring much bigger and you can hold a lot more possibilities.

Sometimes you’re so sleep deprived, you're depleted, you're overwhelmed and your ring is a lot smaller and you’re Edge (your zone of coping) is right in here, close to your body.

It’s really important that you learn the awareness of where your edge is in the moment. That you become so familiar with your Edge that you know where it is around the specific requests or dynamics that are going on between you and your children in the moment.

One of the most important pieces of advice we can give you in this short video around that is -

 Ask your children to give you space when they make a request of you.

My (Lisa’s) children know that if I say, "Okay I will sit with that, give me some space." That the best thing they can do is walk away and come back later to discuss the topic more. And that's time for me to tune in.

If you feel really rushed and pushed, you're likely to make the wrong call about where your edge is and where you can comfortably sit within it.

Ask for space, it doesn't have to be a lot of space, and even young children can hear that-

"I just wanna sit with that for a moment"

“I'm just gonna go to the toilet, when I come back I'll let you know."

 

In that space, allow yourself to feel into your body-

"Where is my edge around that?"

Just be aware of it.

 

So, when you know where your edge is, you have two conscious choices. You can honor your edge and stay within it, or you can consciously choose to work outside of your edge.

There are different helpful reminders, different processes and different ways you can go about making each of those choices. But at this point, it's the act of making that conscious choice that you need to understand-

"Am I going to consciously work outside of my edge or am I going to honour it in this moment?"

 

If you are gonna work outside of your edge in a conscious way, then understand and acknowledge that that's what you're doing.

Even just that awareness, that you're consciously outside of your edge - will allow you to be more patient with yourself and with your children.

"Okay, I need to be conscious because I'm a bit outside of my edge here. I’m going to speak from the "I", to breath a lot, I’m going to check in with myself a lot, and I’m going to communicate clearly”

 

And, with that awareness, you also have the capacity to renegotiate at any time if you realise you can’t stretch out past your edge as far as you could.

“I don't know if I can get all the way to there, can you come to a new agreement with me that meets all of our needs?”

"I don't know if I can handle all that you want to do in this day but I could definitely manage to go to the pool for an hour, and then to the Library on the way home. But I can’t swing the park as well, that might push me too far past what I could cope with."

 

And, just to backtrack on that a little bit. It's really valuable to talk to your children about that, and about the fact that you have edges and about the consequences of ignoring them. So they're really aware of them and aware of you as a human with real limits.

So they know that “right now what we're working on is what mum can cope with, and where her edge is” And they understand why that's important for the whole relationship.

Children have amazing empathy if you communicate what's going on for you. If you say-

I'm really tired

I don't know if I can really handle that.

I don’t think I’ll be able to keep my cool.

I'm worried I'll get overwhelmed

I'm worried that I'll lose my temper and yell, and then it will be a crappy experience for all of us

They’ll hear that, they will be more willing to negotiate.

 

If you have no clear understanding of where your edge is, you’re internally going-

"Ooh, it feels big, but I feel like I really need to do it. They so wanna do this, I really wanna make this happen for them”

 But that can create resentment (and an exploding mother). It doesn't serve the connection to give, give, give give, give without listening to yourself and giving to yourself as well.

When you're consciously choosing to work outside of your edge, tune into yourself all the time.

What am I feeling?

What am I feeling?

Is there submerged conflict going on?

Am I really resenting this?

Am I gritting my teeth through the whole experience going, "Why did I say yes? Why did I say yes?  

 If you can't work through that, then you need to renegotiate again or it will come out unconsciously, it'll explode. You’ll lose your cool at some point in that situation.

 

We might do some more episodes on edges if you want us to go into other tangents on it because we are skimming the surface and there are so many pieces to it (so let us know, send us an email to [email protected]).

We can go into more depth on honouring - How you can honor your edge, and not create resentment or big tantrums. We can also go more into working outside of your edge consciously.

That was a skimming of a lot of the edges work that we do, again, let us know if you want us to go more into specific areas in other episodes.

 

For now what you want to take away from this episode is -

If you have rejected strong rules, lines in the sand, arbitrary boundaries - and yet you're feeling stretched -

Where do I fit in this relationship?

How do I reclaim me and what I need?

And how does that get communicated?

 Then we encourage you to explore your edges, to check in, in the moment-

"Where is my edge?"

 

And remember that outside of your edge, the further you go, the more overwhelm you’ll feel, the more likely you are to lose your cool and the more chaos there is likely to be around you. Inside your edge is really, really, really safe, it’s where you feel in control.

So you want to gauge where your edge is.

And you may want to stretch your edges, you may want to shrink your edges. Your edge will shrink and grow and expand and contract moment to moment. What is important right now in this first piece is where your edge is, and from there you can make a conscious choice.

Give it a go, tune into your edge. The biggest step is actually realising you have an edge, actually connecting with it.

 

And let us know how you went.

What came up for you when you felt your Edge and how it affected the way you related with your child. You can email your findings to us at [email protected]... we will respond :-)

until next time,