Connection Gems

The Connection Gem of the week applies Mindful Compassionate Dialogue to situations in daily life and offers clarity and practical skills. You can find an archive of Connection Gems using the list or search engine below.

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Wise Heart Wise Heart

Practice Life-Serving Boundaries: Skill 4: Identify current limiting beliefs that interfere with boundary setting and the expansive beliefs that will support boundary setting

Each MCD Relationship Competency identifies 6 Skills, along with specific practices for learning each. For more context about MCD Relationship Competency 8: Life-Serving Boundaries, see Skill 1: When saying “no” to someone’s request, identify the needs to which you are saying “yes”, Skill 2: Identify 3 types of useful boundaries, and Skill 3: Articulate 3 non-negotiable boundaries that you hold in any relationship.

Your beliefs about life, yourself, and others are an incredibly powerful part of how you make decisions and orient yourself to life. Identifying, understanding, and transforming beliefs is an essential part of the personal transformation process.

Limiting beliefs are those beliefs that were formed under painful circumstances. A limiting belief is a sort of generalization. Because you had a particular set of experiences you tell yourself a story that all of life or some aspect of life is a certain way.


Skill 4: Identify current limiting beliefs that interfere with boundary setting and the expansive beliefs that will support boundary setting

Here are some examples of both limiting beliefs and expansive beliefs:

Expansive Beliefs

  • “I can express caring for your needs without having to meet them.”

  • “I can express the needs of mine that wouldn’t be met if I said yes to your request.”

  • “I can support you in getting your needs met without me being the one to meet them.”

  • “I can ask if there are other ways I could meet your needs that would also allow me to meet my needs.”

  • “I am worth taking care of.”

  • “Taking care of my needs is a service to others.”

  • “Setting clear boundaries creates healthy relationships.”

  • “I can set boundaries and be loved.”

  • “I can set boundaries and be safe.”

  • “I can be authentic and be accepted.”

Limiting Beliefs

  • Beliefs that your safety depends on either hyper-flexible boundaries or rigid boundaries

  • Beliefs that you can’t have both authenticity and belonging

  • Beliefs that you must create a close boundary, share early and often and get others to do the same, to avoid being abandoned

  • “I can only be safe if I please you.”

  • “I can only be safe if I keep my distance.” 

  • “If I am authentic, you will go away.”

  • “If I want to be in this relationship or group, I can’t be myself. I have to be a certain kind of person to belong.”

  • “I have to create closeness quickly to keep you from going away.”

  • “To keep from losing you, I have to constantly attend to our connection.”

Practice

Reading through the list of beliefs what resonates most with you?

Is there a particular limiting belief for which you would like to seek healing?

Is there a particular expansive belief you would like to cultivate more consistent access to?

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