Ask Rosie - Establishing Boundaries with a Parent

Boundaries. What a challenging lot. How often do we think about, "How do I keep better boundaries towards other people?" So am I just going straight into this? Okay. We've received some questions from some of our members regarding setting boundaries. I love boundaries. I think they're great. And I also acknowledge how difficult they can be. This is a question from Louise. "I'm on my way back from severe burnout. I struggle with letting my mom know my struggles as she usually reacts very strongly. How do I respond to someone who is reacting? How can I help another person see possibilities instead of gray skies?" Ugh, Louise. I hear you and I'm with you. For many, many years, my dad always had a negative reaction to anything that we would say. He couldn't ever really just fully take this in. So it sounds like your mom is going through a similar process. And I know this can be really difficult to go through, because we want to have great relationships with our parents. We want them to be happy and live their lives fully. And sometimes they're not able to see the forest for the trees. The number one thing I would say is always, you have to take care of yourself, right? It's what they say when you're on an airplane, you got to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you can help somebody else. Establishing what your boundaries are for you. The way that we dealt with my dad's situation, if I was having a conversation with him and I can hear the tone of his voice changing and it was kind of going down that negative path, I would stop and I would say, "Dad, I know you're really concerned right now. I can see that this is very triggering for you. This is very upsetting. I think it's best for us to focus on something else." And if it would still go down this negative path, like, oh, you know, everything was going great until, and I just come back to "Dad, you know, what I really love," and I go into a memory from my childhood where he was really happy. And it was great, because anytime I would bring those memories up, he would go back into that state of feeling the joy and happiness. And I say that with the consideration that maybe some people out there might not have those great memories with their parents. What you can focus on, bring your attention to something that's going to spark joy, something that they're interested in, something that's going to even create a good feeling. I think it really helps open people's perspective. If people are just focused on the negative all the time, that track in their mind is happening 24/7. So when you come in and you're talking about something, they are going to react in the way that is the norm for themselves. Let's try and break...