it's the summer of 2016 and I'm in Italy in Rome in the heart of Rome right across from the trevi fountain has anybody been to Italy before then you know what I'm actually talking about it's a mesmerizing experience and I'm standing there and looking at my dream I've had this on my bucket list forever and I'm finally here I throw my coin and then another one and another one to absolutely make sure I'm gonna get myself back here again and grab my Gilardi and I'm sitting on the steps just savoring that moment I knows I'm there just soaking it all in this young woman comes and sits next to me except the way that she sits she's literally sitting shoulder to shoulder and I'm like that's weird why is she so in my personal space when there's all of this room on either side but I'm in Rome and I drift off I don't think too much about it soon after a police officer arrives and grabs this young woman by the arm turns out she's a pickpocket um and I was about to be her next target Here I am going you know I mean and she's trying to get into my bag when someone gets into our personal space like that they've come into our boundary and as human beings we are born into boundaries starts with the protective boundary of being in mother's womb and then we come into the boundary of being in our parents arms and then we go down to explore the inside and external our world under the close boundaries of supervision that don't do that don't touch that don't climb on that you should have made in the dirt right you get the idea and then eventually what happens is we begin to articulate our boundaries through using the word know and when we first start doing this we're really good we are really good at letting everybody else know what we want and what we don't want and the adults in our world give this period a special name they call it the terrible truth right we've all been there um as we go and we hit our teams what happens is we become focused on fitting in in belonging in impressing others and what can sometimes happen is we turn down the volume of our no because we start fearing being rejected about being left out we start getting uncomfortable when we get embarrassed and we don't want to say no because it might be the wrong thing and they might think something differently or of us and as we move into adulthood we start getting intimidated sometimes we feel anxious scared about what other people are going to think when we say no we start worrying about are we going to disappoint when we say no or are we gonna hurt someone else's feelings when we say no and so what happens is we turn down the volume of our know even more until sometimes it becomes inaudible even to us and then in our late 30s maybe early 40s if we've been burnt enough times we find I know again except this time it's coming from a place of resentment when we think about dress the very first thing that often comes to mind is that they protect us they create a space where we feel safe secure certain they keep the good in and they keep the bad out they let other people know what is and isn't acceptable behavior and they also put a limit on our own behavior as well and as long as we're coming into this conversation from a piece of boundaries where it's about fear it can get problematic because we're moving into a fear of what we don't want other people to do to us the things that we worry about other people saying to us we fear being judged with fear being hurt we fear that someone is going to transgress our boundaries and get into spaces that we don't want them to be and as long as the conversation is one about fear then we can't truly heal because when the focus is fear it keeps our wounds open and so what if we were to move beyond the traditional approaches to boundaries and it became a conversation about using boundaries to create what we want rather than to try and run away from what we don't want what is boundaries where the essential ingredients for our self love and our self care and that's what I want to talk to you guys about today how can we use boundaries to create a space where we feel nurtured and we can also step into a space where we have the confidence to speak our truths so let's start from the beginning I was born in Australia to a family of Turkish migrants my grandmother was very much the matriarch of the family not like the Godfather but was first grandchild so absolutely daughter and I was brought up in what I refer to as being the eye brow parenting method I'm pretty sure most of you have not heard of that one before so whenever I did something that my grandmother disapproved of or she just wanted me to stop whatever it was that I was doing she would take out her most powerful weapon and she would raise her eyebrows like this and I knew in that moment without necessarily even understanding what I was doing to warrant that disapproval that I needed to drop everything that I was doing and just retreat you're in the danger zone the eyebrows have lost their super power these days trying pulling that often to a kid these day then they're going to go what's wrong with your eyebrows so sometimes I was doing the wrong thing sometimes I was saying the wrong thing and it just became easier to listen rather than speak my truth I become so focused on pleasing others that I forgot who I was in the process because I was being whoever I needed to be in that moment to keep other people happy I was attracting people into my life that were takers because I had learnt to give at the cost of myself and I was saying yes even when I didn't mean it and Saenuri became these excruciating ly painful experience that really became a breeding ground for burnout I have anybody been there before yeah yeah it's stressful it's exhausting it's depleting and you're running on empty you know what that's like it's like getting into a car you turn on the engine and you notice that you're about to run out of fuel the red light on the petrol tank meter is is going off and so what do you do at that point what do you do you ignore it oK we've all done that at some point having where you're like just a little bit more I know we can do it and you and you sort of wishfully will it to cough up another eighty case for you why do we do that why do we even wait for the petrol tank to flash red before we refill don't know I don't know that's just that's that's an important one to to think about and so at this point I realized that I really needed to take responsibility for my well being because when we don't our body takes over and starts creating the boundaries that we don't with our works at first our body is sending quite subtle messages going hello you know over here you need to pay attention something is not where it needs to be can be something like headache or back ache or you've been worried about something and you're losing sleep over something and your body is going come on like pay attention this is not where it needs to be right now and as human beings we are really good at being so busy that we miss these symptoms these signs and we push it away and we go you know what nothing it's okay no problem and sometimes we don't even notice them and then your body goes nah you shouldn't get the message and so it escalates it comes back to you with a degree of intensity that forces you and wills you to pay attention this time it's maybe severe muscle cramps or it could be fatigue or a low immune system that sees you being unwell with the flu for a couple of weeks your body is willing you to change the detrimental situation that is creating this sort of symptom and again we push it aside we explain it away we ignore it and then your body goes in one last attempt bang it creates a life altering situation in the form of an illness disease or injury that forces you to stop and pay attention most of us at this point well and some people still try and ahead now I learnt this lesson the hard way at one time I push my myself so hard I had this cocktail of laryngitis pharyngitis conjunctivitis and sinusitis wasn't pretty I had to take at least a month off work to recover and on another occasion I thought it would be a good idea to paint the house I'm a part-time Addis and I thought what is the house if not a large canvas how hard can it be how hard can it be and in retrospect I can't believe how naive I was this small project blew out into a full season of renovation rescue that saw me touching every aspect of the house where I probably needed to be rescued within the first three days it lasted three months and soon after I finished I ended up in hospital with severe pneumonia I survived that one clearly I realized through these experiences that I and I alone and responsible for my well-being and saying no to requests of my time and energy for things that I don't want to be doing it's exactly what I need to do to love respect and honor my body and my being so I learnt to listen to my body to tune into what I was trying to tell me you're too tired you need to take a break stop pushing yourself so hard this is too much cut down slow down rest I realized I needed to prioritize my self-care to relax and to ground myself to develop hobbies that allowed my mind to unwind to engage with the things that I love on a daily basis not just waiting for the yearly or six monthly holiday to come around and most importantly I realized that I needed to pull back from my giving so I create a space where I was aligned that was receiving so when I found my voice and I started saying no my grandmother congratulated me for how courageous I was just kidding she did she did nothing of the sort she did what anybody else in this situation would do she got angry with me she got upset she pressured me she um she stopped talking to me which I must say had its advantages and my favorite one of all she said if you loved me then you would do it yeah she brought love into it and it was my sheer persistence patience and perseverance that allowed me to stand my ground and come to it from a space of understanding and compassion one of the most important things we need to understand is that when we stand up for ourselves and we reclaim our boundaries we start articulating them implementing them maintaining them other people need time to adjust to them because what we're doing is we're changing the rules of the game can you imagine like AFL there's a set of rules and someone comes in over mine they're like nah that's not the way we're doing things anymore and you hit the field and all of a sudden it's different right can you imagine that's gonna take everyone time to adjust to and the people who are going to react the most in situations like these of the people who are going to be affected the most they're going to come into it and go what the hell this is not the way things are done what do you mean no works right it takes time and patience is the key to allow that space to unfold for both ends have you ever noticed that sometimes the word yes rolls off our time and inside we're like you know I have the time and energy you deliver on that and sometimes we say yes when really inside you know that that's the exact opportunity that you should be going for and taking up so self-love is about owning my guesses and our nose and that is what allows the consistency for other people to start respecting our boundaries one day I remember sitting down at family breakfast with my grandmother and my mom and we were deep in conversation and something that they said prompted made run to my room and get this prompted ideas when I'm teaching boundaries and I said guys the problems you're talking to me are all about too much of the yes and not enough of the no I said someone's coming up to you and going can you do this for me right now drop everything and this is what you're doing is coming to you and going can you go above and beyond your means to do this for me right now I need help and they're laughing I call they know it's the truth and I say guys the solution is you need more release and I'm pressing the mode button it's not working and I had just changed the better if you either go by this stage they're both in hysterics because they realize that the prompts are reflecting reality sir boundaries our skill and I'm not saying that they're easy what I'm saying is that they're necessary for a life of health well-being and happiness and just like any other skill with practice it gets easier when we say no to others what we're really doing is saying yes to our self it's not selfish its self care thank you [Applause]