Life-Serving Boundaries

By LaShelle Lowe-Charde

In Life-Serving Boundaries, an audio course from Scribd Coach, psychologist and Wise Heart founder LaShelle Lowe-Chardé helps listeners reclaim the concept of boundaries and preserve “life-serving boundaries” — boundaries about honoring the life in you and another that offer clarity about what really serves your needs. Understanding setting boundaries as a conscious decision about how to relate to one another or behave in a particular situation, Lowe-Chardé offers a number of skills to help set life-serving boundaries, including identifying the needs to which you are saying “yes” when you say no; identifying life-serving boundaries; establishing boundaries; and more. She also shares “Connection Gem” exercises to help you put what you’ve learned into practice.

If you’re looking for a new perspective on boundaries and how to reclaim them for yourself, you’re bound to found something valuable in Life-Serving Boundaries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribd Coach
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781094439648

LaShelle Lowe-Charde

LaShelle Lowe-Chardé is the founder of Wise Heart, with a mission of helping create a shift in consciousness about how we relate to life. A former school psychologist and resident of Great Vow Zen Monastery, Lowe-Chardé’s work emphasizes Mindful Compassionate Dialogue. To learn more about LaShelle and her work, visit WiseHeartPDX.org.

Book preview

Introduction

Hello everyone! I’m LaShelle Lowe-Charde, and this is Life-Serving Boundaries, a course from Scribd. Thank you for joining me. Let’s get started.

First, I like to start with mindfulness. You can do this every time you come back to the audio course. Take a few minutes to settle in and find a sense of connection however you find it. Beginning with mindfulness will help you maintain self-compassion as you learn new skills and integrate the concepts.

After all, mindful engagement, along with compassionate relating, access to agency, and wise action, are the ways that we manifest our life-serving intention, which is at the heart of mindful compassionate dialogue. The purpose of this framework is to offer practical skills for personal transformation and thriving relationships.  These skills come in the form of nine supportive foundations through which we discover an integrated sense of self, as well as twelve relationship competencies. One of those relationship competencies is the focus of this audio course, and that is competency 8, which is Life-serving Boundaries.

We live in a world in which there is so much vying for our attention. There is an endless stream of influence on you about who you should be, what you should do, what you should value, what points of view you should espouse or what arguments you should fight for, and so on. This myriad of influences requires us to be clear about where we want to spend our energy and our attention and how we want to dedicate our lives and hearts. It requires us to set boundaries. 

I want to reclaim the concept of boundaries. It’s common to think about boundaries in a binary or dualistic way. You might imagine that setting boundaries is about closing off or pushing something away. You may visualize it as putting up a strong no in the face of something you don’t like. Perhaps you think you need to toughen up and stand firm. Often, this is accompanied by harsh judgments of yourself or others. 

This traditional view of boundaries as simply keeping yucky stuff out doesn’t leave you with much power. Instead, this way of thinking about and enacting boundaries can lead you to ignore subtle opportunities to set boundaries in small instances when they are needed. When small boundary violations go unchecked, harmful relationship dynamics escalate.

So, we’ve talked about what boundaries aren’t. Now, let’s talk about what they are and what they can do for you. Having clarity about life-serving boundaries in relationships allows a greater sense of security and freedom. When you are clear about boundaries for yourself and others, you also know where you are free to play and grow together. 

Life-serving boundaries are about honoring the life in you and in another, rather than cutting off connection. Setting life-serving boundaries means having clarity about what really serves life or meets your needs. It means making a conscious decision about how you will relate to another or how you will behave in a particular situation, while being able to remain heart-connected. 

To set life-serving boundaries, you need to be able to recognize and honor your own needs, speak clearly about