Relational Capacity – Boundaries That Build Trust & Compassionate Leadership EP 86

If you ever avoid a hard conversation or replayed one in your head for days, today's episode is going to feel like relief. Because most entrepreneurs don't have a people problem, they have a relational capacity problem. If you take responsibility for other people's emotions, resent how much you're carrying, or worry about seeming mean when you set a boundary, you're going to understand exactly why this happens today. I'm breaking down the difference between rules, expectations, and boundaries, and why confusing them keeps you stuck in resentment or overfunctioning. You'll also hear how to combine compassion and accountability in a way that protects your energy and strengthens your relationships. And yes, we're going to talk about the nervous system response that happens when you start holding people accountable, both in them and in you. So let's dive in. Hey, you leader, entrepreneur, business owner, solopreneur, whatever you call yourself. We know you're a visionary business builder, wealth seeker looking to combine a passion for doing good with leading consciously. It's time to shift from a traditional focus of pure wealth accumulation to one that integrates well-being and fulfillment. You're here for a purpose and it's time to shine your light. So here we go. Welcome back to The Conscious Edge. I'm your host, Alicia St. Germain, founder of The Conscious Edge, where I help entrepreneurs expand what they can hold emotionally, energetically, and financially so success feels aligned, sustainable, and genuinely supportive of the life they're building. If you are a business owner or real estate investor carrying a lot, clients, team, family, responsibility, this podcast is designed to help you lead without burning out or abandoning yourself. So right now, we're currently inside the Capacity Series. It's a five-part exploration of how your nervous system, beliefs, and leadership patterns shape your ability to grow. Every episode, we've covered things like energetic capacity, emotional capacity, financial capacity, time capacity, and today, relational capacity, and give you practical tools to expand what you can hold. So if this is the first time you are joining us, you can catch all five replays at consciousedge.com forward slash capacity. Or you may want to go back and listen to it on some of the previous episodes. If these conversations help you feel seen or supported, make sure you hit the follow or subscribe button from wherever you are listening. Every week we talk about the deeper patterns behind overwhelm, avoidance, over-efforting, people-pleasing, and all the other things that go into building a business and having a very real human experience. I want this podcast to be your grounding place, the reminder that you're not behind and you're not alone. So I hope you enjoy today's replay of a training I recently did. It is very near and dear to my heart. It is a kind of the bow that I am putting on some of my own breakthroughs. You'll hear in a few episodes, we did a little recap, Jonathan and I did a little recap, and you'll hear about some breakthroughs that I had this year around what it really means to be compassionate as a leader, but still be able to hold people accountable. And I always find that I do it first and then I figure out the words to be able to share with others what I learned and make your life a little easier. I'm really excited for you to listen today. So today we are talking about relationships redefined, boundaries that build trust and connection. This is about expanding your relational capacity to lead, communicate, and connect without losing yourself. So I'm going to give you some strategy today that's going to be very helpful for you, both in business and in your personal life. So I want you to think about a relationship that you have that you kind of dread. Like in that moment, maybe your phone rings, you see who it is, and you're like, ugh, right? So some relationships can fuel you and some of them can drain you. But the difference isn't in who the person is, who's on the other side of it. It's really about your capacity. I had a client many years ago who she would get so frustrated because she had to go grocery shopping for a parent that she was caregiving for. And it was so frustrating and so annoying to her that her mom wasn't taking good care of herself. And so I stopped her for a moment and I said, now let me ask you, does your mom need you? Has your mom asked you to go grocery shopping? And she was like, no. And does your mom think that she doesn't eat the right foods or is living healthy? And she goes, no, she doesn't care. So why is it that you go grocery shopping? And she said, because I feel like it's what a good daughter would do. And I said, that's the difference. You're not grocery shopping for your mom because she needs you to do it or has imposed that on you. You're doing it because it's what makes you feel good. And in that moment when she realized that it was her choice and it was how she wanted to show up in the world, her capacity for this person expanded. and instead of being drained by this person and these activities that she had to do, she was able to shift it to, this is how I show up because I'm powerful and I'm a good daughter and I want to do this for my mom because this is part of my value system. So what is relational capacity? As we've started each one of these sessions, we've kind of defined what it is that we're talking about And relational capacity, I want you to think of it as your ability to lead, love, and communicate without losing yourself in the process. It's not about changing other people. And so often we go, oh, if this person would just be different, then it would be okay. But it's about becoming someone who can stay grounded and clear and connected even when others can't. So they don't need to be different. And so one of the things that I tell people is if you want someone in your life, you have to be able to love them unconditionally on their worst day, no matter how they show up, and realize that every single one of us is operating with a big assumption. Over the course of the series, you keep hearing me say the word big assumption, right? And so it's the things that you believe in your unconscious that must be true in order for you to stay safe. And so when we need other people in our lives to be different, that means we're not loving them unconditionally. We're putting control into someone else. So we always have choices, right? And it's how we look at situations and how we understand other people that gives us more capacity. So every single person in this world is walking around with a big assumption. They are trying to survive. If they are doing toxic things or terrible things, it is out of survival. When I look at humans like that, I can have so much more compassion and empathy and understanding even for the things that they do. Now, that's not to say that there aren't people out there who have real evil in them, but I don't think at anybody's core, a little baby that is born is born without just looking for this need for survival and belonging and the things that people develop, the habits that they develop, the way that they have learned to get their needs met. They aren't always the best and they aren't always the most pleasant for those of us who are around them, but they are just humans having a human experience and trying to navigate a journey just like the rest of us. And when I treat people in that way, it's such a more beautiful way of existing. For me, it's more peaceful. So think of it this way. If you want someone in your life, find the version of the story, like either they don't belong in your life. And at that point you can just, it's so funny because people say, well, what if I don't want to really keep that relationship? It's not like you call the person up and say hey I sorry you didn make the list We can be friends anymore But if you stop putting effort into the relationship a lot of times they will stop putting the effort in as well So you either find the version of the story that says, I'm showing up in this relationship because this is how I want to be and I don't need them to be different. Or you let them go because that is just going to grate on you. And we're going to talk about some strategies. for how we go through that. Now, here's the people-pleasing truth bomb. People-pleasing isn't kindness. It's a strategy for managing how others think and feel about you. So, I am a recovering people-pleaser, right? And I wanted everybody to like me. I wanted everybody to be happy. I got very anxious when anybody was mad or upset. But what happens with a people pleaser is there's dishonesty and I can't trust a people pleaser because I don't know if that person is telling me the honest truth of what they want, need, feel, or if they're just trying to keep me happy. So there's an erosion of trust that happens with a people pleaser. And a lot of times when people realize this, that's when it's like that gut punch, right? Because as a people pleaser, there is an element of you that is lovely and kind and caring, and you have the most grit of anyone because you've had to put up with everybody else's crap and push down your own needs in order to stay safe. So people pleasers are some of the toughest, most gritty people I know. And when they get to the other side of people pleasing and stop needing other people to be okay in order for them to be okay, they are still the most kind and generous and loving and caring and intuitive people because they've had a lot of practice at it, but they're doing it from a really clean place instead of from a dishonest place where you don't know if you can really trust them. So know that if you are someone who maybe says yes when you would rather say no, or you just try to keep the peace, that you're actually probably showing up out of integrity with who you really want to be. Because people-pleasing comes from a big assumption, and it's about this belief that it isn't safe for you to be fully seen or honest about what you think, feel, or need. What people-pleasing does is it gives us this sense of safety and belonging, right? There's this need in human nature for belonging. It's part of how we have stayed safe as humans. And so there's this fear of rejection or conflict because you could be ousted from the community. It's keeping the peace at any cost, sometimes very often at the cost of ourselves and our needs. And oftentimes what happens when we get into the over-functioning and we say yes and we start filling our calendar like we talked about in the time capacity session, what happens is we end up with the best intentions of trying to keep all the balls in the air. We start dropping them. And so a people pleaser oftentimes becomes not dependable. They can't follow through with what commitments they've made because they put too much on their plate out of a need to feel safe, but it starts to sabotage them. And it erodes how their self-esteem, like how you feel about yourself. Also, if they've been taught that being mad or sad is unacceptable, though a lot of times we'll have discomfort with other people's feelings. So it's really about learning to hold space for other people to feel how they feel. Understand this is just protection. It's not a personality. It's what you do to stay safe. So on the flip side of people-pleasing, we want to communicate expectations clearly. And I'm going to go through rules, expectations, and boundaries in just a moment here. But what I want you to understand is that when you communicate your expectations, it builds trust and safety. So I want you to think about this, a people pleaser or anybody who's just assuming that other people think the way that they think, you create a lot of ambiguity, right? So someone doesn't know what the expectations are. They don't know how you want it done. Are you saying you trust them, but then maybe you're jumping in and taking over and doing things because they didn't do it fast enough or in the timeline that you wanted. I have a friend that she wants everything done early and ahead of schedule. And so when the deadline that she gave someone would approach, if it didn't get done, she would jump in and do it early. And they're like, but the deadline is not here yet. you're doing it early. Well, I want it done sooner. So she had this definition of when something had to be done. And so she was unintentionally without setting clear expectations and really managing her own anxiety and emotions. She was disempowering other people around her. So think about that. When you're not clear with other people, they feel anxious. Then they go into some of the trauma responses that we talked about in earlier sessions. They might start avoiding your phone calls because they don't know what the deadline is. They don't know what to do. They go into their own system of self-protection. And so by you, the leader, not communicating clearly, you have started to trigger not only your own immune system, your nervous system response, right, and your immune system that the brain has based on the immunity to change that we've been talking about. you're triggering other people's immune systems and nervous system responses. So that's why we really need to develop the skill of communicating expectations clearly. You cannot assume that people think like you do because they've had a different experience in life than you do. So we want to set those expectations so that it prevents any confusion. Now, I want to give you some differences between rules, expectations, and boundaries in the context of leadership, right? So rules are going to try to control other people's behaviors. It's imposed on other people. it tends to trigger resistance and stress, especially if you have someone who's had a very controlling upbringing and they were kind of the rebel and the one that like bucked the system. You are going to actually create more stress and resistance by imposing rules. And a lot of times it leads to power struggles and you're ignoring other people's needs. So it's not a style of compassionate leadership at all when we are not taking into account other people's needs. Now, the difference between rules and expectations in the context of any place in your life, this could be personal or professional within your business, an expectation is gonna clarify what is needed. It creates shared understanding. So everybody's on the same page, which gives emotional safety for other people because they know exactly where you stand and what you expect. For people pleasers, directness can feel like you're angry with someone, but it's just being clear and direct. So it takes a little bit to adjust your nervous system to the fact that you are not being mean. You are simply being kind and clear with people because it makes them feel safe. And it builds predictability and trust. It actually honors everyone's needs. So if someone cannot meet an expectation and they can self-select out because it's not a good fit for them, because they're really clear what you expect. And it's much easier for you to decide who's going to be a good fit when you're upfront with people. So it's going to help in the hiring process as well. Now, boundaries protect your needs and values. So boundaries are for you and it's your response if expectations aren't met. So here's what I'll do and I'm going to give you some examples This is about creating emotional safety for yourself and it supports self and connection It like how you expect to be treated and people to interact with you and what you expect to happen It about protecting your needs. So sometimes we have expectations, but we don't have any boundaries. And so we read on ourselves. Sometimes we try to impose rules on people and that makes them buck the system. So it's this balance of expectation and boundaries that creates the nice ecosystem for you to live within. And anybody who can't cut it self-selects out when we hold boundaries. So here's what it sounds like. I'm going to give you three scenarios because I think it's helpful and hopefully you can relate to some of these. So let's say that someone's talking to you in a disrespectful tone. We can put this in any context, really. A rule would be stop talking to me like that, right? You are imposing and changing someone else's actions. An expectation is, I need respectful conversations. And a boundary is, if it turns disrespectful, I'll pause and step away. So what you will do if that boundary gets crossed. An after hours message. So if you got somebody who you have certain work hours you're trying to keep and you have someone who is not adhering to that time that you're available, you say, stop calling me at night, right? You might have this with some people who have some corporate experience, especially. that's imposing a rule on someone. An expectation is I need evenings to be uninterrupted. And a boundary is I won't respond after 7 p.m. So this is what I will do. If you have someone on your team who's constantly running late, you might want to say you can't be late anymore. Stop being late versus an expectation. I need us to start on time. And if we can't start within 10 minutes, I'll begin without you, right? And then we figure out what the repercussions of someone not meeting our expectations are. So that's where accountability comes in. Now, if we put together compassion and accountability, that is going to create a very inviting type of leadership into your world. So compassion is, I see your humanity. I see that this is hard. I emotionally connect with you. I get it. Accountability is, here's the standard we agreed to. You can't hold someone accountable if you haven't been clear about the expectations that you have set. So you need both for connection, trust, and leadership. So going with our same three scenarios, what this sounds like is compassion is, I can hear you're upset and I wanna understand what's going on. Accountability is we agreed to keep our conversation respectful. What just happened crossed the line. Let's reset and try again, right? So it's holding someone unaccountable. It could be taking a break and stepping away until they can regulate themselves. That's the boundary. But we as leaders get to hold the people in our business and around us accountable for what was agreed to. After hours messages, compassion sounds like, I know you reached out because it felt important. And I appreciate that. But we agree to keep communication within work hours. So let's stick to that so we can both show up fully, right? Because this is about telling people how to get the best out of you. When we let people cross our boundaries, when we cross our own boundaries, right? And we don't honor our needs. We can't show up fully and show up our best. So this is literally telling people, here's how you get the best out of me. Now, the chronic lateness, that one that we had earlier, I know your schedule's full and things happen. I get it. We agreed to start on time. When we don't, it impacts our focus. How can we make this work better going forward? Again, when you start to hold people accountable and you've never held them accountable before, be prepared. There will be a nervous system and immune system response that happens in their brain. So people will start to act really weird around you. And some of them are either going to rise to the occasion or they won't be able to hack it. And you're going to have to select, they're going to either select out, which is more commonly the case, or this is where we get into following protocols for firing or letting someone go or evicting or whatever needs to happen. But this works in all the different areas of your life because we've created such clear expectations. Here's the thing. I think a lot of people know this stuff or they know bits and pieces of it here and there, but you don't know it in your bones. When we know something in our bones, it's just who we are. We embody it. We can say it. We can recall it like that. I still, there'll be a moment where I stop and I'm thinking about what is the best way for me to structure what I'm about to say so that it lands. That is so much of leadership and communication is how do I say it in a way that will land? Because our words have so much power for people. And just being like, this is what I see leaders do sometimes is this is just how I'm wired. This is who I am. And the expectation is that other people like bend to them. But we as the leaders, when we really become the most powerful, it's when we know how to land our communication and hold people accountable at wherever they are, when we can meet people where they are. And that is what the entire five sessions of the capacity series are about, is how we lead ourselves, how we hold our own capacity so that we can be that highest level of leadership where we can connect with people and meet anybody where they are and bring them alongside of us and help them find the right place. Even if it's not with you, you can release someone so that they can find the place where they will flourish and do their best. In fact, I'm going to have a woman on the podcast, probably in the next couple of weeks, it'll come out. She's a client of mine who had a situation with a contractor and she was having some very old or nothing thinking about how to move forward with this contractor and with some help and taking her through this process, she actually created a really positive outcome for both the contractor she was working with and some new people that she's brought in as a result of the conversation that she's ended up having. So she's going to come on and talk about her experience. I'm really excited to share that with everyone. So think of this as like the integration part of changing your behavior and learning how to be in relationship with people differently in that you're planning for change ahead of time, which means your brain is going to find it easier to do than in the moment. Nicole says, this is so true. We want to be understood, but don't utilize diplomacy enough so that we can be heard. Oh, that's so true. It's our responsibility to make sure our communication lands. Absolutely. Okay, so I want to cover some key distinctions here between relational capacity that I want you to take away. So people-pleasing versus being compassionate or being a compassionate leader. People pleasing is trying to control others' thoughts and feelings, really in general, to avoid judgment and rejection. Whereas compassion is seeing someone as human and fallible and on their own journey. And you have this want to ease their suffering without abandoning yourself. So it's realizing that people are just trying to figure it out and they have the same nervous system and immune system responses that you do. And so how do we come alongside someone and pull them in versus try to impose rules on them that is going to just create more resistance? And then when we talk about boundaries versus accountabilities, boundaries protect your well-being by clarifying what you're going to do. And accountability protects the relationship by naming the misalignment and restoring the agreement So accountability is about not having anyone in the relationship end up feeling resentful right So many times when someone we hire or someone we are in relationship with in any capacity does not meet our expectations, we get frustrated. And then that erodes the relationship. So this is about protecting the relationship that you have. And you will be so surprised how many people will rise to the occasion. They will become better people. You are, as the leader, pulling people up by holding them accountable. And if they don't want to change, it's their choice. They are empowered to decide if they are going to leave and go along their merry way or not. And you can't control what they say about you or what kind of mean things come out of their mouth or what they believe it's their work. So much of relational capacity has more to do with your personal work than it does anybody else's work. There, it's up to them to choose what level of capacity and leadership they want to rise to. So when we try to control that in order to protect our reputation, I hear that a lot. Like, I don't want to upset people because I want to protect my reputation. Your reputation as a leader will come through when you communicate like this. When someone goes around and badmouths someone else and acts like the victim and is talking bad about people behind their back, people who are your people will take notice. And they'll come to you and they'll clear the air and they're like, hey, what is up with this? Why is this person saying this? If they participate in that kind of behavior, they are not your people anyways. So you don't really care. No one can hurt your reputation except you and the way that you handle things. We have seen bad things happen to people. People make poor choices. And we've seen people rise from those ashes because of their willingness to own their mistakes, own who they are, be clear, do better. And that's their redemption story. That is all of us. We have a redemption story in us. Shame that causes us to hide does not help us. So by holding people accountable, by communicating clearly, by being this kind of leader, you're going to speak for yourself. Your integrity is going to come through and you can let go of whatever someone else is saying. I recently saw something that I really latched onto because in my life, I have always, kindness is one of my core values. When my babies were, when I was pregnant, I just prayed, let them be kind, because I believe that you can go very far with kindness. At the time, though, I kind of confused that with like being nice. Now I have a new understanding of kindness, and I still truly believe you go so much farther with kindness than anything else, because everything else can be figured out. but the way that you treat people and who you are in the world matters. And it puts you in rooms that will help you go so much farther because of who you're being and how you're showing up. And so when I would get feedback or I would hear something negative about myself, it really hurt. And it really made me, it like rocked me because I was like, that's not who I am. I want to be kind. But I saw this recently and it said, some people will tell you I'm the nicest person or the kindest person they know. And some people will tell you I'm the worst. Believe them. Because that person got whatever version of me they deserved. So when I act, the point being, when you act in integrity and you hold someone accountable, sometimes someone who is not of a high vibration is going to experience you as the worst because they are in their own victim story. But it doesn't mean you acted out of integrity. So know that. Take that into your heart and get that because that will change everything about how you show up in your relationships. It will change the people who surround you. The people who can't handle it will move away from you, and you'll be surrounded by some of the most incredible humans in the world because of the way you interact with each other. So here's your reflection for today. Where is your relational capacity stretched? Where do you take responsibility for other people's emotions? Where do you avoid honest conversations to keep the peace? And how would your relationships shift if you trusted that honesty deepens connection? So you can use some of that grid that I showed you today, and you can start taking some of your own situations and workshopping them and see how that might shift. This is really exactly the same coaching that we give inside of the Exponential Entrepreneur when we do something called testing. We do intentional behavior changes and we run a test around it. That's exactly what my client did that's gonna come on the podcast. We did a test where she intentionally changed her behavior. She engaged in it. She took information or data back and we processed it together to see what she now believes that her big assumptions used to tell her were not possible. And it has completely transformed how she's interacting with people. So that transformation has been huge for her. So take these questions this week and reflect on them. And I bet you're going to see some really amazing opportunities for yourself. so now I want to just say this is where embodiment starts to happen right so embodiment typically takes four to six months to really get into your system at even a basic level because in each of these capacities that we have talked about you didn't get that way overnight all of them are related to self-protection, if you haven't got that yet from our talk. And that's very deeply wired. That neural pathway is really sharp and easy, and it follows it really, really quickly. Creating a new neural pathway and a new way of being takes laying down new neurons and practicing on a repeated basis. So I don't expect overnight, you went to five sessions and suddenly five weeks later, you are embodied and different and a changed person. What I imagine is you took some small tweaks away from this that have you thinking differently and acting a little differently and thinking about how you really want to show up in the world. When you no longer have to remember to do something, that is when you've really hit that embodiment until you hit the next level. Then you become aware something's not working and you go back into that cycle of awareness and you activate, you decide you're going to change and then you plan for the change and integrate it into your life and then you embody it. So with all of that being said, I'm sending you so much love. And if Jonathan were here, he would say, be well. Thanks for listening to the Conscious Edge podcast. Make sure you subscribe and take a moment to be kind and share this episode with someone you care about. Leave a review to help us bring more compassionate leaders building businesses and creating wealth to the table. And for show notes, head over to consciousedge.com forward slash podcast. This podcast and the linked materials are presented solely for general information, educational and entertainment purposes and should not be taken as personal or medical advice or any kind of mental health treatment. Please consult a medical or mental health professional if you feel you need such services. Please be advised that all investing and entrepreneurial endeavors involve risk and the use of the education and information on this podcast and linked materials is at the user's own risk. this podcast is part of the sound advice fm network sound advice fm women's voices amplified