Welcome back!
I wanted to share my thoughts on the phrase "Boundaries NOT Beef" that I heard from someone on Tik Tok (don't remember who to give proper credit). However, I thought this phrase was so profound in the business climate we live in today. Especially for women, black women to be more specific. We live in a world that already sees us as different from the color of our skin to our hair texture and even how we speak or act. The biggest misconception of black women is that we are always angry - 99% of that statement is not true as we are not always angry. However, we are assertive and protective over the things we love or feel we own i.e. our business, or our personal space. If someone cross either we will become a Lioness for sure. LOL
Well you say, what does all of that have to do with the title "Boundaries NOT Beef". Here is my answer, we encounter many people in our life via business, work, personal. Some of these encounters will not always connect to you other than a cordially high and bye. Therefore, you begin to think about what value does this person have in my life. Is the person worth keeping close or providing some distance. No matter the decision, you know a boundary must be put in place and communicated to the other party. The boundary isn't set because of a problem with the person or you don't like them. The boundary is set so that you have a mutual agreement on the type of relationship you have with the other person. For example, if you have co-worker who you have gone out to lunch with a few times, of course you chat at work daily and you work will together. However, the co-worker may feel it's cool to invite you to a their home, a personal event. But you do not see that person as someone to share your personal space with outside of work. Therefore, you decline the invite, you get invite to a few other things and you decline each invite. The co-worker may now think you have a problem with them, you don't like them etc. In fact it's just that you have defined your relationship with the co-worker to be nothing more than work related, but you never shared that understanding with the co-worker. Now the co-worker thinks you have beef with them when reality you just set a boundary that you never communicate with the co-worker. This happens a lot because often we feel boundaries does not need to be communicated but rather understood. This isn't the case so open dialogue from all parties involved clarifies the boundaries and avoids the beef.
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