CALL IN: How to Accept Your Family’s Limitations and Still Set Boundaries as an HSP

Summary

Podcast Summary: Emotional Badass — CALL IN: How to Accept Your Family’s Limitations and Still Set Boundaries as an HSP

Host: Nikki Eisenhauer
Guest/Caller: Alicia
Date: March 23, 2025

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Overview

In this call-in episode of Emotional Badass, host and psychotherapist Nikki Eisenhauer speaks with Alicia, a highly sensitive person (HSP) and mother navigating the challenges of setting boundaries with family—particularly with her own mother, who shows patterns of low empathy and maturity. Alicia wants to break cycles of people-pleasing, avoid passing them to her daughters, and find peace around family members who don’t "get" her sensitivity.

Nikki offers grounded guidance on emotional boundaries, grieving the loss of an ideal relationship, and finding nourishing connections elsewhere.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bridging the Communication Gap with Low Empathy Family Members

• Alicia’s Struggle: Alicia feels responsible for her mother’s emotions and guilt when she sets boundaries, especially as her mother reacts with victimhood.
• Central Question: “How can we help bridge that communication gap?” (00:23)
• Nikki’s Response: It's natural to want family members to understand, but some may lack the capacity or willingness—especially if they have low empathy or maturity (03:00).
• Insight: Not everyone matures emotionally as they age. Many stay “stunted,” which affects relationship dynamics (03:45).

"It was a shocker to me to learn in my counseling program that while all the population that stays alive ages, not all of us mature."
— Nikki Eisenhauer (03:45)

2. Differentiating Understanding From Excusing

• Alicia’s Pattern: She empathizes with her mother’s trauma (loss of her own mother young), shifting into making excuses and sacrificing boundaries.
• Nikki’s Advice: Understanding why someone is a certain way is different from excusing boundary violations (06:14).

"Excuses and understanding need to be very separate things... Understanding doesn’t allow bad behavior."
— Nikki (06:14)

3. Grieving and Accepting Limitations

• Alicia’s Realization: Recognizes her mother won’t change and begins grieving what never was.
• Nikki’s Tool: Acceptance is powerful but hard. It’s a grieving process, letting go of hope the relationship would be different (07:50).
• Permission Principle: Grant yourself permission not to endlessly seek understanding from those lacking the capacity (08:42).

"Permission might be very powerful for you here... Permission is what helps us practice this."
— Nikki (08:42)

4. Redefining Boundaries & Requests

• Concrete Parenting Example: Alicia resents pushback about not posting her daughters’ photos online.
• Nikki’s Boundary Tool:
  • A request (“please don’t post photos”) may be ignored by someone with low empathy.
  • If that happens: change access (“now you don’t get photos to post”). (13:27-14:02)

"No is a request. After they violate that request, then my boundary would be: you don’t get pictures sent to you."
— Nikki (13:27)

5. Caring versus Controlling

• Empathy Trap: Sensitive people care so much, and struggle to accept that some people simply don’t (15:00).
• Reframed Control: It is empowering and healthy control to make decisions about your children’s wellbeing (16:13).

"You have every right to fully control that... In our own lives, we do have some rights to have some semblance of reasonable control."
— Nikki (16:13)

6. Shifting Energy to Self and Safe Connections

• Inner Child Work: Instead of pouring energy into changing your mother, redirect compassion to your inner child (16:59).
• Safe Others: Alicia recognizes her loving aunt as a “spiritual mother” figure—a healthier, nurturing relationship (18:13).

"That’s the gift that is available to us when we accept the truth of what’s going on... When we let go of trying to make our own mothers give it to us, we get to see, oh my goodness, I really can get fed in this way other places."
— Nikki (19:20)

7. Conclusion: Validation and Hope

• Alicia’s Takeaway: Feels empowered, validated, and ready to reinforce boundaries for herself and her daughters.
• Nikki’s Affirmation: Healing comes from growing, not perfection; children benefit from seeing that growth (21:00).

"Your girls are so lucky. Remember, they don’t need you ever to be perfect. They just need to see you growing and evolving."
— Nikki (21:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Emotional Maturity:

  "Not all of us mature. That was mind-blowing to me...a very odd thing to be born an old soul in a family."
  — Nikki (03:45)

• On Boundaries and Permission:

  "Permission is what helps us practice this. This means you giving your energy to you in those moments."
  — Nikki (08:42)

• On Low Empathy:

  "That is the problem. Low empathy means this person can’t meet me halfway empathetically... It is so hard for us to understand."
  — Nikki (15:01)

• On Alternative Support:

  "That’s another permission. You get to accept [your aunt] as a spiritual mother."
  — Nikki (19:20)

• On Parenting by Example:

  "They don’t need you ever to be perfect. They just need to see you growing and evolving."
  — Nikki (21:00)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:23 — Alicia introduces her mother/daughter dynamic and struggle.
• 03:45 — Emotional maturity does not track with age.
• 06:14 — Excusing vs. understanding, and the importance of boundaries.
• 08:42 — Permission to focus energy inward and empower boundaries.
• 13:27 — How to enforce boundaries around children's privacy.
• 15:00 — The challenge of low empathy in family systems.
• 16:13 — Healthy control vs. controlling others.
• 18:13 — Finding nurturing figures outside immediate family.
• 19:20 — Acceptance makes space for safe, fulfilling support.
• 21:00 — Parenting by growing, not perfection.

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Tone and Key Messages

Supportive, validating, and direct—Nikki encourages sensitive listeners to acknowledge family limitations without self-blame, grieve loss of hoped-for bonds, and cultivate healthy boundaries and self-compassion. She champions the right of HSPs to seek nourishment and support in other relationships, like Alicia does with her aunt.

Final Message:
Let go of the struggle to be understood by those who can't meet you; find acceptance, set healthy boundaries, and allow yourself permission to receive support elsewhere. You are empowered to break the cycle and model growth for the next generation.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Emotional Badass, the Call in show. On today's episode, we are talking to Alicia, a highly sensitive person with a highly sensitive daughter who is working on boundaries and people pleasing. I am here with Alicia. What is the question that you have for us today?

[B]

So a lot of times with family members, especially my mom, as HSPs empaths, it's hard to explain to them and kind of get them to walk in our shoes. It comes across as misunderstanding, frustration. How can we help bridge that communication gap? With my mom, I constantly feel like I'm responsible for her, feeling that any time that I go against her, I'm abandoning her. She goes into victim mode and I come back and I cave. It's not healthy because I have two daughters of my own. I don't want them to see that and I don't want to do that with my daughters either. So it's kind of like a two part question.

[A]

I think I've got you. So you're trying to figure out how do I break these cycles? I. I didn't hear you use this word, but are you trying to figure out how to have boundaries emotionally so that you don't take on.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

That intense reaction and emotionality of your mother?

[B]

Yes. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. And the first part of your question is, is it more like how do we get people to understand and empathize with us? Like we're the people with big empathy as highly sensitive people. How do we get the people in our family systems to understanding about that?

[B]

Yes. Yes. And that is not just me making up some, you know, mumble jumble, you know, thing that made up that, that this is an actual. That there are people out there in the world and there's, you know, small percentage of us, but that in, you know, having a daughter, I didn't realize I was an HSP until she was born because she is also an hsp. And I saw all the things in her that, you know, are in me. And I'm like, this is real and I want to help her.

[A]

Okay, so let me ask some what might be uncomfortable questions. Okay. Because this is, this is a trap that I see a lot of highly sensitive people get into. And it's the most natural thing in the world to crave and desire more understanding in the people that are closest to us. You're talking about your mother, your children's grandmother. Very natural, normal, a healthy desire to want her to have more understanding.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

But here's what I see. Very often we come from family systems that often have a lot of Dysfunction, which heightens our sensitivity. You're also proving my theory that we're also born with it. It doesn't all come from struggle.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What I see sensitive people doing is very much wanting approval from the family members so that they feel okay within themselves, particularly when they're having a hard time. And, and one of the very hard things to consider because we don't like to consider this. We, we don't want to look at this particularly in our mothers. But, but let me ask you this. Does your mother have a high maturity level?

[B]

No.

[A]

No. Okay. So a lot of people, for whatever reasons their own struggles, can stay very stunted. It was a shocker to me to learn in my counseling program that while all the population that stays alive ages, not all of us mature. That was mind blowing to me because it made me for the first time sit back and look at my family system and go, oh my goodness, this is definitely part of what's going on. It's a very odd thing to be born an old soul in a family. Like I was born an old soul to a very immature mother. Would you say that your mother has some low empathy traits?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yes. Okay. So this is in the realm of we don't have to diagnose narcissism to other people, but as sensitive people, we can understand that it is our responsibility and sort of our right to be discerning about who we're trying to get support from. A low empathy, low maturity person is not very capable of support and not very capable of desiring to understand. You see, almost anybody can understand our high sensitivity if they want to, but it doesn't serve a low empathy person, a low maturity person, to understand this. See, if she understands this about you, then she has to change something about her behavior with you. That low maturity can trap someone into a very, what I think of as like a 12 year old mean girl kind of mentality.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, she lost her mom when she was 18 to brain cancer. And so I feel like she's kind of stunted in that way because when my brother and I were born, my brother was born, she was 19. Yeah. She didn't have her mom. And so therefore when I had my children, she wasn't there.

[A]

And this is really hard. And this is where I'm a bit of a toughie. I believe that every single one of us has opportunity to heal. And either we take those opportunities, as uncomfortable and hard as that is, or we don't. When I hear that, what I hear is you having understanding, but it sort of crosses into making excuses that then make you flounder within your own boundaries. Is that accurate?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay. So I want to pitch this idea to you that excuses and understanding need to be very separate things.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[A]

And in understanding, we can't just stop at understanding why people might be low empathy, low maturity, why they might be stunted because she's had the same opportunities to evolve and kind of meet you where you are. And if she has lived a life not taking those opportunities, that's an understanding that you need for you. Instead of giving out this understanding and empathy towards her, like, oh my goodness, she doesn't know how to do these things. She wasn't supported. I understand why she doesn't know how to show up and support me. Understanding if we have proper emotional boundaries with ourselves really doesn't allow bad behavior. It. It understands where it comes from. But we also, out of self respect, give ourselves permission to set the boundaries that we need. One of the emotional boundaries that I'm often encouraging highly sensitive people to have if they have somebody in their family system that's low empathy and low maturity or is to very much understand and have to accept and it's a grieving process because it means letting go of hope that this could be different. Is the deep understanding that if somebody is stunted and you don't see them actively working towards healing that then they're stunted, then they're staying stunted.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And I, I think sensitive people, I've done it too. It's definitely a spot. It's because you got it. Like I have had this same issue of having to understand. My mother didn't walk till she was 6. She was in a body cast. She was born with an issue. I understand why my mother developed low empathy for me, but that understanding cannot be my permission to not have boundaries that I need for my sanity and my peace. What comes up for you when I share that?

[B]

That it makes me feel a clarity there that like I have a right. These boundaries and hitting on that grieving process. I think I have been in that realizing that she is who she is.

[A]

So permission might be very powerful for you here because the practice, you're right, it. It is hard to practice, but essential to practice. Permission is what helps us practice this. And this means you giving your energy to you in those moments. So if I sort of imagine in a moment of struggle for you that historically you have sort of poured yourself into your mom. You also wrote to me about your mother in law and sort of pouring yourself into these women that are positioned to be supports for you, but they may not be equipped to be supports for you. In a moment of you struggling, I picture you trying to explain to them, which is a real giving your energy away in a moment where you very much need energy for you.

[B]

Yeah. And. And I actually have shifted more away from trying to explain myself because I hit a wall with that frustration of they're not going to get it, but it's the acceptance of they're not going to get it and it's okay. That's who they are. And we are allowed to be who we are because it does involve children, my children. There's things like I don't like to have pictures of my children on the Internet, on social media, because they're girls. They're little girls. I have a right as a parent to say no. But as I have learned, you know, once you, you give a little and you let somebody cross that boundary, one, you teach people how to treat you.

[A]

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[B]

Mm.

[A]

Then I know that if I give a teenager an inch, they're likely to take a mile. Right?

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

So part of this acceptance work is you really having to sit with yourself and help your inner child, your inner psychology, understand mom can't give what she doesn't have. And we don't have to give inches to people that keep showing us that they take miles.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So if I was in that position is a very tangible suggestion and you can take it or toss it, but if somebody put a picture of my child online after I said no, remember, no is a request. Don't do this. Please don't do this. I don't want the pictures up as a request. It's not a boundary. After they violate that request, then my boundary would be you don't get pictures sent to you when we're together. I'll show you pictures, but you don't get to have them because you've disrespected my request.

[B]

I like that. I do.

[A]

Yeah. What might that do for you?

[B]

That puts me more in that seat of. I don't want to say control, because I don't like it's me setting that boundary. And instead of trying to talk to her about it.

[A]

Well, she doesn't care. You know, low empathy really is like. So as sensitive people we care so much about so much.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That it is a. It is a big ask for us to really sit in the consideration of what it means for somebody to have lower empathy. That's why talking to somebody about our concerns often does little to nothing other than making it worse because we're not dealing with the reality of this person doesn't care. You could make a Supreme Court case like a lawyer about why your children should not be on The Internet. Am I wrong? But she doesn't care. She didn't care about that. It's not. That is not important to her, therefore it is not important to her.

[B]

You're right.

[A]

And I wish I wasn't. Like, I wish I was wrong about that. And there was more sort of inroad. But that's exactly the problem. Low empathy means this person can't meet me halfway empathetically. They don't have the empathy to give me in a way that is so hard for us to understand. In the way that if somebody didn't have an arm, I wouldn't stand there going, why won't you pick this up with two arms? I need you to pick this up and help me. Won't you support me by picking this up? But I could see that that would make more sense because we would go, well, they're missing a limb. Of course there's some limitation there. But with this emotional stuff, we look at people like, you've lived a long life. You know, you've probably worked. You can drive a car. You understand every word I'm saying. You have to be able to understand this. Instead of giving ourselves the freedom to go, I've tried. This person doesn't want to hear this or understand this. I release me and them from this dynamic. And here's the deal. You said control. I think mental health has given control a really bad rap. These are your children. This is their image in the time of technology. In my book, you have every right to fully control that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's not you trying to control her. Your mother could put all kinds of pictures of herself online, ones you completely disagree with, and you have no right to control that. But your children and their image online, you have every right to be in control of that. See, in our own lives, we do have some rights to have some semblance of reasonable control. What do you think hearing that from me?

[B]

I bet it feels empowering. It makes total, total sense. When I first decided against, you know, the pictures, because how.

[A]

How old are your girls?

[B]

They are seven and five.

[A]

Seven and five? Yeah. See, like, as they get older, you will give them more control and take less. Like that is the natural order of things.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you get to work within reasonable control. Sometimes when we had tough childhoods, it's as if we don't know that we have any permission to have any control over anything of us. So as we kind of wrap up our time together, I want to leave you with some tips to remember that in. In struggle moments to give your Energy to talking to your inner child. And that instead of your mom. And that might sound like to yourself, oh, sweet girl, I'm so sorry. Mom has a limitation here. And so you get to be the one for your inner child that says, I'm the one that will listen. I'm the one that understands our sensitivity. And we can keep looking for people in the world who can and will understand us with more depth, but it's okay to accept that that's not mom.

[B]

What do you think it is hard? What just came to my mind was my aunt. I am very, very close with her. She was my safe place growing up. She understands me, she gets me, and we have a great relationship. And so I think of her now and go, okay, I've got somebody.

[A]

That's beautiful. You really do. And I want to point out to the people that will be listening to this later. That's the gift that is an avail, that is available to us when we accept the truth of what's going on around us and the beauty, the gifts, and also the limitations of ourselves and the people around us. What you did was you organically and naturally. I didn't ask, I didn't guide you from the acceptance of, yeah, mom just can't do this. And I can let go of trying to get her to do this. Your mind naturally took you to. Wait a minute. I have an aunt that does this for me. I do have this. I do have this special person in my life. What do you feel when you let your consciousness focus on your aunt?

[B]

I'm. I've got a big smile on my face. I. My heart is just full. I actually bought her a box of. Several boxes of Thin Mint. Gross. Got cookies because I love. I know she loves them. And I. I stopped by and surprised her at work with things all the time. I mean, it just. My heart just explodes with happiness.

[A]

That's. So you're allowed. That's another permission. You get to accept her as a spiritual mother. I know you have been listening to the show for many, many, many years, so you've probably heard me talk about spiritual mother concepts. And when we let go of trying to make our own mothers give it to us, we get to see, oh, my goodness, I really can get fed in this way. Other places, it's like if one restaurant is out of tacos and we want tacos, we can go to another restaurant and get tacos. You know, we can do this in emotional ways too. That acceptance, as hard as it is, as heartbreaking as it is, it leads us to Be able to sort of put down that struggle and look around to see what else is actually there and available for us. So many people, so many places, so many entities, so many books, so many healers out there will absolutely serve us the empathy we're looking for. It's okay to get fed other places.

[B]

Absolutely. I agree.

[A]

So how, how was this for you today?

[B]

I mean, first of all, it, it's a dream. I, I have a boost and I need to go back and look at my boundary course work and, but it's okay that the people that maybe we want and we, we hope to would be there and think. It's not always blood, it's not always what we expect and sometimes it comes from the most unexpected places. I feel much better.

[A]

I'm so glad. Alicia, we are going to send you some meditations. So we're going to send you a follow up email with a couple little fun things for you, okay? So much light and love. Your girls are so lucky. Remember, they don't need you ever to be perfect. They just need to see you growing and evolving and that's going to give them so much permission to do the same in their lives. Thank you so much for being willing to love and grow yourself for you and for them.

[B]

And thank you so much for this.

[A]

Let's all send some gratitude to Alicia for opening herself up and asking a question that can help so many other people as well as herself. Let's send her a little light and love from our emotional badass community. If you are interested in submitting a question and being on the show with me, come to emotionalbadass.com call to submit a question and see if you're right for emotional Badass the call in edition. Until next time, I'm an emotional badass. Alicia is an emotional badass and you out there listening. We are all emotional badasses on this journey and we are where Moxie meets mindful Light and love. And I will see you next time right here for a brand new episode. Light and Love. Take care of yourselves and each other out there, y'. All. Bye bye. Trip planner by Expedia. You were made to outdo your holiday, your hammocking and your pooling. We were made to help organize the competition. Expedia made to travel.