Episode 36: If You’re Not a Doormat, You’ll Make Enemies

Even if you tried to live a bland, vanilla, unremarkable life, someone would still be offended. 🤷🏻‍♀️

So what happens when you stop apologizing for having boundaries? When you finally say “no” — and mean it?

In this episode, I’ll unpack the uncomfortable truth: if you’re not a doormat, you’re going to make enemies.

If you’ve ever been gaslit for having standards or sticking up for yourself — this one’s for you.

Subscribe to my weekly newsletter, The Unicorn Dispatch, here: https://sara-causey.kit.com/2d8b7742dd

Sara's award-winning biography of Dag can be found on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-Unicorn-New-Look-Hammarskj%C3%B6ld-ebook/dp/B0DSCS5PZT

Her forthcoming project, Simply Dag, will release globally on July 29, 2026. 

#Boundaries #DoormatNoMore #SelfRespect #Empaths #Introverts #Creatives #SelfRespect #Integrity #Leadership #PeoplePleasing #EmotionalIntelligence #PersonalGrowth #HealthyBoundaries #Assertiveness #Authenticity #PeaceOverApproval #DoormatNoMore #SpiritualStrength #DecodingTheUnicorn #DagHammarskjöld

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

In Episode 36 of the Decoding the Unicorn podcast, host Sara Causey discusses the inevitability of making enemies and the importance of setting boundaries. She references Dag Hammarskjold's career, noting his misinterpreted quietness as weakness. Causey emphasizes that assertiveness is not aggression and that respect is reciprocal. She advises against being a "doormat" and highlights the need for self-respect. Causey also touches on cultural conditioning, where kindness is equated with compliance, and stresses the importance of maintaining personal integrity. She concludes by encouraging listeners to value their peace and dignity over pleasing others. 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Podcast episode, decoding the unicorn, making enemies, offenses, stumbling blocks, Dag Hammarskjold, introversion, stubbornness, assertiveness, boundaries, respect, peace, integrity, self-respect, manipulation.

 Welcome to the decoding the unicorn podcast. Here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. Welcome to Episode 36 of decoding the unicorn the podcast. I appreciate you joining me today. In this episode, I want to say, unless you're a total doormat, you're probably going to make enemies in this life. Would that it were not so I wish that I could say otherwise, but unfortunately, it's the truth, and probably even if you attempted to live the most bland, vanilla and unremarkable life possible, you would still find somebody somewhere who would put their hand up and say, I'm offended by you. I don't like you. This is part of life. It always has been, and I assume it always will be, even if we think back to Scripture, there was a passage where Jesus said to the disciples that it's impossible for offenses not to come. Some translations call them stumbling blocks, but the bottom line is that you will face stumbling blocks, trials, temptations, offenses. There's another translation that says it is impossible that snares will not be set, meaning, if we want to put it really in common or American vernacular, something is going to happen. Some stuff is going to go down at some point, and it's going to cause you difficulties. But he also says, Woe unto the person who's setting that trap? Woe unto the person who's trying to tempt you. Woe unto the person that's trying to make life miserable for you. Judgment is coming to that person who thinks that they're being a Sneaky Pete. They're ultimately not going to get away with it. But in the meantime, you still have to deal with whatever nonsense they've stirred up in your life. If we think back to DAGs career, certainly we see plenty of influences There he comes into the secretary generalship after trigby Lee has been quite literally bullied out by the Soviets. And you have people who think DAG is some milk toast, some quiet, reserved Swede, who is going to be compliant. He's not going to make any waves. He's going to be subservient to louder, more aggressive people they mistake DAGs introversion, his sensitivity, his quietness and his desire to think and to process before he speaks and certainly before he acts as weakness. They assume that because he's not loud, boisterous and gossipy, that they can run over him. Oh, but they didn't know Dag.

Sara's award winning biography of Dag Hammarskjöld, Decoding the Unicorn is available on Amazon. Her forthcoming project, Simply Dag, will launch globally next summer, to stay in the loop join her email list. The link is provided in the write up for this episode. And now back to the show.

There's some old family correspondence that I've been reading in preparation for some future works that I want to write about Dag and there was a letter that made me smile because it was written by Åke, one of DAGs older brothers to Hjalmar, the father of the family. And so, of course, Hjalmar traveled a lot, and he was away a lot, and one of the things that Åke says is that DAG is healthy. He's doing well, he's playful, he's fun to be around. His only flaw is a stubborn streak. I laughed and laughed at that, and I was like, well, he's not wrong. And the thing is, stubbornness can be a good trait, even though sometimes we characterize it as being stubborn as a mule and the notion that it's always a bad thing it isn't. Sometimes we need to be that one voice in the room that stands up for justice, that speaks up for what's right, if everybody else is moving as a herd and they're about to run off a cliff, wouldn't you want to be the voice of dissent in that situation? So the people who thought that dag was just going to be compliant, and they thought his quietness meant weakness, or they thought that he was timid, which, by the way, was a word he hated. He hated to be described as timid because he wasn't. He was really a lion. He just wasn't loud. He didn't feel the need to throw his weight around and bloviate and posture. And we think about the Soviets in contrast, Nikita Khrushchev banging his fists on the desk and shouting and acting like a buffoon half the time like that just wasn't DAG. But it didn't mean that his reticence and his level of self control was a sign of weakness. It was actually the opposite, even if we are reserved and we don't pop our mouths off. Don't shout, we don't stomp. That still doesn't mean that you won't occasionally have somebody who comes after you, or somebody who thinks this person will be an easy mark. I feel like I can bully them. I feel like I can run roughshod over them. Now this could be a boss, a co worker, a family member, a neighbor, whoever, insert the person in your life that has done this to you, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, there are those people that think kindness is weakness. They think that if you're quiet and reserved, it must mean that whatever they try to do to you, you'll just sit there and put up with it. But that doesn't have to be the case. So if we're in these situations, what are some things that we can think about? A number one on my list is this, boundaries are not aggression. You are allowed to put a kind of personal space bubble around yourself to decide who gets access to you and who doesn't, and that, by the way, includes your mind. You don't want to let a lot of haters and goofballs live in your head rent free. Because you know what, as the saying goes, haters going to hate. Of course they will. They're going to say whatever they want, and then when they don't get a rise out of you, typically, they will move on to somebody else, not always, but typically. So think about how assertiveness, right? We've we've talked about how being quiet and thinking before you speak can get labeled as timidity, or someone who's easy to walk over. But let's also think about how assertiveness having a backbone, notice I say assertiveness and non aggression, but notice how assertiveness can often get mislabeled as hostility. And I see this a lot with people who, if they do have a more easy going nature, and they're like, hey, it's water off a duck's back. It's whatever. When they finally get to that point where someone has pushed them to the limit and they say, No more. I want you to cut it out now. Then all of a sudden, the other person who actually is the aggressor will try to gaslight you. I can't believe you're acting this way. This is not you. Who even are you? Right now, I think in in some circumstances, there's, there's a kind of cultural conditioning, especially for people who are empathic, people who are service oriented, that kindness is also compliance. But when you set a clear limit and you have draw a line in the sand about your boundaries, that's not rude, it's simply self respect and putting that definition out there, I know that there's a stereotype of American culture as being brash and loud and crass, but as an American, I can tell you, I actually think in a lot of ways, our culture has moved towards passive aggression. I don't think you have as many people who are willing to say what they actually really think and hash things out. Instead, they want to go around your back. They want to be sneaky. They'd rather backstab or they'd rather say something that's a left handed compliment, or say or do something that's a microaggression, as opposed to a flat out aggression, but that still carries harm, and you still have the right to say no. Number two, the doormat dilemma. There are some people who prefer to flatten you. They like you in a box. They like you to be compliant. It works better for them if you're a mouse. There are certain personalities that they kind of thrive when they feel overextended, or they thrive when they feel like they're being a mother hen. But you don't have to spread yourself that thin, and you don't have to give in every time somebody requests something from you. There are manipulative people that if you make concessions, and they feel like you're going to do it endlessly. They will take from you endlessly, like the cliche, if, with some people, if you give an inch, they want to take a mile. That's true. Being kind doesn't mean everybody else is entitled to take and take and take from you. Number three, and this is an important one. When you say no, when you draw that boundary, expect that some people are going to pitch a fit. They're going to give you a tantrum. Sometimes we do face backlash when we stick up for ourselves or stick up for our values. We can look at this as something that reflects growth and not guilt. If your boundaries cause somebody else to get angry with you, then you know what they were benefiting from your lack of them. Kaboom. Number four. Respect is not negotiable. Respect needs to be reciprocal, reciprocal. Genuine professionals, true friends, healthy, non toxic family members and true collaborators will welcome your standards. They won't be resentful by them. So for example, if you have a friend that wants to call you in the middle of the night. I'm not talking about a once in a lifetime emergency. I'm talking about drama behavior. They want to call you at two in the morning and start talking about my boyfriend, Bob hasn't texted me in 24 hours, and I'm upset. And you tell them, I have to work. I don't want to be up at two in the morning trying to midwife you through a relationship crisis. You're not wrong for saying that. Or if somebody says, You know what, I'm not up at eight in the morning. I keep artist hours. I would rather talk to you at midnight than at eight in the morning. You have every right to say those those things about yourself. People who balk at your standards are really self identifying themselves as bad fits in your ecosystem. If somebody resents boundaries, they resent filters that says more about them than it does about you. Finally, last but not least. Number five, peace has a price tag. It does. You may lose some people who don't want to respect those boundaries. You have to decide what you're willing to spend your emotional budget on do you want to be a people pleaser and please everybody? But you does keeping the peace mean in your mind, being a doormat and letting people walk all over you? Because if so, that's not true. Peace. In my mind, peace can also be conflated with things like dignity, preserving your energy for what matters, having creative clarity. If we think again about DAG, he had a commitment to service with integrity, and he knew that there were times when doing what was right, doing what was ethical, would isolate him, but he wanted to be the type of person who could put his head on the pillow at night and know that he had done the right thing to the best of his ability. It wasn't about trying to please everybody else or put on a show for the media. And it may be that in order to get the kind of inner peace that you want, there are people in your life that are not going to be part of your life anymore, or they're not going to be part of it on a regular basis. And if they're being trolls, they're being haters, they're being overt in what they're doing, I'm sure they're not people that you want to have around you anyway.

Sometimes it can be more difficult in those situations that are more nuanced, more micro, less overt and more micro. But the bottom line is, in my opinion, if somebody gets upset with you because you are drawing a boundary, you're sticking up for yourself, I would question, is this person really my friend? Is this person really an ally? Are they somebody that needs to be in my life on a regular basis? Because if the only way they can relate to me is to take from me, that doesn't say very much about the relationship. Take good care of yourself, and I will see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and share it with others. We'll see you next time.