5 Boundaries You Need To Set In Your Relationships EP 1376

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I think so many people think that boundaries are about pushing people away or holding them at a distance or that they're controlling or manipulative. Boundaries are a gift in your relationship, even in a relationship.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

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The first thing I want to talk about are the key boundaries that I think we need to be creating in relationships first. I want to go with family and then ourselves afterwards, but relationships I feel like are the things that bring people the most joy and the most stress in their life. If it's great, then it brings a lot of joy. If it's not, a lot of stress.

Tons of stress.

You've been through divorce, remarriage, you've been in different relationships, you've been single for a period of time, all these different things. what would you say after all this life experience are the key boundaries we need to create in relationships before entering a relationship?

Oh yeah, so like there's almost a pre-step that you have to take that I spent almost four years doing before I got into my new marriage, which was spending time by myself, figuring out after my divorce who I was again, because I feel like when you spend so much time in a relationship trying to make it work, you give away so many pieces of yourself that by the end of it, I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't recognize myself.

Really? Yeah.

My self-confidence, my sense of self, I had, I think, chipped away so much at myself in an effort to make it work that it took me a while, I think, to get back to, like, okay, what do I need? What do I like doing? What are the things that I haven't been doing that I want to get back to? What are the things that I value? So I spent a lot of time by myself. And when I was thinking about my new relationship, I came up with a list of non-negotiables. There were a few things that I was like, I will not be in a relationship without them.

What are those?

The first was that my family, my immediate family, has to like you. Hard stuff. I know that that sounds almost intuitive, but I made a lot of excuses for past partners. with the people that mattered to me the most, my sister being the most important one, where she was like seeing red flags before I was. And I was kind of trying to bridge that gap. And I was like, I will not do that anymore. If I show up and this, you know, this person is not integrating well with my family, that is an immediate sign.

Because then there's gonna be discord for the rest of your life. The rest of the time you're with that person, right? Your family's gonna be like, I don't really want to spend time with this person.

Yeah.

Your partner's gonna be feeling like, your.

Family doesn't like me, I don't wanna hang out with them. It's gonna be this kind of discord, right?

And I know that my family is amazing. They're healthy, they don't have, you know, troubling or manipulative tactics. Like my family's a very healthy family unit where we can talk about problems now. And so if my partner's not getting along with them, that's a big sign.

Okay.

I also said that I would never again make myself small for the sake of my relationship. I would never again downplay the things I knew I was good at, the Ambitions that I had, the. The things I wanted to Pat myself on the back for. I absolutely wanted a partner who was going to be supportive of all of that and encourage all of that in me. So that was another non-negotiable okay. So as I'm thinking about all of these things that I want for my new relationship, I had to take a step back and say, okay, how am I gonna show up in this relationship and not bring my own baggage? into it. How am I going to make sure that the past is processed and I'm not carrying it forward and I'm not blaming my next partner for things that my old partner did? So I went back to therapy and spent a lot of time in therapy. But one of the things I committed to in my new relationship that I guess is a boundary for me is that I committed to always saying what I meant and meaning what I said. And I feel like that's not often the case in relationships. There's a lot of back and forth between, especially with women. We've been societally conditioned not to say what we mean. We have to be coy about it. We have to hint around it. You, as my partner, have to guess how I'm feeling and interpret how I'm feeling and then do the right thing. And then if you don't, I get mad at you for not doing the thing that you didn't know you needed to be doing.

That's exhausting.

It's exhausting and it leads to a lot of miscommunication. So I decided to show up in this new relationship and I said to my husband, I will say what I mean and you know that you can trust that. So when you say to me, Are you mad at me? I'm going to take a moment to think about it. And if I say no, you can trust that. You can trust that it has nothing to do with you and it's not about you because if we had a.

Problem, you would know it. And you don't need to walk on eggshells trying to say, when's she going.

To tell me what's really going on? And if you say, Hey, is it cool if I go to jiu-jitsu tonight? And I'm like, okay, I'm home, I'm alone with the kid, these are the things that I have going on. And I think about it and I say, Yep, it's cool. You know I mean it, and you're not gonna come home at nine o'clock to like a s**t storm. Right, a resentful s**t storm. Where I'm like, why did you go? And how could you leave me with these many things? And then I also kind of said to him, I'm expecting the same of you. So I will not engage with passive aggressive behavior. If you walk around the house, and you're stomping around and you're throwing things down, as far as I know, we don't have a problem because you haven't told me that we have a problem. Yeah, you've got something else going on in your life. Yeah, I'm gonna assume that it's not about me because if it was about me, you would have told me or you would say, I'm upset with you, but I'm not ready to talk about it. Let's come back in a little while. So it took us a while to learn to sort of trust that communication pattern with each other, but it's been enormously helpful and I would say it's the foundation It's like what I call our relationship golden rule. It's the foundation for any boundaries that we set with each other, which is, I'm gonna take responsibility for my own needs and my own feelings. I'm gonna speak clearly and directly, kindly, but clearly and directly about what I need from you, and you can trust that I am going to say what I mean. And it's been really huge for us.

Huge.

What's been the biggest anytime we take on something new, we let go of the old pattern and we step into a new pattern, new behaviors, new stuff starts to come up or there might be moments of frustration or some PTSD feelings or, ah, is it really gonna work out? What has been the biggest breakdown that you've had to overcome in the last year and a half, two years while taking on this new behavioral pattern?

Yeah.

I mean, I wouldn't say it was a breakdown because we worked around it because we're married and we live together now. But when he was talking about moving in with my son and I, so my son and we bought my husband and now husband and I bought a house like together. We picked it out together. It was big enough for all of us. My son and I moved in on our own and we wanted us to get settled in before we introduced Brandon into the household. That was cool with everybody. My son finally was like, When's Brandon going to move in with us? And I was like, Awesome, we're in it. When he started to move in, he had-- I started to freak out.

A huge freak out.

A huge freak out because in the past, he would come to stay over and he'd stay for a night or two and I'd be like, okay, I need an alone night and he would go back to his place and I'd go back to my place and now like there's nowhere else for him to go. No alone night. No, there's no alone night. And so I found that he would be hanging out doing normal things around the house, existing as a human being and I would be like, oh my God, I like need you to be out of this space. I need you to do, like it was intense. I felt really frustrated.

It was like a first week, first.

Month, first few months. First week. It was bad. It got bad to the point where he like went home. He went to his old apartment and like slept on the floor for a night or two so I could figure it out. So I called my therapist right away and I was like, okay, I want this to work. I'm clearly still struggling with like energetic capacity and some old baggage and I need to relearn how to share my space and I need to relearn how to communicate when I need alone time, but like I need to figure out how to have alone time together.

Right.

And then I, you know, we worked it out.

We were trying to figure it out.

Yeah.

Were you guys married at that time yet or no? We weren't married yet. I actually said to him, I said to him at one point, do you think that we could get married but not live together? Like that was like a real thing that I was wondering if we could do. And he goes, that would not work for me. Wow. Like first of all, kudos to him for like being that clear. He wasn't mad about it or he didn't stomp off. He just said, that would not work for me. And I was like, okay, well I.

Wanna be married to this man.

So we have to find a way.

Why do you want to be married, but at the time you were like, I want to live alone still?

I just didn't know how I was going to be able to incorporate him into our life. I had been living alone for five years, you know, with my kid and we had our own routines.

And yeah, and I felt it was.

Just hard for me to share my space. I'm so introverted and I really had to find ways to get that like alone time and recharge time with him in the house. And we've definitely worked it out now, but there was a lot of communicating that had to go on in the beginning where I was like, It's not you. I love you. I'm so happy that you're here. And also, I need an hour by myself so I can just recharge my batteries. I need alone time like most people need to breathe. And here's what it's gonna look like and it's never about you. And if I have to tell you before I leave the room every single day, Hey, it's not about you, but I need alone time, I'm happy to do that. So it took a lot of communicating and then he had to learn not to take it personally. But we both did that work. Wow. And now it's good.

What is the next level for you after you've gone through all this over the last couple of years of unlearning and learning new things? What is the next level of peace, of harmony, and of love and joy for you?

Yeah, I mean, I definitely still have some unpacking to do with my trauma. Sexual assault at 16, family didn't handle it well. decades in therapy unpacking it. And I feel like I've reached a really good place of peace and comfort and forgiveness, especially for myself around it. But there are still pieces of it that I struggle with. And so, you know, I'm still in therapy relatively regularly, and once in a while my therapist will be like, okay, you know we need to talk about this. And I'm like, I don't wanna. But I know I need to, right? And it's like you said, when you start to unpack something, It's like you're going to organize the closet and the first thing you have to do is take everything out of the closet.

All the trash, all the junk.

Oh, it's such a mess before it gets better and that's kind of what it feels like. But I've started that process. I just need to like keep going through it.

What do you think is available on the other side if you go through and face all the mess?

I mean, I'm gonna tear up if I talk about it. You know, a new relationship with certain family members that I am absolutely holding at a distance right now with what is a healthy boundary for me in the moment. Because I don't feel safe enough to have deeper conversations right now because of the engagements that we've had in the past. But what if we could open that up and I could have a deeper relationship and we could come to resolution and I could kind of be able to share some of the things that I want to share in a way that doesn't make me so scared.

Yeah.

Because their unhealed response then piles on me and is really...

It's triggering.

Yeah, really hard for me.

Well, what's it gonna take for you to get there?

More therapy on my part, absolutely. Honestly, the willingness to open those conversations. Right now, I have certain things just in a box.

Right.

And it's comfortable in that box, you know? It feels good. I know where it is. I know if I want to open it, I can open it, but like it's kind of easy not to, and the box has its nice little place in my life, and it really requires, as my therapist keeps telling me, like, we're gonna have to open the box, right? If you, and you don't, I don't have to. I could keep doing things the way that I'm doing, but like the universe is not subtle. And there are definitely things where it's like, you know, poking me and prodding me, like, I think it's time.

When.

Do you think you'll be ready to open it up?

Oh, I'll never be ready. It's funny, I keep taking steps forward. I went through this big journey where I started the process of reparenting. So I don't know if you've gone through any of that yourself. It was so intense for me.

I have-- Got a photo of my younger self on here, healing the inner child. Reparenting myself. The different stages of my childhood.

Yes.

So it started at five when I was sexually abused. So I had a photo on there for a year of my five-year-old self. Now it's the 10 to 12 year range, which I'm about to go into the 16 to 18 year range.

Yes.

All the different kind of deeper wounds that I never fully opened the box back to and mended and integrated the healing of. So that's been, my goal is to go from the youngest memories I have up until now. And to work on all those stages, psychologically, emotionally, the memories, and reintegrate love from this place as me being the parent to my younger self.

I'm getting like, chill.

Yeah, so for me, I can relate to a lot of this because I know the suffering that can happen inside of someone when they hold on to that pain, and when there's a wound, that keeps triggering us without mending the wound. So I can empathize and relate based on my experience to how that's felt and know it can be extremely painful. It took me 25 years to face sexual abuse, talking about my own experience of that. And for about a year and a half, two years, I would still tremble talking about it. This was almost 10 years ago when I opened up. Now I can speak about it without feeling painful, you know, without a wound like reopening because it's, it's, you can speak about it, you know, not that it's a small thing to talk about, but I can speak about the memory and the experience from a place of I've done a lot of the healing work over the years. I've spoken about it enough. It doesn't scare me anymore to talk about it.

Yeah.

Doesn't mean I wish it would have happened, you know, I wish it wouldn't have happened. but I'm from a place of peace around the memory. And I've reparented myself from that space. But it took me 25 years and I suffered and I got a lot of results in my life. This is what I think people don't understand is you were extremely successful before these last couple of years of healing of therapy and creating boundaries. You didn't have certain boundaries but you had this massive, you know, number one New York Times bestselling book and you know this massive audience you were extremely successful. So you can still function and be successful but there was you didn't have boundaries and you hadn't processed a lot, right?

Yeah, well by the time I wrote my books, I was pretty decent at boundaries, especially around my 30s. Yes, especially around my entrepreneuring because I figured out super fast when I quit my full-time job.

But in your personal life.

No, not as much.

That's what I'm saying. You didn't have the boundaries in your personal life.

Not as much. I had some in some areas, right, around my drug addiction and recovery. Really solid boundaries.

But no, not-- Relationships.

Yeah, relationships, especially with family, parents.

And you were still able to be successful in society's terms with getting results. Which I think people can see that and be like, oh, she's got it all figured out. And you were able to function at a high level and accomplish a lot. but there's still stuff inside of you that you were working through.

Yeah, definitely.

And that's why I asked you the question, what do you think is available on the other side? When you open the box, it's the right time for you. I'm not trying to have you open it up in this week or something, but when the time works for you, which you said may never be the right timing, what is available on the other side?

It's freedom. It's literally freedom. What is available on the other side is freedom. And that's really at the heart of my boundary practice. I think so many people think that boundaries are about pushing people away or holding them at a distance. or that they're controlling or manipulative, boundaries are a gift in your relationship. Even in a relationship in which you are so close and so open and so vulnerable, like with my husband, we still have boundaries that are healthy for both of us. And so on the other side of opening this box and exploring it will simply come a new set of boundaries. And hopefully those boundaries have continued to expand our relationship and they continue to allow me to show up in a way that still feels good to me and safe to me. as that relationship progresses, hopefully I can back those boundaries off because showing up all the time or most of the time feels good and safe. That's what's on the other side of it. It's really freedom.

Yeah, I think it's creating the freedom. And it's not saying, okay, you can walk all over me and do whatever you want now with friends or family or intimate loved ones. It's creating new boundaries in that space of freedom.

Correct. Exactly.

You might still put people at a distance, but you feel like you have freedom from that relationship or from the past, right?

Yeah, and it's not even distancing, right? What it's essential, I'm not distancing myself from my husband or from my son when I set a boundary. What I am saying is, I have this need, I have this feeling that I'm taking responsibility for, and here is that limit because you're not a mind reader and I shouldn't expect you to know it. And if you can meet me in this limit, then what you get is like a happier mom, a more patient mom, a more loving wife, a more, You know, romantic wife, somebody who can show up as her fullest self because I just had this like one small thing that I've asked you to do that you've said you're willing to do for the good of our relationship and for my own health and safety.

Yeah.

Freedom. How free do you feel on a scale of one to 10? 10 being ultimate freedom. And in these relationships that maybe you haven't opened the box yet.

I mean, I still would say like a nine.

Wow.

I do, and I think it's because I recognize that I am in control of how I choose to respond to these situations, right? So I can't control what my mom does or says or whether she goes to therapy. I can't always control the way my husband shows up or my sister or my colleagues at work, but I can always control how I respond to those things. And that sense of empowerment, I think, that comes from boundaries that come from my recovery practice, that come from therapy that comes from my movement practice, like all of these things that require me to check in with myself and ask myself what I need and then realize that I have the power to act on that. Those are the things that bring me real freedom.

You and I have both been in relationships that we weren't in full alignment with our partners in the past. What do you think are the boundaries that people fail to set the most in these relationships that don't work and that continue not to work over time. What do we fail to set once we realize there's massive breakdowns?

Yeah, I mean, I think, and this is the real challenge, is that when you're in a relationship breakdown or things aren't going well and I hear stories like this from thousands of people all the time, right, where it's like I, the, in heterosexual relationships, the wife is doing all of the household management and all of the childcare and the expectations are only placed on her. And it's like she is the default for everything and she has to ask her husband to help and pitch in and babysit his own kids and she comes to me and says, I don't know what to do in this situation. The challenging thing is that at that point, you can't solve that with a simple boundary, right? The boundary has to be, I am going to go to therapy myself to explore what my options are because at this point, the way this relationship is working is not working for me.

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But if we go back to like some of the things we've talked about even earlier on in a relationship, I think setting a boundary like right away in a relationship immediately, even before you start dating, can be a super good litmus test for how well you can communicate. So it's like we're talking about going on a first date and it's like oh, by the way, I don't drink. So I'd love to meet you for happy hour. I'll just have like a tea and see if there's pressure, see if that is weird, see if they give you like pushback on that. Or you can talk about, you know, before you get intimate, like by the way, you know, this is what I said to my husband, like by the way, you're wearing a condom. And until we both get STD tested and like swap tests, that's going to continue. And like, if that isn't respected, that's an immediate relationship ender for me. Like that's it. Right? So I think it can be helpful early on to set boundaries and relationships just to see how you discuss them, how you each view them. Do they see it as selfish? And if so, can you have that conversation? Do they push back? How do they handle when you navigate that push back? I think that can be really important.

What about with children? You know, as a parent, I don't have kids yet, so I can't relate to that. I can relate to my experience as a kid being obnoxious to my parents. and probably driving them crazy and understanding that it's challenging for parents. How do healthy, conscious parents create healthy boundaries with kids without neglecting their kids' emotions, feelings, and needs?

Yeah, I think the two are definitely not mutually exclusive. So I think the first thing that you can do as parents is model healthy boundaries for your kids. So it is me, you know, saying to my husband, like, Hey, I need a half an hour of alone time. I'm gonna go to my room. I'll come back out after I'm feeling a little bit more refreshed. Like when my son watches us do that, he recognizes that in this family, it's okay to say no, that people don't get mad when you say no, that mom's taking responsibility for her own feelings. So we've been modeling healthy boundaries, but I've had boundaries with my son from the very earliest age, and I have set boundaries on his behalf. So one of the earliest boundaries I set with him or for him was when you visit grandma or grandpa or Nana and Pop Pop, or Auntie Kelly and you don't see them very often, you don't have to hug or kiss if you don't want to. We have to be polite. You didn't say goodbye and say thank you, but you can hug, you can kiss, you can wave, you can fist bump, you can make a funny face, you can, you know, high five, whatever you want, but you don't have to hug or kiss if you don't want to. And so we had this like issue once with my mom where she was like, I really want to hug. Like, I haven't seen him in such a long time. I only see him a few times a year. And I'm like, I get it. But he doesn't wanna hug you and like you need to respect that. And she did. And I recognized that it was disappointing for her, but also what I taught my son was that you have agency. And if you don't wanna hug, you don't have to. And so now, you know, I'll come sit next to him on the couch when he's nine and I'll be like, Hey, do you wanna watch Naked and Afraid? And like do a little snuggle? And he'll be like, I'd love to watch the show, but I don't wanna snuggle. I'm like, cool, that's fine. Yeah, that's good. Wow. So we've raised him in the culture of boundaries and he feels now comfortable setting boundaries with me. And boundaries really create a sense of safety for kids. They do because they realize that the adults in their household are taking responsibility for their own feelings, that boundaries are not about pushing other people away. They're about creating that sense of family in a way that works for everybody. And I think they feel really safe to my kid.

And what are the biggest boundaries you've had to create for yourself? Healthy boundaries for you individually? separate from family and loved ones.

Zillions. I think boundaries with yourself are so incredibly powerful because they only rely on one person to hold them.

Right.

And you can immediately reclaim your time, your energy, your capacity, your mental health, your physical space and sense of safety. Like that's an immediate benefit from you setting one boundary with yourself. The challenging thing is that if you don't keep that boundary, what's gonna happen, right? If you say to yourself, I'm not gonna check my phone in the morning before I do my morning routine, which is one of my most beloved boundaries and the one that I've set for many, many years and the one that I still hold to, if I do roll over and check my phone before I go to the gym and do my meditation, nobody's gonna jump out of the closet and slap the phone out of my hand.

But you're gonna know.

I will know. And what's gonna happen is that there will be a massive, Ripple effect to future Melissa. Really? I think about future me all the time. Tell me more. What is the decision that I'm making right now and how is it going to impact future Melissa? Because current Melissa is going to be so happy to just like stay up late and not start her bedtime routine and just do like one more, you know, show on Netflix. But what will this mean for future Melissa? She's going to be really mad at herself because she didn't get to bed on time. And then she's going to fall asleep late and then she's probably not going to have as good a night's sleep. And then when she wakes up tomorrow, she's not going to be pumped for the gym. and she might even skip it because she's gonna be tired. If she skips the gym before she does this interview, she's not gonna be a good guest because she won't feel grounded and centered. When I play it out that way, it makes it a lot easier for me to be like, Go to bed. Because future Melissa will benefit. So I have boundaries with myself where I'm not checking my phone in the morning before I do my morning routine, not checking my phone in the half hour before bedtime. So I'm not checking Twitter one more time or email one more time. I have really strong boundaries. Like when I'm out of office, I am out of office. Unless something is on fire, you do not call or text me, and I will not be checking text messages or emails. So, you know, I think I set boundaries with myself pretty often because I know that they can be like an instant sense. They can give me an instant sense of freedom. And nobody else has to even worry about it.

What's the boundary you set in the last two years for yourself that has given you the most benefit?

I think I've become more rigorous about what I say yes to in terms of work opportunities.

It's good.

It's hard as an entrepreneur not to feel like you have to or should say yes to everything. And like, if I don't say yes to this, maybe they won't ask me again. Or who knows what this lunch or coffee could turn into. But I think, I don't know if we talked about this, but like four years ago I got a concussion. I'm still going through post-concussion symptoms that are triggered by air travel, Events like this, speaking events, in-person events, any kind of stressor can set my concussion symptoms off. And that forced me to become more rigorous about what I say yes to. So now again, I kind of have this automatic pause before I say yes to anything. Even something that I think I'm super excited about, it's like quick pause. Can you work this into your schedule? Will you have capacity to do this? What else is this going to push off your plate? And is that acceptable to you? What are the things you're going to have to make up when you get back home? And then once I think about that, I either say yes or no. And if I say no, it's because again, I know I'm serving future me. I can be disappointed, but I can also be happy that I've checked in with my own needs. So that I think I've really dialed in on the last couple of years, and I think it's made a big difference in my overall capacity.

Wow. Yeah.

What boundary are you to set for yourself next year that you haven't done yet?

I don't know. I'm not a New Year's resolution person. I tend to just take on these like self-improvement things as I stumble across them. Is that common? Yeah, like I started my cold shower experiment, like in February, two years ago, just randomly. So I'm not a New Year's resolution person and there is no one size fits all for boundaries. I won't know what my needs are next year until I get to next year. And then I'm in the moment and I go, you know, my context has changed, my capacity has changed, my goals have changed. Do I still, I'm always reevaluating my boundary. Do I still need a boundary here? And if so, is this the boundary that I need? because they should be flexible and I shouldn't keep a limit in place that no longer serves me. So I don't know. Ask me next year.

What do you see since you've been working through this book for a while now? You've heard a lot of conversations from people, single, in relationships, family challenges, different things. What do you see that society needs in general to create better and healthier boundaries around.

Welcome to my favorite TED Talk.

It's just with social media, with work, with all the political stuff. Just what do people need in general moving into next year, you think?

I mean, we need honestly so much of the root of why boundaries feels like such an icky subject to so many people. And I will say, especially women, especially moms, is because we have been conditioned by the patriarchy and stereotypically rigid gender roles and toxic masculinity, which comes from the patriarchy, and religious influences and diet culture and trauma and the media. We have been conditioned for my entire life, and even going back further than that, to not have needs. To not have needs. To be selfless. Especially as a mom, we are praised the most when we are putting everyone else's needs and feelings and wants and desires above our own. Like we're not even on our own list. And if we're on the list, we're at the very bottom. And then when we do have a need and we speak it, we either hint about it because we've been told we can't be direct and then we're disappointed that people aren't reading our minds or we're direct about it and we're told that we're selfish or we're called a b*** or any of those other monikers. So we have been conditioned to not have boundaries. societally. And I think there's a lot of unlearning that we all have to do around what it means to have needs and to have those needs feel worthy. And the fact that, like, you of, you know, your own volition are valuable enough to advocate for those needs and then to remember that we have the power to advocate for those needs in a way that doesn't involve the other person. If I set a boundary with you, it can't. Be dependent on what you choose to do. The boundary I set has to depend on me, the actions that I am willing to take in our relationship to keep myself safe and healthy.

Give me an example around that.

We're in an argument and it starts to get really, really heated. And I say to you, Please don't speak to me like that. It's really making me feel unsafe. I don't like it when you use those words. It's getting personal and we're not focusing on the subject at hand. and you are really mad and really triggered and you kind of keep going with that, right? I can't depend on you to change your communication style. The only thing I can do is say, I won't stay in this argument if this is how we're gonna continue to talk about it. I'm gonna take a 10-minute break. After 10 minutes, I'll come back to see if you're ready. So I can't depend on you. If I go to my family's house and they're talking about politics and we don't agree with politics, I can say, Could we change the subject, please? And if they say no, then I have to enact my boundary, which is, okay, I'm gonna go for a walk.

Yeah, remove yourself.

I'm gonna leave the table, yeah. So all of that to say, we have a lot of unlearning to do about what it means to have needs and to advocate for those needs and to speak clearly and what that means as a woman to speak clearly and directly versus what historically it's meant for a man to speak clearly and directly, right? A man says it and he's decisive. A woman says it and she's aggressive, there's a lot of unlearning that we all have to do, I think, before we can get to the point where we don't automatically think of boundaries as.

Selfish or controlling or manipulative. What I'm hearing you say is the boundary doesn't rely on another person's reaction. It relies, or if they agree to it or not, it relies on you. Yes. Removing yourself in a conscious way from the situation. Yes. Independent of how they show up.

Correct. Now, I'm initially going to phrase most of my boundaries as a request. request.

Yes.

Right. Because you didn't know I had a limit. So I'm gonna say to you, hey, I need. I could use a half hour of alone time. Would you mind if I go in my room or, you know, would you mind taking the dog for a walk or something? Right. And if you say no, then my boundary is to remove myself. So I think that's another common misconception is that, you know, boundaries aren't about telling other people what to do or controlling other people. I may phrase my request. in that way as an invitation to meet me in my limit, but I always have a backup plan. This is what I'm gonna do.

Yeah, it sounds like you're using emotional intelligence language, which is, you know, I have a request, this is my request, will you honor this request?

Yes.

As opposed to screaming at someone like, you,'re crossing my boundary, you know, if they didn't even know what the boundary was. Yes, I have a boundary. Just making a request first and seeing if people will honor, respect it, or.

Renegotiate it in some way. If you want to accept that or not, you know, it all kind of depends. Yes. I have this green, yellow, red boundary framework that I've been using since the earliest days of my recovery, where I evaluate the level of threat that the boundary crossing has on our relationship. And I've got these three different levels of boundary communication. So if your mother-in-law shows up on your porch uninvited, and you really want her to call before you come over, but you've never said that before, I don't want you to open the door and go, Barbara, you're not welcome without calling first and slam the door. That's a red level boundary. We don't need to start there. The green is, Hey, would you please call before you come over and give us at least an hour's notice? That would be really helpful. Thanks. That's your green, right? You're going in with a request, you're inviting her to meet it. Chances are she's gonna go, yeah, that's fine. Now, if she shows up on your door again after you've expressed that limit and it's not some kind of emergency, you're free to open the door and say, oh, Barbara, you didn't call and it's not a good time. Would you like to come back and visit this weekend? Or should I just call you later on tonight, right? That's you holding your boundary.

Sure.

Yeah.

And then red is what?

Red is you don't answer the door. Because you've asked now several times for her to call before she comes by. And it's not an unreasonable request. And so the answer is like, you are not entitled to my time and home and space and family anytime you please. That does not feel unreasonable to me.

Yeah.

Especially if they've said, Yes, I honor your request and I will do this. If they've committed it. And then if they say no, then you just say, okay, well, I'm not.

Gonna open the door, maybe. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Depends on how I feel. Exactly. Sometimes you have to live in the yellow. So this is really common with conversations around diet, body weight. If it's really ingrained in your family to talk about how much weight you've lost or whether or not this person has lost weight or how many calories you're consuming. And these conversations tend to happen around food. that can be really uncomfortable and triggering for some people. So you may say, hey, I would prefer not to participate in conversations where we're talking about my body, your body, anyone's body, calories, can we just not talk about that? And they say yes, and then they bring it up at the table because it's very common, like family culture. You might have to use that yellow limit and remind them, hey, we agreed not to talk about this. If you can't change the subject, I'm going to excuse myself from the table. You may have to live in the yellow for a while if you're trying to read kind of change family patterns. But if they agree in the moment, they say, oh, yeah, you're right, I forgot. Then that's a win. And when you do that, when you continue to remind them, eventually, they're going to remember, they're going to remind themselves, and that's how you change entire family dynamics.

People may agree to something and then forget. It might take a couple of times to be like, that's my bad, you're right.

Yeah.

Sure. How does someone create a better boundary around food? And where is the, why do people cross the boundary of consuming way more than they actually need for their bodies so frequently?

Yeah.

I feel like that's not an area where I have enough credentials or experience to talk about because there are so many factors involved in people's eating habits, right? There's physiological factors, there's stress factors, there's emotional factors, there's the impact of the, you know, kind of food that we're eating and the foods that are being marketed to us. I think there are a lot of reasons. And boundaries around food are tricky because you never want a boundary to feel punitive. So, you know, do I have boundaries around food? Kind of, I guess, in that I don't eat foods that I know don't work for my body, but that's not like all the time. I don't eat gluten almost ever on a regular basis because I know it really messes with my digestion and my skin and my mood. But when my mom bakes her chocolate chip walnut cake 100% of the time, I'm like, yeah, I'm on it. So I think what I'm saying here is that my boundary isn't necessarily specific to like A food or drink. What my boundary is is I'm not going to automatically say yes or no. until I check in with myself and ask myself, Is it worth it? Do I want it? What's the context? How I'm feeling? So maybe the boundary is like, I just don't have an automatic yes or no. It's the very first question I ask is reflective.

And I think the framework you have was around your future self. Would my future self benefit from me making these choices?

Yes.

You know, whether it be around food or anything, you know, would my future self benefit? from me staying up every night late, eating this extra food constantly. And if you ask yourself that and make decisions based on future self, usually good things happen.

I think so. I think it's important too, especially when it comes to food, to take a broader approach. I think early in my whole 30 career, I was very dogmatic. I actually have a line in my first book that said, the food that you eat either makes you healthier or less healthy. There is no in between. And I really believed that at the time. And now I understand that sometimes I eat a food that I know does not physically serve me, and future Melissa is not going to be like super happy with me for eating it. But mentally and emotionally in the moment, it served you. It's good, it's so good.

It's like worth it, it's so good.

It'S because my son made it. It's because it's my mom's annual, like, Cadbury Creme Egg, you know, shipment. That's incredible.

So it's a very, it's a broader, you know, My question is, but you're very, you know, conscious about what you're eating, you know, 98% of the time it sounds like. But why do you think for some people they, you know, they just consume more and more than more of all bad unhealthy things than making choices to have healthier things most of the time? I mean, gosh, where do you think that comes from? Yeah, that struggle.

I think we could start with systemic factors that make it really challenging for historically marginalized communities to make healthy food choices. so I think the conversation around food choices has to go back to like some of the systemic factors around, you know, there are people who live in food deserts, there are people who don't have the time or financial resources or transportation to buy healthier foods. The fact that we have systemically packaged less healthy foods or less nutritious foods and made it so biologic, so affordable and cost effective and So like there are systemic factors, there are physiological factors.

Let's say people have the options, you know, they have to buy healthy foods or unhealthy foods. Let's say there's a, why do you think, because you mentioned how, you know, okay if my son makes this or there's a Cadbury egg and it like serves me in this moment to feel good or connected to my son or my mom or whatever, because I'm gonna eat this cake. There's some people might say, well that serves me every day to have this milkshake. It serves me right now to have, you know, and I can create that moment every, you know, every moment for myself because I love sugar. Right, so it's like I can do that every day. Why do you think, you know, how do we shift it to making healthier habits and decisions when we have those options to eat healthy? Let's say some people that may not have that option, I get it. For those that do, is it emotional? Is it mental? Is it, is there a wound inside of them? You know, what is the thing that draws people back? I know the addictiveness of certain foods, is hard to break as well.

Definitely.

I get that from sugar.

Yeah.

But is there anything else?

I mean, physiologically, when we are under stress, we crave foods that give you fast, easy energy, right? We are living in like this sort of biologically mismatched time period where we have the same kind of ancient cues that we had when we were hunting and gathering in today's food today's food landscape where like all of the sugar and all of the energy is like immediately available to anybody at all times. And when we're stressed, the body naturally moves us into this state of like, I need quick and easy energy. And we're all stressed all the time. You know, and your body doesn't know the difference between you being super stressed all the time with financial concerns or trauma, unprocessed trauma or relationship issues and being chased by a man-eating tiger. So like you are biologically craving these foods. And then you've got food companies who are layering salt on top of sugar, on top of fat, on top of salt, and making them calorie dense and nutrient poor and super normally stimulating. They're designed to make you crave and over consume. And then we're lonely and we don't have other coping mechanisms. We haven't learned or been modeled other healthier coping mechanisms and food is really cheap and really accessible. And it tastes good. And it tastes really good, yeah. So I think there are a lot of reasons. It's hard to pinpoint just one. I can only speak to my own experience and my own past unhealthy relationships with food where it was literally like I went from using drugs and then I stopped using drugs and then I used food the way I used to use drugs.

How did you overcome that?

Slowly over time, but honestly my first Whole30 back in 2009 was what opened my eyes up to that because the foods that I was normally using and drinks, alcohol, were to self-soothe and relieve anxiety and numb and distance and distract during that whole 30. They weren't available to me anymore. And I still have the same feelings. And I was like, well, now I have to do something with them. So, you know, I started journaling again, and I talked more to people in my life, and I started writing more and using that as kind of an outlet to process. So for me, that was a really eye-opening experience. And I think it can be, the whole 30 can be for so many people.

But-- What are the three healthiest ways you self-soothe?

Oh.

Today.

Time in nature, hands down. I'm an avid hiker, year-round hiker. I call it church. That's where I talk to God. It's where I talk to myself. It's where I check in. It's where I process things. So the first thing I always do is get outside. Even, you know, and I live in Utah, so we have some beautiful hiking trails. So that's the first thing. I talk about my feelings more than I ever have in my own, my whole life. I will either say to my husband or my sister, who are kind of my two biggest confidants, like, I need to download something. What I am about to say is not at all logical. It's not at all true. Like, I will come to that on my own time. I don't need you to tell me how ridiculous I'm being, but I need to get it out. Like, can you just listen? And they'll be like, yep, let's go for it. Right? And that's super helpful. And then once I've done that, I'm like, I feel a lot better. Yeah, I feel much better. Yeah, sometimes you just have to, I think allow space for whatever it is you're feeling, which is something I never used to do. I didn't like allowing space for feelings that I thought were not productive. And now I'm like, no, no, no, this is a feeling and we're gonna like give it its moment.

What happened to you or what would happen to you when you would not express feelings?

I always describe it as I would eat it. I would eat it or I would swallow it. Like, I physiologically would push it right down into my stomach or reproductive parts, wherever it went, and I would just bury it. And it made me really, really sick.

Wow.

Like, physically sick and emotionally sick and spiritually sick and.

Yeah.

So now what I do is I say, oh, this does not feel good. Let's give it a moment. Let's just sit with it, right? I don't force myself to be grateful all the time. I don't force myself to look on the bright side if I'm feeling really bummed about something. I don't need to find a silver lining in it in this moment. Let's just let this suck.

Feel the feelings, yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting you say that because I haven't heard many women talk about stuffing their feelings and not expressing them, not having a place to talk about their feelings to at least one girlfriend or their mom or sisters.

Yeah.

But when I wrote the book, the Mask of Masculinity, I went on a journey of just researching and probably, I don't know, 95% of men grew up without the ability, thinking they had the ability to express their feelings because of the pressures that men face as well, different from women, obviously. And when I did the book tour for the book, I'd had about 50-50 men and women in the room. And I would ask the women in the room, I'd say, how many of you talk about your feelings at least once a week to a girlfriend or a friend or mom or therapist, and almost the whole room almost would put their hands up, all the women in the room. And I say, how many of you guys keep your hands up if you do this every day? You're on the phone with someone, they say yes. And then I say, okay, to the guys in the room, how many of you, once a month, talk about your feelings, your insecurities, your body issue, your relationship challenges, anything? Maybe two hands out of hundreds would raise their hand. once a month and I say, are you guys part of a church group, like a men's church group that does this mandatory, essentially? And they all kind of laugh because most of them are part of like a group that had to go somewhere.

Once a month to talk about their feelings.

Just to do it, yeah. And I said, men, how many of you do this once a year? You talk about their feelings. Most of the men would never raise their hand.

Right.

And I said, ladies, how would this make you feel if you didn't talk about it for a week, a month, a year, or your whole life, like most of the men in this room? And most women would be like, I would kill myself. I'd go crazy. I'd be an alcoholic. I would overeat. I would do this. And I go, well, look at the challenges that men face as well. It doesn't mean there's not different challenges for women, but imagine the emotional suffering that a lot of men face when they don't communicate and feel like they have a safe space to land. Whether that be with another male friend, a female friend, Someone. That's why I think it's so important you're talking about this because I think you can relate to probably a lot of men from that experience.

I spent five years putting things up my nose.

Exactly.

Yeah, I absolutely do.

You can relate to it. I think when humans don't express their feelings in a healthy way, don't have a safe space to express them, men, women, whoever, bad things happen. That's why I think we see a lot of pain and suffering in the world and a lot of war and dis-ease that's happening caused by a lot of men because they don't have the space to share. And that's why I think it's so important you're talking about boundaries, talking about healing, talking about creating a healthy boundary with yourself.

Yeah.

Opening up, expressing yourself. And I think I hope more people hear this message. Men and women and every human hears this message about opening up their feelings. And it can be journaling. It doesn't have to be expressing it to social media every day. It can be journaling, talking to a therapist, talking to a friend. It can look different for everyone.

It should, yeah, it can and it should. And I think again, boundaries are a great way to start that opening up because you don't want to vomit every feeling you've ever had in a space that might not be safe for you. So you can set limits with different people, with social media groups, with whatever that looks like, to be able to start sharing in a way that does feel safe. And then hopefully expand those limits as you gain confidence with sharing your feelings and as you're affirmed because you're sharing with the right people.

Right.

Yeah.

So you said you were with drugs and alcohol addiction, right?

Not alcohol.

I never drank.

Right.

Drug addiction. Yeah, just a lot of drugs. Do you think if you would have expressed your feelings more regularly, you would.

Do less drugs at that time? I would never have started doing drugs. Really? The only reason I started doing drugs was because at 16 I was sexually assaulted. I didn't tell anyone for a year when I did tell my family, They didn't handle it well, and they said, We can't tell anyone. We need to keep it quiet, or it will hurt the family. And I felt like I had no outlet whatsoever. They put me in therapy, but I didn't wanna talk about it.

But you couldn't talk about it to your family?

I couldn't talk about it to my family. I had internalized the message that obviously it was my fault. Obviously I had done something wrong. And so I began looking for things to numb that experience and to numb these feelings that I had been shoving down. Controlling my eating that didn't work. I tried drinking that didn't work.

And then I found drugs and I.

Was like, this is it. Here we are.

It made you feel better.

Yeah.

It was a coping mechanism. It was a way. It was the first thing that took me as far away from myself as I wanted to be.

And then I spent five years doing it. Wow.

Yeah.

So how did you start to shift out of that? Was it talking about your feelings more? Like, when did the process change to a different coping mechanism?

Well, I mean, it started when I went into rehab twice. I went in twice, right? The second time it really stuck and I decided I was going to really change every aspect of my life and really become this healthy person with healthy habits. That was really the first time I ever set boundaries around my addiction and my recovery. And I think that's what changed it for me. That's why I didn't have a second relapse. But then it was just a process. So I started exercising and I certainly exercised to an unhealthy degree, but then that modulated itself and then I started eating healthier did my first Whole30 and was like, oh wow, the way you're using food is not super healthy. And then I went back to therapy and started talking about more things, but not all the things. And I went through my divorce and really started talking about all the things. So it's been like a process. A process for sure. Yeah, and I'm sure I'll talk to you two or three years from now and be like, oh, since we've talked, I've done like X, Y, and Z, and here are the other things I've done.

What's the thing you're most proud of, Melissa?

I'm like a way better mom than I ever thought I would be. I'm a really good mom. I have a well of patience for my child that nobody in my life, myself included, knew existed. And I have a sense of love for him that I've never before experienced and like never will again. I'm a way better mom than I thought I would be and I'm really Proud of that.

That's beautiful. That's really cool.

I love my kiddo.

That's really cool. Just wait till he's a teenager, right? Yeah, see if you have patience.

I can say that now. He's nine. He's in a nice little sweet spot now.

How do you learn to let go of a relationship or relationships with people that don't respect your boundaries?

So this is the thing. If your boundary is you telling other people what you are willing to do to keep yourself safe and healthy, that doesn't always mean that the outcome is, like, desirable. If you're talking about boundaries at work and they won't respect them, are you willing to transfer departments, go to HR, look for a new job? If it's boundaries with a family member and they will not respect them to the point where it is seriously harming your relationship, your physical health, your mental health, are you willing to cut that person off? Are you willing to take a break from them? or seriously limit the way that you choose to engage with them. We will communicate only via email and text at this point, not in person, not on the phone. You have actions that you are able to take, but that doesn't mean that those actions are always easy or always your desired outcome. And then what you have to ask yourself is, how willing am I to let this person continue to harm me for the sake of preserving this relationship? What would that look like? What does it look like? And are there limits that I can set in between letting them run me over exactly the way they are and cutting off the relationship altogether? Because there are a lot of things I think that you could do in between to preserve the relationship in a way that works for you. You just have to be willing to find it and then ultimately hold it for yourself.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

I know. It's not easy, but I don't want to be in a relationship that makes me feel like, crap, every time I show up or that doesn't allow me to be my fullest self or that, like, hurts me every time I'm there. It's not worth it.

It.

I don't think that it is.

And I can't make that decision for anybody else. If you say, like, no, I. She's my mom, and I want to maintain a relationship with my mom. And, like, it. She's family, and I'm going to, then, like, that's your decision. But I want you to go into it.

Eyes open.

Yeah. And I think there's. Listen. I think there's, I used to get really annoyed with my mom, right? I think because I'm the youngest of four and I used to feel like she always treated me like a baby. Even today, it's like I'm doing so much for her and different things, but she still treats me a certain way sometimes. It's like, okay mom, don't do this. It's like this little annoyance, right? And it wasn't until a few years ago where I said, you know what? I'm just gonna accept her for it. I may not like it, I may not enjoy it, but how can I change my response and my feeling towards it? How can I tell a different story to myself about how my mom shows up? Is it the worst thing in the world? Is it like ruining my day? No, it's an annoyance that I grew up with this feeling. And if I want to have a deeper, healthier relationship with my mom, as she continues to get older, I want her in my life. I don't want to distance myself because some things she says or does annoys me every now and then. It's not like she's, trying to ruin my life, right? It's just her way of being. And I've communicated what I don't like and it's still happening. It's like, okay, then do I want her in my life? Yes. Is she gonna be this way? Yes. Okay, do I get to love and accept her for who she is and shift the narrative within me and have more patience like you said and learn how to deal with it?

Yeah.

Absolutely, if that's the relationship I want. And since doing that over the last couple of years, it doesn't annoy me as much anymore. I'm kind of like, okay, I just kind of laugh it off as opposed to get frustrated. Yes. Because I chose to be different around the situation. So there are nuances to it as well, I think.

There absolutely are, and this is why there's no one size fits all boundary scenario, because what might feel like an annoyance to you might be really harmful to somebody else. What one family is like, oh my gosh, how could you interact like that as a family? That wouldn't work for us as somebody else's like, Absolutely, drop over over whenever you want. You don't even have to knock. There is no one size fits all.

The door is always open. You can stay anytime you want.

But I do like this idea of asking myself, what is the story I'm telling myself about this? And is there some examination of that that I could do on my end?

Can I be more flexible or more accepting? Unless it's some extreme thing where you don't feel safe, then create the boundary. You need space, you need okay, cool. But if your mom's just being annoying every now and then, like okay, just love her and accept her and just move on.

I think so.

Well, the book you have, the Book of Boundaries, is a game changer. It's about setting the limits that will set you free. And I think the thing that most people want is freedom. You talked about it. It's something I wanted my entire life that I struggled with. I didn't feel free internally. And the process of creating agreements with myself, creating agreements with others, and healing and integrating that healing process throughout life is what has allowed me to be more and more free every day. And so if you guys are looking for freedom, make sure you get a copy of this book. You can go to MelissaU.com, it'll have the book there. You can get it there, it's on Amazon as well, the Book of Boundaries or anywhere else you guys get books. How else can we be of service and support to you today, Melissa?

I like that you asked that question. Thank you. This conversation was everything. I always love coming in here to talk to you, and I always feel like you get me to share more than I thought I was going to, but in, like, a really safe and authentic way. So I appreciate that. I always enjoy our talks. Thank you.

Of course. Of course. I want to acknowledge you, Melissa, for taking on this challenge of talking about this, because I think I think you're similar to me in some ways that I write the books that I need. Yeah, yes. Whole 30 was for you.

Yes.

The book of boundaries is for you.

Yes.

You were like, I didn't have any boundaries, let me learn this process and then write about my findings and how it's helped me.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I do the interviews that I need, right? It's like the things that I do as well. So I want to acknowledge you for taking, having the courage to take on this topic. create boundaries in a healthy way in your life and all your relationships because it can be very challenging if you've lived a majority of your life without them, having to shift into becoming the person who creates healthy agreements and boundaries in your life with yourself and with others. So I acknowledge you for taking this on and for sharing this wisdom with so many people that, that could use this, this book. This question, I think I've asked you before, I'm gonna ask you again. It's a three truths question. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on Earth. many years away. You live as long as you want to live, but then eventually you gotta go. And you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish. You've seen your kid grow up and live a great life. You've had a great marriage. All the things you want, they happen. But for whatever reason, everything you've created has to go with you. Books, work, this interview is gone. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true for you.

Yes.

And that's all we have to remember you by, these three truths. What would those be for you?

The first one is that you can trust yourself. Hard stop. I mean, do I have to pick three? If I just shared that one, would that be enough? I think the other thing I would say is connect more than you think you need. I'm literally talking to myself.

Right now.

And I think the third is find joy.

Find joy.

Seek it. Look for it.

Love those.

Yeah.

Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Showing up as my full self everywhere I go.

There you go.

Just like that.

Love it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

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