143. How to Set & Hold Boundaries with Melissa Urban

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Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.

Do we have a treat for you?

This is how our song goes.

We have a treat for you.

Is it?

Was that good?

No.

Okay.

You know, with this podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, we're just trying to answer easy questions like

just how do we live?

Super easy.

How do we do this?

How do we live?

And we have somebody here today that is very helpful to help us answer that question.

Yes.

Her name is Melissa Urban.

Melissa Urban is the co-founder and CEO of Whole30, a six-time New York Times best-selling author, and her highly anticipated book, The Book of One of our Favorite Words here, and We Can Do Hard Things, boundaries.

The book of boundaries is available now.

She is the host of Do the Thing podcast, Building Community, Health, and Entrepreneurship.

She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Hello, Melissa.

Hello, Glennon, Abby, Amanda.

It's so good to be with all of you today.

Same.

What a treat.

You're such a ray of sunshine.

I know that the listeners can't see it, but your presence and your energy, I just am really excited to be.

I came in beaming because you are some of my favorite people.

This is one of my favorite podcasts, and this is one of my favorite subjects.

So it's like my best day ever right now.

Oh, that's good.

And she does glow.

I think that might be what having good boundaries looks like.

She looks less dead inside than the rest of us.

Yes, that's a good point.

I would like to start.

I feel like you are someone who can handle starting with some hard things.

So, we're going to do that because I want to explain to

our pod squad why it is that you are the exact person to talk to us about boundaries.

I feel that you are the right person to talk to us about boundaries after reading more of your story in your book, The Book of Boundaries.

So,

you

describe your childhood as idyllic, and then when you were 16 years old,

you were abused, sexually abused by an extended family member.

Yes, I grew up with two parents.

My mom stayed home.

My dad worked sometimes two jobs to support us.

We had this large Catholic Portuguese family.

Everyone was very close.

There were always lots of kids running around.

I was a really good student.

I got straight A's.

I was really smart.

I read a lot.

I didn't cause trouble.

I was a really good kid until 16

when I, yeah, was manipulated by an older family member and sexually abused.

And like my entire life just took a sharp turn from that point on.

First of all, I'm so sorry about that.

In the aftermath of that,

your parents decided not to tell anyone

that that had happened, as you say, for fear that it would shatter the family peace.

So you had to sit next to this man at gatherings for your entire teenage life.

Yeah, I did.

Tell me about what the effect of that is when a boundary is so broken and then the people who are responsible for restoring that boundary for you don't do it.

I didn't grow up with boundaries being modeled for me.

In my family, the sort of unspoken rule and often spoken was.

If we don't look at it, it didn't happen.

So when people would get divorced, when someone would get cancer, when things would happen, we just wouldn't talk about it.

And if we didn't talk about it, it was almost like it didn't exist.

And that was how I grew up.

So of course, when this happened, I didn't want to talk about it.

And I didn't want to tell anyone.

And because there was such a large manipulation factor to it, he told me if I told people, no one would believe me.

And it was clear that I was acting out.

And it was a, it was my first sexual experience.

So there was a ton of manipulation and that I was told that this was just what happens when two people love each other this much.

It was super gross.

So I didn't want to tell anyone.

And then out of like desperation, I finally told my parents because I couldn't stand to see him anymore.

And they chose to handle it by also not talking about it.

And they did the best they could with the information they had.

I absolutely believe that.

I'm still kind of navigating what that looks like.

But at the time, I felt completely abandoned.

I felt completely just left to my own devices to figure out how to handle this thing that is so.

big that nobody knows how to handle on their own never mind a 16 year old child to navigate it by myself.

And because the message was, don't disturb the family peace, I had to keep showing up at Easter and Christmas and birthday parties.

And I worked really hard to pretend like everything was better because everyone needed me to be fine.

So I tried really hard to be fine.

And then it just ate me up from the inside out.

I ate all of it.

I swallowed all of it.

And so you can imagine what that did.

Yeah.

I wrote my first memoir.

I had a magical childhood.

I was born broken.

And I remember sitting in one of my first interviews with Oprah and her reading that line to me on the camera.

I was born broken.

I had a magical childhood.

And she looked at me and goes,

really?

It's taken me to be 45 years old to look back and say, oh, that's an interesting thing we do to protect our family, to protect ourselves.

We say everything was magical.

I was, I, I was messed up.

I was messed up.

And then you get to a certain age and you think, wait a minute.

Yeah.

Have you had that?

Because before we get into things, I want to talk about what does idyllic mean?

Yeah.

If you're in a family who's choosing to bury things all the time, who's choosing not to look at hard things, who's choosing false peace of a family over the piece of the child, how is that idyllic?

What do we mean when we say that?

I know.

You know, I'm still wrestling with that myself.

It's hard to look back through adult eyes and not also

be so deeply entrenched in how I saw it as a kid.

I'm doing a lot of reparenting right now to really be able to like comfort that side of myself who needed to see it that way in order to keep herself safe.

I had to see it that way.

Looking back now, of course, I can see the cracks.

No family grows up perfect, but Had this incident of abuse not taken place, I probably could have got through my entire childhood.

My A score is like virtually nothing without that.

You know, I did have a pretty good and lucky and privileged childhood.

But when you add that factor on top of it, and then you see everything that came as a result, and now even the repairing that I'm still doing with those relationships, yeah, it's hard not to have that dichotomy, I think.

It's hard to bring those two pieces together in a healthy way.

Tell the pod squad what the A score is, just for people who don't know.

Oh, it's a test that you can take that sort of tracks your various degrees of childhood trauma.

And the higher the score you get, the more things you check off and say yes to, the more you had a difficult and traumatized childhood.

And I've done the test before and I think my score is like a one.

So I didn't have neglect.

I didn't have abuse.

I didn't have drug or alcohol use in the family.

Like I don't tick most of those boxes.

And also,

My life took a careening, you know,

tacked off into

absolute self-destruction for a very long time because of what happened.

Yeah, we need more nuanced tests, also, because it really makes you feel like if you don't have those things, then you are just messed up.

When actually, there's so many various ways that differently constituted people can be traumatized.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So, Melissa, after you, you say that this all happened, I mean, it is, it is, it's fascinating because

to have such a sacred boundary

just crossed over and and not explained and then not restored.

Yeah.

You, in reaction to that,

turned to drugs, alcohol, all the things.

I love the part where you say, um, you just started doing drugs and then, as they say, that escalated quickly.

I get that very much.

Cocaine, heroin, meth, prescription drugs, all the things.

So, so

then

you're 26, addicted to all the things.

You're sitting next to a keg of natty light.

In that moment, you set your first boundary.

Can you tell us that story?

Yeah.

I spent five years doing drugs as a means to escape from what had happened and not be in my own body and not have to process or deal with the trauma.

And then the drugs became a problem all unto itself.

And now I just have layers and layers of problems.

I went to rehab once.

I maintained my recovery for a year and then I relapsed.

And,

you know, it was really because I hadn't set any boundaries with myself in my recovery other than one shaky boundary that I would try not to use.

And I was relying on nothing but willpower and circumstance and convenience to hold on to my recovery, which as we know is a completely tenuous and like unsustainable place to be.

The second time I went to rehab and pulled myself out of it, I knew things needed to be different and I didn't know how.

And my life had become so small at that point.

I was so scared to talk to anyone about how I felt, to advocate for my needs.

I felt like any sort of expression of my feelings feelings or even letting people know that I wasn't okay would just push everyone away and I would become isolated again.

So I said yes to a party that I should not have said yes to with people I didn't know doing God knows what in the bathroom, sitting next to a keg of natty light with a red plastic solo cup, drinking water.

Awesome.

Awesome way to stay sober.

Yes.

I did realize.

Yes.

Yeah.

There's that word again.

Realizing that if I didn't say something right now, I don't know if I was going to make it back a third time.

This was, this felt like a life or death situation.

We are talking about my recovery again.

And nobody knew that I had relapsed.

Nobody knew anything because I was fine.

So in a moment of just sheer panic, I've vomited all over my best friend, word vomited, what was to become the first honest to God boundary I ever set with anyone, which was, I'm not okay.

I can't be here.

I need to go home.

And I thought he would laugh at me.

I thought he would scoff.

I thought he would blow me off and go party.

And he said, oh, and he asked me a few questions.

And then he said, okay.

And we went home.

And that was the boundary that saved my life.

But that was where it all changed for me.

That was where I realized that boundaries were the key to expanding my life beyond my wildest imagination.

That was the moment.

You said something else to him about

a boundary of how you could maintain your friendship.

Oh, yeah.

What else did you say to him in that way?

I did not intend to have the most important conversation of my life, like next to the beer pong table, right?

In a, at a, at a college dorm room, but I said, I can't be here.

I have to go home.

And he said, okay.

And I was like, I got to say it all.

I'm here.

We're in it.

Let me just say it.

And the first one went well.

So you were like, let's try again.

Yeah.

I think after I said the first one, he just said, oh, and then I just burnt out the rest of them.

I like, didn't even wait for a reaction.

I was like, you cannot.

offer me drugs ever again, ever.

Even if I tell you it's okay, even if I ask you for them, you cannot.

If I can't trust you with that, we can't be friends.

You can't do drugs around me ever.

If we go someplace and you know there's going to be people doing drugs, I can't be there.

So don't invite me or tell me to stay home or that you'll see me some other time.

I need to know that I can trust you with these or we can't be friends.

That was my boundary.

These are my limits.

And if you can't meet those needs for my own survival, I will no longer be able to be friends with you.

And that was the point where he was like, okay, shell shocked.

And then we left.

That's the there she is moment.

Yeah.

Oh, there you are.

It's so interesting how when we quit the booze or the drinking or whatever we're addicted to, it's like good news, bad news.

You think for so long that that's your problem.

The booze is my problem.

The drugs is my problem.

I'm going to quit that.

But actually, the booze and the drugs is just the thing you started doing to avoid the problem.

So when you stop doing the booze and the drugs, what is left?

The problem.

Oh, yes.

Right?

It's like a little depressing because you think, oh, if I do this one thing, but then there comes the progress.

It's like you have all, you know, this whole closet that you just shove everything into and then you close the door.

And the minute you open the door, it just all comes tumbling out at you.

And now you've got to like sort through it all.

Yes, that was exactly it.

Yeah.

You know, we were talking recently, Abby and I, about this, and it's just,

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You talk about there's three real steps to boundary setting and keeping.

And the first one is identify.

So how do we know that we need a boundary?

Yes, identifying the need for a boundary.

The easiest way to identify is where are there areas in my life or in my relationships that just make me feel like, I don't wanna.

It's a sense of dread before an encounter or around a person, a sense of anxiety.

If you notice resentment around a certain person, and this can also include like around a conversation topic.

If you feel like you can't show up as your fullest self with that person, like you have to hide pieces of yourself in that relationship, a boundary is needed.

If you leave thinking, I don't like how I feel when I spend time with that person, that's a really good sign.

If you leave the conversation and you run through all of these things in your head, I should have said this.

I should have done that.

Why did I do that?

And you're beating yourself up for all of the things that you could have or should have done.

That's a sign that a boundary is needed.

If you're always wondering where you stand with this person, you never quite know.

That's another fantastic sign.

Okay.

What about the energy leakage?

Can you talk about that?

Yeah, this is where I get a little woo and I love it and I'm into it.

I've let it all really appreciate it.

Let's

shout out.

So the concept of energy leakage is essentially that any kind of interaction with you and someone else, whether we're talking in person, whether it's a podcast episode like this, whether I'm just scrolling social media and engaging with comments or looking at old pictures of my ex, that is an energetic exchange.

And energy leakage happens when you are expending more energy than you are getting back from those interactions.

And very often it happens invisibly.

Social media is one of the biggest areas of energy leakage because it feels so effortless.

I'm just going to scroll, I'll hit a like, I'll engage with a comment.

Oh, I don't like that comment.

What is that person doing?

What is their profile about?

What are their?

All of a sudden, your energy is now being poured into this phone in a way that feels innocuous, but is not innocuous.

And if it means that you have less energy for your spouse or your family or your job, that is energy leakage.

So being attentive to where your energy is going and engagements that feel like you are giving more than you are getting back is a huge sign, a huge red flag for a boundary.

That's really interesting.

I love that one so much because it doesn't have anything to do with whether another person or an event or whoever's on the other side of that equation is doing.

It could be a wonderful time with wonderful friends who are all doing the right thing and supporting you.

Nonetheless, you may have energy leakage that allows you to only do that

once every three weeks, whereas the rest of your friends can do it once a week.

It has nothing to do with their behavior.

Yes.

And again, this is so important for the conversation because boundaries are never about telling the other person what to do.

Boundaries are not controlling other people.

They are about telling people what you will do to keep yourself safe and healthy.

So that's the perfect kind of framework for boundaries, which is it's not about them.

It's about me.

Okay, we need to get into this because this is the most, this was one of the most important parts for me and Abby with the way you talk about boundaries.

So

we've decided we need a boundary.

We've identified that we are bitter or anxious or avoidant about something or someone.

There's energy leakage.

There's energy leakage.

So much leakage.

So we have decided we need a boundary.

Great.

Step one.

The setting is hard, right?

But it's the right kind of hard.

Hard either way.

It's hard to feel bitter and anxious and avoided all the time.

Yes.

So it's hard either way.

Both things are uncomfortable.

The setting of the boundary, it's uncomfortable.

I get it.

It's hard to express our needs.

It's hard to advocate for ourselves.

It's hard to feel like we're disappointing someone else.

I understand that.

And also

what you are doing now, swallowing your feelings, putting everyone's comfort ahead of your own, not advocating for yourself, taking on more than you are capable of handling, that's uncomfortable too.

And that path doesn't lead you anywhere.

That's right.

And this path improves your relationships, or at least has the potential to.

Yeah, it's just that idea of being bold enough to cause an outer conflict instead of always choosing inner conflict.

Yes, yes.

And I know a very smart person once said, be willing to disappoint other people before you are willing to disappoint yourself.

And I think about that a lot in my boundary practice.

Cool, cool.

What I want to really get to with the pod squad here.

So Abby and I are going for a walk yesterday.

And she says, she's talking about a friend who's dealing with a relationship thing.

And

we're deciding how to coach her friend.

Okay.

And Abby says, I'm going to tell her to say to her partner, you are not allowed to talk to me like that.

That's the boundary.

And I said to Abby, no.

Melissa would say that that is not a boundary.

That's controlling because that's saying you are not allowed to talk to me like that.

What your friend has to say is,

if you're not allowed to talk to me like that, and if you talk to me like that again, I will leave.

Am I right?

Is that what you're saying?

That it has to be the what I will do?

Correct.

Because that's all I can control.

What would be the best way to do it?

Everything that you're saying is kind of essentially the same thing, thing, right?

What you are saying is, I will not participate in a conversation that does not feel safe to me.

So if when you speak to me, when you call me names, or when you get overly angry, or when you make it personal, that does not feel safe to me.

And I will not participate in that conversation.

So what I would say in that moment is the green level boundary, the kind of entry level is, I need our conversations to feel safe and productive and healthy.

Can we agree on some rules of engagement around conflict?

So this is something that you kind of talk about ahead of time.

And then in the moment, if you need to, it is, I'm noticing that your tone is escalating.

I'm noticing that you just called me a name.

This does not feel like it is appropriate or healthy.

I'm going to take a five-minute break.

When I come back, let's re-engage.

So it is always from the self.

You are always talking about, this is the action I am going to take.

Now, sometimes you do frame that boundary in the form of a request because your partner's not a mind reader and they don't know that you have a limit.

So your initial request might be, can we agree on these terms of engagement so that when we do have conflict, we both feel like we're approaching it from a productive and healthy standpoint.

That is a request and you are asking them to buy in, but the boundary itself is.

I will not participate in conversations in which I don't feel safe or that don't feel healthy for me.

You mentioned green system.

Can you explain the green, yellow, red systems that you wrote about in the book?

So I believe in minimum effort, maximum effect.

You want to go in with the gentlest, kindest language possible and still have your boundary be respected.

Yeah.

You don't need to go in kicking the doors down if you could just make a simple kind request.

Sister, this is for us.

Listen hard.

Why is Melissa looking directly at me right now?

I'm actually talking to myself because I'm very East Coast and I'm very direct and I'm very blunt.

Minimum dose.

Sometimes break that you call it minimum dose.

It's a fitness principle.

It's an Archimedes physics principle.

That was why we've never heard of funny.

So do as little as possible to have the maximum effect.

So I kind of color code my boundaries, green, yellow, red.

Okay.

Green is the gentlest, kindest language.

You are assuming that the person didn't know you had a limit and wants to be respectful and healthy in your relationship.

So you'll share this green language and see where it goes.

Yellow is, okay, this person is either forgetting or unwilling or reluctant to respect my boundary.

Now, my language needs to be a bit more direct.

It's still kind,

but it's more direct and impactful.

And I may share a consequence here, like, if we can't change the tone of this discussion, then I'll be leaving the room for five minutes so we can take a break.

The red level boundary is if the behavior continues to escalate, this is the boundary.

This is the consequence.

This is the action that I am going to take to keep myself safe and healthy, which is, I'm going to interrupt you.

The way you are speaking to me right now does not feel okay to me.

I'm going to leave for an an hour.

And when I come back, we can resume.

And that's your red.

Occasionally, I throw a fuchsia in there for the people that like really deserve it.

But

we go through the yellow.

So, pod squatters, this is an example from Melissa's work.

But controlling is you're pissed that your Uncle Joe still smokes.

And you say to your Uncle Joe, you must stop smoking.

You need to stop smoking.

Controlling, that's not a boundary.

Boundary is, Uncle Joe, we don't allow smoke in our home.

Yes.

Exactly.

So like

what we are doing.

We don't allow smoke.

Smoke away, Joe.

Not the boss of Joe.

Yes, the boundary is designed to keep us safe and healthy and improve our relationships.

If Uncle Joe keeps coming in my house and lighting up, I'm not going to be that pleased with him.

And I'm probably not going to continue to invite him over and it's going to hurt our relationship.

So this one simple boundary.

I don't allow smoking in the house.

Would you either put it out or go outside?

Yes, it requires Uncle Joe's cooperation.

Yes, it is a request, but the ultimate boundary is, I will not be inviting you into my home if you cannot respect this healthy limit that I have.

Exactly.

And I just thought of something as you were saying this.

The whole idea of boundaries, it really does save us from being

judge and jury.

Like

it allows the other person to participate in the conversation.

So instead of saying,

oh, Joe, it's making me crazy.

I'm never inviting him over.

You get to invite Joe in and say, Joe, this is where I am with it.

Then if Joe stops coming over, it's because Joe has decided

he will not go outside and smoke, that he needs to be inside and smoke.

Yes, that's exactly right.

You set the boundary that you need for your own healthy limit, and this boundary is going to help the relationship.

It's not helpful or really kind for you to just swallow it, not say anything because you don't want to be impolite, but then be resentful and mad the rest of the day because your house smells like smoke and be angry with him and he doesn't know why.

That's not particularly fair.

So the kindest thing is to set the boundary.

And then how that person reacts to your clear, kind, healthy boundary is not your business and it's not your responsibility.

If Uncle Joe says, okay, I just won't be visiting anymore.

All right, that is your responsibility.

That is your business.

I cannot and will not try to control it.

They're allowed to be mad about your boundary.

They're They're allowed to have feelings about it.

Absolutely.

And you can acknowledge those.

And you will disappoint some people with your boundary.

I often say that setting a boundary often means revoking a privilege that that person was never meant to have in the first place.

And it can feel like you're taking something away from them.

And that can make people mad.

And I understand that.

And they're allowed to be mad.

And also, this is my healthy limit.

Yeah.

It's like over and over again, it's this idea of this is actually the way that we can love each other.

Yes.

That's what a boundary is.

This is the way that we can love each other.

This is the way that we can be friends.

I just love the fact that there's a

separation between control and personal safety in this approach.

Because the truth is, is you are a very boundaried person, baby.

Correct.

And it's something that I love about you, but sometimes it does feel.

like, why does she get to control the whole situation here?

And so I think that this kind of method, in terms of Glenn and you being able to personalize it, this is what will make me feel safe.

Yeah.

Using green language.

So it's using the green system.

I'm not going to say to you,

turn down the TV.

You can't listen to the TV that loud.

Yeah.

I'm just going to say, if you keep listening to the TV that loud, I'm going to leave.

But also, I think that's not going to upset you.

No, I'm just going to have to keep leaving.

But Melissa, don't you think that when someone has gone through life boundaryless, or maybe you don't.

I think sometimes when someone has gone through life boundaryless and figured out the boundaries save them for a couple decades, they can be on red.

Yes.

Even with the sweetest people.

Always on red.

Is that a thing?

Yeah, it's totally a thing.

Gretchen Rubin calls it obliger rebellion, which is like people pleaser rebellion where you like eat it and eat it and eat it and then you explode.

And I think that can absolutely happen with boundaries where you have held it in for such a long time that now instead of a healthy boundary, maybe you start throwing up some walls.

Yes.

Maybe you start making them too rigid.

They're not flexible.

They're not contextual.

So if the boundary is, I can never handle the TV at this volume.

Then I would gently invite you to talk about why.

Why is that?

Does it always hurt your ears?

Do you always find that the sensory input is too much?

Or is it just that if the TV is this loud and the kids have their TikTok going and there's somebody's making dinner in the kitchen and I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed, it becomes too much.

And then you can kind of narrow in on where your boundary needs to be.

We don't want to just go out there and start throwing up brick walls as far and as wide as we can because that insulates us and keeps us in as much as it keeps people out.

We want to evaluate the context and how I'm feeling.

And honestly, the almost the first pre-step to boundaries is looking inward, taking a pause and looking in in and saying, what do I need in this moment?

To feel safe, to feel healthy, to restore my energy.

That's a piece that we're often missing when we have trauma, when we have addiction, when we have abuse, from religious culture, from diet culture, we have been so disconnected from our bodies and so conditioned to look outside of ourselves to tell us what we need or for validation or for worth.

that we don't take those moments to pause and say, but what do I need?

And so what we do is react to external stimulus

instead of looking at us and saying, what do I need?

And how can I set a boundary from that place?

This is going to be life-changing for us.

That's like the untethered soul, where he says, it's not to say, what

about that thing happening is bothering me.

It's what inside me is being bothered by that thing.

Yes.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And it's just a reframe, but the more often we check in with ourselves and set boundaries from the self, the more natural it becomes, the easier it becomes, the more comfortable it becomes.

And honestly, the more authority or weight it carries, because when I set a boundary that looks like it's coming out of nowhere,

turn the TV down.

Don't light that cigarette.

If it looks like it's coming out of nowhere, it's going to be harder for the other person to respect it.

And it might even make our relationship a bit more challenging because I'm not offering any sort of context or using the boundary to deepen the connection.

And then you have relationships that are real, that people are opting in to you and your safety as the center of you.

Yes.

That's good.

Boundaries make people feel safe.

Someone sent me a DM just the other day and said, I now know why I like following you so much.

You make me feel safe.

I know when you say something, you mean it.

And I know you mean what you say.

I feel like you are reliable.

and trustworthy in that I know I can rely on you to be responsible for your own feelings and caretake your own needs.

And to me, that feels safe.

And I think that's very true.

Because people pleasers aren't safe.

They're like chameleons and you actually don't ever know them.

And that doesn't feel safe, even if they're meeting all of your needs.

Even if they're caretaking you.

Are they meeting your needs resentfully?

Are they meeting them begrudgingly?

Is there going to be an explosion or a rebellion?

Are they holding or seething on the inside?

Yeah, that's a much more difficult relationship to really get to know someone through.

Yeah.

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When you talked about your first boundary that you set with your friend and you said from then on, because he understood and he accepted and embraced my boundary, I knew that I could trust him to be around me.

And don't you think it's also true with boundaries that when we set them and they're accepted, that we can then trust ourselves around those people?

Because in some ways, I feel like that's when I often get the resentment and the avoidance.

It's like, I can't trust the version of me that shows up.

in the absence of this boundary.

Yes, that.

Yes, that is exactly it.

And again, that's a result of looking externally to tell me what I should be doing.

This person's needs, this person's comfort, this influence is going to dictate my experience and what I need.

And instead, and that doesn't feel trustworthy because I'm not checking in with myself and I'm not restoring that connection to myself.

So when I go in first

and I restore that connection with my body, I ask myself what I need.

I advocate for myself.

based on my own needs, not based on what this other person is doing.

It does feel more trusting and more trustworthy.

Boundaries improve relationships across every single metric.

They let you show up more freely and more openly, more trustingly, more vulnerably.

They eliminate the dread and anxiety that might have come along before you have boundaries.

They are so incredibly strengthening for relationships.

And I think we don't set them because we think somehow that they're just the opposite.

And that's part of what I want to get across in this book.

It's like,

like the underneath the foundation of it is so interesting because it's like, if what we're really trying to do is just get to know ourselves down here, be known, know ourselves, be known and not be ashamed.

Yeah.

That's the original plan, like go back to who we were before the world told us who to be.

Go back to who we were before we decided to be ashamed of every single need that we had.

Setting boundaries is actually not even about the other person.

It's about figuring out who you are, what you need, and falling in love with and accepting that.

If I'm like, I have sensory overload all the time and I know it's so weird, but I just need everyone to talk quieter or I can't like, that's a weird thing about me, but it's true.

Yeah.

And like

my family knows that now.

And it's kind of a cool thing to be like, oh, this is a weird thing about me.

And if you love me, this is how to treat each other.

It's me falling in love with myself a little bit and being okay.

Yeah.

And you know what else your family really appreciates?

Because I am the same way with my concussion and ongoing symptoms.

I'm also, there are times where sensory input is way too much.

The other thing that your family and my family loves about us is that if,

even though they know that we have a hard time handling this input, they can trust us to navigate our own feelings and remove ourselves to the situation if we need to.

We're not going to blow up with them.

We're not going to blame them.

We are going to take charge of our own comfort and our own safety and that feels safe to the people in our lives god that's so true because that's what they think when they're like oh mom's on the deck again

because the truth is that you live in a loud world like yes you can tell people that and they still don't have to change all of their behavior but if they trust you to take care of yourself exactly can you talk to us about the holding of the boundary because

yeah because we have identified we've

set

the holding is the thing

you describe it and i love so much as dealing with the inner ickiness.

It's the ickiness that comes after when someone's disappointed in us.

We feel this sense of guilt almost before, even sometimes before the boundary is out.

We feel guilty for advocating for ourselves.

And there are so many reasons, particularly with women, particularly with moms.

Why we feel this guilt.

Societal factors, the patriarchy and sexism and stereotypically rigid gender roles have all told us.

I grew up believing that I shouldn't have needs, that my needs weren't worthy, that everyone else's comfort takes priority and needs take priority over mine, and I should not be expressing.

And if I did express, I would be called selfish or cold or controlling.

We didn't grow up learning how to set these boundaries.

And even just thinking about them makes us feel really guilty, but it's important to note that it is, it's not earned.

guilt.

It is not guilt because I did something bad and now biology and nature is going to help me remember that it didn't feel good and it wasn't right and it was harmful.

And I'm not going to do it again.

This is unearned guilt.

We did not earn this guilt.

There is nothing about this that says we have done something wrong or we harmed another person.

We are simply advocating for our needs.

So yes, holding the boundary is like one half of the battle.

And the thing is.

In order to hold the boundary, you have to actually hold it.

So I really encourage people to think about, okay, I'm going to set this boundary.

Is this something I can follow through with?

Because I think what happens sometimes is people immediately, they go to the red and they think the boundary has to be, I'm cutting off all communication.

My mom won't stop talking about diet or my body or weight loss.

I need to cut off all communication.

Or this friend continues to emotionally dump on me.

I need to break up with my friend.

But I encourage people to say, okay, maybe that isn't the only limit.

Maybe you can just limit the way you communicate, how often you communicate.

If this tends to happen over meals, maybe you socialize outside of meals.

If it tends to happen on the phone, maybe you try, you know, email and text message for a little while.

There are some in-between ways to hold the boundary, but you have to be willing to hold it.

Because if you don't, a couple of things happen.

Number one, if you set the boundary and then don't hold it in the face of pushback and pressure, that person is just going to be even more convinced that their needs are valid and they're going to double down the next time you try to say it.

But most important,

you have just taught yourself that you can't trust yourself to advocate for yourself.

You have just taught yourself that maybe my needs don't matter as much as somebody else.

And that is such a profound message to absorb in your body this idea that I set this healthy limit and I did not hold it.

And I need you to keep that promise for yourself because your needs are worthy.

Your needs are valid.

They matter just as much as anybody else's.

And you deserve this perfectly reasonable healthy limit.

And I want to help you hold it.

That's good.

So, but we can prep for the hold.

long ahead of time by when we're doing the set, only setting something that we play out and we know we can hold if it doesn't work out.

First rule of parenting is never to set a consequence that you're not willing to admit.

Exactly.

So, like, no iPad for a week hurts me as much as it hurts my kid, and he knows it.

So, we don't do that.

But so, when you are thinking about the boundary, you have to think about: is this enforceable?

Is it something I am willing to do?

And if I'm not willing to go quite that far, are there other ways that I can advocate for my own needs and set this limit in a way that works for both of us, but isn't perhaps going beyond what I'm willing to hold.

This is why sobriety has completely revolutionized my ability to hold boundaries because I use it as the template of all boundaries that I try to set.

I'm like, well, my sobriety is dependent on not giving you money.

My sobriety is dependent on maintaining a friendship that is not based in transaction.

Because the truth is, is I'm a people pleaser and I was, I just never, I never knew what the word boundary was.

I never had them.

I just let people do whatever they wanted and I let people be who they are.

And it didn't matter what kind of impact it had on me for my whole life.

And so, of course, that leads to all the shame and drugs and alcohol and whatever.

So I just think it's really interesting how your sobriety has

led you on this path and it has helped me hold actually start doing boundaries and hold them too.

Because when you think about sobriety, what you're really saying is integrity too.

Yeah.

It's a my integrity doesn't allow this integrity meaning I need to be on this the same on the outside as I am on the inside.

Yeah.

And isn't a boundary what we do so we can maintain

sameness on the inside and outside that the needs and emotions and feelings I'm having on the inside are going to match what I say to you on the outside so that we can have an actual real relationship where I'm not acting.

Absolutely.

That's exactly right.

I think people are nervous or scared about boundaries because they feel like they might be selfish.

They might be advocating for your own needs.

But really, you're not saying only me.

You're just saying me too.

You're saying me too.

And what I'm experiencing on the inside will be communicated to you clearly and kindly so that you don't have to guess.

You don't have to wonder.

You don't have to worry that you're going to show up and I'm going to be quiet or weird and you don't know what's going on and I'm not going to tell you.

I'm going to be super upfront about it and transparent, that, which means I'm getting in touch with my own needs first and sharing them with you.

And I am prepared to navigate your discomfort, your displeasure, your anger or your pushback in this moment because I know that this is the right thing to do, not only for me, but for the health of our relationship.

Yeah.

And I think it's so important to remember that how other people choose to respond is not your responsibility.

It is not your job job to fix your mother-in-law's feelings when she's mad that you said, you have to call before you come over.

You can't just show up on the doorstep.

That does not work for my family, for our family.

She might be mad about it, and you might have to navigate that, but it is not your responsibility to fix that.

I want to move on to some examples.

I want to talk to you first about in-laws and parents because I thought, why not just do worst thing, first thing?

Yeah.

Eat the frog.

Hardest first.

So,

what is the, so you cannot just come over unannounced.

What's the boundary though?

Because that's controlling.

You cannot come over unannounced or I will not answer the door.

Like how, how?

You're laughing, except that that is the boundary.

The boundary is essentially, I will not feel obligation to rearrange our entire family's life to accommodate your needs.

And that's kind of the ultimate boundary.

I wouldn't say it like that.

Of course, we're going to go in green, but I have so many stories from people whose parents and in-laws do feel entitled to their time and their space whenever they want.

I have a new mom who just wrote to me saying, you know, I've got one boob out, milk everywhere, new baby.

I barely have any clothes on.

I've been wearing the same sweatpants for three days.

And here's my mother-in-law knocking on my door because she wants to hold the baby.

And she just happened to be in the neighborhood.

And that does not work for me and my family.

So in-laws are complicated.

The first step in setting a boundary with in-laws is always that you and your romantic partner have to be on the same page.

Because if you are not, you don't stand a chance of holding that boundary.

What's going to happen is you're going to advocate.

Your in-laws are going to say, Bob, is this how you feel?

And then Bob is going to feel torn between you and his mom.

And you know who's going to win that battle.

The in-laws,

the in-laws have been conditioning your.

spouse for decades that this is just how they are and they can't be changed.

So you and your spouse have to get on the same page.

You have to set the boundary as a team.

My in-law rule says that you handle your own parents.

So, if Bob's talking to his parents, he sets the boundary on both of your behalfs, and you would do the same.

If Bob's not comfortable, then at the very least, he needs to back you up in this boundary.

You need to know that when you say, This is what we need as a family, and mom goes, Hey, Bob, is this what you want?

He says, Yes, we need this boundary for the health of our family and for our relationship.

So, in this case, the green would be,

Hey, Barbara, we need you to call and ask if it's a good time to come over.

And please give us at least an hour's notice.

It's too chaotic for us and the kids to accommodate drop-in visitors without notice.

So that is a request.

But I find if you go in with like your consequence in the green, it can feel very off-putting.

If it is, we will not be answering the door anymore if you come over unannounced.

That's like going in with, you know, kicking the door down.

So we're not going to do that.

We're going to share a request that shares our limit.

And hopefully your mother-in-law says, oh, okay, and starts giving you an hour's notice on the phone.

Excellent.

Then you no longer have to dread the visits.

And if it's a good time, you can let her know.

And if it's not, you can let her know.

If she shows up at the door unannounced a second time after the boundary has been spoken very clearly, then you can answer the door and feel free to say, oh, hi, Barbara.

You didn't call first and this isn't a good time.

We're not able to visit right now.

We'll call you later.

You can do that.

And that is not rude.

What is rude is your express request and this this person saying, yes, I will honor that and then failing to follow through.

That's the rude part.

So if it's not convenient for you, you can hold that boundary and say, this isn't a good time.

So Melissa, again, we're just leaving Barbara's ass on the front step.

You don't have to be like a black belt boundary person to do that.

Like people just leave their mother-in-law on the front step.

It is going to be hard.

But that is not your first step.

Your first step is saying, Barbara, as a family, it is too disruptive for you to come by and expect to be greeted and entertained.

We've got kids.

We've got, you know, work.

I've got a new baby, whatever that looks like.

We just need you to call first.

Give us at least an hour's notice.

That's not hard.

That's not hard.

We're not asking for anything unreasonable.

That's right.

So, yeah, I'm going to leave Barbara's ass on the door.

That's right.

And guess what?

If you don't leave Barbara's ass on the door when you got a three-month-old, What you think Barbara's going to do in four years, six years, 10 years?

Barbara is living in your bedroom.

That's what she's doing.

Yes, I mean,

she's got her sleeping bag.

You're going to see her ass every morning when you get up.

It's just a reasonable request.

And for her to then show up unannounced is an unreasonable action.

Right.

Everyone is so pissed at Barbara on this podcast.

Is this actually your mother-in-law's name?

No, no.

My husband and I hit the in-law jackpot.

I will say they are all very good with boundaries and very good at respecting.

Thank goodness.

But I've heard in-law stories that you would not believe.

I did not believe when I heard them.

So, you know, yes, the red boundary, if Barbara keeps coming back and will not call, now this is just disrespectful.

This is deliberate disrespect because your phone is on you all the time and you could easily pick it up and you are choosing not to to make a point and I'm not going to answer the door.

That's right.

I'm just not.

And that is my boundary.

So

remember that this boundary can be flexible too.

If at some point in your life, Barbara becomes more helpful around the house or more helpful with the kids, or you just find that life isn't as hectic, feel free to relax that rule.

If Barbara is pounding on your door saying, you know, oh, we've had an accident in the family, yeah, you're going to want to let her in.

You know, the best boundaries do need all the boundaries, healthy boundaries, should be flexible and not rigid.

Yeah.

And that, again, that's only when

you are, because as you just said, if you're not resentful for that visit, if you're not avoiding that visit, if you're not feeling nervous in the presence of that visit, there's no need to set that limit just because somebody else might feel that way and you think it's de facto rude.

It's only rude if it is disturbing to your mental health that that thing is occurring.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You can do it any way you want.

And maybe you love that your in-laws just walk in, they don't even knock, they don't even announce themselves because they're so helpful with the kids, they're so helpful around the house.

You love the first thing they do is come in and say, what can I do?

Dishes or laundry.

That kind of in-law, you can come in anytime you want.

Absolutely.

You don't need to call.

but if you find that your relationship is starting to be resentful is you're starting to be anxious about it every saturday you're like drawing the blinds and hiding thinking oh my gosh is barbara going to go to target and then stop by again that is not a healthy place for either of you to be and once your mother-in-law sees that just by picking up the phone that small action now Visits are more relaxed.

You are so much more pleasant to be around.

You're not a jerk trying to rush her out the door.

You can actually sit and visit.

It is a win-win for everybody.

Maybe it just takes one visit of Barbara calling first for her to realize, okay, this is actually going to work for both of us.

That's right.

Okay.

Give us an example like that about friendship.

What's the most common

question you get from people about handling an uncomfortable boundary that needs to be set between friends?

Yeah, one of the most common issues I hear with friendships is friends who offer unsolicited, helpful feedback without being asked.

And so Caroline sent me a story about her and her best friend.

They go back, you know, a long time.

They're both on the East Coast.

And I say that because East Coast people like me are known for our directness and our bluntness.

But this friend would say helpful things or offer unsolicited advice that really just was hurtful.

And she didn't really know how to address it.

So in that situation, you want to stay friends with the person, but you just want these hurtful little comments to go away.

And Caroline kind of suspected they were coming from insecurity, but again, that's not your business.

The point is the conversation is now harmful for me.

And if I set this one limit in our friendship, I can now show up in our friendship far more openly and like myself.

So the green boundary I said is, hey, for the health of our friendship, I'd like to ask that we don't offer each other unsolicited feedback.

If I want your opinion on something, I'll ask.

Can you agree to that?

Simple request, very clear, very kind.

Unless I ask you what you think of my hair or my outfit or my relationship or my job or my parenting, please do not offer an unsolicited opinion.

And if that one limit could be respected, all of a sudden their friendship expands and becomes far more open and honest.

If in the moment your friend forgets or throws a little dig in, then you can go to a yellow boundary, which is interrupting them.

Oh, no, no, no.

We agreed no unsolicited comments.

So please don't say anything else.

And then you change the subject.

So, oh, we agreed that you wouldn't provide input on my parenting unless I asked.

So let's just not, please.

But tell me how your vacation went.

And so you usually change the subject quite a lot in my boundary conversations because it makes it clear that you're not going to continue the conversation.

You're in charge and you will not participate further.

And it kind of lets the other person off the hook so that if they feel bad about forgetting or disrespecting, you're kind of giving them a nice graceful out there.

So I think that's a kind way to handle it.

If this person is proving incapable or unwilling to just meet this very simple, please don't offer unsolicited feedback unless I ask.

And you've reminded and reminded to the point where you now feel like this is a really unhealthy pattern, then you might have to set a limit with the relationship.

And maybe it's ending the friendship altogether.

Maybe it's just something like,

you know, Jenna, you continue to say things that are hurtful even after I've asked you not to.

And I can't continue in our relationship this way.

So I need to take a little break from the friendship.

I'll reach back out to you when I'm ready.

I think that is a perfectly acceptable way to say, I need some space from this friendship to think about how to move forward.

And I'm going to give myself the time I need to do that.

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What about in romantic relationships, what do you get the most?

Marriage or partnerships?

I think

one of the things I get the most in marriages, that is an actual boundary that you can set.

Because some of the things that we talk about in terms of relationships, romantic relationships, like equitable distribution of household labor, can't be solved with a simple boundary.

I cannot say to my husband, I am never doing dishes again.

Dishes are on you from now on.

Because that requires his cooperation in order for my entire household to run smoothly.

And if the next day I wake up and the dishes are still piled in the sink and I'm going to eat breakfast and I don't have a clean like plate or fork or knife in the house, that hurts me.

That hurts our kids.

So those conversations are not as simple as a simple boundary.

And I've got resources for that for sure.

But one of the most common boundaries that can be so emotionally draining in a partnership, a romantic partnership, because you spend all day with this person or, you know, most of your time with them is when one partner comes home from work and constantly emotionally dumps or vents about their day.

You want to be there.

You want to hear about how hard your day was.

And if, you know, work is hard, it's a stressful period, or if they're in like a really difficult job right now, obviously you want to be there for them.

And also,

you need to be careful about your own energetic expenditure.

You just got home from work.

Maybe you had a hard day.

You've got to navigate the kids and your other things.

So, how can you offer or provide support within boundaries?

So, the green level conversation would be something like, hey, babe, I definitely want to hear about your day, but could I get 20 minutes to decompress before we get into it?

I'm going to go for a quick walk.

I'm going to read a book for 20 minutes.

I'm going to do some meal prep with a podcast for 20 minutes.

Let's do a 20-minute timeout.

We'll both kind of decompress and then we'll come back and talk about it.

Perfectly healthy.

You're buying yourself the space and capacity to do so.

If it continues or it becomes a pattern, then you might be able to say, or if they insist, like, I really just need to get this off my chest, then you can say, honestly, we need to pause for a minute.

I am not going to be able to be there to support you in the way that I want to right now.

I'm feeling really overwhelmed myself.

I'm feeling at my limit.

I will be a better partner to you if I take this 20 minutes for myself.

I'm going to take a quick shower.

This is the point where you physically remove yourself from the situation so that you buy yourself that space and capacity.

And it's perfectly okay to say at a red level, I am overcapacity today.

I, you know, someone with a chronic illness, someone with a chronic injury, whatever that looks like, there are some days where I don't have enough spoons and I just say, babe, I am over capacity and I can't handle event session today.

Can we take a night off from work talk?

And then what I expect my partner to do is take responsibility for his own feelings.

And what I expect him to do and what he says to me is, okay, I totally get it.

Go do what you need to do.

to make yourself feel better.

I really need to talk to someone.

So I'm going to call my mom.

I'm going to call my therapist.

I'm going to go journal.

Yes.

I'm going to go, you know, do some form of self-care because I recognize that I have these needs that need to be met, and I cannot rely on you to meet them.

And you have told me that you cannot meet them in this morning.

So I'm going to respect that and take care of that myself.

That is like the ideal, healthy communication pattern and boundary to set in this situation.

That's so good.

So, Melissa,

I have some personal boundary questions for you.

So, what is the hardest boundary for you

to hold?

That's a good one.

Okay.

I know this because it's happening right now, in fact.

The hardest boundary for me to hold is against my energetic capacity around work,

projects, or invitations that I find exciting

that I just know I don't have capacity for.

And I will give you an example.

I was invited by my Canadian publisher to do a keynote presentation as part of this book tour for boundaries.

Prestigious invitation, incredible invitation.

Would have been a great opportunity.

Of course, I was like, okay, yes, if you sign me up for this, of course, I will do it.

And then I started thinking about it.

First of all, I know better than to say yes automatically.

And I said yes automatically.

That was my first mistake.

And then I thought about it and I thought, I don't have capacity to put together an entire keynote presentation.

I'm already in the middle of doing so many different tasks and I want to do it.

It would be so fun.

But if I do this, something's going to suffer.

My mental health, my sleep, my health, my other tasks.

So how did you identify that?

Like, how did you like you say yes, and then you go through the process?

Like, what are you feeling?

What are ways that you realize, like, uh-oh, I overextended here?

The dread.

Yeah.

I said yes.

And then I immediately thought, oh, shit.

Like, now I have to do this.

And I spent the next two weeks trying to talk myself into why it would be okay, how I could actually do this.

And I'm like, what?

I know better, but I'm not perfect and I still struggle.

And it took a conversation with my sister on a hike where I was like, I said yes to this thing and I'm super stressed about it.

And she goes, you can just tell them you can't do it.

And I was like, what?

I don't think I can.

I already committed and I really want to.

And it's such a good opportunity.

And she was like, I can't believe I have to have this conversation with you, but yes, you can.

You can go tell them.

I can't do this.

And I was like, sometimes you just need permission

from someone.

You just need need permission to do the thing that you know you need to do.

Yeah.

My sister gives me permission.

Yeah.

I always think

whenever I get an opportunity like that, that I, I always think, what if it were tomorrow?

Would I want to do it?

Because I am always making commitments based on some hopeful future version of myself that doesn't freaking exist.

Like, oh, I'm going to be a person who really is awesome about traveling and presenting.

No, I'm still going to be this person always.

Yeah.

Right.

So if I don't want to do it tomorrow, I don't want to do it in six months.

I know.

That's so smart.

And like, I definitely was not considering future me in this situation and I should have.

I ended up going back to my publisher and I said, hey, this is making me feel super stressed out.

I don't think I'm going to be able to put together the kind of presentation that I want to put together.

This is my first keynote on boundaries.

I want to make it amazing and I'm not going to be able to do that during this time period.

Here's what I could do for you.

And I thought about what could I do with my energetic capacity?

And I offered them that package and they were like, oh, yeah, cool.

That's fine.

We'll switch it.

That's great.

All of that stress, all of that anxiety for nothing.

So that's a huge lesson in terms of boundaries.

First of all, nobody's going to get it right all the time.

And that's okay.

You just keep showing up.

That's why they call it a practice.

And number two, I think we build up these conversations in our head where we're like, oh, I'm going to say this thing and it's going to go so poorly and everyone's going to be so mad at me.

And then we say it and they go, okay.

Yes.

Exactly.

That is what happens most of the time.

Yeah, it does.

So I always say, go into these conversations, just assuming the best.

You're making a story up either way.

You're either telling yourself a story that it's not going to go well and it's going to go hardly and everything's going to go terrible.

And that makes you so stressed.

Or you tell yourself a story that it's going to go well, that you deserve this healthy limit and it's going to go very, very well.

And more often than not, it does.

Yeah.

That's why I love your reframe of boundaries, because when people think need to set boundaries, they think, ooh, somebody's behaving badly.

You think about bad behavior, but the way that you say it, you say, I am someone who sets and holds boundaries because I am someone who takes her mental health, energetic capacity, and worth seriously.

And that is how

I think.

Everyone can change their thinking about boundaries because it isn't about calling out someone else's bad behavior.

There might be no bad behavior happening anywhere around you.

It's about taking your mental health, your energetic capacity, and your worth seriously enough to give it a voice in your own damn life.

Absolutely.

That was exactly it.

Nobody was behaving badly when they asked me to present a keynote.

That was brilliant.

Thank you.

What that PR person did an amazing job securing me that, right?

How dare you?

But I have to advocate for myself.

And it goes back to what Abby was saying and what Glendon was saying, which is it's integrity.

In my integrity, I want to show up.

If I say yes to a task, I want to show up as my best self.

And if I can't, it is in everyone's best interest that I say no.

That's right.

That's right.

All right, loves, we can do hard things.

I fucking love this.

Like live with integrity, like take our own selves and energetic, whatever the hell Melissa and sister just said seriously.

And Melissa, you're helping us in our daily life presently with these beautiful ideas in this book.

So thank you for, I know how much time and effort it took you to create it and think of it and live it.

And it's just making such a difference for us.

So thank you.

I'm so happy to hear it.

Thank you.

We love you, Pod Squad.

You can do hard things.

Tell Barbara to get the hell off your front porch in a bunch of different ways.

Go home, Barbara.

See you back here next time.

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

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