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Now, let s jump into this episode.
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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.
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Boundaries are a gift in your relationship, even in a relationship.
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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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.
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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.
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Yes.
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If it s great, then it brings a lot of joy.
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If it s not, a lot of stress.
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Tons of stress.
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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.
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What would you say, after all this life experience, are the key boundaries we need to create in relationships before entering a relationship?
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Oh yeah.
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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.
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Because I feel like when you spend so much time in a relationship trying to make it work,
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you give away so many pieces of yourself that by the end of it, I didn t know who I was anymore.
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I didn t recognize myself.
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Really?
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Yeah.
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My self-confidence, my sense of self.
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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?
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What do I like doing?
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What are the things that I haven t been doing that I want to get back to?
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What are the things that I value?
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So I spent a lot of time by myself.
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And when I was thinking about my new relationship, I came up with a list of non-negotiables.
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There were a few things that I was like, I will not be in a relationship without them.
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What are those?
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The first was that my family, my immediate family has to like you.
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Hard stuff.
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I know that that sounds almost like intuitive, but I made a lot of excuses for past partners
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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.
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And I was like, I will not do that anymore.
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If I show up and this person is not integrating well with my family, that is an immediate sign.
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Because then there s going to be discord for the rest of your life.
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The rest of the time you re with that person, right?
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Your family s going to be like, I don t really want to spend time with this person.
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Your partner is going to be feeling like your family doesn t like me.
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I don t want to hang out with them.
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It s going to be this kind of discord, right?
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And I know that my family is amazing.
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They re healthy.
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They don t have, you know, troubling or manipulative tactics.
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Like my family is a very healthy family, you know, where we can talk about problems now.
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And so if my partner is not getting along with them, that s a big sign.
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Okay.
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I also said that I would never again make myself small for the sake of my relationship.
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I would never again downplay the things I knew I was good at, the ambitions that I had, the things I wanted to pat myself on the back for.
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I absolutely wanted a partner who was going to be supportive of all of that and encourage all of that in me.
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So that was another non-negotiable.
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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, OK, how am I going to show up in this relationship and not bring my own baggage into it?
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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?
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So I went back to therapy and spent a lot of time in therapy.
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But one of the things I committed to in my new relationship that
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I guess is a boundary for me is that I committed to always saying what I meant and meaning what I said.
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And I feel like that s not often the case in relationships.
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There s a lot of back and forth between, especially with women, we ve been societally conditioned not to say what we mean.
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We have to be coy about it.
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We have to hint around it.
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You, as my partner, have to guess how I m feeling and interpret how I m feeling and then do the right thing.
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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.
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That s exhausting.
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It s exhausting, and it leads to a lot of miscommunications.
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So I decided to show up in this new relationship, and I said to my husband, like, I will say what I mean, and you know that you can trust that.
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So when you say to me, are you mad at me?
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I m going to take a moment to think about it.
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And if I say no, you can trust that.
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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.
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And you don t need to walk on eggshells trying to say, when s she going to tell me what s really going on?
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Yes.
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And if you say, hey, is it cool if I go to jujitsu tonight?
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And I m like, okay, I m home.
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I m alone with the kid.
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These are the things that I have going on.
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And I think about it and I say, yep, it s cool.
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You know I mean it.
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And you re not gonna come home at nine o clock to like a storm.
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Where I m like, why did you go?
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And how could you leave me with this many, you know, these many things.
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And then I also kind of said to him, I m expecting the same of you.
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So I will not engage with passive aggressive behavior.
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If you walk around the house and you re stomping around and you re throwing things down,
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As far as I know, we don t have a problem, because you haven t told me that we have a problem.
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Yeah, you ve got something else going on in your life.
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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.
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Let s come back in a little while.
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It took us a while to learn to sort of trust that communication pattern with each other, but it s been enormously helpful.
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And I would say it s the foundation.
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It s like what I call our relationship golden rule.
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It s the foundation for any boundaries that we set with each other, which is I m going to take responsibility for my own needs and my own feelings.
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I m going to 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.
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And it s been really huge for us.
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Huge.
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What s been the biggest, you know, anytime we take on something new and we let go of the old pattern and we step into a new pattern, new behaviors,
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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?
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What has been the biggest breakdown that you ve had to overcome in the last year and a half, two years?
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while taking on this new behavioral pattern.
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Yeah.
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I mean, I wouldn t say it was a breakdown because we worked around it because we re married and we live together now.
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But when he was talking about moving in with my son and I, so my son and I, we bought, my husband and now husband and I bought a house like together.
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We picked it out together.
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It was big enough for all of us.
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My son and I moved in on our own and we wanted us to get settled in before we introduced Brandon.
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into the household.
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That was cool with everybody.
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My son finally was like, when s Brandon gonna move in with us?
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And I was like, awesome, we re in it.
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When he started to move in, I had a huge freak out.
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A huge freak out because in the past, he would come to stay over and he d stay for a night or two.
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And I d be like, okay, I needed a low night.
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And he would go back to his place and I d go back to my place.
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And now like, there s nowhere else for him to go.
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No alone night.
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No, there s no alone night.
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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 can t stand.
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I need you to be out of this space.
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I need you to do, like, it was intense.
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I felt really stressed or phobic.
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Was this like the first week, first month, first few months?
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First week.
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It got bad to the point where he went home, he went to his old apartment and slept on the floor for a night or two so I could figure it out.
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So I called my therapist right away and I was like, okay, I want this to work.
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I m clearly still struggling with 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 I need to figure out how to have alone time together.
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And then I, you know, we worked it out.
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I worked it out.
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Yeah.
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Were you guys married at that time yet or not yet?
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We weren t married yet.
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I actually said to him, I said to him at one point, do you think that we could get married but not live together?
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Like that was like a real thing that I was wondering if we could do.
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And he goes, that would not work for me.
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Like, first of all, kudos to him for like being that clear.
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He wasn t mad about it or he didn t stomp off.
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He just said that would not work for me.
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And I was like, okay, well, I want to be married to this man.
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So why do you want to be married but at the time you were like I want to live alone?
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I just didn t know how I was going to be able to incorporate him into our life.
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I had been living alone for five years, you know, with my kid and we had our own routine.
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And yeah, and I felt, it was just hard for me to share my space.
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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.
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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,
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It s not you.
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I love you.
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I m so happy that you re here.
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And also, I need an hour by myself so I can just recharge my batteries.
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I need alone time like most people need to breathe.
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And here s what it s going to look like.
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And it s never about you.
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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.
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So it took a lot of communicating.
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And then he had to learn not to take it personally.
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But we both did that work.
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And now it s good.
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What is the next level for you?
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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?
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Yeah, I mean, I definitely still have some unpacking to do with my trauma.
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Sexual assault at 16, family didn t handle it well, I ve spent
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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.
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And so, you know, I m still in therapy relatively regularly.
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And once in a while, my therapist will be like, okay, you know, we need to talk about this.
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And I m like, I don t wanna.
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But I know I need to, right?
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And it s like you said, when you start to unpack something, it s like, you re going to organize the closet.
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And the first thing you have to do is take everything out.
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It looks like, oh, it s such a mess before it gets better.
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And that s kind of what it feels like.
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I ve started that process.
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I just need to keep going through it.
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What do you think is available on the other side if you go through and face all the mess?
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I mean, I m going to tear up if I talk about it.
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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.
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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 because their unhealed response then piles on me and is really... It s triggering.
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Yeah, really hard for me.
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What s it going to take for you to get there?
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More therapy on my part, absolutely.
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Honestly, the willingness to open those conversations.
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Right now, I have certain things just in a box, and it s comfortable in that box, you know?
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It feels good, I know where it is.
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I know if I wanna open it, I can open it, but it s kinda easy not to, and the box has its nice little place in my life, and it really requires, as my therapist keeps telling me, we re gonna have to open the box.
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And I don t have to.
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I could keep doing things the way that I m doing, but the universe is not subtle.
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And there are definitely things where it s poking me and prodding me.
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I think it s time.
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When do you think you ll be ready to open it up?
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Oh, I ll never be ready.
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It s funny, like I keep taking steps forward.
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I went through this big journey where I started the process of reparenting.
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So I don t know if you ve gone through any of that yourself.
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It was so intense for me.
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I have- Got a photo of my younger self on here, healing the inner child, reparenting myself.
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The different stages of my childhood.
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So it started at five when I was sexually abused.
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So I had a photo on there for a year of my five-year-old self.
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Now it s the 10 to 12 year range, which I m about to go into the 16 to 18 year range.
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All the different kind of deeper wounds that I never fully opened the box back to and mended and integrated the healing of.
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So that s been, my goal is to go from the youngest memories I have up until now.
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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.
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So for me, I can relate to a lot of this because I know the...
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the suffering that can happen inside of someone when they hold on to that pain.
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And when there s a wound that keeps triggering us without mending the wound.
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So I can empathize and relate based on my experience to how that s felt and know it can be extremely painful.
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It took me 25 years to face sexual abuse, talking about my own experience of that.
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And for about a year and a half, two years, I would still tremble talking about it.
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This was almost 10 years ago when I opened up.
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Now I can speak about it without feeling painful, without a wound like reopening because it s, I can speak about it, not that it s a small thing to talk about, but I can speak about the memory and the experience from a place that I ve done a lot of the healing work over the years.
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I ve spoken about it enough, it doesn t scare me anymore to talk about it.
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Doesn t mean I wish it would have happened.
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I wish it wouldn t have happened.
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But I m from a place of peace around the memory.
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And I ve reparented myself in that space.
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But it took me 25 years.
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and I suffered and I got a lot of results in my life.
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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.
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You didn t have certain boundaries, but you had this massive, you know, number one New York Times best-selling book and, you know, this massive audience.
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You were extremely successful, so you can still function and be successful, but there was
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you didn t have boundaries, and you hadn t processed a lot, right?
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Yeah, well, by the time I wrote my books, I was pretty decent at boundaries, especially around my- With Whole30?
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Yes, especially around my entrepreneuring, because I figured it out super fast when I quit my full-time job.
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But in your personal life?
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Not as much.
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That s what I m saying.
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You didn t have the boundaries in your personal life?
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Not as much.
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I had some in some areas, right, around my drug addiction and recovery, really solid boundaries.
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But no, not.
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Relationships.
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Yeah, relationships, especially with family, parents.
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And you were still able to be successful in society s terms with getting results.
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Yeah.
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Which I think people can see that and be like, oh, she s got it all figured out.
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And you were able to function at a high level and accomplish a lot, but there was still stuff inside of you that you were working through, right?
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And that s why I asked you a question, what do you think is available on the other side when you open the box at the right time for you?
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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?
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It s freedom.
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It s literally freedom.
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What is available on the other side is freedom.
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And that s really at the heart of my boundary practice.
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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.
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boundaries are a gift in your relationship.
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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.
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And so on the other side of like opening this box and exploring it will simply come a new set of boundaries.
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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.
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And safe to me and then 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.
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That s what s on the other side.
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Yeah, it s really freedom Yeah, I think it s creating the 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.
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It s
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It s creating new boundaries in that space of freedom.
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Correct.
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Exactly.
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You might still put people at a distance, but you feel like you have freedom from that relationship or from the past, right?
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Yeah.
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And it s not even distancing, right?
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I m not distancing myself from my husband or from my son when I set a boundary.
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What I am saying is,
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I have this need, I have this feeling that I m taking responsibility for.
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And here is that limit because you re not a mind reader and I shouldn t expect you to know it.
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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...
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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.
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You ve said you re willing to do for the good of our relationship and for my own health and safety.
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Yeah Freedom, how free do you feel on a scale of one to ten ten being ultimate freedom?
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and in in these relationships that maybe
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you haven t opened the box yet?
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I mean, I still would say like a nine.
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Wow.
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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?
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So I can t control what my mom does or says or whether she goes to therapy.
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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.
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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.
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Those are the things that bring me real freedom.
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You and I have both been in relationships that we weren t in full alignment with our partners in the past.
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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?
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What do we fail to set once we realize there s massive breakdowns?
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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 child care and the you know expectations are only placed on her and it s like she s the default for everything and she has to ask her husband to help and pitch in and
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babysit his own kids and she comes to me and says, like, I don t know what to do in this situation.
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The challenging thing is that at that point, you can t solve that with a simple boundary, right?
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The boundary has to be like, 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.
2
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Right.
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But if we go back to some of the things we ve talked about, even earlier on in a relationship, I think setting a boundary right away in a relationship, immediately, even before you start dating, can be a super good litmus test for how well you can communicate.
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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.
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So I d love to meet you for happy hour.
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I ll just have like a tea and see if there s pressure.
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See if that is weird.
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See if they give you like pushback on that.
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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.
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And until we both get STD tested and like swap tests, that s gonna continue.
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And like, if that isn t respected, that s an immediate relationship ender for me.
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Like that s it, right?
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So I think it can be helpful early on to set boundaries in relationships just to see how you discuss them, how you each view them.
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Do they see it as selfish?
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And if so, can you have that conversation?
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Do they push back?
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How do they handle when you navigate that pushback?
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I think that can be really important.
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What about with children?
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I don t have kids yet so I can t relate to that.
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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.
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SPEAKER_01
How do healthy conscious parents create healthy boundaries with kids without neglecting Yeah, their kids emotions feelings and needs.
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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
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I ll come back out, you know, after I m feeling a little bit more refreshed.
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Like when my son watches us do that, he recognizes that like 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.
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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.
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So one of the earliest boundaries I set with him or for him
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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.
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We have to be polite and 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 high-five, whatever you want, but you don t have to hug or kiss if you don t want to.
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And so we had this issue once with my mom where she was like, I really want to hug.
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I haven t seen him in such a long time.
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I only see him a few times a year.
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And I m like, I get it.
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but he doesn t want to hug you.
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And like you need to respect that.
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And she did.
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And I recognized that it was disappointing for her.
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But also what I taught my son was that you have agency.
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And if you don t want to hug, you don t have to.
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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 want to watch Naked and Afraid and like do a little snuggle?
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And he ll be like, I d love to watch the show, but I don t want to snuggle.
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SPEAKER_00
That s fine.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s good.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow.
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So we ve raised him in the culture of boundaries and he feels now comfortable setting boundaries with me.
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SPEAKER_00
And he, you know, boundaries really create a sense of safety for kids.
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They do because they, you know, realize that the adults in their household are taking responsibility for their own feelings, that boundaries are not about pushing other people away.
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SPEAKER_00
They re about, you know, creating that sense of like family in a way that works for everybody.
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And I think they feel really safe to my kid.
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And what are the biggest boundaries you ve had to create for yourself?
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Healthy boundaries for you individually?
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Separate from family and loved ones?
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Zillions.
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I think boundaries with yourself.
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are so incredibly powerful because they only rely on one person to hold them.
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And you can immediately reclaim your time, your energy, your capacity, your mental health, your physical space and sense of safety.
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Like that s an immediate benefit from you setting one boundary with yourself.
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The challenging thing is that if you don t keep that boundary, like what s gonna happen, right?
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SPEAKER_00
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,
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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 Like nobody s gonna jump out of the closet and slap the phone out of my hand So 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?
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I think about future me all the time.
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Tell me more
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What is the decision that I m making right now and how is it going to impact future Melissa?
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Because current Melissa is going to be so happy to just stay up late and not start her bedtime routine and just do one more show on Netflix.
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But what will this mean for future Melissa?
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She s going to be really mad at herself because she didn t get to bed on time.
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And then she s going to fall asleep late.
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And then she s probably not going to have as good a night s sleep.
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And then when she wakes up tomorrow, she s not going to be pumped for the gym.
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And she might even skip it because she s going to be tired.
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If she skips the gym before she does this interview, she s not going to be a good guest because she won t feel grounded and centered.
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When I play it out that way, it makes it a lot easier for me to be like, go to bed.
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Because future Melissa will benefit.
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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 like the half hour before bedtime.
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So I m not checking Twitter one more time or email one more time.
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I have really strong boundaries.
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Like when I m out of office, I am out of office.
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Unless something is on fire, you do not call or text me and I will not be checking text messages or emails.
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So, you know, I think I set boundaries with myself pretty often.
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Because I know that they can be like an instant sense.
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They can give me an instant sense of freedom.
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And nobody else has to even worry about it.
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What s the boundary you set in the last two years for yourself that has given you the most benefit?
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I think I ve become more rigorous about what I say yes to in terms of work opportunities.
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It s hard as an entrepreneur not to feel like you have to or should say yes to everything.
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And if I don t say yes to this, maybe they won t ask me again.
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Or who knows what this lunch or coffee could turn into.
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I think, I don t know if we talked about this, but like four years ago, I got a concussion.
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I m still going through post-concussion symptoms that are triggered by air travel, events like this, speaking events, in-person events, like any kind of stressor can set my concussion symptoms off, and that forced me to become more rigorous about what I say yes to.
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So now, again, I kind of have this automatic pause before I say yes to anything.
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Even something that I think I m super excited about, it s like quick pause.
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Can you work this into your schedule?
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Will you have capacity to do this?
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What else is this going to push off your plate?
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And is that acceptable to you?
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What are the things you re going to have to make up when you get back home?
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And then once I think about that, I either say yes or no.
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And if I say no, it s because, again, I know I m serving future me.
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I can be disappointed.
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but I can also be happy that I ve checked in with my own needs.
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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.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
What boundary are you to set for yourself next year that you haven t done yet?
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SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
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SPEAKER_00
I m not a New Year s resolution person.
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I tend to just take on these like self-improvement things as I stumble across them.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, like I started my cold shower experiment like in February, two years ago,
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randomly.
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So I m not a New Year s resolution person and there is no one-size-fits-all for boundaries.
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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.
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Do I still, I m always reevaluating my boundary.
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Do I still need a boundary here and if so is this the boundary that I need?
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Because they should be flexible and I shouldn t keep a limit in place that no longer serves me.
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So I don t know.
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Ask me next year.
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working through this book for a while now.
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You ve heard a lot of conversations from people, single, in relationships, family challenges, different things.
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What do you see that society needs in general to create better and healthier boundaries around?
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Welcome to my favorite TED Talk.
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It s just with social media, with work, with all the political stuff.
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Just what do people need in general moving into next year, you think?
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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
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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.
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We have been conditioned for my entire life and even going back further than that.
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To not have needs.
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To not have needs.
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To be selfless.
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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.
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Like, we re not even on our own list.
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And if we re on the list, we re at the very bottom.
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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 bitch, or any of those other monikers.
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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,
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and to have those needs feel worthy, and the fact that 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.
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If I set a boundary with you, it can t be dependent on what you choose to do.
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The boundary I set has to depend on me, the actions that I am willing to take,
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in our relationship to keep myself safe and healthy.
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Give me an example around that.
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We re in an argument and it starts to get really, really heated.
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And I say to you, please don t speak to me like that.
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It s really making me feel unsafe.
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I don t like it when you use those words.
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It s getting personal and we re not focusing on the subject at hand.
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And you are really mad and really triggered and you kind of keep going with that, right?
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SPEAKER_01
I can t depend on you to change your communication style.
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The only thing I can do is say, I won t stay in this argument if this is how we re going to continue to talk about it.
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I m going to take a 10-minute break.
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After 10 minutes, I ll come back to see if you re ready.
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So I can t depend on you.
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If I go to my family s house and they re talking about politics, and we don t agree with politics, I can say,
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Could we change the subject, please?
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And if they say no, then I have to enact my boundary, which is, okay, I m gonna go for a walk.
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I m gonna leave the table, yeah.
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So all of that to say, we have a lot of unlearning to you 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?
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A man says it and he s decisive.
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A woman says it and she s aggressive.
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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.
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What I m hearing you say is the boundary doesn t rely on another person s reaction.
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It relies, or if they agree to it or not, it relies on you.
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Yes.
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Removing yourself in a conscious way from the situation.
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Yes.
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Independent of how they show up.
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SPEAKER_01
Correct.
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Now I m initially going to phrase most of my boundaries as a request.
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Yes.
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SPEAKER_01
Right?
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Because you didn t know I had a limit.
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So I m going to say to you, Hey, um, I need,
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I could use a half hour of alone time.
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Would you mind if I go in my room?
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Or would you mind taking the dog for a walk or something?
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And if you say no, then my boundary is to remove myself.
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So I think that s another common misconception is that boundaries aren t about telling other people what to do or controlling other people.
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I may phrase my request in that way as an invitation to meet me in my limit, but I always have a backup plan.
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This is what I m going to do.
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SPEAKER_00
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?
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
As opposed to screaming at someone like, you re crossing my boundary, you know, if they didn t even know what the boundary was.
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Yes, I have this.
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She s making a request first.
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and seeing if people will honor, respect it, or renegotiate it in some way, if you want to accept that or not.
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SPEAKER_00
It all kind of depends.
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SPEAKER_01
Yes.
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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.
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And I ve got these three different levels of boundary communication.
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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, like, Barbara, you re not welcome without calling first and slam the door.
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SPEAKER_01
That s a red-level boundary.
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We don t need to start there.
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The green is, hey, would you please call before you come over and give us at least an hour s notice?
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SPEAKER_01
That would be really helpful.
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SPEAKER_01
Thanks.
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SPEAKER_01
That s your green, right?
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You re going in with a request, you re inviting her to meet it.
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Chances are she s gonna go, yeah, that s fine.
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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.
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SPEAKER_01
Would you like to come back and visit this weekend or should I just call you later on tonight, right?
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SPEAKER_01
That s you holding your boundary.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And the red is what?
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Red is you don t answer the door.
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Because you ve asked now several times for her to call before she comes by and it s not an unreasonable request until the answer is like, you are not entitled to my time and home and space and family anytime you please.
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SPEAKER_01
That does not feel unreasonable to me.
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especially if they ve said, yes, I honor your request and I will do this.
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And then if they say no, then you just say, okay, well I m not gonna open the door, maybe.
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SPEAKER_00
Maybe I will, maybe I won t.
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SPEAKER_00
Depending on how I feel.
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Sometimes you have to live in the yellow.
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SPEAKER_01
So this is really common with conversations around diet,
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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.
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SPEAKER_01
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.
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Can we just not talk about that?
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And they say yes.
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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.
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If you can t change the subject, I m going to excuse myself from the table.
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You may have to live in the yellow for a while if you re trying to kind of change family patterns.
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But if they agree in the moment, they say, oh, yeah, you re right.
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I forgot.
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Then that s a win.
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And when you do that, when you continue to remind them, eventually, right, they re gonna remember, they re gonna remind themselves, and that s how you change entire family dynamics.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and people may agree to something and then forget.
3
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
3
SPEAKER_00
It might take a couple times to be like, that s my bad, you re right, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
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SPEAKER_00
How does someone create a better boundary around food?
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And where is the, why do people cross the boundary of consuming way more than they actually need for their bodies?
3
SPEAKER_00
so frequently.
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SPEAKER_01
I feel like that s not an area where I have enough.
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credentials or experience to talk about because there are so many factors involved in people s eating habits, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
There s physiological factors, there s stress factors, there s emotional factors, there s the impact of the kind of food that we re eating and the foods that are being marketed to us.
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I think there are a lot of reasons.
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SPEAKER_01
And boundaries around food are tricky because you never want a boundary to feel punitive.
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SPEAKER_01
So, you know, do I have boundaries around food?
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SPEAKER_01
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.
3
SPEAKER_01
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.
3
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But when my mom bakes her chocolate chip walnut cake 100% of the time, I m like, yeah, I m on it.
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So I think what I m saying here is that my boundaries
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isn t necessarily specific to like a food or drink.
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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?
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Do I want it?
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What s the context?
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How I m feeling?
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So maybe the boundary is like, I just don t have an automatic yes or no.
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It s the very first question I ask is reflective.
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SPEAKER_00
And I think the framework you have, Melissa, around your future self, when my future self
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Have that benefit for me making these choices.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, you know whether it be around food or anything Yeah, you know when my future self benefit from me, you know staying up every night late You know 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.
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SPEAKER_01
I think it s important to especially when it comes to food to take like a broader
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I think early in my whole 30 career I was very dogmatic.
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I actually have a line in my first book that said, you know, the food that you eat either makes you healthier or less healthy.
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SPEAKER_01
There is no in between.
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And I really believed that at the time.
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And now I understand that sometimes I eat a food that I know does not physically serve me, and future Melissa is not gonna be like super happy with me for eating it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But mentally and emotionally in the moment, it served you.
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SPEAKER_00
That s it, it s so good.
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SPEAKER_01
It s like worth it, it s so good.
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SPEAKER_01
It s because my son made it.
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It s because it s my mom s annual Cadbury cream egg shipment.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh man, that s incredible.
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So it s a broader universe.
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SPEAKER_00
My question is, you re very conscious about what you re eating.
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SPEAKER_00
98% of the time it sounds like
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SPEAKER_00
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?
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I mean, gosh.
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Where do you think that comes from, that struggle?
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I think we could start with systemic factors that make it really challenging for historically marginalized communities to make healthy food choices.
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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.
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There are people who don t have the time or financial resources or transportation to buy healthier foods.
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The fact that we have
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systemically packaged less healthy foods or less nutritious foods and made it so biologic, so affordable and cost effective.
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So like there are systemic factors.
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There are physiological factors.
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Let s say people have the options, you know, they have to buy healthy foods or unhealthy foods.
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Yeah, sure.
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Why do you think, because you mentioned how if my son makes this or the Cadbury egg and it serves me in this moment to feel good or connected to my son or my mom or whatever because I m going to eat this cake.
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There s some people might say, well, that serves me every day to have this milkshake.
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It serves me right now, and I can create that moment every moment for myself, because I love sugar, right?
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So it s like, I can do that every day.
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Why do you think, how do we shift it to making healthier habits and decisions when we have those options to eat healthy, let s say?
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Some people that may not have that option, I get it.
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For those that do, is it emotional, is it mental, is it?
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Is there a wound inside of that?
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What is the thing that draws people back?
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I know the addictiveness of certain foods is hard to break as well.
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I get that from sugar.
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But is there anything else?
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I mean, physiologically, when we are under stress, we crave foods that give you fast, easy energy, right?
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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.
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In today s food landscape, where all of the sugar and all of the energy is 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.
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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.
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So you are biologically craving these foods.
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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.
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They re designed to make you crave and over-consume.
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And then we re lonely.
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and we don t have other coping mechanisms.
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We haven t learned or been modeled other healthier coping mechanisms and food is really cheap and really accessible.
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It tastes good.
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And it tastes really good, yeah.
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So I think there are a lot of reasons.
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It s hard to pinpoint just one.
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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.
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How d you overcome that?
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slowly over time, but like, 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 Whole30, they weren t available to me anymore.
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And I still have the same feelings.
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And I was like, well, now I have to do something with them.
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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.
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So for me, that was a really eye-opening experience, and I think it can be, the Whole30 can be for so many people.
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What are the three healthiest ways you self-soothe today?
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Time in nature, hands down.
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I m an avid hiker, year-round hiker.
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I call it church.
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That s where I talk to God.
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It s where I talk to myself.
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It s where I check in.
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It s where I process things.
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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.
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So that s the first thing.
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I talk about my feelings more than I ever have in my whole life.
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I will either say to my husband or my sister, who are kind of my two biggest confidants, like, I need to download something.
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What I am about to say is not at all logical.
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It s not at all true.
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Like, I will come to that on my own time.
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I don t need you to tell me how ridiculous I m being, but I need to get it out.
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Like, can you just listen?
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And they ll be like, yep, let s go for it, right?
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And that s super helpful.
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And then once I ve done that, I m like, okay.
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Yeah, I feel much better.
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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.
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I didn t like allowing space for feelings that I thought were not productive.
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And now I m like, no, no, no, this is a feeling and we re going to like give it its moment.
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What happened to you or what would happen to you when you would not express feelings?
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I always describe it as I would eat it.
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I would eat it or I would swallow it.
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Like I physiologically would push it right down into my stomach or reproductive parts, wherever it went, and I would just bury it.
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And it made me really, really sick.
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Like physically sick and emotionally sick and spiritually sick and yeah.
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So now what I do is I say, oh, this does not feel good.
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Let s give it a moment.
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Let s just sit with it, right?
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I don t force myself to be grateful all the time.
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I don t force myself to look on the bright side if I m feeling really bummed about something.
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I don t need to find a silver lining in this moment.
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Let s just let this suck.
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Feel the feelings, yeah.
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Yeah.
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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.
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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.
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And when I did the book tour for the book, I d had about 50, 50 men and women in the room.
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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?
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And almost the whole room almost would put their hands up, all the women in the room.
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And I say, how many of you guys keep your hands up if you do this every day?
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You re on the phone with someone, they say yes.
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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 issues, your relationship challenges, anything?
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Maybe two hands out of hundreds would raise their hand.
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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?
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And they all kind of laugh because most of them are part of a group that had to go somewhere once a month to talk about their feelings.
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And I said, men, how many of you do this once a year, you talk about your feelings?
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Most of the men would never raise their hand.
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And I said, ladies.
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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?
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And most women would be like, I would kill myself.
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I d go crazy.
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I d be an alcoholic.
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I would overeat.
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I would do this.
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And I d go, well, look at the challenge.
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that men face as well.
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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, or someone.
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And 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.
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I spent five years putting things up my nose.
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Exactly.
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So you can relate to it.
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I think, you know, when humans don t express their feelings in a healthy way, don t have a safe space to express them, men, women, whoever,
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Bad things happen.
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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.
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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, opening up, expressing yourself.
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And I think I hope more people hear this message, men and women and every human hears this message about opening up their feelings.
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And it can be journaling.
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It doesn t have to be expressing it to social media every day.
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It can be journaling, talking to a therapist, talking to a friend.
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It can look different for everyone.
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It should.
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Yeah, it can and it should.
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And I think, again, boundaries are a great way
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So you said you re with drugs and alcohol addiction, right?
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For a while?
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Not alcohol, I never drank.
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Drug addiction.
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Yeah, just a lot of drugs.
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Do you think if you would have expressed your feelings more regularly, you would do less drugs at that time?
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I would never have started doing drugs.
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Really?
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The only reason I started doing drugs was because at 16, I was sexually assaulted.
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I didn t tell anyone for a year.
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When I did tell my family, they didn t handle it well.
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And they said, we can t tell anyone.
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We need to keep it quiet or it will hurt the family.
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And I felt like I had no outlet whatsoever.
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They put me in therapy, but I didn t want to talk about it.
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But you couldn t talk about it to your family.
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I couldn t talk about it to my family.
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I had internalized the message that obviously it was my fault.
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Obviously I had done something wrong.
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And so I began looking for things to numb that experience and to numb these feelings that I had been shoving down.
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I tried controlling my eating, that didn t work.
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I tried drinking, that didn t work.
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And then I found drugs and I was like, this is it.
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Here we are.
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It made you feel better.
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Yeah.
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It was a coping mechanism.
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It took me away.
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It was the first thing that took me as far away from myself as I wanted to be.
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And then I spent five years doing it.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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So how did you start to shift out of that?
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Was it talking about your feelings more?
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Like when did the process change to a different coping mechanism?
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Well, I mean, it started when I went into rehab twice.
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I went in twice, right?
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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.
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That was really the first time I ever set boundaries around my addiction and my recovery.
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And I think that s what changed it for me.
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That s why I didn t have a second relapse.
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but then it was just a process.
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So I started exercising and I certainly exercised to an unhealthy degree, but then that modulated itself.
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And then I started eating healthier and did my first full 30 and was like, oh wow, the way you re using food is not super healthy.
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And you know, then I went back to therapy and started talking about more things, but not all the things.
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And I went through my divorce and really started talking about all the things.
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So it s been like a process for sure.
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Yeah, and I m sure, you know, 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, but.
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What s the thing you re most proud of, Melissa?
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I m like a way better mom than I ever thought I would be.
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I m a really good mom.
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I have a well of patience for my child that nobody in my life, myself included, knew existed.
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And I have a sense of love for him that I ve never before experienced and never will again.
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I m a way better mom than I thought I would be.
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And I m really proud of that.
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That s beautiful.
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That s really cool.
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I love my kiddo.
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That s really cool.
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Just wait till he s a teenager, right?
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I can t say that now.
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He s nine.
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He s in a nice little sweet spot now.
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How do you learn to let go of a relationship or relationships with people that don t respect your boundaries?
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So this is the thing.
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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 desirable.
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If you re talking about boundaries at work,
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and they won t respect them, are you willing to transfer departments, go to HR, look for a new job?
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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?
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Are you willing to take a break from them or seriously limit the way that you choose to engage with them?
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We will communicate only via email and text at this point, not in person, not on the phone.
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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.
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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?
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And what would that look like?
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What does it look like?
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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?
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Because there are a lot of things, I think, that you could do in between.
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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.
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Oh man.
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I know.
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It s not easy, but I don t, 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.
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It s not worth it.
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I don t think that it is.
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And I can t make that decision for anybody else.
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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.
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But I want you to go into it.
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Eyes open.
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Yeah, and I think there s, listen, I think there s, I used to get really annoyed with my mom, right?
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I think, because I m the youngest of four, and I used to feel like she always treated me like a baby.
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Even today, it s like I m doing so much for her and different things, but she still treats me a certain way sometimes.
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It s like, okay, mom, don t do this.
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It s like this little annoyance, right?
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And it wasn t until a few years ago where I said, you know what?
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I m just gonna accept her for it.
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I may not like it, I may not enjoy it, but how can I change my response and my feeling towards it?
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How can I tell a different story to myself about how my mom shows up?
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Is it the worst thing in the world?
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Is it like ruining my day?
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No, it s an annoyance that I grew up with this feeling.
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And if I want to have a deeper, healthier relationship with my mom, right, as she continues to get older, I want her into my life.
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I don t want to distance myself because some things she says or does annoys me every now and then.
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It s not like she s trying to ruin my life, right?
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It s just her way of being.
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And I ve communicated what I don t like and it s still happening.
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It s like, okay, then do I want her in my life?
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Yes.
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Is she gonna be this way?
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Yes.
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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?
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Absolutely, if that s the relationship I want.
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And since doing that over the last couple years, it doesn t annoy me as much anymore.
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I m kind of like, okay, I just kind of laugh it off, as opposed to get frustrated, because I chose to be different around the situation.
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So there are nuances to it as well, I think.
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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.
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What one family is like, oh my gosh, how could you interact like that as a family?
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That wouldn t work for us.
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As somebody else is like, absolutely, drop over whenever you want.
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You don t even have to knock.
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There is no one-size-fits-all.
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The door s always open.
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Stay anytime you want.
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But I do like this idea of asking myself, what is the story I m telling myself about this?
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Is there some examination of that that I could do on my end?
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Can I be more flexible or more accepting?
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Unless it s some extreme thing where you don t feel safe, then create the boundary.
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You need space, you need... Okay, cool.
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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 yeah 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
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process of
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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.
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And so if you guys are looking for freedom, make sure you get a copy of this book.
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You can go to melissayou.com.
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It ll have the book there.
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You can get it there.
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It s on Amazon as well.
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The Book of Boundaries or anywhere else you guys get books.
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How else can we be of service and support to you today, Melissa?
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I like that you asked that question.
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Thank you.
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This conversation was everything.
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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.
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So I appreciate that.
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I always enjoy our talks.
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Thank you.
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Of course.
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I want to acknowledge you, Melissa, for taking on this challenge of talking about this, because I think
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I think you re similar to me in some ways, that I write the books that I need.
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Yeah, yes.
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Right?
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Whole30 was for you.
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Yes.
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the book of boundaries is for you, right?
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You re like, ah, I didn t have any boundaries, let me learn this process and then write about my findings and how it s helped me.
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And so, you know, I do the interviews that I need, right?
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It s like the things that I do as well.
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So I wanna 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.
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having to shift into becoming the person who creates healthy agreements and boundaries in your life, with yourself and with others.
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So I acknowledge you for taking this on, and for sharing this wisdom with so many people that could use this book.
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This question, I think I ve asked you before, I m gonna ask you again, it s a three truths question.
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So imagine a hypothetical scenario, it s your last day on Earth, many years away.
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You live as long as you wanna live, but then eventually you gotta go.
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And you ve accomplished everything you want to accomplish.
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You ve seen your kid grow up and live a great life.
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You have a great marriage.
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All the things you want, they happen.
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But for whatever reason, everything you ve created has to go with you.
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Books, work, you know, this interview is gone.
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Yeah.
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But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world.
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Three things you know to be true for you.
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Yes.
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And that s all we have to remember you by, these three truths.
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What would those be for you?
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The first one is that you can trust yourself.
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Hard stop.
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I mean, do I have to pick three?
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If I just shared that one, would that be enough?
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I think the other thing I would say is connect more than you think you need.
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I m literally talking to myself right now.
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And I think the third is find joy.
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Find joy.
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Seek it.
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Look for it.
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Love those.
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Final question, what s your definition of greatness?
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Oh, showing up as my full self everywhere I go.
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There you go.
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Just like that.
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Love it.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you.
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Appreciate it.
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I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on apple podcast.
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If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend.
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Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes.
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I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better.
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And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.
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And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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And now it s time to go out there and do something great.