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Most people think boundaries are something you do, something you say or enforce. But what if boundaries are actually something you have to learn to listen for first? Today we're going to talk about how to listen effectively. You're listening to Relish, the podcast for people ready to stop chasing self-improvement and start savoring their lives. If you're tired of the hamster wheel of healing and hungry for more joy, presence, and meaning, you're in the right place. Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to Relish. I am your host Alysia and happy new year's Eve if you're catching this on launch day. In this episode, we are talking about boundaries. This feels um top of mind
for me with the holidays and the new year. I think a lot of people are talking about needing to set better boundaries and I have discovered a super simple breakdown that has been really helpful in understanding my own boundaries. So, I thought I would share it with you all today because boundaries are essential to relishing your life, of course. So, today we're going to explore what boundaries are and why they're important. We'll break down what I call the domino effect to setting boundaries and we'll touch on the difference between setting and holding a boundary. H and if you're someone who puts others needs first or believes maybe even at a subconscious level that you don't deserve needs or boundaries, then please
listen up. This is for you. Before we jump in, make sure that you are following the show. Hit download on this episode. We so appreciate your five-star rating and short review if you've been enjoying it. Really helps us get the word out to others so that we can, you know, keep going and sharing. So, thank you. All right. Boundaries. Boundaries are really important to protecting your mental and emotional well-being. They build self-respect. They create um healthier, more respectful relationships. They prevent burnout. Studies show that people with boundaries and boundary like behavior like assertiveness and self- advocacy and um the ability to regulate their emotions, those people tend to have lower anxiety and depression and also higher
self-esteem. They practice more self-compassion. And attachment style research shows that people who are securely attached, and that of course is often associated with healthy boundaries and self-worth and clear relational limits, those people tend to not only have more stable relationships, but also more trust and better mental health outcomes compared to insecure attachment styles, which are tied to enshment and uh poor boundaries. So, the research suggests that skills that support boundaries really make our lives better. But let's slow this down for a minute because what is a boundary? I hear the word boundary kind of thrown out a lot in the self-improvement world and a lot of clients come to me saying
they want to set better boundaries. But when we dive into explore, I find a lot of people don't really know what it means. You may know by now. I love words. I love definitions. So let's start here. The definition of a boundary is a line that marks the limits of an area. Okay. So if you think about a boundary as a line, I think about it as a line that separates what's okay from what's not okay. And that can be a tangible line like a fence. If you think about a fence around a house, that's a line that expresses what is okay and what's not okay. people outside that line, outside
the fence know it's not okay to go inside unless invited in. So that fence is implicitly communicating the boundary. And something interesting that research shows is that boundaries like fences, they don't restrict freedom, they create freedom. There's a study on children's playgrounds showing this. This is interesting. Researchers observed that when a playground is unfensed, kids tend to stay closer to the teacher or the caregiver and they're hesitant to go out and really be curious and explore. But when the playground had a fence, the children actually explored more of the space. They felt safe, so they were willing to venture outward. That physical boundary gives them confidence to move more freely. So
something similar happens to us emotionally when we set boundaries. Usually these are invisible mental or emotional boundaries because boundaries create emotional safety. So your personal boundaries can work like a fence in a way. They tell people around you and they tell you this is what's okay for me and this is what's not. So that is a boundary. Great. The next question, how do I know where to put that fence and what kind of fence and how high? You know, we all need different boundaries. Why? Because we all have different needs. So, this is important. Boundaries are there to protect your needs and your needs are unique to you. So your boundaries are going to be different than mine and going to be different than
your partners or anyone else in your life. But we all need boundaries because we all have needs. So that means in order to set boundaries, we have to know our needs. And it's interesting to have conversations about needs. Usually in my experience working with people, people also don't know what they need, you know, and they don't know how to identify what they need. I remember this being really hard years ago when I was first trying to identify my own needs, like me and my partner talking about what are our needs in relationship. We'd hear the importance of this, but I'd sit down and kind of like, you know, twiddle my thumbs and wait for some needs to pop into my brain and that didn't work so
well. So, for one, this is where a tool that I call a needs list can be helpful to put some words to it all. And in the description, I've got a little document. It's free. You can download it. It's got a needs list and a couple other things that I'll talk about in a bit. So, we've got that needs list, but how do we actually identify our needs? What our needs are? We have to know what we feel. Your emotions are anformational system of your inner world. I dove much deeper into emotions in the feel to know episode, the one on the science of emotions. So, I'll link that below if it interests you. But at a fundamental
level, what I'm saying is that what you feel is really important information about what you need. And if we use a physiological example like take the experience of hunger. So the sensations of hunger that you might feel for some people that's a grumbling tummy or it might be a growling tummy. It could be a headache. It could be fatigue. I mean I learned in my last life which was very food focused that hunger can present in many different ways. But the point is those sensations, those feelings are information that let you know about a need. Those feelings are saying hunger is here. The feelings indicate the need. And listening to that information, listening to those sensations is what
allows you to go and meet that need of hunger and, you know, eventually actually eat something. So today I'm talking about feelings, not just physical sensations, but more specifically emotions. From a humanistic psychology perspective, your emotions are indicating whether or not your needs are being met. So for example, if I am feeling emotionally something like gratitude, ease, joy, connection, those positive veilanced emotions, it is like a signal from my nervous system that some need or needs are being met. But if I'm feeling something like anger, stress, sadness, resentment, anxiety, those, you know, negative balanced emotions, those are not, I don't want to call them bad. All emotions are important, but the more, you know, uncomfortable ones, those are
a signal that some need might not be being met. A negative emotion or a feeling state, it simply means, hey, something needs attention here. NVC, it stands for uh non-violent communication. That's a framework that dives a lot deeper into this. I'm going to link that below as well. So, emotional literacy, understanding what you are feeling is the foundation of boundaries. It's like this domino effect. If you don't know what you feel, you can't know what you need. And if you don't know what you need, you cannot set a meaningful boundary. Now, I dive deeper into this with clients and in my programs, but I wanted to give you a practical um
starting point today. So, in the description, I've got a free download for you with a couple of lists, two feelings lists. One is for feelings when you are in alignment or when your needs are met. And one is when you are out of alignment or when your needs are not met. And I've also included a needs list in there. These are not exhaustive lists, but they are starting points. And you can also totally try this without the list, but I created them because I find them really supportive personally. And a helpful exercise is to consider if there's a boundary that you are feeling inclined to set in your life. Could be with family or, you know, a partner or work, whatever it might be. Check in
with what you are feeling. You can use that feelings list if you'd like. Name an emotion and then ask yourself, what need might this indicate? Now, this is where you have to learn to trust yourself. You have to check in and acknowledge how do you actually feel? And just like you are the only one who can know if you're hungry, only you can know what you're feeling, which means only you can know your needs. No one else can tell you this. So, I'll give a personal example. Uh, this first came up for me, I don't know, a couple years ago over the holidays. I love my family, my parents, my two sisters. So, there's eight of us.
It's great when we all get together. I love everyone, but that many people together for an extended period of time is challenging to me. And when I checked in with what I feel emotionally, okay, what I notice is while I do feel excited and I feel grateful and loving in the first few days that at about day three, four together, I start to feel trapped, tense, annoyed, exhausted. and I love my family, but it is just frankly for me, especially as a introvert, it is too much time being around too many people with too many emotions and triggers at once and you know the stress of being out of my routine. So the feelings, the emotions are trapped, tense, annoyed, exhausted, stressed, and that's what I
start to feel. Only you can know what you feel. So choose what feels true for you in your situation. So then I have to ask, what could the needs associated with those feelings be? Now again, you and I could actually have some of the same feelings but different needs or we could have different feelings but some of the same needs. So it's not like one feeling equates to another need. It's not a formula. You have to feel and sense what resonates. For me, the feeling, the emotion of being trapped and tense, that indicates to me I have a need for autonomy and independence and space, those emotions of annoyance or exhaustion. To me, that also indicates I need some space to rest. I need to
refill my battery. So, with that understanding, I am now more equipped to set a proper boundary. Before I set no boundaries. I would just kind of show up to the family holiday gathering, you know, for however long and stay in the same house and from the moment we wake up till the moment we go to sleep all day long every day, try to get through it and deplete myself. So to meet those needs, I decided a couple years ago, if we are all going to be together the entire time in that context, I need some space. So, if it's going to be longer than 3 to 4 days, I might need to set a boundary of getting a hotel or an Airbnb, something you know, nearby so I can have a little space to recuperate
and sleep there at night. Or I might take an extra hour in my room in the morning or in the evening. I might bow out early to take some me time. I might schedule getting out uh for the day, getting a workout by myself or something like that. And having those boundaries helps to protect my needs so that I can feel more of what I want with my family and show up as my more aligned, authentic self. So, this is just an example. as a system to guide you with a very fluid process that only you can determine. This is kind of an emotional dashboard, your emotional dashboard. So, if you skip the feelings, you're just going to be guessing at the needs and then your boundaries might not actually be supportive and they might not be as easy
to hold. So, let's talk for a moment about why setting boundaries is difficult. One is that we just acknowledged not knowing what you need or not knowing what you feel. But we also need to acknowledge that many of us learned patterns that prevent us from setting boundaries. We might have patterns of a fear of conflict or rejection, uh fear of disappointing people, people pleasing. We might have low self-worth or believe our needs don't matter or that other people's needs matter more. And these could be cultural uh patterns. They could be family norms that we learned around boundaries. If we were raised with values that emphasize being selfless or you know putting other people first, we might have also not had anyone model boundaries.
Understanding these patterns in yourself is really helpful and important because if you have these patterns then you can do this work to better understand the domino effect. you know the emotions which indicate the needs which inform the boundaries that we need to set and then there's another domino after setting the boundary that we have to consider and that is holding the boundary. Holding the boundary I have found could be the hardest part especially if we have learned to abandon ourselves or put others first. So I find it helpful in my personal work and in coaching to distinguish between two negative patterns related to boundaries. The
first is trouble setting a boundary. The second is trouble holding the boundary. So back in my family example, I get clear about the domino effect. What I'm feeling, what I'm needing, the boundary. I set the boundary. Okay, this is going to be a longer trip together. I am going to need to stay in my own space. Well, everybody in my family, they are all used to us being under one roof. You know, that's a part of the joy for them. I get that. How do you think they received that? Me setting that boundary. Well, at first, my parents especially didn't like it, which means me [snorts] holding my boundary can be hard. Holding my boundary might involve disappointing
them. And of course, I don't want to disappoint my parents. No, nobody wants to disappoint the people that we love. But why are these boundaries important? I am a better human. I'm kinder. I'm more authentic. I'm more aligned. I am, I think, much more pleasant to be around when I have my boundaries because then my needs are met. And so I feel more pleasant and positive. So at first when I set this boundary and told my parents, I'm going to stay in my own place. They are not they were not stoked about it. And then the work was really holding the boundary. So I can't remember exactly how this went down a couple years ago,
but for the sake of the example, let's say over that planning period, uh, I told them I'm going to set this boundary, and they said, well, are you sure you need to do that? Like, can't we just XYZ? And they're kind of maybe trying to argue or negotiate with my boundaries, pushing my boundaries. And that makes holding the boundary very challenging. I don't want to disappoint them. And then I start to go into those patterns. Well, do my needs really matter? I want to make them happy. So, you see how easy it can be to abandon ourselves. And how hard it can be to honor ourselves and my own needs, my feelings, my worth. So, yep, I got to do this hard thing. And I say, yes, I am sure I need to do this. Now, the way I can do this matters. It can be
kind. I can say, you know, I'm so sorry to disappoint you. I know it's meaningful for you to have everyone together and I want that, too. But what I found is I really don't like the person that I am or the way that I feel a few days in when I get so depleted, I start to feel trapped and become less present. So me setting this boundary is going to help me actually show up so I can be more present and engaged and happy to see everyone and I can say that without asking for permission, but also letting them know it is because I care and I actually want to be closer to them and I want to enjoy our time together more and relieve some of the stress that I am sure they are also feeling.
Now, I want to acknowledge that doing the work of those first two dominoes, knowing your feelings and knowing your needs before you set the boundary, that is really going to help with the fourth domino of holding the boundary. Because if I'm clear about what I'm feeling and needing, I'm clear about my why. Knowing your why, knowing your intention, then I'm not just mindlessly setting boundaries, you know, like uh throwing darts at a dart board and hoping for some relief. I'm being intentional about honoring my feelings and my needs. There's a saying, boundary pushers push boundaries. And I found this is true. So, when you are someone who has not set boundaries with people before, when you start
setting them, those people are probably going to push. And it's not because they're bad people or they're trying to be disrespectful. It's because uh I mean, well, at a neurological level, they're trying to avoid the unknown, but you know, practically, they are afraid of change. They know you being the way that they're used to, and they don't want it to be different. So I find if I can express the boundaries both set and hold them in a way that enrolls the other person so that you know they can see this benefits all of us then they're more likely to honor it with less resistance and it might take a few times of doing it successfully for them to see and kind of surrender like okay this is happening
they're going to keep doing this and sometimes I have experience that it can come through that this is better for everyone. So my family at least in this example I think now does see that this is better for everyone. Of course I have to say that might not be the case with all boundaries. I have had to set some boundaries with friends or people at work where uh people still to this day don't like those boundaries and I have to be okay with that discomfort. And honestly, the more I do it and I see the benefit, it makes me more okay with that discomfort because my needs are being more met, so I feel better. Even if there's some discomfort because they're not happy with the boundary,
they can accept it and I get to feel more aligned and taken care of. Sometimes I think it's helpful to think about boundaries we might set with kids for their safety. You know, they may not like the boundaries. They may not want them, but ultimately it keeps them safe and happier like the fences on a playground or you know a what's it called? A curfew. You know we impose these on kids. I don't have kids but I now look back even when I was a teenager and I hated the curfew. Now like I get why it's for my own safety. Ultimately a boundary is not saying you don't matter to me. It's saying, "This relationship matters so much to me, and
I need to take care of myself so I can show up and be present." Boundaries build trust and respect in a relationship. They improve communication. I will say it's been easier to set additional boundaries with my family since that first time. And then that prevents resentment from everyone. Boundaries are not about keeping others out. They're about keeping you in integrity and alignment in your truth. They are extremely valuable and important to your authenticity. And this takes time. If you're new to setting boundaries, know that probably
the first few times you try to hold the boundary when the other person pushes, you might submit. It's going to take some practice to unlearn that pattern of abandoning yourself and putting other people's needs first. It's going to take some time to learn to honor yourself, but my hope is that this is some practical wisdom that you can consider for yourself. If you want stronger boundaries in the new year or if you've been learning through the holiday season that you need some boundaries, I encourage you before you focus so much on the boundary itself to get curious about what you're feeling and needing. what you're feeling, those emotions, they're not inconveniences, even if they're uncomfortable. They're guidance.
They're your internal compass pointing you toward the life you actually want. Honor them. And then your boundaries are going to make more sense and be easier to hold because you're clear. You do deserve boundaries and your needs matter and your emotions matter. And you have to be the first one to acknowledge that. It is so important to relishing your life. So if you learned something today and if this episode resonated, please share it maybe with another person who's wanting to set boundaries, maybe with someone that you are wanting to set a boundary with so they can see it's from a place of love. If you did find value, I also appreciate you
sharing it on social, following the show, hitting download. If you would be so willing to take a minute to leave a five-star rating and a short review, it would mean so much to allow me to bring you more episodes like this. All right, friends. Well, happy new year. It is time. Go relish your 2026.
