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Setting healthy relationship boundaries is a radical act of self-care.

^^^ Read that again.

We live in a culture that likes to ignore boundaries. From the time we’re a kid, forced to hug a relative without our consent, through challenging dynamics with authority figures, social and romantic relationships—we’re taught that setting boundaries is a selfish act; one that damages relationships.

The opposite is true. Boundaries are the foundation of healthy relationships. They’re essential. They help us identify who we are, what we stand for and what we are and aren’t willing to tolerate. 

By setting boundaries, we can protect our energy, honor our needs and show up authentically in all our relationships.

But here’s the problem: Setting healthy boundaries is REALLY @#$% HARD. Especially for those of us—and there are a lot of us—who are chronic people-pleasers and peacekeepers with a strong desire to maintain harmony.

If that sounds like you, then press play on today’s episode of Dear Gabby. 

setting healthy relationship boundaries can be scary

It can be scary to speak up and assert your needs, especially if you’re afraid of hurting someone’s feelings or being rejected. 

It can be scary to prioritize your boundaries when you’re a caregiver, or when you’re in a relationship that has elements of uncertainty.

When we don’t set boundaries, we let other people’s priorities become our own.

gabby

I’m so excited about today’s bonus episode with my dear friend and bestselling author of Setting Boundaries Will Set You Free, Nancy Levin. Nancy and I share our personal experiences with boundaries (you really have to hear some of these stories!), and we also offer super practical tips and tools that you can start using right away.

Make time for this episode. For real.

listen now
in this episode you’ll learn:
  • How to set boundaries in relationships
  • Practical tips to set boundaries with anyone
  • How to develop self-love
  • How to create an authentic sense of self

Seriously, who can’t benefit from that? I know this conversation was huge for me.

Boundaries mean you know your worth. They mean you know what you want, what you will stand for and what you will not tolerate.

Setting boundaries is an act of love for yourself and for others. Boundaries aren’t about keeping other people out; they’re about deciding what you let in. 

Is that selfish? I don’t think so. But even if it were, that’s entirely appropriate. As Nancy says, “Selfish and self-care and self-love are three sisters whose job it is to support us.” So good!

And here’s your Gabby kick-in-the-ass truth bomb: >>> It is not anyone else’s job to uphold or respect or honor your boundaries. It’s up to you. 

So if your boundaries are being crossed, it’s you who is crossing them. This isn’t to shame or blame. It’s to get you to take action on your own behalf, because you deserve it.  Listen now. 

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what about vulnerability?

As an author, spiritual teacher and podcast host, being vulnerable is part of my daily existence. I share deep, intimate, raw details of my life and my struggles with millions of people. But I want to be clear on something … because I’ve talked to a lot of people who struggle with vulnerability and think that means ignoring their boundaries.

Being vulnerable and having boundaries are not mutually exclusive.

Just because you’ve opened up in one area of your life doesn’t mean you need to in others.

Just because you’ve opened up once doesn’t mean you need to again.

Just because you’ve opened up to some audiences doesn’t mean you need to with others.

Just because you’ve opened up partway doesn’t mean you need to open up further.

You know who’d back me up on that? My guest, Nancy. This remarkable person once served as an artist model at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Yes, that means she willingly took her clothes off in front of strangers and let them stare at her and create artistic renderings of her body. Vulnerable? Absolutely. But does that mean she didn’t have boundaries? NOPE. She just knew exactly where her boundaries were, and she lived those boundaries unapologetically. And when her boundaries changed, she changed with them. 

You have the right to set and enforce healthy boundaries, with anyone, at any time, for any reason. Again, I know that’s easier said than done, and that’s why I can’t wait to share this episode with you.

listen now
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  • Nancy Levin is a master coach, podcast host and bestselling author of several books. Formerly the event director at Hay House for more than a decade, Nancy is the founder of Levin Life Coach Academy, offering in-depth coaching, training and certification programs designed to support students to vividly live at center stage of their own life. In her book Setting Boundaries Will Set You Free: The Ultimate Guide to Telling the Truth, Creating Connection, and Finding Freedom, Nancy will help you establish clear and healthy boundaries. She includes exercises and practical tools to help even the most conflict-averse, people-pleasing readers learn new habits. You’ll learn how to recognize and take inventory of your boundaries, view your boundaries differently by creating a Boundary Pyramid, learn how to say “no” effectively, and set your Bottom-Line Boundary.
disclaimer

This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I am not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from any psychological or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

dear gabby #140 May 26, 2023 relationships

the practical steps for setting healthy boundaries that will change your life forever

Listen on:

The following podcast is a Dear Media production.

Hi there, Gabby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace. I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.

If you're a regular listener of this show, you know that for the most part, I'm pretty chill and believe it or not, that's true even when it comes to my parenting style. I'm that mom who can stay calm even during a four-year-old meltdown. Seriously.

And I know that's kind of a brag, but it's something that I'm proud of and you might be wondering, Okay, Gabby, really, how do you stay calm when your kid's freaking melting down?

Well, well, number one, I know I can trust the universe when the sh*t hits the fan. That's period. And number two, I lean heavily on my meditation practice. I've been meditating daily for 17 and a half years. Yep, that's right. I've never skipped a day of meditation. I just haven't.

And it is this practice that has helped me navigate the most stressful situations in my life. And it's also given me the ability to really lower my anxiety level. So whether you already have a meditation practice or if you've never tried it before, I want to help you cultivate that same sense of inner peace.

And it comes with practice and it comes with commitment. And that's why I'm giving you my most impactful guided meditation for anxiety relief. And it's totally free. It's yours. It's a gift from me. People, it's free. So take advantage of this today. This also happens to be one of my favorite meditations, so I'm really excited to share it with you.

You can download my free meditation for anxiety relief at DearGabby.com/anxiety. I promise you that this practice is gonna really help you begin your journey toward profound inner peace. It will give you a tool for self-soothing in moments of anxiety and stress. And I just want you to use it so that you can really create that beneficial inner state of peace that can be very sustainable when you practice and you show up and you give yourself that permission to turn inward.

That's DearGabby.com/anxiety.

Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I'm your host Gabby Bernstein, and if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you're ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let's get started.

Welcome back, my friends. Welcome back to Dear Gabby. Woo. It's a good show today. Here at Dear Gabby, my team and I are always really looking for ways to bring you the absolute best content ever. It is my highest priority to continue to support you and serve you in this way, and it's not only that we're using some data tools to hone in on the topics that we know you really want, but we're also listening really closely.

We're trying to incorporate the topics that we hear you want through social media, through direct messages, and one topic that keeps hitting us over the head is boundaries. Which is why we're doing another boundary episode one week later. I wanted to keep the momentum going. Last week we started to really tap into our own boundaries, and this is about boundaries specifically in relationships.

And so, I really believe that being able to set boundaries for yourself is the absolute key to radical self-care—full-stop, period. And that's why I want to go a little further with this topic, dive a little deeper. And so in today's show, I'm going to be joined by my very dear friend, author Nancy Levin.

This conversation came from a talk that Nancy and I did a while back, and, and Nancy is an expert in boundaries. And so, this conversation's gonna be very empowering and it explores practical strategies to protect your energy, and I love that it also really talks about how to cultivate self-worth and create this life that aligns with your boundaries rather than overriding yourself.

Do you ever feel like you're overriding yourself? If that sounds resonant to you, then please listen to this episode and hear me when I say this, people. Boundaries are the foundation of healthy relationships and they're essential. And they help us identify who we are, what we stand for, and what we are and aren't willing to tolerate.

So it's hard to set boundaries. I get that. I know that. I am living that day-to-day. It's not fun. I've actually been listening back to this episode over and over before we put it out because I'm like, I need this and I'm holding onto every word. And so, get ready, get psyched because if you are open and you're willing, I want you to learn the practical steps to setting healthy boundaries that will change your relationships forever.

Stick around to the end, I promise you'll be glad that you did.

GABBY: Welcome, welcome, welcome. My experience of this beautiful woman here, Nancy Levin, is that when I first was introduced to Nancy, I was introduced to her in a very different form. She was the head event producer for Hay House. She was a firecracker. She still is, but in a different way. If you asked Nancy for something, you knew that it was done yesterday.

Her mantra was, I already did that. You always felt very held, very taken care of, very loved, very nurtured, but deep down, she wasn't caring for, loving and nurturing herself. And that's what this book has been birthed out of.

We all miss the old Nancy caring for us.

NANCY: I tried a little tonight.

GABBY: She tried, and finally I was like, Nancy, sit down. Stop doing things, and it's still in her and she will always care for us.

But now what's best is that she's caring for the world through these books that she's writing, and that she's being able to bring her gift to life in this form. So it's such a privilege to sit here with you tonight. I love you so deeply. I am so proud of you, and I've been quoting this book for the last two weeks, and I'm obsessed with it. I'm obsessed with it.

NANCY: I'm so honored and I love that we're doing this event here.. Because this is where we were on stage together a couple of years ago, your Spirit Junkie Masterclass event, and I know we've got Spirit Junkies in the house.

And it's also meaningful for me to be doing this here because when I lived in New York, Back in the late eighties and early nineties, and you may not even know this, Gab, I was an artist model here at the School of Visual Arts.

GABBY: I know this—big, big, big news.

NANCY: Big. Yes. I was an artist model here at the School of Visual Arts. So it feels like a—

GABBY: You know what that means? She was naked.

NANCY: My parents are here. They know. [LAUGHS]

So it is like a beautiful full circle moment. But the other thing about that—

GABBY: She's got clothes on tonight though.

NANCY: I do. I'm wearing clothes for y'all. But the other beautiful thing about that is I was reflecting on it, is that I've been writing my whole life, and it wasn't really until I was an artist model, modeling for the students who are pursuing their passion, their painting, their sculpting, their drawing, that it occurred to me, wow, I could actually go pursue my own passion in that way.

So it's what moved me to Boulder, Colorado. I went and did my master's in poetry and even though people are like, really? You have a master's in poetry. What does one do with that?

GABBY: You're doing quite a bit with it, lemme tell you.

NANCY: That's right.

GABBY: Doing pretty well.

NANCY: And I think it set me on the path. Yeah.

GABBY: I would say so. I would say so. So I wanna begin at the beginning. Yeah. Which is when you open this book, Nancy tells a story and it was funny for me to read it having been on the other side of this story.

And this story of really being boundaryless. Nancy said to me backstage I couldn't have done that job, if I wasn't as boundaryless as I was, this story of Nancy with Wayne Dyer, and I'm gonna let you tell this story because it's a beautiful story. I'm reading it and I'm visualizing it because I was probably there.

I don't know, maybe.

NANCY: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

GABBY: And it actually brought a lot of sadness to me because it was remembering this part of you that as strong and powerful as you were, now seeing you in this really profound strength, I can recognize what it means to have come this far. So I'd love to hear where you were and what happened and where you are now.

NANCY: [LAUGHS] So I was someone at that time really driven by external validation. And so I was chasing all the gold stars. And what happens when we chase the gold stars is no amount of gold stars will ever be enough to fill the void that is inside of us. So everything that we're seeking externally needs to be resolved internally first.

But there's this hunger, there's this chasing. Really, what I would say is it's about putting your worthiness in someone else's wagon. So letting someone else be the determiner of your value and your worth. And my job as the event director at Hay House gave me a lot of gold stars, gave me a lot of accolades, gave me a lot of attention in that way.

And so, what it really becomes is like an addiction. It becomes chasing the high. And so, like you said, the motto was, you know, I already did that. So this one particular event that does open this book, I was on tour with Wayne Dyer. And we had done an event in Atlanta on a Saturday afternoon. And then the whole entourage, my team, his kids were with us.

We did the event. We flew to Detroit. Got to Detroit that evening, and we were preparing to do another event in Detroit on Sunday. And we had dinner. We all checked into our rooms, everything was going fine. And then around 10 o'clock at night, Wayne called me and said, I don't know where my briefcase is. He wasn't blaming me, but he also was really insistent and emphatic that he absolutely needed that briefcase in order to go on stage tomorrow.

He's like, all my notes are in there for my talk, all my notes for my next book. There was some money in there, there were all these things in there that he needed, and he absolutely needed it. And he was in a little bit of a panic, quite frankly. And so he said, we have to find this briefcase, first of all, and we have to figure out how I'm gonna get it.

So again, 10 o'clock Saturday night, I'm in Detroit, the briefcase is somewhere else. I'm convinced that it's in the back of the van we took to the airport in Atlanta. So I called the van company and they said, well, that van's not gonna get back here till midnight. So midnight rolls around and in the meantime I'm on the phone with my travel agent who's on the West Coast, and we're trying to scheme about the way we're gonna get the briefcase to Detroit once I even find it.

And I called back at midnight. They go out, they come back and they tell me the briefcase is not in the van. And I said, I just know it is. It's black, it's dark. I bet it went all the way from the front seat to all the way in the back seat. I know it's in the van. So I hold on again and they come back to me and sure enough, lo and behold, the briefcase was in the back of the van.

So now I say, can you have someone fly it here. And they said, No. Since 9/11, you're not allowed to fly someone else's stuff. And I said, okay, let me figure out what's happening, but at least we know where the briefcase is. And somewhere in the middle of the night, I had let Wayne know, I'll figure it out, I'll find it.

Go to bed, get some rest. And I was on the phone again with the travel agent. No one's gonna be able to get it here. No FedEx, no air cargo, no freight. There's just no there. I'm getting a no. I'm getting the no for the answer, but I won't take no for an answer because I deliver. So at four in the morning, I find myself on the way to the airport.

And in the back of the taxi, I find myself booking myself a ticket and there was only first-class round-trip ticket, and I thought, well, Reid Tracy, the president of Hay House, won't mind that I book myself a round-trip, first-class ticket because that's all there was. And I book the ticket and I fly to Atlanta.

The guy meets me in baggage claim. I grab the briefcase, I go back through security, and of course, because I just landed in Atlanta, they have to do the whole pat down, and they're very suspicious. Why am I turning right around and flying back and I'm on the plane now getting ready to fly back. And I called Wayne and I said, Wayne, I have got your briefcase.

And he said, Nancy, where are you? I said, that is not important. He said, did you do something crazy? And I said, I will see you at the venue. So this was also the first time I'd given up sort of any control of my job. And I had let Molly, who now has my job, I gave her all the information of how to actually do my job for that event in the event I didn't get there.

And right as I was pulling up in the taxi with the briefcase, Wayne is pulling up in his limo and there are like thousands of people. I'm not joking. There's thousands of people around him. And he gets out of the car and I walk toward him to hand him his briefcase and he looks at me and he is like, “That? I don't need that.”

And he was pulling my leg. And so what did I do? I flipped off the father of motivation.

GABBY: Well, what would boundaried Nancy do today?

NANCY: Right? See, this is the big difference because.

GABBY: What would boundaried Nancy do?

NANCY: Yeah. Boundaried Nancy wouldn't be doing it for the accolades and the approval and the validation. If I was to do something like that again, it would be coming from a very different place.

And I would quite frankly say that who I am now would have said, no.

GABBY: Who you are now would've either said no or said, oh, I'm just booking first class.

NANCY: Right, right, right. Exactly. Right. Right. Yes. It's about the undercurrent of the motivation. What's having me to make this action?

GABBY: Right. Correct.

NANCY: Because it wasn't purely out of service to Wayne. It was out of this undercurrent of, I wanna feel valued. Yeah.

GABBY: That's right. That's right.

[AD BREAK]

Okay, so I'm gonna get really nerdy with you for a second because I wanna talk about something called the gut immune axis. Okay, you know I'm all in when it comes to my gut health, but did you know that there is an intrinsic connection when the gut and the immune system work together to coordinate our body's response to the world around us?

That is what is called the gut immune axis. Our resident gut microbes directly impact the development and function of our immune system. And this happens even before we're born. Microbes help set the foundation of our immune system, teaching our body how to distinguish between benign substances and pathogenic antigens. Those are the substances that your body doesn't recognize as its own.

So lemme give you an example. We all have stress. And the inflammation that often a accompanies higher levels of stress can trigger blooms of pathogenic microbes that promote dysbiosis and increase intestinal permeability—AKA leaky gut.

So when someone says, I have gut dysbiosis, which I lived with with so many years, it's leaky gut, and that is where Seed comes in. Supporting the gut immune axis is imperative, and it wasn't until I tried using Seed DS01 daily symbiotic that I truly understand the difference it could make. I just got off of three weeks of travel, eating all kinds of random foods, and I started every single day with my Seed DS01.

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I don't know about you, but I just learned a lot. Join me in my gut health journey with Seed. Visit seed.com/deargabby and use code Dear Gabby to redeem 30% off your first month of Seed’s, DS01 daily symbiotic. That's seed.com/deargabby, and use code Dear Gabby.

[END AD BREAK]

GABBY: So on that note, what does it mean to create a boundary? What is a boundary in your terms?

NANCY: Yeah, so I define boundaries as the limits that we set for ourselves around what we will or will not do, will, or will not tolerate, and will or will not accept. And so, that also means that we have to have a sense of the delineation of where I end and you begin.

Because what happens for those of us who have been people pleasers, peacekeepers, not-rock-the-boaters, those of us who wanna keep harmony at all costs. It comes at a very high cost and it comes at a high cost to us. Because we don't have that clear delineation. So what we end up doing is we take more responsibility than is ours.

And we actually have this illusion that we can make someone else okay? Or that we can make someone else happy or make someone else mad, or that we have any control over anyone else's feelings. So I spent most of my life really managing the perception of others.

I wanted to project this image of perfection to the world, and I was managing the perception of others. So I was giving other people a lens to see me through.

GABBY: Right, and we were talking backstage about how in order to create a boundary, you said, you wanna, no, I am not willing to do this anymore. Getting into that grounded state that she's referencing. But how do we get there in a way that it lasts?

That it's not just words, but it's an energy shift. Because in our experience, in order to create a long-lasting boundary and live with clean boundaries, we have to clean up whatever it was within us that made us boundaryless in the first place. So wanna go there?

NANCY: Yeah, let's go there. Yeah. And I think, again, for those of us who identify as it's the peacekeeping, the people-pleasing and all of that, but it's also really priding ourselves in our independence and our self-sufficiency in having no needs.

And so once we go to that place of having no needs, we're also erasing desire. So we're erasing even the inkling or the glimpse of a preference. And this is what starts having us acquiescing. And this is what has us saying yes when we wanna say no. And so, it's a big ship to turn around for many of us to actually start here to even reflect on what do I want as opposed to what does someone else want or even someone else want for me?

I can't tell how many times I'm working with a client and I'll ask him or her a direct question and he or she will answer about someone else.

GABBY: Wow.

NANCY: Will answer about their partner or whoever.

GABBY: Right.

NANCY: Because we're so uncomfortable with actually paying attention to our own needs. And then I hear from many people, even in terms of setting boundaries, isn't that selfish? And I'll be the first one to say that I am on the selfish bandwagon. I think selfish and self-care and self-love are three sisters whose job it is to support us.

GABBY: Oh! Absolutely. Absolutely. Abraham Hicks always talks about how it's so powerful to be selfish.

NANCY: Yes. Yes.

GABBY: Putting your happiness and your wellbeing first is what will allow you to attract more of what you want to your life. It will allow you to show up even for others in a better way because it's a cleaner way.

NANCY: Absolutely. Because really what I'm proposing here is that you actually consider yourself as much as you consider others. And really, the ninja move is then how do you consider yourself even more than you're considering others?

And it doesn't mean that you are not considering, it doesn't mean that you're disrespectful of others.

It's not an either or. It's a both and. I use this analogy all the time. I. We are so good at setting the table with the fine China and the silver and the crystal and the big juicy steak, or the big juicy tofu for everyone else. I gotta be PC. And yet, here we are in the kitchen, in the dark, standing up eating the scraps and crumbs over the sink and we think that's okay.

And so, I'm simply saying, Hey, it's time to set yourself a seat at the table. And while you're at it, why don't you set yourself at the head of the table?

GABBY: So what if the men or women in this room are sitting in here and they're thinking, that sounds really good. I really would like that, but I don't believe I'm worthy of that.

Or, how could I possibly get there? Or maybe I could try it, but I'd feel like a fraud.

NANCY: Right. So part of it is—

GABBY: Read the book.

NANCY: [LAUGHS] And so, part of it is actually giving yourself some time and space to not be reactionary. Because part of what's happening is, again, when we're living in this place of people pleasing, And feeling that lack of self-worth because we are letting someone else determine our worth.

We're living an other-referenced life. And again, there's no delineation. Where do I end and where do you begin? So I'm living other reference and then I'm in reaction to what you are doing or not doing. And so, part of it is actually being able to pull back and start here. I often talk about it in terms of weather, what's my weather today?

What's my weather system? And not get hooked into your weather system. Figure out what's going on with me first, which is really the opposite of co-dependence and the opposite of walking on eggshells. You know, I'm not looking at you to regulate me emotionally. I'm starting to actually be able to regulate myself emotionally.

And that is how we contact our own intrinsic sense of worth.

GABBY: That's the key, what she just said, learning how to regulate ourselves emotionally. This is my Oprah moment. When I repeat back the big thing, watch her. She did it every day. Oh, regulate.

But when we learn how to regulate our own energy, This is major, major, major, major, major, major, major work.Then to your point, we are no longer reliant on others to lift us up, to make us feel good enough and we're no longer doing the boundaryless behavior to, in some ways, regulate them.

NANCY: Exactly. Right. And then we're also, when we were able to do that, regulate ourselves this way, that's how we get to the state of neutral. So that we're no longer in the trigger or in the activation. Because when we're in that trigger and activation, the first place we're gonna go is into victim…

GABBY: Defensive.

NANCY: Exactly. Defensiveness and victim mode, which is very disempowering.

GABBY: Is everybody tracking with this? You know, everyone's like, oh, I know. Yeah. When you have no boundaries it’s because you're reacting from a place of being triggered. And it's triggering a place within you that probably is very young.

You wanna talk more about that?

NANCY: Yeah. If we go back to, which is really the root and foundation of all of my work, and I will, I can't say this without mentioning the late great Debbie Ford.

GABBY: I was just waiting for it.

NANCY: That really going back to looking at what our, our limiting shadow beliefs that were imprinted and instilled when we were very young, likely under 10 years old.

We weren't conscious of what we were deciding to believe about ourselves. These were the conclusions we started drawing about ourselves. So this is where all the, I'm not good enough. I'm not enough, I'm not lovable. There must be something wrong with me. And I believe all of those beliefs funnel into some version of I'm not worthy.

Whether it's I'm not worthy of love, happiness, money, support, support, anything.

GABBY: Right, right. Mine was, I'm not worthy of support. Well, it was a lot of things. There was, there were a lot of things, and I can say there were a lot. Because today I am a neutral, yeah. Real neutral. I’m serious, and, and this conversation could not have come at a better time because I'm living this practice now.

So I think there's power in having been to the dark side of things and being able to stand in, in what it feels like and looks like on the outside now being free.

NANCY: I couldn't say that better. Absolutely.

GABBY: And you've been living it for a long time. Right. And not only with your career, but your romantic relationships.

NANCY: Mm-hmm. Yep.

GABBY: Which is probably where you really learned this in the first place.

NANCY: Very much so.

GABBY: Yeah, yeah.

NANCY: Yeah, I was saying before I really know that, I mean, it was 10 years ago that I set the very first boundary of my life, and it was utterly life-altering, and it was the decision to finally leave my marriage.

And here we are 10 years later, and it's like I can barely even imagine the woman who was too afraid to leave. And the woman who did everything she could to stay. And yeah, just—

GABBY: Who is she? We don't, right. Who's that? Who is she what? No, I don't know who she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

NANCY: I didn't know that I was allowed to set a boundary.

GABBY: Correct.

NANCY: And most of us have the experience of this idea of something we think is a boundary, and we have this experience of, oh, I set a boundary, but now that person is mad at me. Now that person doesn't love me anymore. So we have this negative association with boundary. Or we think that some version of, if I set a boundary, then I'm a bitch.

Or if I set, setting a boundary is mean. Setting a boundary is hurtful to other people. But then what we're not really paying attention to is the amount of energy that we have expended, sucking it up, biting our tongue, giving in, acquiescing again, saying yes when we wanna say no. And that whole thing that goes on when we're doing that loop in your head of what do I need to do or say to make everything be okay?

And all that does is remove us from the present moment. All that does is remove us from any authenticity because we're in this loop. How do I package myself to be digestible to you?

GABBY: Right. And being boundaryless is actually a, a trauma response.

NANCY: It absolutely is.

GABBY: It's the way that we stay safe and avoid feeling the deep-rooted root cause condition of our pain.

Because I don't wanna feel that, so I'm gonna fix that, or I don't wanna feel that so I'm gonna take on whatever your problem is.

NANCY: Right. And then again, going into this illusion of, you know, I can fix you, I can save you, I can rescue you. That was my whole marriage. And coming to the place of realizing, oh, I can only heal myself.

GABBY: Right.

[AD BREAK]

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GABBY: What's the biggest myth about boundaries?

NANCY: The biggest myth about boundaries is that other people are crossing them. And this is the revolutionary part, but here's the deal. It is not anyone else's job to uphold or respect or honor your boundary. It's up to you. So if your boundaries are being crossed, it's you who is crossing your boundary.

You're enabling the boundary to be crossed or you’re crossing it because you're not able to sit in the discomfort. And that's a big piece of this too, cuz it can be really uncomfortable once we make our boundaries known. So, the truth of the matter is that when we set a boundary, we have to be also willing to maintain the boundary, to uphold the boundary.

Otherwise, we're the little boy or little girl who cried wolf. So. I hear from clients all the time. I tried to set a boundary, but he or she crossed it. Right. Yeah? And what that does is it's really a reflection back at us about how porous our own boundaries are, how unwilling we are to stand in our truth, how unwilling we are to stand up for ourselves.

GABBY: How terrified we are.

NANCY: How terrified we are. Exactly. Because really what's happening on the bigger scale is we all have this belief on some level, there's something about me that I have to hide in order to be loved and accepted. So it's a belief or it's some aspect of myself, or it's some element, or it's some skeleton in the closet secret, but whatever it is, if you knew this thing about me, you wouldn't love me anymore.

And so, when we're all operating in that, we're doing everything we can to avoid really showing who we are. And yet, right next to that lives a version of, I just wanna be loved for the truth of who I am. But it's really rare to show up in truth.

GABBY: Right, right. And so that's what holds us back from being able to really step into the fullness of the boundaries that we're setting and realizing again, that if that, if the line is being crossed, we are the ones allowing it to be crossed.

And that's a really important and very empowering, very empowering prospect because if we think other people are just crossing our boundaries willy-nilly, it puts us again into that role of the victim and it puts us into that place of feeling disempowered. So the empowerment is, this is my boundary and I am holding it because I honor myself enough to do so.

GABBY: Getting to the place where we can say I honor myself enough to do so is a brave journey.

NANCY: I agree.

GABBY: You've laid a path for us. Is there one thing that we can begin to do now?

NANCY: Yes. Yes. Go. So I'm just, yes.

GABBY: I, I'm an action taker. I just wanna know how to get there.

NANCY: Yes, I'm an action taker too, so I would love for you all actually to leave here tonight prepared to start saying no to things. So here's how this works. This works by first getting some clarity around what I call my transformation equation, which is change equals vision plus choice plus action.

So in order for a change to happen, you have to have some clarity of vision. So where are you now and where do you wanna be? Who are you becoming? What identity are you stepping into so you become the person you're wanting to become? What are the choices you need to make and the actions that you need to take in order for that to happen?

Because I'm gonna tell you right now that nothing happens without choice and action. That's just, that's just how this goes. And every choice you make is doing one of two things, serving or sabotaging—every choice.

And so, the first step is to start getting conscious about your choices. So if you are sabotaging, you're at least conscious of the sabotage. So like a really easy example, I'm, if you're saving money to buy a house and there's this really nice pair of shoes you wanna buy, do you buy the shoes or not?

Right. Okay. So yes.

[LAUGHS]

Right. So if the vision, if the goal is saving the money to buy a house, but you buy the shoes, at least be conscious. I'm making a conscious decision to buy the shoes and I'm sabotaging my overall goal instead of going into the default mode of unconscious late night, online shopping. We all have our avoidance strategies.

We all have our drug of choice. Mine is work still. It's better though, way better.

GABBY: Way better way, way better.

NANCY: Way, way better. Way better. So when we're looking at the no’s in our life, we first wanna look at where is the impulse coming from for the knee-jerk yes? So like I was saying, even with the Wayne briefcase story, what's the motivation under the knee-jerk yes?

So a request comes in and we all know that feeling, right? That like, yes. And then we all know the feeling of how am I gonna get out of this? And then a week later, when we see the thing in our calendar, we're like, ugh. It's too late now I gotta go to this, uh, you know, whatever that is. So let's actually clean things up so we're only doing the things that are in alignment with what we wanna be doing with our lives and our time. Time is not a renewable resource.

We can't make more time. So it's very valuable and most of us are giving away our time, giving away way too much time. And so, to be able to say no if you're ready to say no, but if you're not ready to say no, to simply say, I'll let you know tomorrow. And just build in a buffer so that then you've got a little time to let yourself assess: what is my underlying motivation here?

And if the motivation is anything around obligation, responsibility, I don't want someone to be mad at me, I don't want someone to be angry. I wanna be the hero. I wanna be superwoman. I wanna be the one and the only one. If any of that is part of your answer, it's a no. Because a yes is really only about desire.

GABBY: So you can track with yourself. You can see, oh, what stage am I at now?

That's the cool thing about reading personal growth books, is that you can know what phase you're in when you're in it. It's pretty cool.

NANCY: Yeah, it is cool. And I wrote the book I needed to read. We all do it, right? And this book ends up being really the culmination of all of my books, because boundaries has woven its way through all the books because I know that it's the foundation.

I know it's the foundation of how I've been able to change my life. By setting boundaries that stick and by honoring myself in this way has given me the confidence and the courage and the sense of worth to be able to stand in my truth.

GABBY: Amen.

If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you're truly committed to miracles. I'm really proud of you. If you wanna get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode.

Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience at this show means a lot to me, so I really wanna welcome you to leave an honest review and you can follow me on social media at @GabbyBernstein.

And if you wanna get in on the action, sign up for a chance to be Dear Gabby’d live at deargabby.com. See you next week.

Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.