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- [00:00]
Jemma Spag
Foreign this is Open Mind. Welcome to a brand new week. Here is your Mantra I Honor My Boundaries. I'm your host, Jemma Speg, and I'm here to guide you toward a more centered and fulfilling life. Each week I'll share personal stories and insights that are focused on a specific mantra, plus journal prompts and a weekly challenge for all of us to help put it into action. Think of Mantra as your mental reset button, a way to stay centered as you juggle work, school, family and whatever else life throws at you. Each mantra is a simple, powerful phrase you can repeat to refocus your thoughts and bring a little bit of calm into your day. It's a small tool with a big impact, clearing your mind, lifting your mood, and rooting you in the present. If you've listened to my other show, the psychology of your 20s, you'll know I'm all about those little nuggets of insight that make a big impact. So whether you're looking for some extra inspiration or you're trying to ground yourself amidst the chaos, you have come to the right place at OpenMind. We value your support. Share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. Bonus points if you post what you're listening to on your story. I'd love to see which episode is resonating with you this week. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access, and ad free listening, join our Open Mind plus community on Apple Podcasts. This week I'll catch you up on what's been going on in my life and then we'll dive into today's Mantra I Honor My Boundaries. This is all about recognizing your limits, respecting your needs, and creating a life that truly supports your wellbeing. Stick around. We'll be right back after this short pause.
- [02:07]
Unknown
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- [03:07]
Jemma Spag
Welcome back. We're going to get into this week's mantra in just a few. But before we do, it's time for my highs, lows and who knows my favorite part of the week. I've got a who knows for you guys today. It's a movie that I watched last night with Tom and it really relates to this episode. It's the movie One Day with Anne Hathaway. I think they also made it into like a miniseries maybe last year. Firstly, absolutely gut wrenching soul destroying tears were shed. But honestly, it has like such a beautiful depiction of boundaries. In one of the scenes where I'm not really spoiling anything, but the two main characters go out for dinner and one of them is behaving, behaving really, really badly. And if you've watched this movie, you know what scene I'm referring to. And the other character is just puts up this boundary and it's just so assertive and amazing. And I was watching it thinking about the fact that come today I would be recording this episode and it was just such a fantastic depiction. I think actually their whole relationship is such a good depiction of boundaries. So if you want a movie to watch tonight that is going to make you feel, I think every single human emotion, anger, joy, happiness, sadness, grief, whatever it is, One Day is the movie for you. And it was like peak. Anne Hathaway, I guess she's still at her peak actually. So it was just Anne Hathaway and it was amazing. Okay, movie recommendations aside, let's get into it. It's time for this week's mantra. I honor my boundaries. There is a lot of discussion about the importance of boundaries, today's kind of life and today's media world online. In our personal relationships, it's something that most certainly has really become an important part of relationship discussions and an important part of our psychobabble. With that being said, I think sometimes people get them wrong. Of course they do. But sometimes people get the meaning of a boundary wrong and they think it means something that it doesn't. Here is my clearest definition of boundaries. Boundaries are guidelines for how you want to be treated. And boundaries are actually a sign of love and deep respect for another person. They're not a demand. They are most certainly not controlling. They are a request for your benefit that someone can choose to follow or not follow. That's their prerogative, but which you are asking for yourself. And you're saying to this person, this is how I want to be loved. This is how I want to be treated. And I care enough about this relationship, whether it's a romantic relationship, a friendship, a relationship with a family member, even a coworker. You're saying, I want this to work. I care about this enough. I need to give you some rules and some information to treat me better, to love me better, so that this can work. I do see a lot of confusion sometimes that boundaries have gone too far. Boundaries are just people who are being dramatic. Absolutely not. It's not dramatic to say this current behavior or situation is causing me friction, is causing us friction. And I don't want that in our relationship anymore because I care about you. Here are the three steps in my mind to setting a boundary. The first is to evaluate. The second is to communicate. The third is to honour. A boundary is not a boundary if you aren't clear about it or you don't articulate it because you're not giving the other person the opportunity to comply and respect what they don't know exists. And it's also not a boundary if there is not a consequence. Some people really struggle with the consequent part of it. Because it's one thing to say I don't want to be treated this way. It's another thing to enforce that principle. But it's what gives your words credibility. And it's also what teaches people what's not okay. People need their actions to have outcomes, to learn from them. It's a pretty basic principle in psychology. All you're doing is helping them learn and teaching them. I understand as well there's quite a great deal of guilt that comes with enforcing a boundary. And we're going to talk about that just in a second. But moving back to that first component of our equation for a boundary. Evaluate, communicate, honour. People often ask me, when do I know a boundary needs to be set? I think you feel it in your body before your mind understands it. The best way to notice if a boundary needs to be set is the feeling of discomfort, is the feeling of knowing something isn't right, knowing that you don't feel okay in this situation, Knowing that you are uncomfortable emotions and reactions are often felt in the body before they are processed in the mind. Our mind has so much information to filter through every single second, but our body is where we feel emotions and feelings and instincts more automatically. So if you feel uncomfortable with a weird coworker, or having certain discussions with a family member, or how your boyfriend has treated you, that's where a boundary needs to be put in place. So once you have identified what the boundary is, you next have to tell someone. The easiest way to tell someone is immediately after they have performed the behavior. Of course, actually, anytime is the best time to tell someone your boundary. I'm going to take back what I just said. But the second best time is right after something has happened because you are able to say, hey, look, this is the behavior and I'm going to tell you how I'm feeling right now. And the distance between the action and the consequence, and therefore the outcome is smaller and there's more learning that can take place. It also prevents the, oh, give me an example of when that happened. Tell me a time when you felt uncomfortable. That can sometimes happen when you set a boundary. In hindsight, setting a boundary in the moment, it takes so much courage. But I think it has a much better outcome. Let's talk about enforcing the boundary. Enforcing a boundary looks different, but essentially it needs to involve a consequence. Something is taken away or something unpleasant happens as a result. Perhaps you stop doing favors for that person. You stop inviting them to things, to events, to places, you stop giving them access to you, you stop talking to them, you stop engaging with them, you unfollow them on social media, you stop replying to messages. Something of the sort needs to occur. Now, I spoke before about the guilt that surrounds this, and let me say, guilt is probably the first emotion you're going to feel in response to honoring your boundaries. Because for many of us, we have been raised as good, well behaved children. The fact is, is that up until the mid 2000s, really what a lot of people wanted was for their children to be obedient and to have good manners and to be inoffensive. And that was sometimes more important than a child having agency. What that meant was that we never really did get the skills to stand up for ourselves, because standing up for ourselves was seen as aggressive or arrogant. And so there definitely is an innate people pleasing instinct in every single one of us. And it comes down to, I will be more likable if I let people walk all over me. I will be more likable if I don't kick Up a fuss. The thing is, you might be more likable. You're also going to be less happy. Consistently disregarding your own boundaries can have serious long term effects on our mental and emotional health. It can lead to chronic stress, burnout in the workplace, anxiety, depression, even physical health issues. When we repeatedly say yes to things that drain us, when we don't know our limits or people overstep our limits, we reinforce a pattern of self neglect that can really erode our sense of self worth and autonomy. There's two studies I actually always quote when I'm trying to convince people that boundaries are absolutely necessary, not just for you, but for the relationship as well. The first is a study from 2021 and it showed that consistently ignoring personal boundaries led to heightened anxiety and depressive symptoms within participants. The second study from 2020 looked at the effect of loose or lack of boundaries on relationship success between couples and friendships. Let me just say a lack of boundaries and positive relationships were not positively correlated. In fact, not having boundaries actually meant that more resentment took place, more frustration. A lot of individuals felt that they were taken advantage of. And actually in a couple of cases, a real power imbalance developed over time. The relationships without boundaries were also more likely to fail. So no one is being helped. I want to remind you, someone who loves you and wants you in their life will have no issue correcting their behavior. Someone who just wants to do what they want because that's truly what it is. It's arrogance and it's stubbornness. They are going to make you feel like you're the problem. You're not. They may also make you feel like you are too sensitive, too dramatic, as if their way of seeing things is the only acceptable way. But if it matters to you, I want to say this loud and clear. It should really matter to them. I can't imagine my boyfriend or my friends or a family member saying to me, this makes me feel terrible. Please stop doing it. And still doing it and not caring that every time I do, they suffer. Literally watching them suffer. Consider how someone who claims to love you or respect you could do that. This topic definitely, it has a lot of depth, it has a lot of nuance. And this mantra really does invite us to explore not just the boundaries we set, but the reasons behind them and the impact that they have on their lives. Coming up, we are going to get personal and I want to dive even deeper into this topic. I'm going to talk about how learning to honour my boundaries has been a journey for me. I'll share some stories about times where I've struggled to set clear limits, and also my aha moments when I really didn't understand their importance and significance. So stay tuned. We'll be right back after this brief pause.
- [14:15]
Unknown
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- [15:13]
Jemma Spag
Make your next move with American Express business Platinum. Earn 5 times Membership Rewards points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on amextravel.com and with a welcome offer of 150,000 points. After you spend $20,000 on purchases on the card within your first three months of membership, your business can soar to new heights. Terms apply. Learn more@americanexpress.com Business Platinum AmEx Business Platinum Built for business by American Express now that we've looked at the meaning behind today's mantra, I honor my boundaries, it's time to get personal with you guys and share some of my own insights and reflect reflections about this phrase. I talk a big game sometimes, especially in this episode, but I've always struggled with boundaries, mainly because for a long time I thought there'd be a barrier to letting someone love me. Like if I made it more difficult or harder for them, they'd back out. And I confused compatibility with being passive. Maybe if I made myself more likable to everyone by letting them walk all over me, it would be easier for me to find someone I was compatible with. It would be easier to find love. It is not a coincidence that the times in my life I had had the most friends was when I had the fewest boundaries. Coincidentally, these were also the times that I was the saddest, the most anxious, and in a way, quite lonely because I had all these people around me. But I didn't have connection and there was a definite intimacy and respect that was missing. What was even worse, I think, was that I would complain to, like, my really amazing, great friends, my ride or die friends, being like, oh, my God, this person treats me terribly. This person is doing this again and again and again. And each time, I would end the conversation with them, with both of us agree. Okay, you're totally right. I have to do something. I have to make it known that this is not okay. And guess what? I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it because I was so preoccupied with hurting someone else's feelings or upsetting them or, God forbid, them not liking me, that I was happy to make all of this happen at my own expense. And so, yeah, the cycle continued. I tolerated behavior that made me feel uncomfortable and terrible. I complained about it to my real friends, wishing for something to change. And I never set a boundary. You know, I do think that some of those relationships could have been salvaged. They could have been saved. Instead, they fizzled, and I let them fizzle by ignoring texts and calls, which was kind of a coward move on my behalf. I should have said something, but at the time, I really just didn't think that I could. I couldn't deal with the possibility of them not liking me. Nowadays, if it's not obvious, the story is very different. And it's actually because of what I learned from a crucial moment with one of my sisters, actually. And she set a boundary with me, which I'm really not afraid to admit. It was actually about something we'd never really talked about. She'd never really articulated it. It was like a behavior that we just always had done as a family from when we were kids to, like, when we were adults. And we were kind of like, yeah, everyone's okay with this, right? Not to tell her not to go into detail, but at some point, she was like, actually, I'm not okay with that. Please don't do that. It was kind of a shock, but it was also really easy to just not do it anymore and to just acknowledge what she needed and to do it. And it caused very little stress, and it was very easy to adapt to. And our relationship was not injured. It grew, and it made me realize, wow, maybe I can do this. A big boundary we have been setting in our family recently, and I'm sure this has been a common one, is that we don't want to discuss politics within our family. And I think that's something that has become very, very common. We've kind of realized as a family That a lot of us think very, very differently. And discussing it is not a way to make those relationships conducive. At Christmas, at holidays, at birthdays. And as much as there are times when I want to bring it up and when I want to talk about it and I want to maybe get angry, I also realize that the same way I've set a boundary with these other people of like, please don't, you know, talk against my beliefs. Please don't make me feel uncomfortable. I owe these other people the same thing. And perhaps people would disagree. You should talk about it with your family. I think we've tried and we failed. And this is a guide. This was the guidebook we have made for allowing our family to continue to have some peace and to have a connection they need. I also want to remind you, you can also set micro boundaries that don't feel as significant. So these micro boundaries might sound like, hey, I don't like it when you talk to me that way. Or next time can you just ask me first? Another micro boundary that I love is, I don't think I have the energy for this right now, but I'll definitely talk to you when I do. Even muting your phone, putting it on, do not disturb my friends. That is a micro boundary. Anything that protects your peace and involves asserting space for yourself is a boundary. Now, if I was having a conversation with myself five years ago with 20 year old Gemma, I really would have loved to tell her at that time, she was so passive and she really just let people walk all over her. I would have told her, this boundary thing everyone is talking about, this will make your relationships better. This will make the relationship you have with yourself so much better. Boundaries, they aren't aggressive, they're actually quite gentle. They're a lot less violent than having to end a relationship and sever a connection. They're actually preventative. And also you deserve to be treated how you would like to be treated. Being uncomfortable continuously in a relationship is not normal. Now, I think if I'd known this earlier, my life maybe would have been easier and happier. But I'm glad that at least I know it now because I am still quite young. And I'm glad that we can be having this conversation, you and I, so that we can all be learning from some of the experiences that we have as a collective nowadays. The big boundary that I need to set is social media boundaries. Not replying to every message that I get, not allowing people access to me 24 7, letting myself delay replying to messages, letting myself log off. I know I talked about it in a recent episode how me and Tom and two of our best friends went to Tasmania for a little while and didn't go online for like two to three days. That was incredible. That was such a beautiful feeling. So stay Setting social media boundaries with myself is definitely an essential one. Sharing these experiences definitely reminds me how deeply honoring our boundaries, even if they're micro boundaries, can transform our relationships and sense of self. And to deepen this reflection even further, I'd like to share my deep thought of the day. This one comes from an author called Rachel Walchin. Givers need to set limits because takers rarely do. How powerful is that? It's powerful because it's true. There are people out there who will take and take and take and who I think are able to identify the people who will not stop them, who want to make them happy. Call these people whatever you want. Manipulative narcissists. I'll just call them takers. They don't have the same limits that we do. They don't have the same empathy as we do. To notice someone's discomfort and let that impact their decisions. Those are the people you need to be the most firm with. Those are the people you need to say, absolutely not. You can either have me in your life or not. But if you're going to have me in your life, and that is the decision, that's up to you. This is how we're going to go about it. You are perhaps, if you relate to this, such a generous person. You already give so much voluntarily. They don't need anything more from you. You need to be able to save that for yourself. Your time, your energy, your self worth, your self esteem, your compassion. You need something left over for you. Now I'd like us to take a few moments to pause and really sit with this mantra. In just a moment, you'll hear a music track, a custom music track actually, to help create a space for you to absorb today's insights and consider how you might bring this mantra into your week and definitely beyond. If this practice isn't your style, remember you can always Skip forward around 30 seconds and join us afterwards. But as you settle in, keep our mantra in mind. I honor my boundaries. Let it guide your thoughts as the music plays, and give yourself a moment to reflect and connect with what this mantra means to you. Beautiful. Up next, we're going to explore how to put all these reflections into meaningful action so you can start honoring your boundaries in everyday life. I'll share some journal prompts and of course our weekly challenge. So please stick around for more after this short break. Um, I think I just won my taxes. Yeah, I just switched to H and R Block in about one minute.
- [25:59]
Unknown
All I had to do was drag.
- [26:00]
Jemma Spag
And drop last year's return into H and R Block and bam. My information is automatically there so I don't have to go digging around for all my old papers to switch. Nope. Sounds like we just leveled up our tax game. Switching to HR Block is easy. Just drag and drop your last return. It's better with block this episode is.
- [26:22]
Unknown
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- [26:47]
Are you obsessed with Cults then? Oh goody. Do I have a podcast recommendation for you. It's called Sounds Like a Cult and it's a show about the modern day cults we all follow. Think less Jonestown and the Mansons and more Disney adults, Church camp, mom fluencers or people who are just obsessed with their Stanley Cup. I'm Amanda Montel Sounds Like a Cult host and and every week I choose a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist and analyze it with the help of expert guests, listener colins, and fascinating stories to figure out if the group of the week is a Live youe Life, a Watcher Back, or a Get the Fuck out level cult. If you're new to the show, I recommend starting out with one of my favorite episodes, like the one on the Cult of Purity Rings featuring Kelsey from Normal Gossip. We also just did an episode on the Cult of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Discussions get very juicy on Sounds Like a Cult. The show is available on all major podcast platforms and new episodes come out every Tuesday. For more, find the show on Instagram at Sounds Like a Cult Pod.
- [27:47]
Jemma Spag
Welcome back. Now let's talk about how we can bring this week's mantra into your daily routine in a practical, meaningful way, starting with some journal prompts. Now remember, if you don't have your journal handy, that is okay if you're at the gym, if you're at the grocery store, if you are driving. Just simply think about your answers. Reflect on these prompts, whatever you might be up to. All right, here are your prompts to help deepen your understanding and connect more fully with this week's mantra. I Honor my boundaries first. When was the last time you felt guilty for setting a boundary? And why do you think you felt that way? Next, in what area of your life, relationships, work, family, do you struggle most to set and maintain boundaries? Why do you think that is? And finally, what new boundary do you know deep down you need to set and what's stopping you from setting it? Every week you know, I also share a challenge inspired by our mantra to help you take what we discuss to the next level and turn it into real, actionable steps in your life. One of my favorite. I think the favorite thing about this show is hearing from you all and hearing how it's going, if this resonates, if the challenge worked, or even if it didn't reach out to me. Archaopenmind you guys know each month I respond to your questions and comments in a special bonus episode that's available exclusively on Open Mind Plus. So please send your DMs, send your questions even if it's not about this episode. This week's challenge. Your challenge is to reflect on your current commitments and relationships. Then I want you to identify one area where your boundaries are often overlooked. Throughout the week, actively practice clearly communicating and enforcing that boundary and notice how that shifts and impacts your wellbeing. And again, reach out to mantra Open Mind to share how this challenge is going for you. I'd love to hear from you. Okay, before we go, I want to share a few final thoughts about this mantra. I honor my boundaries. The final thoughts I want to share is actually a bit of a reiteration of what I've already said. Boundaries are preventative. They are gentle. They are a sign of kindness, love and respect. Forget everything you've heard about boundaries and how they're villainized in the news. Actually, they are critical to relationship success. The studies will tell you that. Personal experience will tell you that if you ever feel guilty for setting a boundary, remember, someone who loves you and cares about you would not make you feel that way. Every boundary we uphold, micro, macro, big, small, it is very courageous. It is an act of courage, especially when we've been taught not to stand up for ourselves. And I think at its core, the concept of honoring your boundaries is really about reclaiming your power and it's really about protecting your energy and your peace because they are finite resources and you should be devoting them to you and you first. It's not about creating distance. It's not about cutting people off. It's about about deepening self respect and building more authentic, loving connections. Thank you for joining Mantra, an exclusive Open Mind original powered by Pave Studios. At Open Mind, we value your support, so share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow Mantra to help others discover the show. For ad, free listening and early access to Mantra with me, Gemma Speg, we invite you to subscribe to Open Mind plus on Apple Podcasts. I'll share another insightful and introspective Mantra with you next Monday. Until then, keep showing up for yourself and your journey. I'm Gemma Spag. See you next week. Mantra is hosted by me, Gemma Spag, and is an Open Mind original powered by Pave Studios. This Episode this episode was brought to life by the Mantra team. Max Cutler, Kristen Acevedo, Ron Shapiro, Stacy Warrenker, Sarah Camp and Paul Libeskin. Thank you for listening.