The Savvy Communicator
The Positive Side of Saying No: Setting Boundaries and Reclaiming Yourself--with Emma Roy
What if you could carve a boundary so firm between your work and personal life that they never bleed into each other? Imagine how liberating it would feel to say 'no' without guilt. With our guest, boundary coach Emma Roy, we explore this very concept and the crucial role it plays in our lives.
The conversation takes an interesting turn as we uncover practical ways to establish a healthy work-life balance. Emma reveals some great tips to manage emotions while creating these boundaries. Learn how to make your home a workplace without letting work invade your personal space. The discussion also touches upon the generational impact of overworking and the need to mindfully set boundaries. Let Emma guide you on this journey towards a balanced life, equipped with the tools and insights that will empower you to protect your peace.
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
What if you could carve a boundary so firm between your work and personal life that they never bleed into each other? Imagine how liberating it would feel to say 'no' without guilt. With our guest, boundary coach Emma Roy, we explore this very concept and the crucial role it plays in our lives.
The conversation takes an interesting turn as we uncover practical ways to establish a healthy work-life balance. Emma reveals some great tips to manage emotions while creating these boundaries. Learn how to make your home a workplace without letting work invade your personal space. The discussion also touches upon the generational impact of overworking and the need to mindfully set boundaries. Let Emma guide you on this journey towards a balanced life, equipped with the tools and insights that will empower you to protect your peace.
This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.
Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.
Hi and welcome to the Savvy Communicator podcast. I'm your host, amy Flanagan. Today's topic is a solid one how do you set a boundary? My guest today is Emma Roy Boundary Coach. Emma, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2:Hello, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:I'm really excited too, because we were talking before and I was saying that I think setting boundaries is one of the things that probably is most important in life and one of the things that we are actively told not to enforce, a lot of times because it seems unkind. Tell me a little bit about how you became a boundary coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a good story and I think everybody intends that.
Speaker 2:It's like oh, I had this big moment where I have no boundaries, which to an extent it kind of is like that, but obviously for me it was just a lot of little things over a long period of time that kind of led to my own journey with realizing that I had really no boundaries.
Speaker 2:I had really crappy boundaries and I think it came to a point when I was back in university and I had a family member who had passed away and the funeral ended up being the same day that this event that I was helping to organize was on and I made the decision that for me it was most important to go to the funeral and I felt reprimanded for making that decision. Wow, yeah, so that made me realize I felt reprimanded, I felt really guilty oh, my goodness, the amount of guilt and I bent over backwards leading up the event, trying to get everything done that I could get done for it, so that it just felt really good and I was like, oh, it'll be fine, they can handle it, without realizing that what ultimately should have happened is I should have put myself first.
Speaker 2:And like you know I'm going to this funeral. Yeah, that's it. I was all that needed to happen, but I ended up breaking my back, trying to please everybody and realizing that myself and, ultimately, my relationship with this person who had passed suffered because of that.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's rough. That's rough, but I think you know you're so right in that a lot of times we do bend over backwards for a lot of reasons and still feel guilty, still feel like we haven't done enough. Yeah, why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:Probably because we're taught and I am specifically women, I'll get it Specifically women we're taught that no is aggressive and that's not necessarily a good thing.
Speaker 2:But we're also taught like doing things for other people makes us good, like that we're a good person for doing things for other people or putting the needs of other people before ourselves. I mean that's like lesson one on when you're raising kids is to think about other people, be kind and courteous. But oftentimes there's no stop gap. It's like be kind and courteous to everyone, but then it's like, okay, but at what point do I have nothing left to give to be kind and courteous to everybody else? And then you end up in a situation where you're worn out and you're bitter and you're resentful and overwhelmed. And I don't think it's not actively taught, it's not a school. There's no social, emotional class in school. It's just sort of school as a whole is supposed to teach you. And then you have to rely and hope that your parents have enough of an emotional intelligence to be able to have and hold those conversations with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't have children myself, but I have a lot of friends who are parents now and it's really it's interesting and it's disconcerting and it's fascinating to watch them teach their children about boundaries in a way that I was not taught growing up, in terms of like, you don't have to hug somebody if you don't want to, you don't have to say okay if you don't want to. Well, there are certain things that you have to do, but if it's a little friend or something that it's all right to say no, this hurts me, no, I don't want to go over there.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it is fascinating, but at the same time, like I said, I can't think of a better word than disconcerting because, they're like oh, that's normal, yeah, right, yeah, we weren't taught that at all, it was you know, you think about it and it was like you hug all of your aunts and uncles, despite the weird feeling that, my uncles might give you, and I mean, we were taught strange or danger, but that's not the same. That's not the same thing, because it's like it can't. You know boundaries and family settings and things like that, like families don't set boundaries with one another, because then it's not family.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, I can remember I had this uncle growing up who used to pinch my cheeks and you know all of my cousins cheeks. We called him the pincher, and you know, and you would get to the point where you didn't want to go over to him and you know, but all I could think of was the pain of getting my cheeks pinched and that's just what you did, like you've been saying. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a thousand little boundary violations are what got you towards being a boundary coach, and I think that's such a fascinating thing to be and it must be very fulfilling.
Speaker 2:It is I went to school for social work, so there's always a little bit of like social work, helping other people, like thread in my life and I've always felt called towards that, I think with boundary coaching and specific. It's because I know so many women that have really bad boundaries or have no boundaries at all and I got tired of sitting and having conversations and laughing off, feeling overwhelmed, yeah, and joking about the fact that, oh, I'm so tired and I hated. The default response was, oh, I'm busy. Like how are you? I'm busy. That's not a response, that's like a state of being and that's not a good state of being yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I realized that through, like with my background and my education and social work, and then my overall passion for just telling people to know, ask them that there was an opportunity here to kind of help a generation that I think was forgotten a little bit with the battery setting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really interesting way to put it, but you're right, there was nothing about it. There was nothing about it, no. So what are some of the very basic problems that you see? Are there consistent problems, things that we can all do better at?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, there definitely are. One of them is not knowing our limits, and I think this comes up a lot, because I could tell you that working 72-hour weeks is not a good thing, but I'm completely different than who you are and how you like to operate. So knowing our own limits is something I think I always every single client I have. That's always where we start, because they are trying to create a life that emulates somebody else's without understanding what their own limits are. It's like night owl versus morning bear.
Speaker 2:I'm a morning person. I love the morning. I'm like your worst enemy at 6am if you are a night owl, but I work best in the mornings. I have friends that work best in the evenings. But society teaches us that we should be kind of somewhere in between in the middle, and so they're forcing themselves to create morning routines or set boundaries or do things like that. Basically, they're like oh, I'm trying to turn off work at 5pm, when really what they should be doing is not starting work until 11 and working until 7 because that's what's best for them. Yes, so understanding our limits in the sense of what are we willing to do and what aren't we willing to do there could be a little bit more clarification around those things that help as a guideline for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, and I love what you're saying because, again, it's just another way of putting yourself first and taking that time to be like no, no, you know, not, I need to be ready for a job that works from 9 to 5, but no, I work best this way, so I should put that first. Just this just popped into my mind Do you feel that you know, in the sort of post COVID era, that people are getting better with boundaries related to work? Since work changed so much during COVID, I feel like it probably got worse, really, yeah Well.
Speaker 2:I mean imagine the whole work from home movement was like not a thing, like you were really lucky to work from home pre COVID and then all of a sudden, we switched on to working from home and at no point, when we went from working in office to at home, was there any sort of communication or teaching about how to effectively set boundaries while working from home. And you're right, a lot of companies. Just all of a sudden it was like I don't know that random day in March it was like we're going home for two weeks, see you back in two weeks. And nope, I never went back. I never went back, I never stepped foot back in that office. Yeah, and at no point was there any sort of communication Like there was like, oh, don't forget to do self care.
Speaker 2:The world is hard, turn it off for a little bit, put yourself first. But there's no how. Like how to turn off your office when your office is your bedroom and your kitchen and your living room, because you live in a one bedroom apartment with your partner and four dogs, kind of a thing. Like it got chaotic, and so I think what ended up happening is the separation between work and home disintegrated and there was no education on how to balance that properly.
Speaker 2:So you had people showing up to Zoom meetings at 8am still in their pajamas, having just rolled out of bed, not turning their cameras on. If you don't want to turn your camera on, don't turn your camera on. But essentially it's like doing that, working through their lunch, sitting at their desk eating their lunch, having no communication with anybody in the outside world other than any sort of Zoom call. And then you know, all of a sudden it's 8 o'clock at night and they're like quartering takeout and then crawling back into bed just to do it all over again.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's an excellent point. I didn't think about it this way. But my husband I was doing consulting at the time, so my schedule was more flexible but my husband that was his exact experience and we had a different house at this time and our office was really, really small and he was just jammed in this office for 12 plus hours because if he wasn't in meetings he was on email. It reminds me of a story when I worked at a medical school and I remember when I finally got my first mobile phone work-related mobile phone, you know and I thought I was such a bad ass because now I had a phone and the work had given to me and I quickly realized that that now meant I was available 24 seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't that it was given to me as a cool thing, it wasn't a reward, it was so that I could be available whenever they wanted weekends, evenings and it quickly became kind of an electronic leash because I could never really forget about work, because what if somebody contacted me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's almost the exact same thing, except instead of a phone it was laptops. Yeah Right. And like all of those tech. Well, I come from a tech background, so I used to work in the tech industry and so for me.
Speaker 2:I'm like talking about, like all of those online chat things like Slack or PIME, Sure and having those. You know, when I worked in office, you closed the laptop, I took it home, but I didn't touch it until the next morning when I was back in office at 8 am. Right Now I'm at home. I have the laptop open in my kitchen. In my kitchen for those who can't see. Yeah, and I could be over in my kitchen making a coffee and here ding-ing off my laptop.
Speaker 2:Even though I've scheduled a coffee break or a lunch break, Right, it's never truly unplugged, even if you have a home office, because it's a whole different vibe. You're working from home, your home is now your office, and there's the separation is more difficult to build.
Speaker 1:Wow. Now I feel all kind of wrapped up in the idea of how do we fix this? How do we fix this, emma? Because I would imagine it's something like you said at the beginning it's different for everybody just what people are able to do and what their work is considering. It's not, as is it, as simple as setting a boundary. I mean boundary setting.
Speaker 2:I could say you have to set a boundary in that self. That's easier sometimes said than done. One of the things is getting very clear on what your work schedule is. Mm-hmm Because. I think, for a lot of people, even if you are somebody that works from like a global company and everybody is on a different time zone and everybody works different hours. Set yourself a work schedule just to even get yourself started. I want to be. I think email is about 9 am and I want to be wrapping up around 4.30,.
Speaker 2:Hard stop laptop shut down by 5. Mm-hmm. That will really help and use time right now and use timers, like you know set an alarm. Be like oh, it's work time. Oh, turn it off, doesn't matter. If you're halfway through that email to Greg, you can pick it up again tomorrow.
Speaker 2:It's 5 o'clock, it's time to do something. The other one that I found really helpful in the transition was sometimes with the difference between working you know like you're in office and you get home was the commute? Yes, like you all commuted, and in that time it was almost like a decompression switch time, mm-hmm. So I almost had to fake a commute for a while, which meant that at 5 o'clock I left my house for a 20-minute walk. These are a few of pets, or you have kids because you can take them to the park, but almost factor in that like commute where you're like putting on your coat, putting on your shoes and you're leaving the office mindset.
Speaker 2:And then, when you were doing home, you're in a home evening, decompressed mindset. Yeah. So think your comm-. You can do it in the morning too, or you can go for a quick Right Junt around the block and then you come back and you're geared up and ready to go and you go straight to your office and you sit down and start your work day.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's really fascinating because it's not just about oh, I'm going to give myself time to make a coffee in the morning. It's really replicating that traveling experience, that transition experience.
Speaker 2:Because that's when people would do that stuff like listen to their podcasts and call their moms enter grandmas. Yeah, it's like during that commute phase for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's fascinating. I hadn't thought of implementing it, but it sounds like that's going on my list because I'd never considered that before. How does it benefit us in a personal way by setting these boundaries? What are some of the positive effects of setting your own boundaries?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's going to be different for everybody and what the goal of the boundary that you're setting.
Speaker 2:But overall, if you're just someone who's willing to start saying, no a little bit more, or setting some boundaries with people, places, things that aren't serving you, the immediate response you're going to feel is you're going to feel a little bit more control. You are stepping into the driver's seat of your life, your career, your relationships. Because when you're not setting boundaries, or you're setting boundaries in the sense of a little bit more reactively, so someone says something to you and you're immediate, like there's difference between reactive and proactive boundaries. Once you start taking a proactive approach, you are immediately going to feel like you've got control.
Speaker 2:And we all crave control, even if you're a type B personality. You don't lie. You love a little bit of control. You're like knowing what's happening day to day, where you're going to do what's going to happen. Yeah that's true. Control is a big one when you actually start implementing boundaries again, depending on the goal. But a lot of times we feel relief, like a weight's been lifted off our shoulders.
Speaker 2:You're probably going to feel a little bit of confidence. Start coming in Confidence that you're making the right decisions, confidence in yourself. If you're setting boundaries around time, you'll see a difference in feeling like you've got time, a little bit more freedom to do the things that you want to do. All of a sudden, you have free time. Who doesn't love a little free time? Yeah.
Speaker 2:So a lot of those ones also. You'll probably notice you're sleeping better. You're less quick to be angry, Things like bitterness and resentment towards other people decreases. You're a little bit more patient. You become a lot more patient with people around you and situations. There's a trust building that comes Like. You start to learn to trust yourself, that you know what's best for you. When you reach a certain age if you're six, maybe listen to mom and dad. But, 26, starting to set some boundaries.
Speaker 2:That's a part of adulthood and learning to trust yourself and trust your judgment, that you know what's best for your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's an excellent point, because I'm 49 and I'm still feeling like I'm transitioning into like no, it's okay if I make this decision I've had experience in it before but you still feel odd about it sometimes. And what do you do when you have, you know, a person say that comes to you and they look dear in headlights when you mention boundaries and they might say well, if I do that, people won't like me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that I actually get that a lot, I get a lot of like oh, how can I set a boundary without upsetting someone? And the thing is, you have absolutely zero control over how someone else is going to react and or feel about your boundary. The person you're setting the boundary with has a right to feel the emotions that they're feeling, but that does not negate the fact that the boundary needed to be set.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you are, I didn't only get these with my people pleasers someone who struggles with setting boundaries with other people for fear that you are disappointing them or fear that you're letting them down or you can upset them and you just that brings you so much anxiety. There is ways to set boundaries without actually saying no. So, if that like it's kind of there is a way, it's a boundary setting is an art form. So with practice you're going to learn how to find asset. So you get to the point where you're able to set boundaries and it's almost like the other person's idea.
Speaker 2:We love a little bit of emotional manipulation just a little bit. So I have a client, or had a client, and Sunday family dinners were like the thing. It was like Sunday night you had to be at mom and dads family dinner, no excuses. It was like, and she lives like 30 minutes away, like her and her partner, but it was like a thing. She has a really high stress job and she was starting to feel really burnt out and unprepared for Mondays, which then you know, she just nobody likes Mondays. No.
Speaker 2:But having so much pressure on a Sunday to drive half an hour, stay up late, get home like she probably should, no time for herself, and so it's meeting a lot of resentment, a lot of bitterness. But her mom is a bit more of a highly sensitive person. So navigating how to communicate hey, sunday dinners I can't do anymore because of X, y and Z that was really difficult. So we had to focus on a lot of I statements which is like just generally in communication. Obviously, as the savvy communicator, I statements are probably a very big part of what you consult on.
Speaker 2:True, you know, asking the person to do you a favor. People love to help other people.
Speaker 2:So we got to the point where her statement with her mom was essentially like shame. Mom, I really wanted to let you know that I've been really struggling lately. I'm really overwhelmed at work. I'm feeling really burnt out. I think I need to take a step back from Sunday night family dinners. I know how important these are to you and they're really important to me too, but I find the drive really hard. Can we look at a different day so you can set a boundary and offer an alternative? Okay, yeah, so if you've got someone that you're worried about the reaction, provide an alternative if you're able. If you're not, they'll provide the alternative. And the other thing you know to note is that her mom still got a little upset because she felt like a tradition was ending.
Speaker 2:Her mom had a right to feel upset. Yeah. But my client had a right to protect her peace and her safe and herself by not going to every single Sunday night family dinner because work was just too much and she needed time Sunday night for herself. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I guess there's no perfect way to do it. To answer your question about how do you handle it, it's you just handle it, and there are techniques to help manage that. You know, if someone is getting overly upset, say your peace and then you need to give space because that person has some emotions and feelings that they need to work through. Using I statements can really help. Makes it feel less like a direct attack on someone and again remind yourself is like are you setting the boundary with someone or are you setting a boundary with a situation? Oh so she was setting a boundary with a situation. Whereas if you're setting a boundary with a person, it has to do with the way they talk or the way they act around you. And obviously there are some things that you can do to help manage the symptoms of setting boundaries, like the symptoms of like fear and guilt that come up when you're setting boundaries.
Speaker 2:A lot of it is self-talk which everybody. I can already hear everybody rolling their eyes because everybody hates self-talk, but reminding yourself that when you're allowed to set a boundary, you're not a bad person for setting the boundary or saying no, and it's temporary how you feel is temporary.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:You're not always going to feel guilty about this or worried about it. It's just it feels icky right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's true, and in my mind what it keeps circling back to is put yourself first, put yourself first, put yourself first. And yet, like we've been talking, it also keeps coming to my mind people might not like that I consult for a medical school and the pressure on medical students, especially to first work, the backbreaking hours that have been set, and it's better than it used to be. Now I think they're limited to something like 80 or 96 hours, but still so, even 96 hours in a week?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But sure, just keep on doing it. And the answer as to why they're doing it that way is because their superiors did it that way, and it goes way, way back until practically the beginning of time that you need to overwork in order to prove that you're dedicated.
Speaker 2:I agree, and that sentiment is still so prevalent today? Yes, the employee that shows up sick is a dedicated employee.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, one of my first jobs where I was salaried, so it didn't matter how many hours I worked. They said, well, you've realized that this is a 40-hour job, but we expect you to put in at least 55. And I said what? You're only paying me for 40 hours? And they're like right, you get it. And yes, exactly, it was like what did I do? I did it because I didn't understand that I could set a boundary, or I was afraid of the implicit threat of you won't have this job if you don't ignore this boundary. But I really like the distinction that you made about setting a boundary with a person or with a situation, and I think thinking about it in terms of oh, this isn't something that is directly, I'm not directly telling this person no or negating their feelings or whatever it is. I'm just setting a boundary on this situation or I'm just telling them they can't do this and then they can feel whatever they're feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, they can feel whatever they want to feel. I mean, when you're setting a boundary with someone and they are feeling the feelings that they're feeling, you also don't need to be the recipient of those feelings, because a lot of times that's where manipulation happens and that's where people fall back on away from their boundary that they just set. Is that?
Speaker 2:they have set a boundary, and I like to call it like you get in and out when your boundary is setting you go in, you set the boundary and you get out because a lot of times when you've said no, or it's a boundary that has to do with someone and their behavior. There's a lot. That's where emotions come up and you need to take a step back, both of you, from the situation and from the conversation, to get clarity. Because otherwise this other person may explode or they may get very upset.
Speaker 2:and then you're there, you're trying to deal with it and in order to just get yourself out of the now angry or upset person's area, you're agreeing to what they want.
Speaker 2:So in and out as fast as you can. You can always revisit. They may come to you and want to have a conversation around the boundary. You are again, are welcome to have that conversation. But you are also allowed to say no to that conversation. But get in and out because then take some space, because oftentimes if you over explain or sit there with the boundary for too long, you start to second guess yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's really true, and I know I've certainly sat through conversations that I felt uncomfortable having because, instead of, like you say, putting myself in my feelings first, I was like I have to put this person's feelings first. If I'm a good person, if I'm a kind person, I'll listen to this and take this and then everything will be okay. And it never is.
Speaker 2:It's not normally and that's kind of a hard pill to swallow. I mean, even now, as a boundary coach, I will set boundaries and I still get feelings of guilt or anxiety or worry, or it doesn't always go well. I've got down to a point where I feel confident enough in myself that I can say no to things and the guilt doesn't last as long. Or I can set boundaries with friends and I still have a hard time dealing with like, are they going to be so mad at me? But it comes with practice that, are they so mad at me? And then the second thought is you did the right thing. So it is a practice of like Am I a good person If I did this? Am I a good person?
Speaker 2:I would almost challenge that the if, because you are a good person, because of this action, you know you are a caring person because of this action, Because it's like airplane you gotta put your mask on before anybody else. So if you're constantly giving pieces of yourself, eventually all you're gonna end up giving people is the crap pieces, the bitter pieces, the resentful pieces, the angry pieces, instead of the pieces that really are a reflection of who you are. I don't know if that made any sense.
Speaker 1:That made huge sense.
Speaker 1:So one of the things just to re-summarize what you've been saying I think that I really loved and stood out to me as, like you know, putting yourself into the driver's seat of your life and I think so many of us feel that we're just careening around in the backseat and that you know we have to do these things because we have to do them and we don't think about that much more.
Speaker 1:I really like the idea of setting your work schedule, setting an alarm so that it's the alarm telling you that, I'm sorry, your half hour is up to reply to these emails or whatever, and that can take off a little bit of the guilt that you have. And I really like the advice of you don't have to say no, to set a boundary, and that there might be boundaries with situations and there might be boundaries with people, and knowing which one you're dealing with is probably, you know, a good step. And what you said at the end that if you don't set these boundaries, you end up giving people pieces and they're not necessarily the best pieces of what you have to give, you know. I think that's really profound.
Speaker 2:So it is one of those things where and I just, I literally just had a conversation about this actually Boundary setting is a skill. It's. The only way that you can get good at a skill is by first educating yourself on how to do it, and then yeah so it takes. It takes practice and practice and more practice, which is obviously sometimes not what people want to hear.
Speaker 2:But sure with every boundary you set, you're going to get a little bit stronger and a little bit more confident in it. And the relief and the joy and the freedom that each boundary will give you will basically make you addicted to it and you'll get really good at it.
Speaker 1:Okay, emma Roy, boundary coach, has been our guest today on the Savvy Communicator. Emma, I can't thank you enough for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:So, and thanks to our audience for listening today, if you like what you hear, please leave us a review, join us on Facebook and Instagram, or check out our website at wwwsavvycommunicatorcom. We'll see you next time.