Real Self-Care, page 9
C. Over a relaxed dinner, you bring up with your partner that you have concerns about the trip. You lay out your thoughts calmly and clearly. He disagrees with you and says that you are overreacting and should be more accommodating. You don’t let it go and insist on hashing it out with him, being specific about how difficult the week will be for you, as well as the kids. After several challenging discussions, together the two of you weigh the pros and cons and decide that you will spend the money to visit but shorten the trip to four days instead of a week. (3 points)
Question 3
A close friend asks you to be in her wedding. It’s a destination wedding and would require you to be involved in the bridal party, as well as her bridal shower and bachelorette party. In order to participate fully, you’d need to go into some debt. She is a lifelong friend and you value the relationship dearly. What do you do?
A. You say yes. As it gets closer to the wedding, you come to find out how much money will be required. You end up putting the expenses on your credit card and racking up some debt. You don’t mention your financial situation to your friend, as you don’t want to add stress to her big day, but internally, you feel like you’ve been irresponsible with your finances. (1 point)
B. You recognize that you don’t have the money to participate fully in her wedding and know you are not willing to go into debt. But you feel too uncomfortable talking about money to bring it up with your friend. You really would like to be there for the wedding, so you say yes. However, as the event draws closer and closer, you feel more anxiety about your finances, and ultimately, you cancel a few weeks before the wedding. You feel guilt and sadness, and you’ve jeopardized a friendship that is important to you. (2 points)
C. You tell her that you’re not sure what to do, as you really want to be a part of her wedding, but because of what’s going on in your life, you don’t have the resources to do it. She’s understanding and very much wants you to be in the wedding. After a good conversation, you end up agreeing to be in the wedding party but will not be participating in the bachelorette party. You’re proud of yourself for how you handled the conversation and feel like you are in a good place with your friend, despite your own feelings of disappointment for missing out on the bachelorette fun. (3 points)
Question 4
You’ve got a peripheral friend you see at group gatherings who consistently minimizes or disregards your opinion, to the point of making you feel invalidated and dismissed. What do you do?
A. You ask her out to coffee individually and talk over the situation with her by expressing what you’ve noticed and how it makes you feel. While the two of you never develop a super close friendship, you notice that after this conversation, she treats you with more respect. (3 points)
B. You say nothing, stew on it each time it happens, and wonder if you are overreacting. You spend time over text message with friends who are in different social circles analyzing this woman’s behavior to see if you’re in the wrong or if she is. You ultimately continue to spend time with this group, despite increasing anxiety before and after each get-together. (1 point)
C. You say nothing but feel increasingly distressed after each group gathering. You ultimately end up distancing yourself from that group of friends, even though you did really enjoy a good connection with other women in that circle. (2 points)
Question 5
You are overwhelmed by all the things in your life, and so is your partner. You’d like to find a way to have some alone time for yourself, but you feel really selfish asking for this from your partner because it means adding to their already overflowing plate as well. What do you do?
A. You avoid bringing it up because you feel like it’s selfish to ask for alone time. But you feel resentful and periodically rage at them, never coming up with a realistic solution, and the quality of your relationship suffers as a result. (1 point)
B. You recognize that this is an issue that will only get bigger if you don’t face it head-on. You bring it up in a way that encourages you both to work together to make sure you each have small amounts of alone time. You come to an agreement that every two weeks, they’ll do dinner and bedtime with the kids, so you can go to your favorite yoga studio for a class. (3 points)
C. You bring it up with your partner and come to an agreement that it’s important for you both to have some alone time. Together you make a plan for you to have one evening “off” per month. However, whenever that evening comes, you feel guilty leaving them to tend to the household and end up not taking your time away. (2 points)
Question 6
Your friend is in a toxic work situation. She calls you complaining about her boss and her coworkers multiple times a week. You’re exhausted by her situation, which has gone on for months, and also notice that her constant complaining has not led to any action on her part. What do you do?
A. Even though texting or talking to her takes a lot of time, you say nothing, continue to take her calls, and listen to her complain a couple of times a week. You notice yourself becoming frustrated with her, but don’t mention it for fear of hurting her feelings. (1 point)
B. You notice that a dynamic is occurring whereby you feel used by your friend. The next time she texts, you pause and take some time to respond. You tell her that you’re busy that weekend and won’t be able to talk, but you’re not honest about the reason for distancing yourself. You feel guilt about not being there for her, and a bit stuck in the friendship, and are now avoiding her calls. (2 points)
C. You notice that you’re spending more time giving in the relationship than she is. The next time she reaches out, you point out what you’ve noticed and communicate that while you support her and want to be a good friend, you cannot be her therapist or her career coach. You suggest she seek additional sources of support during this time, as you don’t want this to impact the quality of your friendship in the long term. (3 points)
Question 7
Your parents give you unsolicited advice about a variety of important decisions in your life (e.g., whom to date, how to raise your kids, what job to take). In general, how do you respond to their advice?
A. While you wish they wouldn’t offer unsolicited advice and fantasize about setting them straight, you never voice your frustration. Nine times out of ten, you follow their directives because you don’t want to upset them or because you can’t tolerate knowing that they disapprove of your actions. (1 point)
B. You’re willing to consider their advice when you ask for it; however, you make your own decisions. When you decide to go in a direction that you know might cause tension, you recognize that it might cause some stress in the relationship but still move forward with your own choices. You’re able to feel secure in the relationship despite knowing they disapprove. (3 points)
C. You feel resentful of their attempts to control your life. When you make a decision you know they would not approve of, you go to great lengths to hide your choices from them. (2 points)
(Score of 7–10 points) Red: You feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and constantly on edge. You find yourself daydreaming of jumping on a plane and escaping. Paradoxically, thoughts of taking time for yourself after a loaded workday, for a walk or dinner with friends, make you want to groan. The smallest request from your boss, partner, or kids has the capacity to push you into an irritable mood. When you think about how to change your situation, your mind goes blank and you just want to take a nap.
(Score of 11–17 points) Yellow: When you’re yellow, you have periods of feeling overwhelmed, but you also have good periods when you feel in the driver’s seat of your life. You’re aware that you want to make decisions that prioritize your well-being, but you haven’t figured out how to make that space for yourself. You notice that there are discrete areas in your life in which you feel run down—in your professional life, in your personal life, or with your family—but you are avoiding difficult conversations in those areas. Making decisions in your daily life feels hard, and you may experience a significant amount of guilt when making a choice that is aligned with your own values but likely to upset family, friends, or coworkers.
(Score of 18–21 points) Green: When you’re green, you are thoughtfully making decisions about how you spend your time and energy. You feel like the agent of power in your life. You’re able to say no despite occasionally feeling guilt. You feel generous with your time and energy, and present with your family. You have clarity in your decision-making.
Now that you’ve measured your real self-care level using the thermometer, don’t panic if you are Red or Yellow. Setting boundaries and doing the work of real self-care is a lifelong practice. When I teach my patients about this work, I explain that real self-care is like building a muscle. It takes time to get the hang of it. Even if you are Green on the thermometer, during times of stress or in transitions you might find that you dip down to Yellow or Red.
For this reason, you will want to keep returning to a space of self-assessment and reflection. How are you doing with boundaries over time? Use the following checklist to judge your progress. Then pull it out again in a few weeks, in a few months, and as you move through the phases of your life. How is it going?
You might be Red if:
You feel chronically overwhelmed.
When family members, friends, or colleagues make requests, you usually don’t realize you have the choice to say no.
Small requests often make you feel irritable or angry.
You find yourself saying yes to everything, even when you are tired and overworked and feeling resentful after the fact (and sometimes you end up flaking out on important activities at the last minute).
You often fantasize about dropping everything and escaping.
You have no time for activities that help you feel better (exercise, reading your favorite books, spending quality time with friends)—and when you do find small amounts of time, you actively avoid these activities in favor of scrolling social media or napping.
You rarely have the space to make deliberate decisions about how you spend your time and energy, and your life feels largely out of your control.
You might be Yellow if:
You can say no to obligations and tasks; however, after setting a boundary you are plagued with guilt.
You notice that the only time you don’t feel guilt after setting a boundary is when someone else gives you permission to say no.
You’re aware you need to have more direct conversations with your boss or your family about division of labor or your workload—but you can’t seem to bring yourself to have those talks.
You use your vacation days and schedule alone time for yourself every so often, but as soon as you get back into your normal life, you immediately feel overworked and overwhelmed again.
You might be Green if:
You’re able to make hard decisions about how you spend your time and energy, and when guilt inevitably crops up, you don’t get stuck in it.
You recognize that it’s your responsibility to communicate your needs and preferences, and more often than not, you’re able to effectively do so.
When you need to make a hard decision, you set aside time to reflect and think about your values. You recognize that it’s not your job to please everyone else, and that you’re doing the best you can with the resources you have available.
You notice periods of feeling authentically generous toward others, and when this happens, you don’t feel obligated.
You don’t look for permission or approval from others to make decisions about how you spend your time or energy.
Red, Yellow, or Green, we’re all starting somewhere. If you’re just realizing how much work you have to do, rest assured that you can get to Green. But like anything we want to get better at, setting boundaries requires practice and—as you’ll see—some essential skills.
As you move through this chapter, reflect on the following questions:
1. When does saying no or setting boundaries come most easily for you?
2. Are there any common factors in these situations (people, places, or things)?
3. Are there situations in which it feels consistently impossible to say no or to set a boundary?
4. What supports have helped you in the past when you knew you needed and wanted to say no, and yet were hesitant to speak up?
SKILLS FOR SETTING BOUNDARIES
In this next section, I lay out four critical skills for setting boundaries. Start small, picking one skill at a time, so that you can build up your muscle. As you move through stressors and transitions in your life, return to this section, as you might find new areas that apply.
Put Guilt in the Background
My patient Tonya, thirty-nine, was newly postpartum with her first child during the pandemic and was struggling with family members who wanted to come “help” after she had her baby. Tonya and her husband both came from close-knit Jewish families who placed a strong emphasis on quality time together after the arrival of a new baby. Because her baby was born with health issues, Tonya’s pediatrician had told her that they should not have any visitors who required plane travel for at least two months, as a safety precaution.
Tonya was not the least bit confused about what she wanted to do—she wanted to follow her pediatrician’s recommendations. The question was whether she could give herself permission to communicate this boundary. She wondered: “Can I tolerate the guilt that will come if I set this boundary?” She knew for a fact that her mother-in-law was keen on seeing her first grandchild, and given her father-in-law’s health, Tonya also knew they didn’t have all the time in the world. If she said no, the guilt trip was likely to be thick. Add to this the Jewish cultural norms and the dynamics of her extended family, and Tonya felt stuck.
I frequently see women struggle with guilt tolerance, as Tonya did. Facing guilt requires accepting the fact that we cannot control and are not responsible for the emotions of other people. To effectively say no we must learn to tolerate other people’s disappointment and trust that it is not a moral failing on our part. Because many of us did not develop this muscle growing up, it’s not unusual for it to feel uncomfortable when we start setting boundaries as adults.
So much of the suffering I see in my practice is in women trying to “get rid of” guilt or avoid feeling guilty—they see the guilt as a giant red flag that they need to drop everything and attend to so it will go away. But this doesn’t work. In trying to avoid guilt or fighting with your mind to stop feeling that way, you are still engaging with guilt and letting it (or the avoidance of it) control you. The goal is not to stop feeling guilty, but instead, to turn down the volume and not let guilt control your decisions. It means seeing the guilt not as a giant red flag but as a faulty “check engine” light—something that’s always there but operates primarily in the background. You don’t want to let it take up extra energy or have you running to the mechanic in a panic. Sure, it means something—but it doesn’t mean everything.
In other words, guilt does not need to be our compass. It can just be a feeling in the background while we learn to reframe the discomfort as a signal that we’re taking responsibility for our own emotions. As we discussed in Part I, guilt is pretty much always there. It comes from outside us, from the contradictory expectations that are put on women by a culture that asks us to serve others without taking up any space of our own. That feeling of chronic guilt is a way for women to dismiss themselves and make their own thoughts and feelings small.
When Tonya felt guilty about setting a boundary with her in-laws, she was “hooked” by the guilt. Her mind interpreted it to mean that she was in the wrong for voicing her preference. In our work together, Tonya was able to create space from her feeling of guilt using a practical strategy from acceptance and commitment therapy called cognitive defusion, which fosters psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is a clinical term that describes the capacity to develop a curious and open-ended relationship with your thoughts and feelings. When you have psychological flexibility, you recognize that no single thought or feeling is the capital-T truth. Cognitive defusion is a specific technique to build psychological flexibility. When a difficult thought arises, instead of coming from it, practice looking at it. In essence, cognitive defusion (and, in turn, psychological flexibility) is a process of creating space between ourselves and our thoughts and feelings, so they have less power over us. It’s like watching the ocean instead of being pulled by a riptide. Instead of mistaking guilt as a moral judgment on our character, we can recognize guilt for what it is: a symptom of systemic failures.
QUICK COGNITIVE DEFUSION STRATEGIES
In the same way we can set boundaries with people and situations, we can also set boundaries with our mind (i.e., our thoughts and our feelings)—and thus feel mental separation from overwhelming feelings of guilt. Like we just discussed, cognitive defusion is a strategy that effectively separates our mind from ourselves. By practicing the following thought exercises, all of which come from acceptance and commitment therapy, over time you will spend less energy fighting with your feelings of guilt and ultimately feel more confident when setting boundaries. Here are some ways to practice cognitive defusion:
