Setting Boundaries & Feeling Time Starved as a Caregiver Artwork

Getting Under The Surface (GUTS)

Getting Under The Surface is a podcast that helps listeners improve their mental, physical and emotional health by digging into the connections between mindfulness, meditation, self-care and relationships — including the relationship we have with ourselves. Topics covered include: anxiety, burnout, caregiving, consciousness, grief, illness, loss, meditation, mindfulness, self care, stress, and trauma. Your podcast host, Joey Donovan Guido, is a certified Teacher of Presence Life Coach who works with people to help them be in the present moment more, instead of being ruled by thoughts and emotions. This has an array of benefits, as it helps individuals approach whatever they’re dealing with in life from a place that’s less anxious and stressed — and more calm and connected with their deeper selves.

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Getting Under The Surface (GUTS)

Setting Boundaries & Feeling Time Starved as a Caregiver

January 28, 2026 • Joey Donovan Guido • Season 3 • Episode 4

0:00 | 4:18

In this short episode of the GUTS podcast, I cover the topic of boundaries with a focus on:

Setting clear boundaries with yourself
The effects of poor boundaries, including erosion of a caregiver's mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual life
Overwhelm
How programs like The Let Them Theory can be helpful, but easily misconstrued as a hard-core philosophy
Being the proverbial "last man standing," knowing if you don't help your loved one — nobody will
The power of acceptance in sucky situations

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ABOUT JOEY
Joey is a certified Teacher of Presence Life Coach, having studied with Eckhart Tolle at The School of Awakening. He has also studied, and practices, Native American spirituality, Buddhism, and the teachings of Ram Dass. Joey has been practicing mindfulness and meditation for many years, and is a long-time student on the subjects of self-care, neuroplasticity, trauma, psychology, spirituality, goals, and relationships.

LEARN MORE
Learn more about Joey, his life coaching practice, or book a complimentary discovery call by visiting his website.

Welcome to the Guts Podcast.

My name is Joey Donovan-Guido, and today I want to talk a little bit about setting boundaries and feeling time-starved.

Setting clear boundaries, first and foremost with myself, has been something that's been on my mind a lot lately. And I realize that at least sometimes the answer has to be no to someone you love and care for, even when you want to help.

Without clear boundaries, things can erode.

Your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual self can start to crumble as a caregiver, or even if you're not a caregiver, if you don't have clear boundaries.

I've been feeling a lot of overwhelm that my boundaries are not properly set with work and life And but I started thinking maybe maybe I'm looking at the concept of boundaries wrong.

Let me explain.

I just started reading the book, Let Them, by Mel Robbins. What it made me think, the first thing that came to mind for me was that this book and other books that have similar philosophies can easily be misconstrued into these hardcore black and white philosophies that are impossible to sustain.

So in other words, in my case as a caregiver to my wife, I'm often the only one that can do what she needs — whether it's taking her to a doctor's appointment, cooking, or driving her to and from work if she's having vision problems ... And I started thinking about that, like what if you're the only one who can do it? What if there's nobody else and you're the last man standing?

Should you let them suffer? Should you "honor your boundaries," when someone else is in constant pain?

When you're the only option, sometimes the best option for you is acceptance.

In other words, what do you do when you have nowhere else to turn?

Well, what I do is I turn to the Universe.

And I do my best to tune into consciousness.

I practice acceptance as best I can and I make space over and over throughout the day. And for the most part, I'm all right until I hit that critical moment where fatigue sets in. And then all of a sudden it feels impossible to make space, to be in acceptance again of the fact that, I might not be able to do that billable work today, even though it's gonna help my client, even though it's gonna bring more money into our family.

It just feels impossible in that moment to accept the fact that that's not going to happen, right? And I start to feel emotionally wrecked.

And what sounds, at least on a superficial level, kind of silly is what I work on next is accepting that I'm having trouble accepting.

It's important to note that when this happens to me or to you, that it's not a sign of failure. It is a sign of being human. Being a tired human who at that moment is at their limit. Not forever, just at that moment. We just don't have the bandwidth to make more space and be in acceptance of the situation that quite frankly sucks.

And that's okay.

Thanks for listening and many blessings to you.