Struggling with Boundaries? The Nuanced Maybe Based on Your Capacity

Most advice about boundaries says: “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no.”

 But most of real life doesn't look or feel like that. 

In this episode, we talk about why boundaries aren’t actually black and white—and why so many women (especially moms) feel like they’re failing when they try to force clear yes-or-no decisions in complex relationships and decision making. 

The truth is… most of your life lives in the messy middle.

You’re navigating your kids, your partner, your parents, your work, your capacity—and suddenly it’s not a clean “no.” It’s a “maybe,” a “not right now,” a “I want to want to,” or a “this used to be a yes, but it’s not anymore.”

We take a somatic approach to boundaries, because boundaries aren’t just something you say—they’re something you feel, notice, and respond to in real time.

Inside this episode, we cover:

•  why most boundary struggles aren’t a simple yes or no 
•  how your nervous system shapes your ability to feel and set boundaries 
•  what “micro yeses” and “micro no’s” look like in everyday life 
•  why you might not feel your “no” until later (and how to trust that) 
•  boundaries as behavior—not just words 
•  how co-regulation impacts your capacity and decisions 
•  using consent as a model for understanding the full range between yes and no 
•  soft no, sad no, and hard no—and when each matters 
•  how to set a boundary even when you feel guilt, discomfort, or doubt 
•  why overexplaining doesn’t actually prevent discomfort 
•  learning to trust yourself to change your mind 

This episode is for the woman who is thoughtful, self-aware, and carrying a lot—
 and is ready for boundaries that actually reflect her real capacity, not just what sounds good in theory.

If you’ve ever thought,
 “Why is this so hard for me?”
 or
 “Why can’t I just say no?”

This conversation will give you language, permission, and a more honest way forward.

Want to go deeper?
Catch the replay of The Motherload Workshop replay here: https://themotherhoodmentor.myflodesk.com/q4pm4wekhb

or book a drop in coaching call here: https://calendly.com/themotherhoodmentor/drop-in-1-1-support-call-clone-1

If you’re ready to stop living on autopilot and start leading your life with deep presence, I’d love to work with you. Book a free interest call here: Click Here

💌 Want more? Follow me on Instagram @themotherhoodmentor for somatic tools, nervous system support, and real-talk on high-functioning burnout, ambition, healing perfectionism, and motherhood. And also pretty epic meme drops. 

🎧  Did you love this episode? Be sure to follow and please take a quick moment to leave a review and send this episode to a friend. I'd love to hear from you on how this podcast impacted you, send me a DM or an email. 

Transcript

Why "Hell Yes" Falls Apart

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to today's episode of the Motherhood Mentor Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about boundaries and specifically about the phrase: if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no, and why that sounds really great, but doesn't work in application for most women. So let's just think about that statement for a minute. If it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no. This is one of those blanket statements, but it doesn't apply to every scenario. Because, sure, does that work when there is a very clear right and wrong, good and bad, harmful and healthy? Sure. It can apply to some scenarios. There are some scenarios where there is a very clear no boundary, but most of the boundaries that we struggle with are not clear yes and no's. There are micro yeses and micro no's. There are global no's and global yeses. There are conditional or time-based or capacity-based things that it's like it's not this total yes or no. It's this nuanced, messy middle maybes. And this is why I love the somatic approach to boundaries, is because it's not based off of a rule. It's not this strategy where you can just simply plug and play your specific boundary into a simple sentence. It's not this quote-unquote strategy. It is a living, changing relationship between you and what is not you. And one of the things that I teach women first when we are talking about boundaries, whether this is in a workshop or one-on-one work, I mean, first, before we even get to boundaries, we usually have to lay the framework of even being able to feel self. That sounds a little crazy. And yet, how often are people saying, I don't even feel like myself? I don't feel like me. How often are you in a situation, a conversation, a conflict, a moment of tension, and you don't even feel the know in you or the hesitation or the resentment until later, until after, at like like way down the road. So often we're not feeling this internal reality that you already have boundaries. So a lot of times people will say, like, oh, I need better boundaries. And it's like, you already have boundaries. I want you to start thinking about boundaries as the way that you interact with the world. It's where you end and others begin, where others end and you begin. Boundaries are the relationship between what is you and not you. And that includes the connection, right? Because we are interconnected with other people. Other people absolutely influence us. Other people absolutely impact us. We are not individual individualistic by nature. We are co-regulating animals, beings, humans. We feed off of the energy of others. Other people feed off of our energy. And sometimes that is a beautiful, wonderful exchange where you know someone impacts you and you have coffee with a friend, and it feels like medicine to the soul, and you feel like you are reinvigorated and energized, and you feel like you could take on the world, and then you spend time with another person, and it feels like they are just this vortex of need that you've been sucked into, or you feel like they just like vomited their energy all over you, or someone walks into a room and it just changes it. And the reason this is so important to start here with boundaries is because once you are able to feel it, then you are able to take action based off of it, right? When people are like, I don't know how to set this boundary or I don't know how to hold this boundary, it's because you are trying to make a boundary based off of a blueprint that doesn't fit what you need, what you want, what you value. And coming back to this messy middle piece, when a boundary is a hell yes or a hell no, they're often simpler. Right? Like a closed locked door is a very clear sign you are not welcome here, right? No contact, while it's a very, very hard boundary and very painful, is also a very clean one. It's very clear. A lot of the women that I work with, when they are dealing with boundaries with other people, they don't necessarily want all contact, full open door, or no contact. It's this messy, weird in-between where the relationship as it is is no longer working. It's no longer healthy, it's no longer serving, it's draining their capacity, it's unhealthy, and they're starting to recognize it, but they also don't feel like going no contact is the appropriate relational response for them. They don't feel ready for it, or they don't want to, or they're they're still in this process of figuring out what a healthy relationship to this other person or thing looks like. And when we use statements like if it's an if it's not a hell yes, it's a hell no, it takes away the sovereignty of recognizing that people change, relationships evolve. And sometimes relationships change for the worse. And I don't just mean this in like the dramatic family conversations of boundaries. I mean this in like you could say yes to something for your business and it's working and it's working and it's working, but then it stops working. And that yes, this thing that was a good thing, no longer feels good. It no longer feels helpful, it's no longer serving you in the way that you that it used to. And this thing that used to be a hell yes has maybe become a conditional maybe. Like I think of my boundaries to social media, and for a really long time, I really did not struggle getting sucked into the scroll. And I'm trying to think of timelines. I want to say it was like a few months ago. I can't think of when it was. I started to find, oh, it was when I was sick. It was when I was getting over being sick, and like I just didn't feel good. I didn't feel the energy to read, but I was really sick of watching TV. I had already watched like two seasons of Survivor. I was sick, like could not get off the couch, kind of sick. And even as I was recovering, I just, anyways, I found myself scrolling TikTok and my algorithm kept feeding me stuff that was so I would say it was triggering, but honestly, the reaction that I was having in my body is it was feeling numbing and dissociating, and it just wasn't serving me. And usually I loved TikTok. Usually, like I had my feed curated of like funny or you know, whatever phrase I was in, phase I was in of like therapy stuff, or really just like funny shit, just like the good kind of stuff that makes you want to stay on the internet for, or recipes, or holistic health stuff, right? Anyways, what was yes became an immediate no. This doesn't work for me. And yet it wasn't an always no. It was a temporary situational. This doesn't serve me. I don't have capacity to like have these such intense things coming up on my feed that are creating this freeze and this parallel, like this paralyzing response in me. And so for that moment, it was like, okay, this doesn't work. I need to be off. This isn't helpful. A lot of times we'll say yes to something that's good, and we won't feel the internal, oh, this doesn't work for me anymore. Or something that's a no can become a yes. Like this is a perfect example of that middle messy maybe of this is all in the range of consent. And we're gonna talk about consent in the range of sex because I think it's the most clear example I can think of because I think it will, I think it'll instantly hit and make sense for you. There is a wide range between hell no and hell yes when it comes to desire and consent. There is a big difference between enthusiastic consent of like, I am so turned on, I am ready to go, let's go, baby. And like, yeah, sure, why not? I'm open to it. Or how about the like, I want to want to? Like, I am open to it. My yes is there, but it's not just like, it's not like a hell yes, it's just like a sure, I'm available for this. And then there's the like, I want to want to, where it's like, I don't really want it. There's not necessarily a desire there for it. I don't have this full body or even partial body, yes, but like I'm open to it. Feel free to convince me. Feel free to like get me in the mood or set the conditions right. Either you doing that or me doing that, of like, oh, I want to want to, so I'm gonna make the conditions right, right? Like going to the gym. There's so many times when I think to myself, I don't really feel like it. I don't want to go. But I still go. There's this, like, there's there's a part of me that wants the result of going to the gym. There's the part of me that knows that once I do it, I'll feel better. That this is what's best for me. There are times where I want things or I don't want things or I'm having feelings and I don't want to do the thing because I'm uncomfortable. But I need to do the thing because that's actually what is best for me. That doesn't make sense in the context of hell yes or hell no. It it's it's this weird conditional maybe where it's like sometimes you have to make hard choices that are the best for you. Now, when it coming back to consent, coming back to sex, there are times where my no is a soft no. It's like a babe, I love you, and normally I really like sex. But right now, tonight, no thank you. It's like a no thank you. A no thank you is very different than like let's say a random man came up to me at Safeway and was like, let's go have sex. By the way, that's never happened to me. But like that would be a full body hell no. That would be like a fuck off. Who the hell do you think you are? Like, there needs to be some sort of fight or rage or like that, like that to me would feel so icky and harm and like I wouldn't like it. No part of me had any yes to it. But like, do we see how that kind of a no is very different than the no that I might tell my husband who's respectful and empathetic and who's not gonna push that boundary and who like can be caring and loving about it. That's very different. Or the like, you know, when people are dealing with opposite, you know, where one partner wants more than the other partner, that is sometimes a very painful no of like, I want to say yes for you, but it will feel like a self-abandonment. That's a very different type of no. Where like you can't find the yes in you, you can't find the desire, you can't find the yes, and yet it's a no. It's still a no. It's like a sad no, it's a disappointed no. I can think of so many times in my business where I have wanted something, I have been ambitious for something, I have a creative idea. Oh my gosh, you guys, the creative ideas, the things that I want to do, that I'm consistent to I'm consistently saying, not yet. Not right now. We don't have the capacity, maybe in a different season, maybe in a different day, but not right now. That's a very different response. And so we need to stop thinking of boundaries as being something we do or say or create with things or people who are bad. Even when we're talking about boundaries with people, people are complex and complicated. Your dad or your mom or your sister or your husband or your friend, they're probably not all that bad. Villains don't look in real life how they look in the movies or in books. They have redeeming qualities. Sometimes a lot of them. Sometimes they have positive intent, even if the impact was negative. You can have really good parents who tried really hard and really loved you and still have a toxic family system happening. I work with women all of the time who are like, I had really good parents, this reparenting stuff, like it doesn't, it doesn't really apply to me. And it's like you can have really good parents who still had impact on your life that is feeling like a net negative. You might be at a table with them and you don't want to leave the table, but you no longer want to eat some of the dishes on the table, right? Like there are some of the things on the table that you would like to opt out of being a part of now. That's the nuanced stuff we need to start naming and claiming and understanding when we are building the skill set of boundaries, because boundaries is a skill set, it is a muscle, it is something that you can improve on. And one of the other things that comes up a lot with boundaries that I want to name in this podcast is one of the biggest questions I get from someone is like, how do I set this boundary without feeling bad? Now, if we were working one-on-one, we might like really slow this down and pick it apart. But like my loving response to that is sometimes you just set the boundary while you feel bad. Because most, most often, not always, that feeling bad is the discomfort. And discomfort does not always mean harmful, it doesn't mean bad. But our culture has demonized boundaries and mental health. Anytime you feel quote unquote bad, I'm using quote air quotes here. Anytime you feel bad, it's harmful. You should always just feel good and grateful, right? No, there's discomfort. There's discomfort, there's grief, there's sadness, and often that is not just a healthy response, it's the appropriate response. If your dad says something that wounds you, it is a natural, normal, appropriate response to have this response of like, oh, ouch. When you are setting a boundary with a person who you love, who you want to be there to care for you, and you're having to set a boundary with them, of course that's gonna bring up grief and sadness and discomfort because you're breaking the rules of a relationship. You're breaking the roles, you're refusing to play the game that your family system asked you to play. You're saying, I'm done playing this role. I'm done relating to you or to myself or to this family or to social media or to my business. I am no I am feeling that thing in me, that consent that says, is this a hell no, or is this a hell yes, or where in the messy middle in between? What distance do I need from this thing? What protection do I need from this thing? There are so many different ways to play with boundaries. And that is the word that I love to use with women is play with boundaries because it gives you permission that you don't have to find the one boundary. I think so many women are overthinking boundaries because they think they have to come up with this perfect phrase. If I just find the right way to say it, if I just overexplain myself enough, if I just do it the right way, the right day, the right timing, it won't have to hurt. And that's not reality. Relationships are messy, people are messy, you're gonna get hurt, they're gonna get hurt, and they're that tension, that tension is supposed to be there. And oftentimes, hopefully, sometimes, when you tell the truth with people, sometimes those boundaries and that tension, it deepens the intimacy, it creates more life, it creates more connection. And so many of us were trying to avoid the thing that feels uncomfortable. We're trying to avoid that quote unquote bad feeling. When oftentimes that's the feeling that we need to be in relationship to in order to figure out what that boundary actually needs to be. And while we're on the topic of boundaries, this feels really important to say. I've said the word boundaries so many times. Ridiculous. There are very few times in real life when the women I'm working with use that word in relationship or connection or conversation to other people. Very rarely. Most of the time, especially if you are an empath, especially if you are a recovering people pleaser, and especially if you are a high-functioning codependent, you are the one who has been breaking your boundaries. You are the one who has been You are the one who is engaging in a relationship that no longer works for you. And for some of you, and I would say, especially if this is with your parents or your family of origin or friendships, it is so painful to admit that this relationship isn't working the way that it is, because you feel like you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. You have to acknowledge the complexity and the nuance and the hurt that's also happening with this person that you deeply love. With this person who probably deeply loves you. There might not be ill intent. There might not be obvious toxic, terrible behaviors. They might be a really good person that's impacting you in a way that you can no longer tolerate. There are these little micro no's, and maybe the boundary is with a conversation, or maybe it's with access, or maybe it's the way that you two are interacting. And sometimes you just have to change your behavior. And sometimes there is a conversation that needs to be had. But the conversation that is had, it depends on their emotional availability, depends on their maturity, it depends on how intimate this relationship is, how much trust is built in this relationship. Those things do matter, but most of the time we're massively overthinking it. And if we could just feel into it, the answers are fairly often simple, not easy. Not easy. And also, it's okay to start with one boundary and then end up changing it, changing your mind. It gets to be this relationship. It gets to be this living, breathing relationship, not only to yourself, but other people. That's the beautiful thing, is that you get to acknowledge that you can trust yourself enough to change your mind, to witness when something's not working, or giving yourself permission to work. You know, I'm thinking of a lot of women who either are self-micromanaging or other people are telling them, like, you do too much, you're too busy, you're doing this. And it's like some people are 10-gallon tanks, and a five-gallon tank will sometimes look at a 10-gallon tank and be like, you're holding too much, you're doing too much. But that 10-gallon tank is like, if I was holding less, I'd be bored. I like this. I like to go fast, I like to go hard, I like intensity, I like pressure, I like challenge, exploration. Those things feel good to my system. What matters is how it feels. Is it too much for your system? Does it feel good for a short time, but it's not a great long-term strategy, right? There's so many times in my mom life where it's like, I have to pivot. I have to shift my center of gravity, I have to shift my boundaries and the ways that I'm showing up because sometimes that is the healthy response. That is what my life needs. That is what my values tell me to do is to shift into higher or lower gear. And then to realize okay, this feels great for a season or for a really good reason, but it's not a great long term strategy. So, okay, this. This works for now. I just I have to keep in my mind in my life of feeling the shift of when that look no longer works. That no longer serves me. That no longer serves my family. And this ties into a gr I didn't even mean to go here, but like I see so much content made for entrepreneurial women that is the underlying story, the thing that they are either directly saying or indirectly saying is you can have it all. You can have motherhood and business and not burn out. Like don't let them tell you you can't make sure your babies see you, you know, building a business and not, you know, quitting it for them. And I get that they're trying to be inspirational and aspirational. I I get the heart of giving women permission to do more. And that's not always true. I have met and worked with many women who came to motherhood and their desire for work changed. And the reason they didn't say no to it is because they felt like they had to demonize their ambition or demonize the way their ambition was manifesting in that previous system. And they felt like they had to keep at it instead of just admitting, I don't want this anymore. I don't want to do this. You know, one of my clients said, and I've used this quote for so like for so many times, she was like, I can go 90 miles an hour. I like to go 90 miles an hour, but in this season of my life, when I'm moving that quickly, I miss my kids. I'm missing it. It all becomes a blur. I become a blur. And so for her, it's not that she can't. It's not that she won't ever. But right now and in this season, she felt like she needed to slow down. She wanted to slow down. She felt forced by her capacity and the needs of her family to show to slow down. It also needs to be given permission to pay attention to the fact that, like, in one season, it might feel really good to go really fast. And in another season, something happens, and you need to slow down, or you are going to run into a brick wall. You will burn out because capacity changes, it shifts, not just internally by what is within our control, which is usually what women focus on. We hyperfixate and micromanage our routines and our systems. And there is a reality that you do not control every lever in your life. You are going to have stuff happen in your business or your motherhood or in your kids or in your marriage or your parents or the world. Literally. There is so much outside of your control that has to factor into your capacity, which is such a big factor to your boundaries. There are times there was a time and a season in my life where I realized that if I did not pull back my energy and attention, either my motherhood or my marriage was going up in flames. I did not have capacity for more. And then there was a season in my life where I was bored. I was underwhelmed. I was under and overwhelmed. And adding more to my plate, adding a business specifically, doing work that lit me up, that made me come alive, that like brought up a new part of me. That yes built so much capacity in my life. And I felt less stressed. I felt more healthy, not just the way that I was showing up. And I became wildly more productive. Like, if you look at the way that I showed up in my life, it drastically changed for the better. But my life also felt better because I added on this thing that was actually a pretty scary yes. It was a very hesitant yes. It was just like, fuck around and find out. Like, what do I have to lose? Like, I'm terrified if I don't do it, I might as well be terrified while I am doing it. There was a hell yes aspect to me, but there was also this part of me that was scared as fuck. There was also this part of me that was hesitant and terrified and didn't want to do it. That's also part of this conversation, right? Of like, how many times do we need, do we want or need to say yes to things that feel outside of our capacity? And so therefore we can expand our capacity. When I said yes to homeschooling my daughter, it wasn't, I went to, I went to say reluctant. It was not reluctant. Hesitant isn't the right word either. I'm trying to think of like the emotional experience I was having. It was this bottom of the barrel moment where I said, this is this is going to be hard for me. And I've never felt more sure that this is the thing that I'm supposed to do in this next season. There's going to be a lot of things that I need to say no to in order to make this one yes. And some of those things that I had to say no to were really great, good, fun things that I want to say yes to. But my attention and my energy needed to go towards my daughter. And so I created capacity and I created the environment for something that I used to say I wasn't going to do. I used to be one of those moms who was like, I like all of my time. I like all of my time while my kids are at school. I like having my alone time. I like having my time to just work on my business. And guess what? That's still true. And also, I decided that in this season, I also, in fact, more importantly, my energy and attention and capacity needs to go to this right here. So I made room and I made that quote unquote no into a yes. And I give myself permission to change my mind if it's no longer working. That's the other thing with boundaries, is what the ultimate goal is, is to create this trust in yourself that you no longer feel like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. You never feel like you are stuck. You trust yourself to make decisions for reasons that you like. I like the reason why I'm choosing this. I like the reason why I'm saying yes or no. I have this discernment. I feel aligned with my values, short term and long term. And I can't see the outcome yet. I can't see what will come of this. But I like the reason I'm choosing it right now. And I trust myself down the road, if I need to, to pivot, to change my mind, to face the backlash of this decision, to have my own back. That's a decision that we have to make I will make this decision and also I'll have my back. And not just saying I'm going to stand behind it and force myself to stay in a room that no longer serves me or to stay at a table that I need to be flipping. I trust myself enough to go make space at that table and to be able to feel when and if the energy shifts, if and when I need to walk away or say something or do something. And it can be a big something or it can be a little something. I trust myself to be able to have this dynamic, alive relationship to myself and to everything that's not me. To my roles, to my relationship, to my motherhood, to my marriage, to my work. It is allowed, it is allowed to change. I am allowed to change. I am allowed to grow. I'm allowed to expand, and I'm also allowed to shrink. There's constantly this permission for expansion and getting bigger and doing more. And it's like, yeah. Also, you are allowed to want less, to feel content, to have seasons or moments where you say good enough is good enough. And then in this season, I'm gonna leave myself alone. Okay. I just had so much fun doing this podcast. I I hope you had fun listening to it. I hope it was supportive for you. And if you want to talk no, if you want to talk more about this, I am doing a live workshop Monday, April 20th. I'm spacing the time. I'm terrible at numbers off the top of my head, and I forgot to write it down. The link will be in the show notes. Sign up for this workshop with me live, or the recording will be available. So if you if you get your ticket now, you'll still be able to watch the recording. Where we're gonna talk a little bit more about this nuanced maybe. And this is really what it looks like to manage the mother load, to balance your life is this relationship to the yes, the no, the maybe, and the way it all changes and learning to trust yourself and build a life that is strong and has structure and has systems and also has flexibility, also has grace, also has some give to it. I would love to have you at this workshop. And of course, as always, I would love to hear from you your aha moments, your shares, your takeaways. I would love to hear you. Feel free to DM me or share on stories and make sure to tag me. And if you love this podcast, feel free to follow along. If this was your first time here, I'm so excited to have you. And if you've been a long listener, thanks for being here. Thanks, thanks for being a part of the podcast. So I hope you have a great time, and I'll see you next episode.