Boundaries

Hey friend, welcome back to the Emotional Revolution Podcast! Today, I’m diving into a topic that can truly change your life and business—boundaries. But we’re flipping the script on how you think about them. 

Instead of focusing on saying no to others, we’re talking about the power of saying YES to yourself. In this episode, I’ll show you how setting healthy boundaries is about protecting your energy, avoiding burnout, and creating space for what truly matters. Whether it’s your time, creativity, or business growth, we’ll explore practical ways to prioritize yourself. By the end, you’ll have the tools to honor your own needs and set boundaries that empower you to thrive. Join me as we dive deep into how saying yes to yourself can lead to a life of success and well-being. Don’t forget to share your wins with me using #EmotionalRevolution!

Transcript

Hey you, welcome back to the Emotional Revolution Podcast. I'm Kayla Birch, and today we're diving into something that I truly believe can totally change your life and business, and that is boundaries. So I know the word boundaries can sometimes feel very restrictive and even harsh, but I want to go into... the fact that setting strong boundaries is really about saying yes to yourself. So we're not focusing on the no to others today. We're focusing on the yes to yourself. So it's about protecting your energy, avoiding burnout and building the success that you truly want. And so in today's episode, we are flipping that script on boundaries. So instead of focusing on that, no, we'll talk about what you're saying yes to your wellbeing, your time, your creativity, and of course your business growth. 
So I'm going to share how healthy boundaries allow you to create space for what truly matters and give you some practical ways to start prioritizing yourself today. So let's dive right into it. So I think with boundaries, we oftentimes focus on that no. We always think to have a boundary, there has to be a no. And yes, that's true. But one of the biggest misconceptions about boundaries is actually the yes part of it. Because when we are saying no to something, we are saying yes to something else. When we were saying yes to something, we're saying no to something else. But I think what really gets very confusing and convoluted with boundaries is that we really are hardly ever saying yes to ourself. So we are saying yes to certain versions of ourselves or even certain ideas, or we're saying yes to this version. 
but really it still feels like a no because we're doing it maybe out of spite. We're doing it out of obligation. There's so many different, we're doing it out of conditioning. There's so many different reasons why we may be saying yes to ourself. That's actually not a true authentic yes. So I know you're like, Kayla, what are you talking about? We're going to get into all this today and we're what that yes really is and how you can really know if you're saying yes to yourself or if you're responding out of a place of like conditioning. And so one big thing, another big misconception about boundaries is that boundaries are selfish. And so we want to shift that to boundaries are about honoring myself. So I always have a really different look on boundaries and I always have. And I think that I don't think that your world can revolve around anyone but you because you are you. 
So everything is always from your point of view. It's always from your perception. It's always from your perspective. It's always from your eyes. You can't see the world through any eyes but your own. So of course the world revolves, your world revolves around you because you are literally the center of it. You are it. And so that's not selfish. That's true for everyone. So that doesn't mean I have to now go be the center of somebody else's world because Because I have this awareness that I absolutely cannot be the center of somebody else's world. They are the center of their own world. And I can respect that within them. And I can respect that within me because I can see, of course, I'm the center of my own world. It's my world, right? It's my world. And other people are just living in it. And then if you look at it from the other person's point of view, it's their world. And I'm just living in it. That's where we get to here. So we're shifting from boundaries are selfish to boundaries are natural, right? 
There's a natural boundary between me and another. That's how we're looking at it today. That's the conversation we're having today. And we're really looking at honoring that yes to yourself. And so why does saying yes to yourself matter? Well, why does it really even mean anything if we are saying yes to ourselves or yes to somebody else? So when you are saying no to yourself repeatedly, over and over and over, then you can't set clear, solid boundaries with yourself because you are burning out. You're overworking. You're over committing. You're overextending. Now, if you can relate to that, this is going to be a really good conversation for you. Now, if you feel like you are getting better at your yeses and nos, still stick around because we're going to go into some different concepts to even strengthen that even more and to help you understand why 
why this matters to you and also really challenge that yes. Is it a conditioned yes? Is it a spiteful yes? Or is it a really true authentic yes from your true self? So saying yes to yourself really matters because if you're not saying yes to you, then you're not really operating in the world in a way that you want to. So everything is always going to feel like you're coming from a place of lack. Again, you're overworked. right? You're feeling exhausted. You're blaming other people for your happiness because you just keep having to say yes. So when I talk about not a true authentic yes, one of the things that I like to talk about here is kind of like that self-care movement that we all have or a part of where it's like, I'm going to say no to that, but I'm going to say yes to things like getting my nails done or the bubble baths or the massages and all of that. And 
That's not what we're talking about here. Those things are great, but they are just surface level yeses. Saying yes to ourselves means we are actually truly honoring our authentic voice. We know our values. We are standing up for that. We are not falling into somebody else's patterns. We're not just saying yes in spite of our own beliefs. That's the yes we're talking about, right? And so if we don't have the boundaries with ourself, we can't have a boundary with another. So with boundaries, there's two sides, right? We have a line and you're on one side and somebody else is on another. And so if you say, well, somebody else won't uphold the boundaries I'm setting. Well, who's allowing that? Who's on the other side of that boundary? So oftentimes that line gets pushed back and back and back and back, not because the other person isn't respecting it because they're not. 
but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about what you can control, which is you respecting your own boundaries, you respecting the line that you've drawn, you respecting the yes to yourself. And when you actually start saying yes to yourself, and it's not just no to somebody else, things change, right? Because that line gets stronger. It starts to feel more, more prevalent. It starts to feel more power. It's more empowering because we're saying yes to ourselves and not no to somebody else, right? It's not something that's in spite of somebody else, or I shouldn't have to be doing this. You're saying, I don't want to be doing this. And so I'm not going to do it, right? So boundaries can mean so many different things and it can look like so many different things in your life, but 
So it can be, you know, this feeling of you standing up for your own self. That's a boundary. So you voicing what you believe is true. And I'm not talking about being confrontational just to be confrontational. I'm just saying that we're just not allowing certain people in our lives to, you know, continually speak over us or belittle us. And we make that about ourselves. So that's a really important aspect to know is that whenever we're not setting that boundary, It doesn't mean that these other people are upholding it. It means that you're not believing what's happening on the other side. So I want to make this a lot more clear when I talk about this very specific boundary of not allowing somebody to talk down to you. Because here's the hard truth. You can't control how someone speaks to you. You cannot control how they speak to you. You can ask them not to speak to you that way, but that does not mean that they're going to change that behavior and that output. 
So when it comes to boundaries, what that means is that you respect yourself enough not to believe what they're saying. So if someone's telling you that you're not good enough, your boundary is that you don't believe it and you don't keep putting yourself in this situation when you have to hear it. And so when I talk about speaking up for yourself, it doesn't always have to be, I say it in the external world. It can just be for yourself. You speak up internally to yourself, right? So where things get a little more convoluted, a little more confusing is because it doesn't mean we're always just outwardly saying what we think, but we're respecting ourself to remove ourselves from situations. We're respecting ourselves not to fall into patterns of other people. And we are definitely respecting ourselves not to take somebody else's belief about us and adopt it as our own. 
This is what I'm talking about when I'm saying we're saying yes to ourself. We're saying yes to us. We're saying yes to our ability to operate in this world without somebody else changing our opinion of ourself. That's a boundary. And that's a boundary we don't talk about a lot. I don't know. It hardly ever gets talked about, if at all. That's the boundary you need to be setting is not allowing other people's expectations and opinions. of you to become your opinions and your expectations and your judgments of yourself. And when you hold that boundary, that yes gets really strong. So when we're standing up for ourself, remember, it's not always about what comes out of our mouth, but it's what goes on in our brain and our emotions and our body. And so we're not attaching ourselves to these things. We're creating that separation. We're upholding our end of the boundary by not 
falling victim to somebody else's opinion. And I think that's a really important part of boundaries because a lot of times what happens in boundaries is somebody tries to cross that line and then we get really defensive and we get really, we start to push back and then we start to fall out of alignment. What's really true for us. Well, what's true for us is that we need to honor our yes to ourself and our yes to ourself was that we weren't going to, I don't keep showing up when they're, not, they're not, we're doing all the work on our end and they're not doing anything. Well, what do you do with that? Well, I'm saying yes to myself and I'm only going to do the work that I committed to. And then we'll have to see how that goes from there. And that is when you have to speak up, right? Somebody else has something that they need to be doing. You have to be able to articulate that. And I can promise if you start articulating things in a way where you aren't just defensive, 
so you're not coming at it from that defensive state, things will start to shift on the other side, right? The other person doesn't immediately get armed. They can sometimes allow that aspect in here. So now I hear a lot of, Kayla, you don't know my boss or my mother-in-law or this person or my spouse, right? So there's a lot of different caveats to this, right? With boundaries. But the thing is, is that the consequence of not saying yes to yourself, means you're not setting boundaries with you. It means that you are suffering inside because you're not actually living the life that you want to be living. And so this really comes down to really making sure that we're not putting our happiness in somebody else's hands. Our happiness isn't on the other side of that boundary line. So our happiness doesn't just lie when somebody else upholds our boundary. It only comes when we uphold our boundary, right? We're not harboring resentment or overwhelm. 
right? We're not blaming somebody else, right? We're not continuing to do these things of perfectionism. We're not changing who we are or overextending ourself to please somebody else because our happiness we realize doesn't lie on the other side of that boundary. It lies where we're at our side of the boundary with what we can control and what we're doing and how we are showing up. So it's a completely different way to look at our boundaries and and the relationship to boundaries. And the relationship to boundaries has to come through the relationship to yourself first. So you have to really start to understand the emotions and the ideas that come up with this. So we always go back to that TRM method. And if you're not familiar with this, go back to watch episode one. I talk all about that in that episode and a resource for you there. But we have to understand what this means to us, right? What is it? What are the signs that I have that keep me to over committing? 
What are the signs? What are the beliefs that I have and the emotions that are attached to me, people pleasing? What am I trying to save myself from? What's the protection built in here with my payoff? And why am I not honoring my yes? Why can I not say yes to myself? Why you can't say yes to yourself is always going to be wrapped up in everything I just talked about. The beliefs behind it, the emotions attached to it, where it came from, and your protection, right? That's always gonna be wrapped up in there. How do I say yes to myself here? And how do I understand whose voice this is? All right, one of the really common things is that we are often operating, not often, we are operating out of our conditioned responses. So these are all of the things that we've been told to think or believe, whether we were directly told that or we picked it up from our environment, right? 
right? From our external environment. These are things that we conditioned ourselves for, right? So a really good example of like overwhelming burnout would be something like whenever you're a kid in school and you don't have any autonomy and when something's done, right? And you just have to pump out this really perfect essay in this amount of time when maybe you were really struggling and you didn't want to you know, you wanted your parents to be happy and proud of you and you wanted your teachers, you wanted that A, you wanted this, you wanted to look like you were successful to your peers and smart. And so you overextended yourself and you beat yourself up and you criticized yourself and you went through all these different aspects because you rewrote it or you did this or you changed this or you were paralyzed by fear because you wanted the output to be so good, right? So we're conditioned for these responses in a lot of different ways, right? We're conditioned with if I 
don't speak up, then I'm liked, right? Then my parents are happy or my teachers are happy or my friends are happy because I'm just going along with the flow. So you're very conditioned for your responses. And so we don't quite understand why we're doing the things we're doing or why we're not doing the things we want to be doing. But our yeses often come from those conditioned responses. So you have to ask yourself very clearly, okay, How can this shift for me? How can I recognize what's my real voice here? What do I really think about this? What do I really think about doing all of these things? And what am I scared of over and over and over if I was to say no? Now we're going to talk about the no because the no is important here because we have to understand what you're scared of for the no for you to be able to say yes to yourself. So what happens if... 
You are not somebody who's always there for everyone else in your life. What happens then? What would that mean about you if you're not always showing up for everybody else? Well, that sounds like it would probably be devastating, right? Because you're a person who has identified with always being there for others. You have identified with always being able to handle everything, right? You've identified with those things. And when you identify with them and we start to talk about taking them away, it feels really uncomfortable because what are you left with? Well, you're left with this idea that other people aren't going to like you. They're not going to be proud of you. They're not going to be friends with you anymore. So we can't say yes to ourselves and say no to somebody else because the yes has to be to other people. And you see how we are going full circle back to... 
Putting our happiness in somebody else's hands. So when we start to shift that yes, and it's yes to ourselves, not in spite of anyone else, but we're saying yes to our own happiness. We're saying yes to how we bring peace and joy into our own life. And we start to begin to shift that relationship to our thoughts around the boundary. And so think about some boundaries that you need to put in your life. What is it that comes up? How can this be different for you? What needs to shift? So I had a client ask, I've set a boundary around not checking work emails after hours, but I keep slipping and responding because I don't want to seem unprofessional. So how can I stick to my boundary without feeling like I'm falling behind? So I wanted to bring this up today because it's such a prevalent thing. It 
shut your stuff down right you're done at five, you're done at five. Wow. Easy said. Totally much easier said than done. There's so much more behind this question that you have to be able to ask yourself, right? So we're going to use this as a great example, and i want you to either reflect directly on this or bring up your own. But so i've set a boundary around not checking work emails after hours, but i keep slipping and responding because i don't want to seem unprofessional. Well, there's a lot of beliefs wrapped into that, and there's a lot of identity wrapped into that. So the identity is that you're a very professional person, right? You are very professional and I identify with being professional and I identify with people pleasing. I want other people to be happy and I want other people to think I'm professional. And so this is the idea that I've created in my brain. This is the story that's been created that this is what makes me professional is by always showing up for other people. When other people actually might think that what makes them professional is their ability 
So you have to also realize that your stories attached to your actions are solely yours. That's why your world revolves around you and theirs around theirs because they have their perception and you have yours, right? So not checking work emails. And I love the phrase that I keep slipping because that really shows that there's an awareness of, I don't want to be doing that, but I'm doing it. So then you have to ask, what are you gaining by doing this? What are you gaining by responding? Well, you're gaining what seems like you're always on time. You're very speedy in your responses. You're probably getting a lot of attagirls from this. There's so many different areas that are here that we have to evaluate. Why does that make you feel happy? And why are you saying yes at the expense of yourself? Why does somebody else's happiness, why does that outweigh your own happiness? Why? That's a really important question to ask yourself. Why can I not be happy? Why do I care more about other people's happiness than I do myself? 
Because I'm overworked. I'm overextended. I feel like I'm falling behind. So what this says in this question is, how do I stick to my boundary without feeling like I'm falling behind? So that's a cue right there. If you feel like you're falling behind because you don't respond to an email in the evening and it's not there when you wake up to respond to it the next day, there's also another piece to this of, We create our own suffering cycles. So we create our own chaos. So we create the attachment to feeling like I'm falling behind. So this is really true for me. So I always liked to create these situations. I didn't do it consciously. Also put that out there and remember, these aren't just conscious things you're doing. They're very subconscious. They're in the back of our mind and we don't understand that we're doing them, but we can bring awareness to them and start to see it more clearly. Okay. So I would create these situations where I would procrastinate. 
I would procrastinate. I would say yes to all these different things in my life. I already had four kids. I was doing a lot. I was trying to build a business. I was running a nonprofit. I was doing all these things. So I was, I was always saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I would wait to the very last moment and then guess what would happen? Well, there'd be a lot to do. And so I, that would rush, rush, rush, rush, rush. So I could be the hero in the story. So So, oh my gosh, I have all this stuff to do, but look at me, I'm doing it. So I created these situations where I could overcome, right? Where I could be the victim and the hero in the same story. And so that's what we do for this example of the checking our work emails. We become the victim to everybody else in their timelines. And we become the person that is now the hero or the self-sacrificing person that always sacrifices themselves to keep others happy, right? 
That is us saying no to ourselves. That's yes to somebody else and no to ourselves. That's no to our own happiness. And you also have to remember that there's a little piece of you that is getting a lot out of that. And that is actually feeding the fire within you. And that's why you keep doing this, right? That's why we always talk about payoffs. So how do you stick to that boundary without feeling like you're falling behind? You recognize that what is behind. You start to question what is behind. What is my yes to myself here? How can I now say yes to myself and uphold a boundary? And it's not about the emails. All right. That's the thing here. It's not about the emails. The yes to yourself is about actually honoring you, honoring the boundaries that you set for yourself and believing that you don't have to respond to an email to be professional. You don't have to worry about what the other person thinks. You only need to worry about what you think. That's 
the yes that we're looking for, right? The yes is to yourself and about what you think, right? So now we can just split this apart and you can realize and see here that it's not about the external. It's not about the email, right? It's not about that. It's about you saying yes to you and yourself and your values and believing and trusting in yourself and And not relying on somebody else to tell you you're doing a good job and you tell yourself you're doing a good job. So there's so much into boundaries. It's so much more than saying yes and no. And we don't often go into that. We don't learn these things. So what I want you to do is I want you to understand why you're saying yes. And I want you to understand why you're saying no. And I want you to see how those two play together. If you're saying yes to yourself... 
You're saying yes to yourself. You're not just saying no to somebody else in spite of them. So what you'll start to realize is that yes, even the no's feel like yeses, right? Because the yes is back to yourself. But you know where it's coming from. You know it's not this conditioned response of this is how you get the praise. Like for the client question, it was the praise came from always being responsive. Right? So you can praise yourself by saying, I don't have to respond on somebody else's timeline. I can respond on my own timeline. I can respond when it fits for me because I do my job and I am a professional and I take care of myself as well. So we start to shift that conditioned response. What told me that this is what's professional? So question everything. Just start to question things in your life. Why do I think this? 
Why do I believe this? And this is for what is perceived more negative and even perceived more positive in your life. Just question it. Why do I believe this? And the more you're questioning it, the more you're getting to know yourself. And the more you get to know yourself, the tighter your relationship gets with yourself. And the closer you are to you, then you can say yes to you because you know what you're saying yes to. You know where it's coming from. So let's go into some more practical things. So we have this big idea, this much deeper sense of looking at boundaries, which is so, so, so, so, so important. And then let's just go into really prioritizing what truly matters to you. So you need to, one, like I just said, come into that right relationship with yourself. You need to understand yourself. You need to understand the conditioning. You need to understand the responses. And then you can truly 
prioritize what matters to you. Well, if it really matters for you to have that evening off so you can spend time with your family and you can be fully present with them, then that's what really matters to you. And so you've identified where that yes needs to be. That yes needs to be to yourself to honor that value you have of family time. And so you're starting to bring this back into a very practical sense of really understanding what that is. What are those core values that you have? What are the things that are really important to you? Is it presence? Is it family? Is it connection? Is it business growth? Those can be priorities as well, right? You know, being a hard worker, but you can separate, you can't do all of these things at one time. And just because you're not responding at nine o'clock to an email does not mean you're not working hard, right? That's when we start to really understand the values and identifying what that yes is to self by understanding what truly matters with those core values and setting and creating the space to set the boundary. And again, the boundaries with yourself first and foremost. 
So then you create those boundaries that protect your yes. So instead of saying, you know, no, no to everything, how do I create boundaries that allow me to say yes to my needs, my passions and my goals, right? So now we're starting to really define and understand how we're saying yes to ourself and how it aligns with needs, passions and goals. And then again, this always comes in with getting that right relationship with self by understanding yourself, right? And then ask yourself right now, what's one area where you need to set a boundary to honor your energy and your time, right? That's what is really important. And then we talk about communicating those boundaries as a form of self-respect, as a form of self-love, right? So how can I communicate my boundaries clearly and not as a rejection of others, but as a way to respect myself and to truly show up in my relationships, to truly show up in my business, right? How can I communicate that where I'm not being defensive? 
like we talked about, right? Where I am saying, no, this is true for me. This is what I need to express. It's how I express myself with others. And then where in my life and business, am I saying yes to things that don't align with my true priorities? And then also ask yourself, what is one area where you can, so ask yourself, what is the one area where I can set a boundary to start saying yes to myself this week? And I would absolutely love to hear about this. because this is where we wrap up today's episode. So I hope this gave you a fresh perspective on boundaries and really a different way to look at boundaries and how to say yes to yourself, but understanding where that yes comes from. And so my challenge for you is to find an area where you can set a boundary this week, one that really allows you to say yes to your own energy, to your own creativity, and to your own well-being. 
And I want to hear your wins as always. I love hearing from you guys. So use that hashtag emotional revolution. And I want to know how you're honoring yourself. Tell me how you're going to honor yourself this week. And from here on out, not just the week, we're not stopping at this week. So if this episode resonated with you, please don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss what's coming next. And remember boundaries aren't about shutting others out. They're really about creating space to thrive. So I'll see you in the next episode.