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The Famous Therapist Who Drops Golden Nuggets On Instagram Says This Skill Is the Key to Personal Freedom and Growth.

Boundaries are hard to get a handle on, and given the Supreme Court’s deadly ruling on Friday overturning Roe, learning how to recognize them, draw them, and push back against efforts to dismantle and control our basic human-rights boundaries, is now more important than ever.

On March 2, I published a piece on boundaries called Building Better Boundaries Begins With Building Better Self-Esteem. It was based on the book Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, written by my colleague here at Bulletin, the esteemed psychologist Dr. Nedra Tawwab.

On Instagram, Dr. Tawwab offers her 1.5 million followers "secrets from a therapist" and gives abundant examples for what a healthy conversation or dynamic should sound like.

On April 26, Dr. Tawwab and I hopped on Instagram for a live conversation. Today's “How to Live” newsletter is (an edited) transcription of that conversation; I provide a link to the actual live conversation (if you want to watch me nervously swaying back and forth as I talk to someone who I very much admire).

I hope providing the transcript is helpful, and that it leads you to learning something valuable and enlightening.

And, most importantly, I hope that you are doing okay today.

AMANDA STERN: I’m early because I’m anxious that I'm gonna get this wrong. You want to see my dog? She wants treats. This is Busy. She has no boundaries whatsoever. None whatsoever. I'm really excited to talk to Nedra who I see here. Hold on. Nedra. are you here?

NEDRA TAWWAB: How are you?

AS: I’m really good. I'm so happy to see you. I am a huge fan. This is very very exciting for my entire household, which includes me and my dog, who is rolling on the floor.

Thank you for for doing this. Everyone's very excited to talk about boundaries and burnout. And also, I just want to say that I love your newsletter, Nedra Nuggets and for those of you who don't follow or subscribe, you should do it. When you get off this.

Okay, so first things first, I want to talk about boundaries based on this book of yours (Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself) that I read and devoured. Can you define for people what a boundary is?

NT: Yes. Boundaries are needs, expectations, desires. I'm constantly expanding this definition, by the way.

Expectations and desires that help you to feel safe and comfortable in your relationships with yourself and others.

Others are not just people; others is social media. Others is your work environment. Others can be your pet, and many other things, but boundaries can be verbal, they can be behavioral, and most importantly, we need to speak them as well as behave them.

So when I talk about speaking your boundary it's what we typically do, right? So we say to people, I would like blank, or I need blank, but sometimes doing your boundary is turning your phone off because you do not want to be disturbed. So there's more than one way to set a boundary, and boundaries can penetrate many areas of life.

AS: You know, it's interesting because I find it's very easy for me to know what my boundary is, and it is monumentally difficult for me to say it. So it's like the distance between knowing and saying is just… it’s so hard. Why is it so hard? Do you have an idea for why it's so hard?

NT: It is so hard because from an early age, we are taught to consider what other people think and feel; how we present to them, what we say that might trigger or offend them. And so we start to understand that we can't be honest with people, we can't really tell them what we need; like they will get upset at us.

And that becomes the worst thing ever to an adult to have someone upset at you; to have someone mad or not like you when—you know, I saw a quote online that "Some people will say that I'm kind"—I'm paraphrasing here, but "Some people will say that I'm kind and some people will say that I'm mean; both people are correct, because I treat people accordingly." So there are people who will not like you, and it might be for good reason.

Like if you say oh my gosh, I don't like her because she won't talk to me anymore. It's like okay—tell them why.

AS: Exactly. I think also a lot of people -and when I say a lot of people, I'm just saying me—have a worry, or an anxiety, that when you tell someone what you're upset about that they're gonna start providing evidence for why they didn't do what you said, or why you don't feel what you feel, and so it's a complicated relationship between feelings and facts, and I think that people confuse facts and feelings constantly.

But when you're talking with a friend or a partner about what you need, and they come at you like a lawyer, you know, what's the person supposed to do when the natural inclination is just to shut down?

NT: We have to communicate to people that you don't have to like my feelings to respect them.

Like you don't have to agree with how I feel about something. We're so used to saying, "Is it okay to feel this way, is this okay? What do you think about this? Should I feel that?"

It's like whatever you are feeling is what needs to be felt. So you don't have to get other people on the same page as you because everyone has a different experience, which you might find offensive.

I might say, "Well, I think they were just being honest." So it's really dependent on the person. So, my feelings are valid, and other people's feelings are valid, right? So if I say that I am upset about something, and you try to talk me out of what I'm feeling, you are violating an emotional boundary because you shouldn't tell me how to feel about things. Because it's so personal. My feelings are based on me, not you and your thoughts, but me and my thoughts.

AS: What is the relationship between boundaries and codependence? Maybe we should define codependency.

NT: So codependency is this extreme level of enmeshment where we lose our selves in an effort to take care of other people. This is an interesting word on the internet. It gets a lot of buzz-attention (imitating people on the internet) "You're codependent! No, you're codependent!" and some things are codependent but many things aren't; it's just unhealthy. It's not working for us.

What real codependency is is when someone has a problematic behavior and we're upholding this person, making excuses for, or ignoring the behavior. We're taking care of this really poor situation they're creating.

The word was typically used around substance abuse.

AS: Enabling.

NT: So yeah, enabling. Codependency, enabling...those things were kind of birthed from the same space. Now we're like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so codependent. I called my friend back," and it's like—No.

No.

Please don't casually use that word to talk about calling someone right back. People are in therapy for years for codependency. Okay, so codependency...I went on a tangent.

AS: No, I love a tangent.

NT: I have just become like...with me being in this space on Instagram, I look to see how some of these terms are used and represented. The terms aren't really important. But it's also important to have the appropriate definition and the appropriate placement of what these things actually mean for mental health and relationships.

So if you are in a truly codependent relationship with another person, where you are giving and not receiving, where you are being taken advantage of; where you are providing resources for someone to be destructive to themselves and others.

If you're in that type of relationship, it can be very challenging to have boundaries, because typically when I see people who are codependent, the main thing that I see is they don't even recognize the codependency.

It's so deep in there. It's like a part of who they are. They really believe that their role is to enable. They'll say, "If this person doesn't have me to give them this extra money every month, you know, like they will not be able to function, so I can't even get out of my role."

It takes quite a bit of therapeutic work to even get people to the space of understanding that the relationship is codependent. It's not usually me saying it as a therapist. I'm not usually saying "Hey, you're codependent!" It's talking about situations in a way where people start to connect the dots, and say, "Could this be codependency?"

(As if speaking to a patient) "Yeah, yeah, it could be. I'm happy you brought that up. What do you think codependency is? Because I don't want to define what your relationship is to you. It's much better if you tell me, 'I think this is a little codependent that, you know, this person is demanding certain things from me and I'm not getting any of my needs met.'"

So it's really important that people first understand that the relationship is codependent; they define what codependency looks like in that relationship, and then they start to work out some sort of plan to deal with the problematic areas.

All codependent relationships don't need to be ended, but they certainly need to be changed. You can't continue to exist in a space where you're not really able to show up or have anyone show up for you because the relationship is so much about this other person, and the birth of the term... it came from that addiction space because that's where we saw it the most.

In relationships with people who were having issues with alcohol, or issues with drugs, and they were just taking and consuming so much in relationships.

But it can expand to many other things, not just alcohol and substance misuse. It can expand to so many other things. It can be your relationship with a family member who just has some some traits where you know, they're a little self centered and many things are about them, and if you can't help them with this thing, they ghost you, or you know, people will structure a relationship in a very unhealthy way that only supports their needs.

AS: And in trying to work on that codependency, or to identify it, I guess, is it true that when you are feeling sort of a lack of self, when you're centering other people before yourself, and you just feel like you don't even really have a self...is that an identifier that you might be codependent, or—what is that? Because maybe that means you're just depleted?

NT: I wouldn't say it's a sign that you're codependent, because it would really call for me to examine what you've tried to do in the relationship and this could be your role in many relationships. There are some people who because of trauma, because of their personality, because of many things, they're not used to speaking up in relationships, or they're not used to showing up as a full version of themselves.

And so it's not always codependency. Sometimes it's a lack of confidence. So, how do I communicate my needs to other people, and that may not be codependent, it may be you just figuring out how to say you'd rather eat here than there.

There may not even be an issue with the other person but sometimes we will take the other person to say. "They won't let me be myself," and I would challenge people and say, "How have you tried to be more of yourself? How have you tried to execute some boundaries?" because often we're not really trying.

We're assuming that this person should know that they should be asking us questions. I know they say it about romantic relationships, like communication is important. It's important to communicate with your friends. It's important to communicate with your family members, with your coworkers, with your roommates, whoever—the mail person, whoever you're in a relationship with.

Please communicate your needs because you can't guess what people want. Like, if someone just brought me a water and it was ice cold, guess what? (She makes the "wrong buzzer!" sound) I like room temperature.

AS: So how would you go about saying that without hurting someone's feelings?

NT: "Can I get a water that's actually room temperature?"

AS: Okay, yeah. Solid. Done. So good.

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NT: We tend to hyper focus on people being offended. I've noticed this so much at restaurants. I've had people bring out the complete wrong order and I've seen people eat it. I've had them; people do not believe that I don't like cheeseburgers, so there's a tendency for people to put cheese on my sandwich because they're like, oh she's being cheap, and it's like no, I really don't like melted cheese, right? Like, please don't do this to me. So now I have to say please do not put cheese; it's not a treat.

People will say, "Well, just peel it off!"

This is my sandwich, I don't want residue of melted cheese! I paid for a hamburger. You know, I want a plain turkey burger. Why do I have to tolerate that? Because there's this idea that there is this offense, even in a space where this is probably routine for people to send stuff back, it's routine to sometimes mess up an order, so why are we like hyper focused on if I say this?

How will this person feel if I call it off, if I can't come to their party? If there's more than one guest there, they will be okay. If you were the only guest...now you might have a sad person on your hand. But if there were multiple people invited. I hope that they can shift that energy to the other party goers.

AS: Right. Yes.

I want to know how you became so drawn to the topic of boundaries and what is your relationship to it over the course of your life. What was it like for you in childhood? Did you have good boundaries? Did you have to learn this? Were you taught this? I really want to know the roots of this for you.

NT: Well, I was born with boundaries and...I came out of the womb and they put a B on me and I started crying boundaries, boundaries! (laughs).

No. When I was a child, I believe I had boundaries, but what they called it at the time was "You talk back; you have a smart mouth. You always have something to say." Like, that's what boundaries were called in my childhood, right?

Because I did have this idea that I was allowed to speak up, and I think my mother nurtured some of that because she would allow it. But I wouldn't hear people saying to her, or her saying to me in their presence, "You can't say that to her."

But it's like, "Do you want to go over this person's house?"

And I'm like, "No, I don't want to go over there," and people would jump in to sort of parent, you know, and they'd say, "You can't say that. You should... " and I was just expressing an opinion or you know, doing those sorts of things.

Of course, growing up I understood that there are just certain things you can't say. Things that are offensive and would be highly inconsiderate. However, I did learn to speak my boundaries in a way that I needed to with certain people. Now there are some people where it was just impossible because of their behaviors. I remember a family member giving me the silent treatment when I was like 15 for a whole year but–

AS —I'm traumatized.

NT: Yeah, because they did something that was really rude, and I called it out. Like, they had a tantrum at a family gathering and I called it out and they gave me the silent treatment for a year.

And I was like, I'm not going to apologize for this person. I think that was one of my really big boundaries. I wouldn't apologize to them, when I hadn't done anything. I was like "I'm not going to apologize; I didn't do anything."

This person cussed and fussed you know, turned over tables, and I have to apologize because I said "Hey, that's not appropriate"?

So just learning to really stand in that and to create a space for myself because it wasn't always supported. To be able to say like, this isn't okay, I don't agree with this.

I will say it certainly became easier once I left my mother's home, and I was able to be in a space of my own, and create those sort of boundaries. But I never knew the word boundaries until I went to therapy.

I was in therapy in my master's program for social work. At the time, there was a book she gave me "Where You End and Where I Begin" because my struggle in therapy was that I was setting boundaries, and people were pushing back.

So I would get so like, "But I told them I can't loan them any money!" And she was like, "There is no problem. You don't have any extra money." And I asked, "But why are they upset at me?" Like, I would really try to figure out these different scenarios and she's like, you need to learn more about boundaries. And I was like there's a word for this!

I had no clue.

When I became a therapist, I worked in a lot of trauma spaces. I worked with teenagers who'd been sexually assaulted. I worked with juvenile delinquents who were in a community or jail setting, and there were so many boundary issues within the family around inappropriate adults being around them, them being exposed to inappropriate things, and I started to understand that one of our biggest problems clinically, that really we haven't addressed, because it hasn't been seen as a clinical issue, is the lack of boundaries.

It translates into issues in the workspace with work life balance, with anxiety, with depression. You know all of these relationship-mental-health-issues certainly have some some boundary element to them.

Now, I'm not saying everything is caused by a lack of boundaries. I do not believe that. But I do believe that strengthening your boundaries is good for your mental health and it is certainly healthy for your relationships.

AS: 100% agree, I am so envious, that you grew up with a foundation for having solid boundaries.

NT: Don’t envy my childhood.

AS: I'm not envying your childhood. Just that one aspect of your childhood.

NT: Yes, that one aspect.

AS: Yeah, because if you don't have that foundation, just trying to build boundaries as an adult is really confusing and overwhelming and anxiety-producing.

Now, I don't have, and I've never really had, a traditional nine-to-five. I've very rarely had to share workspace with people. So this is not something I struggle with, but I know a lot of people, especially now, who are going back to the office and have to deal with boundaries in the workplace.

If you have any suggestions for them or anything you've been thinking about specifically about that topic, I'd love to hear it.

NT: Yeah, you know, as we transition back to workspaces, it'll be really important for us to continue to uphold what we need, and some of us need physical space. I can't predict, but I do see workspaces maybe going back to cubicles because we function better with some level of privacy, right?

AS: Yeah.

NT: So even having those moments of I'm re-socializing –this is what I'm saying. I'm re-socializing. So I can do one thing this weekend. I can't go back to party on Friday, this on Saturday, you know, like I'm used to not wearing shoes. So this whole idea of wearing shoes, you know, three days in a row. I can't do it. I'm at four hours.

So how do we transition back into I understand some things need to be in person, but what things can, you know, maybe still be done from home? I understand that now there's this expectation to kind of do do do. I'm getting back into that so please be gentle with me as my lifestyle is aligning with my mind.

They're not congruent right now. Like I'm trying to get these two worlds to come together, and so being clear with people that this is like a huge shift, and you are still catching up to what the world is now, even if you did these things many years before. You're catching up to this new presence.

AS: Right. Please be gentle with me is a great thing to remember. And I'm just now re-socializing is also a great thing to remember. I think sometimes people need like standardized sentences, you know, to get them through the transition. So we only have a couple of minutes left.

But there's a question that someone in the audience has "What about boundaries with close family members? People we can't just cut off?" This is sort of a multiple layered question in a way.

NT: There's a book for that. Yeah.

There's a book for that question about believing that we have to stay in relationships. That and when I say a book for that, I mean that it is a long answer.

Adult relationships essentially are a choice. We do have this obligation to be connected to family to some extent, and we really have to think about what is healthy and what is unhealthy. We do not have to subject ourselves to continuously unhealthy relationships.

Adults can be in abusive relationships. We don't talk about that enough. We talk about domestic violence, but what about family violence where you know, parents are verbally abusive, or they continue to hit you even when you're an adult, or friends who are verbally abusive or passive aggressive, and you know these different things.

So those relationships are a choice.

When people won't accept your boundaries, you really have to lean into reliving your boundary and living your boundary could be like, if your family is unhappy with how you live your life, maybe there are certain aspects that you allow to be private. Maybe there are certain aspects where you said "This is what I'm going to do, but I understand that you don't agree with it, but this is my life and this is how I will live."

Sometimes people aren't disrespecting our boundaries, they are disagreeing with our lifestyle, right? So it's not that they're saying like, you can't do this thing. That is a disagreement, because I'm going to do that thing anyway, because I'm grown.

So you can disagree with how I live, but I wouldn't necessarily say that you're disrespecting my boundary in your disagreement.

Now the disrespect would be if you maybe started to gossip about it, or if you started to sabotage it. But, in many cases, people are just saying that I don't like this thing. I don't want you to do this. They are not in line with who you are. And again, I think we have to preserve parts of our selves for the relationships where we're accepted, and we feel most comfortable.

AS: I want to add that the question suggested that if the person doesn't accept your boundaries that you have to cut them off, but I think that there are a lot of steps before cutting someone off that a person can take. You don't have to go from "Oh, you're rejecting what I need, then I'm cutting you off." I do think that, I mean you may disagree-

NT: Yeah, there are levels. You know, sometimes we don't have to cut people off, we just need to stop initiating calling them. Maybe see them on the holiday.

It's not always about "I need to be done with this person completely." Can you see them once a year? Can you talk to them once a month? Can they give you a phone call on your birthday and say happy birthday and that'd be the entirety of the relationship?

I think it really depends on what's happening in the relationship. So it's really hard to give someone the strategy of "Hey, cut this thing off," because it might be something that you can continue to pursue, but on a very minimal basis.

AS: Right. So yeah, so what I'm saying is you don't have to go from stating your boundary to cutting that person off. There are multiple steps in between that you can work on, and read about.

So we are going to wrap up. I appreciate your time so much, and you and your brain.

She [Nedra] also has a workbook [Set Boundaries Workbook: Practical Exercises for Understanding Your Needs and Setting Healthy Limits] that goes with it.

I encourage everyone to get a copy of it. So thank you, everyone, for joining us, and thank you so much, Nedra. I look forward to meeting you in person.

NT Where are you?

AS: Brooklyn.

NT: Ah, okay. That can happen.

AS. Where are you?

NT: I'm in Charlotte. But yeah, that can happen.

AS: All right, good. I hope so. Alright, thank you. So much. Thank you again.

NT: Bye. Have a good day.

AS: You too.

What about you, dear reader? Do you struggle with your boundaries, or are you a master-slayer?

Let me know in the comments! Until next week I remain,