A Fresh Take on Boundaries—Prioritize What Matters, Avoid Burnout, and Navigate Toxicity

Why do I feel guilty for protecting my time or energy?

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Is this a boundary—or am I just avoiding someone?

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Boundaries stir up a lot of emotions. But what if they’re not about building walls, avoiding people, or being “selfish”?

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In this episode, I share a deeply personal and surprising take on what boundaries truly are—and why they matter more than you think.

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You'll hear:

*Why healthy boundaries begin not with rejection, but with rhythm

*The two most common ways we misuse boundaries

*A powerful metaphor that changed how I think about relationships

*How codependency, enmeshment, and burnout signal boundary issues

*Real-life scripts and strategies to set boundaries with compassion and clarity

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Resources:

• Episode 153: Embodied Healing, Spiritual Trauma, and the Journey Home to Your Body with Dr. Hillary McBride
• ‍The Best of You by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook

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If you liked this, you’ll love:

• Episode 124: Boundaries & Numbing—How to Set Healthy Limits and Stop Avoiding Your Feelings
• ‍Episode 24: Boundaries, the Spectrum of Toxicity, and a Note About Evil
• ‍Episode 7: Why Are Boundaries So Hard to Set?

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‍Thanks to our sponsors:

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• Contact Restoring the Soul today and learn how their Intensive Counseling Process can jump start your journey to the place you want to be. As a special gift for The Best of You podcast listeners, download their pdf called "5 Ways Unresolved Trauma May Be Derailing Your Relationship."
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Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Alison Cook: Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. Today we're talking about boundaries, a topic that can stir up a lot of mixed feelings for many of us. On one hand, boundaries can feel empowering, like a reclaiming of your voice, your time, your wellbeing.

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On the other hand, if you're on the receiving end of someone else's boundaries, it can feel confusing or even like rejection. For some of us, boundaries can feel at odds with being a loving, kind, or generous person.

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I've struggled with boundaries most of my adult life. I've struggled with being too rigid, using boundaries like a fortress to keep people out. Sometimes that has looked like ending a relationship too quickly instead of having an honest conversation, and telling myself I'm being clear, when I was actually afraid of the emotional discomfort or even feeling awkward.

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It has looked like saying no across the board as a default, not because I didn't care, but because I didn't trust myself to give without losing myself. It has looked like overscheduling or over-structuring my life to the point that there was no room left for spontaneity, presence, or unexpected moments of connection. 

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I've also struggled with being far too permeable, rationalizing and overgiving out of guilt or a sense of over-responsibility. For me, that has looked like attuning so much to someone else's perceived needs that I ended up over-enabling the other person and jeopardizing other healthier relationships. 

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It has looked like feeling so desperate not to hurt someone else that I avoid the hard, necessary conversations. Conversations that if I'd been brave enough to have them earlier, might have actually saved certain relationships. It has looked like taking on more than I can handle at work, convincing myself it's being servant-hearted, when in reality I'm neglecting my own health and priorities.

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It's taken me a long time to figure out a healthier rhythm when it comes to boundaries–a way to enter into the beautiful mess that is all of our relationships, with wisdom, discernment, and healthy boundaries.

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As we discussed in last week's episode on codependency, healthier boundaries have come as I've learned to trust my own inner voice, to honor my own needs, my own intuitive instincts, my own desires, even as I've learned to stay present to the inherent complexities of relating with other complicated humans.

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What I've learned is that tending to our boundary lines is an ongoing practice. It's not a one-time decision. It's not a hard and fast set of rules. It's a rhythm of staying attuned to yourself, to your circumstances, and to the gentle leading of God's Spirit.

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I'm guessing that most of you also feel this tension of vacillating between wanting to flee hard, complicated conversations or situations in your relationships, versus being too porous, too available to bend, too yielding to the needs of other people.

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That's exactly why I wanna have this conversation with you today. Here's the thing. Boundaries are one of the most misunderstood tools of emotional and spiritual health. They're not about building walls to keep people out, they're not weapons to get other people to change, and they're not excuses to avoid conflict, hard conversations, or the beautiful mess of real relationships.

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Here's a metaphor that I have found to be really helpful in my own life. Recently, I spent the morning walking through greenhouses and rows of plants and flowers, each one different, each one needing something unique from the gardener. 

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Sunflowers turn their faces toward you and grow tall with the light. Roses are beautiful, but come with thorns. You learn to enjoy them gently, maybe even from a distance. Yellow daisies bloom brightly for a season and then they fade. Others, like lavender or sage, are grounding and enduring, showing up year after year, steady and healing.

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Some, like morning glories, open briefly and unexpectedly, offering surprise beauty that you hold lightly for a season. Then there are the ones that grow wild–wisteria climbing into spaces it doesn't really belong in, or ivy that spreads so fast it begins to choke out other plants. These require pruning care or a strong trellis to guide them. 

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Our relationships are like a garden–beautiful, messy, each one needing different things from us.

Boundaries are the tools–the gardener's glove, the pruning shears, the watering can, even the protective fence. Boundaries are essential tools for tending to the garden of your relationships. 

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They're nuanced and nimble, not hard and fast, and they're never there to punish the plant or the relationship, but to help each one thrive in the right place, in the right season, with the right care. Boundaries aren't about control. They're about cultivating what's good, letting go of what no longer blooms, and protecting the beauty of what's growing.

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Your job isn't to control every plant or every person in your garden of relationships. It's to tend your garden with wisdom, discernment, and a gentle touch, having confidence that you have what it takes to nurture a garden that is alive, vital, healthy, and growing.

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Here's the thing. Back in the day, when my boundaries were too rigid, I had a beautiful plot of soil with no weeds and no flowers, and that's not exactly the kind of vibrant garden I wish to cultivate in my life, nor is it the kind of garden I think God means for us to have.

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Having healthy boundaries does mean wading into the messiness of relationships. If we left every relationship when things got messy, we wouldn't have any relationships left. On the other hand, if we don't have the tools to tend to our relationships with confidence and with strength, we'll let that garden be completely overgrown and chaotic, and we'll feel overwhelmed by what's in front of us. 

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Boundaries aren't about perfection. They're about cultivating a healthy sense of order. Your garden will look different from mine, and that's okay, but what matters is that we find a life-giving sense of order that honors our need for human relationships and our own personal capacities.

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So today I wanna take you on a journey. First, I'll give you a high level view of what I think is the original design behind boundaries, all the way back at the beginning, what we see in the creation story.

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Then we're gonna end with some practical stories from real life situations as well as scripts and tips that you can start using as you cultivate your own garden of relationships. So let's start at the beginning with a high-level view.

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In the creation story, God brings beauty out of chaos, not through domination, but through separation, through healthy differentiation. Light from darkness, land from sea, day from night. Each act of separation wasn't about exclusion. It wasn't about hierarchy. It wasn't about division in the way we often think of it today.

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It was about making room. In the beginning, God didn't build walls, God created spaciousness. These early distinctions between day and night, land and water, work and rest, weren't punishments. They were gifts. They were the foundational rhythms of our lives. They gave shape to time, meaning to movement, and form to relationship. They made life possible.

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We work, we rest, we commune with each other, we commune with God. We're together. We're separate. All of this existed in perfect harmony before the fall. This is the essence of boundaries–creating form so that flourishing can happen, and this is what theologians call original goodness. 

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I touched on this back in Episode 153 with Dr. Hillary McBride. Before there was sin, shame, and divisiveness, there was goodness, honor and harmony, not only in our relationships with other people, but in our relationship with God and with the land that we inhabit. That's our original inheritance.

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Boundaries were part of that original harmony. They were there before sin and shame and brokenness entered in. They were never walls to keep people out, but rhythms that made life sustainable. The problem is, somewhere along the way, we've started to see boundaries primarily as defensive tools, as ways to protect ourselves from the harm and chaos of the world around us. 

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Yes, boundaries can be protective. They do help us navigate the pain and confusion of broken relationships, but that's not where they begin. Boundaries begin in goodness, not as a reaction to what's wrong, but as a structure that protects what's right. 

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For those of you who have read my book, The Best of You, I redefine the primary question to ask yourself when it comes to establishing healthy boundaries, not as what you need to say no to, but what you need to say yes to in your life, proactively. What is the goodness, the beauty, the health that you're trying to protect?

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So right here at the front end of this episode, if you're struggling to set boundaries in your life, think about it for a minute. Are you trying to figure out what you're saying no to, and that seems impossible or hard or cruel or inherently rejecting?

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If that feels like your situation, “I can't say no to this person 'cause I don't wanna hurt them”. “I can't say no to this commitment, because I don't want to be ungenerous or unkind”. “I can't say no even to this toxic situation because I also care about this person even though I can't stand some of the ways that they're treating me”. 

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Flip that question on its head and ask yourself, what do I need to say yes to instead? I need more healthy relationships in my life. I need more spaciousness for myself, which means I have less tolerance for some of these other harder, more complicated relationships. Remember, boundaries aren't primarily about saying no to bad things. 

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They're about saying yes to the things that matter most. Start there. If you're struggling with your boundaries, sometimes I call this creating a Yes list. Again, if you think back to that garden metaphor, think about the flowers that draw you in and help you come alive and help bring joy into your life and a sense of goodness, a sense of peace, a sense of rest, and start there.

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By prioritizing those relationships in your schedule, in your calendar, in your day-to-day life, the rest will begin to take care of itself. There are two specific kinds of ordering that come with boundary setting that I wanna touch on in this episode today. The first is ordering your life and picking between good things. 

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It’s just the everyday reality that we have to say yes to a certain number of things. We're finite, we're limited. We can't say yes to everything, which means at times we will be saying no or reducing our capacity in things that we really love, within relationships that we really value or respect or care about, but we don't have the capacity for in the same way.

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Lemme give you an example from my own life. In the last 15 years, I've undergone so many changes. I went from being single to being married. I went from not having children to stepping into really significant co-parenting duties as a step-parent.

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In the meantime, my work life has grown. I've published a couple of books. I've grown a really strong online presence where a lot of people, including those of you listening, look to me for support and for guidance.

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I shifted into three new roles that significantly altered my time and energy and capacity very quickly, and that forced me to make some changes in my life out of sheer need. This was hard.

I've also moved. I've taken up roots in a new geographic location. These were significant changes that impacted my capacity to invest in long distance relationships that are really meaningful to me. 

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I've had to figure out different rhythms to honor those relationships, but in new ways. I've had to say no to some work opportunities, including those that require a lot of travel. These are constant negotiations in our global world that many of us are having to make about our work, and our relationships.

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And all of these decisions require communication. It's communicating to those people, you matter to me and my capacity to show up in this relationship has to change. Or it means communicating to a boss, I can't travel to that event because I have these other commitments that are important to me. 

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Are there other ways that I can show up digitally to make my presence known in these spaces? This kind of boundary setting isn't about choosing between good and bad. It's about knowing my own values and prioritizing accordingly.

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Boundaries help us survive and flourish, and it takes some work on the front end. If you're someone who's struggling in this category of boundary setting, the most important thing you can do is make that priority list. It's not a yes list of all those things you want to say yes to, it's prioritizing what are the ones that matter most.

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They all matter to me, but what matters most? Then the other thing I found really helpful when it comes to prioritizing in very full seasons is to think seasonally. What needs to be in my daily rhythms? What can be in my weekly rhythms? What can be in my monthly rhythms? And what is in my quarterly or annual rhythms?

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Don't underestimate the value of an annual rhythm or a quarterly rhythm. These are really valid and valuable ways of honoring different relationships and different work commitments. For example, if you have a friend or a group of friends that don't live near you, prioritizing annual or even every other year get-togethers to see each other is placing significant value on those relationships.

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It's far better than letting them go by the wayside. Same with quarterly rhythms. Quarterly check-ins via phone are really valuable. That's a significant investment in a relationship that you can no longer figure out how to work into your day-to-day or your weekly rhythms.

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Expanding your understanding of rhythms to thinking seasonally can be a really helpful way to add some of your boundary lines. Another example for me when it comes to traveling for speaking is, instead of feeling like I'm always saying no, I say yes to one or two speaking events a year. That's what I have capacity for. 

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By naming that clearly, I'm able to choose events and opportunities that have the most value for me personally. I know what I'm saying yes to, which can help relieve the stress of having to say no to otherwise really good things.

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Secondly, I wanna talk about boundaries in the context of relational struggles or even relational toxicity. Again, I always say this, but it bears repeating. I don't believe in toxic people. I believe in the image of God in all people, but I do believe in toxic patterns of behavior.

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When I'm talking about boundaries, I'm not labeling other people as good or bad, or toxic or not toxic. I'm looking at patterns of behaviors, and I'm asking myself this key question: what needs to shift in this relationship in order for me to live honestly with integrity and with respect for the image of God in this other person?

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That's a loaded question, so I'm gonna unpack it for a second. What needs to shift in order for me to live honestly, so that I'm not lying to myself or to someone else? With integrity, so that I'm staying true to myself and to my own values? And simultaneously, with respect for the image of God in this other person? 

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So notice I didn't say with respect for how this other person is behaving, because I'm respecting their inherent humanity while also staying true to my own convictions, my own integrity, my own values. So if someone is demonstrating extremely toxic behaviors where it's hard to see the image of God in them, and I know many of you have people like this in your life, what needs to shift?

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What might need to shift is, I cannot be in communication with this person anymore because their behaviors and their strategies and their way of showing up in the world has gotten so toxic that I cannot put myself in their presence. And that is the best thing I can do to honor myself and honor the image of God in them, because I am not gonna honor the way they're showing up in the world.

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There's no way that I can be in a relationship with them and still honor myself and the image of God in them, because there's no access to that image of God. Now, these are extreme cases, but it does happen. Other relationships get more complicated. Boundaries often come into focus when something doesn't feel quite right.

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I wanna talk through three common situations where this happens. The first is enmeshment. When our own identity is too tied up in someone else's needs or opinions, this gets back to codependency, which we talked about in last week's episode. 

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Number two are toxic patterns. When the relationship involves manipulation, control, guilt-tripping, or repeated harm, and again, in this case, I'm not talking about those people that you have to remove yourself from entirely. I'm talking about people that have some good qualities, but also demonstrate some of these other qualities that are harmful.

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Number three, a chronic imbalance, when we are always the one giving, always the one fixing, or always the one carrying the emotional load. 

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Let's talk about enmeshment. When you've lost your voice in a relationship, boundaries can help you reclaim it. Not to control the other person, but to become more honest with yourself.

Let's say at work, you've been overworking to appease other people, maybe your boss, maybe your colleagues.

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You're afraid to disappoint or fall short. Start with recognizing what you need. I need to reduce the things to which I'm committed, and it's not about going to other people. It's first about identifying in yourself, this is what I'm doing. I need to figure out a better way to communicate.

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Initially, the boundary isn't about going to other people. It's first becoming clear inside yourself, I'm taking on too much. I am the problem. In this case, you might practice some of the following scripts, simply saying, oh, that doesn't work for me right now. Here's what's already on my plate. I can't take that on, but I'd be glad to help you find someone else. 

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Or a simple statement of, I'm no longer going to answer work emails after 6:00 PM. The first step of establishing a healthier rhythm starts with you speaking up. Maybe it's your marriage, where you feel like you've lost your voice. Instead of trying to change the other person, start with what you need to change in yourself. 

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For example, you might say something like, I've decided to start counseling even if you're not ready to join me. You're taking initiative to do the thing that you know you need to do. Maybe you start scheduling something each week that's life-giving for you, instead of trying to get your spouse to do something that they've shown no interest in. Simply tell them, I've decided to start doing something each week that's replenishing for me. 

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Another helpful script when you're learning how to find your voice in an intimate relationship is to simply name what's happening. “I'm still figuring out what I want. I need some time and space to think”. Ask for the spaciousness you need to sort through your own voice.

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Maybe it's a friendship where you need to name a pattern that you're going to change. “I realize I've been saying yes when I actually need more rest. I'm gonna start being more honest about that”.

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Or, “I so appreciate how much you care, but I really need to make this decision without outside input. I'm really trying to listen to myself” or “I'm gonna have to skip this event. I don't have the capacity right now”. These are tiny steps of introducing more of your voice into these relationships. 

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Remember, setting a boundary in an enmeshed relationship is not an act of rejecting the other person. It's an act of returning to your own self so that you can reinvest in a healthier way. In these cases, the other person may feel disappointed or confused initially, but when you're clear about what you need and your respect for the other person, you're starting to introduce healthy change.

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Let's talk about toxicity. In these situations, it can be more challenging to set a healthy boundary, and you need to be aware of the other person's toxic patterns. When the relationship involves manipulation, control, guilt-tripping, or repeated harm, boundaries are about clarity, protection, and often creating distance. 

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For example, if you've got a friend who is constantly critical, you might need to name to them, “I wanna stay in this relationship, but I cannot take in all this negativity. I'm really working on my own mental health, and for me, I've gotta stay in a more hopeful mindset”.

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You might try playfulness sometimes. That's a great way to introduce change in a relationship. You might say, listen, I hear you. I know things are hard. Now let's each name one good thing that happened to us this week. Sometimes the other person will respond favorably to these bids for a different way of doing things. 

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Sometimes they won't. In those cases, you might simply need to name what's true. I wanna stay in this relationship, but not under these conditions. Or, I need to take a break from these conversations. If someone responds with a guilt-trip, they try to make you feel bad for what you're saying. 

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You can say, I hear that you're disappointed. I get that, and I also need to make this decision.

Or, I love you. I care about you. I don't want you to be disappointed, and I still need to do this differently. You can validate their emotion while simultaneously staying firm in what you need to do. 

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Then lastly, if they really won't let you off the hook, you might need to say, I'm not comfortable continuing in this conversation. I'm going to excuse myself. Simply close the conversation. 

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Finally, when you're dealing with chronic imbalance, when you feel like you're the one who's become the dumping bag, the listening ear, all the time, boundaries in these cases are about naming your own limits, but also learning to ask for shared responsibility. 

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For example, if you're struggling because your spouse maybe isn't helping you out around the house with household tasks or even emotional labor, you can say, listen, I love how much you do for our family, and I need more help around the house. Or, can we talk about how we're dividing up household management? Or, I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'd love to make a plan together. 

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In friendships, sometimes friends unwittingly have been leaning on you and maybe don't even realize it, and there are ways you can begin to introduce more of your needs into the relationship. You might say, man, I wanna be there for you, but I'm really emotionally tapped out today. Can we check in tomorrow? 

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Or you might even say, I'd love to support you, but I'm also struggling myself today. I wonder if we could take turns listening to each other. Sometimes you need to be direct. I'm realizing that I've been doing most of the initiating. I wanted to see what that's about. Is there any way that we could create a more mutually honoring rhythm in our friendship?

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Boundaries and relationships aren't about changing the other person. They're about protecting the part of you that's learning to stand in truth. Remember, when we stop over-functioning, we give others a chance to step into their responsibility. We're restoring natural harmony. To continue to take on more than our fair share is actually not good for anyone. 

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You never know how your honesty might help unlock something good inside of someone else. You may not see that in the moment. They might not like it, but at least you'll know you're doing your part. You'll find tons of scripts and tips in both my books, The Best of You and I Shouldn’t Feel This Way, if you want more practical suggestions.

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For now, please hear me say that someone else's disappointment or guilt does not mean you've done something wrong. Sometimes the guilt you feel isn't about the boundary you set. It's about the role you played before you set it. Staying firm to this new boundary is a great opportunity to work through the discomfort that you feel apart from this other person or this role you've taken on.

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You can always honor what they're feeling. You can say, I wish I'd done it differently, or, I hate that you're disappointed, and still move forward in strength. You can acknowledge the mess without stepping back into the same dysfunction. So here are our main takeaways today.

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Boundaries are a part of God's design for harmony. They're not a punishment. They're not a rejection. They're a return to what's healthy, what's real, what's good. A return to healthy rhythms, a return to your God-given worth.

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Boundaries don't have to end relationships. They redefine them and that work, while hard, is holy and good. It's part of what we're made for. Boundaries are how we make space for love to grow without losing ourselves in the process. 

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