Episode 7 - Confidently Setting Healthy Boundaries: Self-Care, Communication & Protecting Your Energy with Melissa Crook

By Jessica Garrison

Through our second talking point of the podcast, host Melissa Crook guides listeners to Confidently Setting Healthy Boundaries. In this empowerment episode, Melissa shares relatable anecdotes and tips that make setting boundaries not only doable, but also sustainable. 

Melissa presents questions you can ask yourself, and some of them might sound familiar from last week’s episode. That’s because these talking points go hand in hand with each other. Your self care practices can affect your boundaries, which can affect your mental or physical health, which can affect your why, and so on and so forth. They are all interconnected, so we have to remember that taking care of all aspects of our health is important. Without one, the rest will eventually fall. 

Ask yourself: Do you confidently set healthy boundaries? If so, what does that look like for you? Is it up to date? Does it still align with your wants and needs as a person? If not, or if you have a hard time answering some of these questions, ask yourself why or why not? What’s stopping you? What’s in your way? Reflect upon these questions when going through your boundaries journey. 

Clearly communicating your boundaries and limits to others is the best possible way forward. No one’s a mind reader, and if you’re not explicitly explaining what it is you want, then how can you expect others to know it, too? Melissa expresses the importance of using “I” statements when communicating your boundaries. This is crucial in any form of communicating, because you are in charge of your own actions. You can’t set boundaries for another person, even though we may try. However, you can control what you do in response to what they do. For example, instead of saying, “don’t invite her to the party,” you can say, “if X comes to the party, I will have to leave.” That isn’t blaming anyone else, but rather explicitly explaining what your boundary is and the actions you will take to protect them. 

We first heard from guest Valerie Rivera back in season 4 of The FEEL Podcast, but we have quoted her many times since. It ties so well together with boundaries, and never goes out of style: “Remember when you say yes to something, that means you’re saying no to something else. Make sure you’re okay with what you’re saying no to.”

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