Setting Healthy Boundaries & Saying "No" - TSMP 10

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Are you frequently feeling exhausted and overbooked? are you afraid of letting people down? having a hard time to say no? or you just believe that all the obligations that you said yes to are all your personal responsibility?

Today I am honoring my own struggle with setting healthy boundaries and being honest about what I learned with my own journey. We will further discuss how we can set healthy boundaries to respect our own energy and what you can learn from my mistakes.

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hey everyone welcome back to the the Thrive x Strive Musician Podcast! This is a weekly podcast brings unique insights and tools to helps musicians to create a healthy lifestyle with mental clarity & vibrancy. And I am your host Amy Wang-Hiller, a professional violinist and a doctoral student. My goal is to open up the conversation around musician's mental health and wellbeing and provide healthy tools and wisdoms to help you thrive in personal and professional life. As the new school year is approaching, I want to dive into the topic of setting healthy boundaries, specifically on work commitment we take on for this new school year.

Are you frequently feeling exhausted and overbooked? are you afraid of letting people down? having a hard time to say no? or you just believe that all the obligations that you said yes to are all your personal responsibility? are you secretively having the fear of being rejected or disliked? My answers came out to be all "Yeses" at the lowest point of my life. And for some of those, I'm still experiencing to this day. I've always been struggling with saying no and protect/respect my precious time, space, energy. There has been times that I almost rejected every request. But those were times I literally went through my rock bottom and had no choice but saying no.. Why do we have to wait till that moment to notice the lack of boundaries and finally take the actions? Two major mentality are prominent among Musicians' over commitment: people-pleasing and high-achieving. ― Viktor E. Frankl mentioned in his book Man’s Search for Meaning:

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear with almost any ‘how.'”

Steve Rose, PhD, is an addiction counselor, The need to be needed is one of our fundamental desires. We want to feel significant in the eyes of others. but just like any other basic needs, too much of anything can be unhealthy and destructive.

And sometimes that need to be needed is coming from a lack of love. I believe that not every personality traits and behavioral patterns has to associate with our childhood experiences. being simply a kind altruistic person can fall into the trap of lack of boundaries. Having higher ambition can also lead to over-working ourselves to an unhealthy state. So childhood influences can be one of the triggers for our people pleasing tendencies. If you listened to my previous solo episode about "how to finding yourself", you probably have already heard my childhood story about how I was an outcast in my class and wanted to change myself to fit in. I was eager to be liked, be seen, and get approvals from other classmates at a very young age, and that ultimately led to the fear of me saying "no". How can I disappoint my best friend's request to chat for hours although I have a deadline to hit? i'm afraid that they never turn towards me for help if I said no. how can I not respond to a person's message if they have been waiting on the other side? I'm afraid that they think I'm a rude person. How can I tell my loved one that I don't like to answer the question they asked? would they think that I don't love them anymore? The assumptions came up every time I try to make the decision between the "yes" and the"no". People always think that it's harder to set boundaries with the person you love. But I have felt the opposite. The closer you are with them, like my parents, I feel less intimidated to say "No". i know their love to me is unconditional. I'm never worried that they will not leave me or hate me. But majority of our acquaintances aren't going to be giving us the same unconditional love our parents would offer. So for me to avoid facing those big fears of others' anger and disappointment, I chose to help as many my friends as possible... Besides, it's our human nature to like that feeling of being needed. becoming a musician, I realized that I get more and more requests for playing concerts, gigs, teachings as my Facebook friends grow every year. Although I learned to say no sometimes with the schedule conflict. I still felt guilty of telling people "no". I know it wasn't my fault that I already had another work commitment. But part of me really wished that I should have more time to fit everyone's needs into my plan.

In theory, I know it's unnecessary to have the guilt for taking a day off, or for saying no to an extra concert although you are available on that particular day. you are not responsible for anyone before you can take care of your own needs. And if our answer is always "yes". Then we won't have any energy and time left for our own growth. And I said "in theory"... as we all know what is better for us, and how to guide our intention sometimes, we still tend to just let those default emotions take over. Be honest, I feel the guilt Quite frequent. And that includes me not finishing this podcast on time, because the priority of this week has shifted to my dissertation. I don’t regret putting more time onto my research. But what made me curious is that - the boundary here I didn’t protect are not just time and energy, it is the emotion I allowed others to dictate. So for time and energy, instead of a "yes" to others' needs, asking ourselves: can we still get our needs met if we add that one more thing on our list? There is always a trade-off for a decision we make. So, prioritize ourselves. And if that one more thing is going to greatly reduce the quality of our lives, then choosing to meet our own needs isn't a selfish act, instead, it's an act of self-respect. If you are afraid of others never ask you for help again, try to be honest with your situation and always, always, try your best to refer to someone else , who might be in need of this offer.

I come to the understanding that we are the ones that we need to desperately set the boundaries with, not anyone else. As professional musician, you are likely to be a high-achiever. Every opportunity that helps us grow looks attempting to say “Yes”. I love to keep myself busy, love to set goals and work hard on it. But it can beToo much of a good thing. The reason of me to really agree On so many concerts, chamber recitals, and competitions back-to-back during last spring semester was really the fact that I don’t want to miss the opportunities. But lesson well learned is that if we say yes to everything even they are great for us, we might do well in nothing. Or, if we get all these goals accomplished, we are more likely to fail on the most important one -that is taking care of ourselves. Although, concerts are still on hold For our next season, as creative as we are, many of us - me included - started exploring new creative outlet for our career. Everyone is trying to use social media and online campaign to grow our own voices, either is through our music or our passion else where. There is always a way for us to sign up more, to do more, exceed our limits/boundaries, and ignore the inner nurturing self. Going back my podcast example, all of these projects are what I loved to do. But when we have too many things on that priority list, nothing is a priority anymore.

This is one the quotes I would use as our end note:

Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices.

― Gerard Manley Hopkins


So I really hope you find today's topic and story valuable in any way.  If you like this podcast, or feel connect with what I have been sharing on this show, please subscribe! It will really help this podcast if you subscribe on any platform you are listening to, download the episode, and leave a review on iTunes. I appreciate every one of you!

And if you have any thoughts on today's episode or topics that you would like me to further discuss. Email me at thrivexstrive@gmail.com.

Talk to you all next Friday.

Have a great weekend!

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