Boundaries involve setting rules that make it clear how you want to be treated.

Sometimes, this means saying something like, “No, I won’t loan you my car.” Other boundaries involve telling someone what you expect like, “I expect you to call before showing up at my house.”

It’s important to announce your boundaries to other people. You might say, “Please don’t ask about my health issues in front of other people.”

At times, however, it’s best to show what your boundaries are with your behavior. If you’re at a dinner party where people start drinking heavily and you’re uncomfortable, you might find it’s best to leave without offering an explanation about why.

Setting boundaries can feel uncomfortable at first if you aren’t used to setting them. But establishing clear boundaries shows you have respect for yourself, and it can be the key to establishing healthy relationships with other people. 

There are a lot of misconceptions about boundaries. These misconceptions often spread quickly on social media and cause many people to misunderstand how to set boundaries in a healthy way.

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Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and a New York Times Best Selling author. Her books, including Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, have been translated into 20 languages.

She’s also a contributor to The Atlantic where she writes a regular column called “Dear Therapist.” She co-hosts a podcast with Guy Winch, called Dear Therapists, where they respond to listeners’ problems and walk them through therapy sessions with actionable advice.

In her book, Lori talked about a mysterious illness she has. She struggled to get a diagnosis and treatment.

So now she's talking about chronic illness and the impact it can have on well-being. She shares some actionable strategies for managing an illness and supporting someone else who has one.

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A lot of people enter my therapy office, not because they’re looking to change themselves, but because they want to change someone else.

I commonly get questions like, “Can you talk to my partner about their drinking for me?” or “Can you meet with my daughter to tell her that she needs to stop dating men with so many problems? It’s not good for her kids to see that.” 

While you can’t force someone else to change their behavior, you can influence them. In fact, the closer your relationship is to someone else, the more likely you are to have an influence on the choices they make.

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Jazmyn Simon is an actress who is best known for her roles in Ballers, Raising Dion, and Locked Down. 

She’s also an author. She wrote a children’s book called Most Perfect You, a letter to children struggling to accept themselves. It was inspired by a conversation Jazmyn had with her daughter when she was young.

Some of the things she talks about today are why we should talk to kids about their appearance, how to help kids feel better about themselves, and how to get kids to open up and tell you what's really going on.

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When life has thrown you some serious curveballs or your mental health is declining, it’s tough to see the positive things going on around you. 

But noticing the bad, however, is easy. You might find your brain automatically focuses on the worst thing that happened or it might constantly predict negative outcomes.  

These kinds of thoughts affect how you feel and how you behave. If you aren’t careful, your thoughts can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to look for the good in life by practicing toxic positivity.

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Nathan Kress is an actor who is best known for playing Freddie Benson on the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly, which aired between 2007 and 2012. In 2021, he reprised his role in the iCarly revival. 

He’s also the co-host of a podcast called RadioActive Dads. He and his co-host, fellow actor Brett Davern, talk about their experiences raising kids. 

Nathan is also a caregiver. His wife has endometriosis, and at times, her symptoms are debilitating. Some of the things he talks about in today's episode are how he and his wife dealt with grief following five miscarriages, how he takes care of himself, and his mental health tips for other caregivers.

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Have you ever been so emotionally exhausted that you felt like you have nothing else to give? If so, you’re not alone. 

There are a lot of people feeling emotionally exhausted right now, and there are a lot of reasons why — the pandemic, rising gas prices, economic uncertainty, and ongoing media reports about bad things happening in the world.

When you feel emotionally exhausted, the typical self-care tips aren’t likely to work. Taking a bubble bath or getting some exercise might take the edge off for a minute, but these self-care tips won’t relieve your exhaustion long-term.

Fortunately, there are some more effective things that you can do to charge your batteries and relieve your emotional exhaustion.

In this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast, I share the symptoms of emotional exhaustion and the best thing you can do to address it.

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Grace Gaustad is a singer and songwriter who rose to fame at the age of 15 when her performance of “Take Me to Church” went viral. 

She released her debut album, BLKBX, in 2021. In it, she addresses her experiences growing up as part of the LGBTQ+ community and the bullying she endured in school. 

She released several singles in 2022.

Grace was bullied throughout her childhood, and she often felt alone in her struggles. Now, she's using her platform to help other people who feel alone. As someone who has battled depression and anxiety, she's sharing how she's staying mentally strong.

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When we’re faced with a crisis, our bodies and our minds gear up to tackle the challenge. Then, when the crisis is resolved, we go back into our normal state of being.

Our bodies weren’t meant to stay in a heightened state of alert over a long period of time. So when a crisis doesn’t end fast enough, we grow weary and get what’s known as crisis fatigue.

If you’ve developed crisis fatigue, you’re not alone. It’s important to note that crisis fatigue doesn’t mean you’re insensitive, you lack mental strength, or you’ve done anything wrong. It just means your body and your mind are having trouble coping with a prolonged state of distress — which is normal.

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Steve Magness is a world-renowned expert on human performance. He’s been a consultant on mental skills development for professional sports teams, including some of the top NBA teams. 

He co-authored Peak Performance and The Passion Paradox with our former guest Brad Stulberg. He also wrote The Science of Running, and now he has a new book called Do Hard Things. 

He shares today why our brains work so hard to keep us inside our comfort zones, how to change our inner dialogue, and what happens when we push ourselves to do hard things.

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