Ever struggled to balance firm boundaries with life’s unexpected twists? What if you could turn this struggle into a graceful dance of empowerment?

Feeling overwhelmed toggling between assertiveness and adaptability? It’s time to break free from the draining cycle and embrace a harmonious approach.

Picture a life where strong boundaries seamlessly coexist with flexible responses. What if you could navigate challenges confidently while staying true to your values?

🌟BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:

• The Interwoven Nature of Boundaries and Flexibility: Uncover how these seemingly opposing forces can work together to enhance your life.

• Inner Boundaries and Sovereignty over Thoughts: Gain control over your inner world, finding peace amid chaos by redirecting your thoughts.

• The Dance of Bold Boundaries and Fearless Flexibility: Discover the joy of living authentically through the synergy of firm boundaries and flexible approaches.
  
  

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Professional Bio

Are you a high-achieving, ambitious professional working mother, feeling trapped in the whirlwind of your demanding career and family responsibilities? Overwhelmed by stress, busyness, and societal expectations? Drained of energy and struggling to find balance while silently battling guilt and unfulfillment?

Welcome to a transformative journey a certified lifestyle medicine physician, experienced yoga and meditation teacher, and a mother of three. In this immersive podcast, she provides a path to authenticity, purpose, and vitality. Through tailored coaching programs, Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer equips you with the tools and strategies to regain balance and create a life aligned with your true self.

Our listeners, our clients, are high-achieving professional working mothers who have successfully transformed their lives with life design. They’ve overcome stress, found peace within their careers and personal lives, and are thriving.

Discover how to harmoniously balance your professional and personal life, relieve stress, and find your true purpose. Learn time management techniques, prioritize self-care, and regain meaning in life. Join Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer and begin your journey towards a life of ease, vitality, and impact, where authenticity leads the way.

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Podcast Episode Transcript

Bold boundaries and fearless flexibility. Cheers. All right, I was about to start this podcast and I was like, I’m gonna have a little sip of water before I start recording. And I realized that this glass with the water in it is exactly what we’re talking about. Hear me out. So the glass is like a boundary. It’s a container. It contains what’s important here. So it is holding.

My water, which is completely flexible, it’s fluid and it sustains life. So without the boundary of this cup, water wouldn’t be able to flow where it needs to go, which is blah, fall all over the place. So the boundary of the water makes it useful and the water is channeled where it needs to go.

But yet still has the freedom to move. It can come anywhere out of this cup. It doesn’t have to come out of this side. It can come anywhere. So it has fluidity and flexibility. So it can move where it wants to move. So there’s how flexibility and boundaries are completely intertwined and so important. They sustain life. All right. It’s true though. So.

Welcome to the show. So glad to have you here. We’ll be talking more about flexibility and boundaries. So.

There’s, to me, I’m at the great risk of beating a very dead horse. We’re talking about boundaries and flexibility today because we hear about boundaries all the time. So this is a little bit different take. It’s not your normal, like, tell people what you will accept from them and then act on that. That’s true, and it can be super helpful, but we’re gonna go a little bit deeper today about boundaries and flexibility. So first of all,

Things that were commonly told. We’re gonna talk about the old definition of flexibility and boundaries, and then we’ll talk about the new one, and just a few ideas about that. And then at the end.

I think, what are we gonna do at the end?

At the end, we’ll talk about how to embrace our boundaries and flexibility together, which will ultimately, you know, give us confidence and help flow with life in a sustainable way, just like our water. So, let’s get down to it.

So, let’s see.

And I’m gonna look down, if you’re watching this, I’m gonna look down and read some of my notes because that makes this more possible.

If you’re watching this, you might see me look down. I’m also reading some of my notes that I made personally for this. So one of the basic things about boundaries that we’re commonly told is, you know, we just need to prioritize ourselves and we should start with a small boundary and then build on that and focus on what we really want. Another thing that I’ve heard is

Make a list of your priorities. And just remember what you’re committed to and that helps with our boundaries. This is true. None of these are totally wrong, but these are just some more common definitions and ideas about boundaries that I’ve heard. Sometimes people give journal practices and I think journal practices are amazing. So that can be helpful, but it’s a common thing that people do.

Practice saying it in the mirror, you know, practice your script of, no, I’m going to tell you, no, I’m not going to do this job, or I’m not going to do this housework, or whatever it is that you’re talking about your boundaries. And remember that it gives you freedom, ultimately, which it does. And a lot of us are really desperately longing to be better at this because it’s

I think it goes along with compromising our integrity. And this is not an accusation because I’m still working on this too. But it’s, you know, we lose confidence when someone is trying to get us to do something and we acquiesce or say, well, okay, I’ll go ahead and do it. It’s not what I really wanna do, you know? And then it’s also the boundaries have multiple levels.

So the one is to say no, but beyond that is that’s, you know, where the rub is. And a lot of times I’ve known personally, I’ll say, well, okay, I’ll just do it because it’s easier than fighting the fight. But ultimately it’s not, it’s that, you know, easy, what’s the saying, easy habits, hard life, hard habits, easy life. And I’ve come to believe that not having good boundaries is one of the things that

Gives us a hard life. But I think there’s also a certain level of working on your boundaries when they dissipate and it’s not a conscious thing to do, like anything, like anything we learn. Anyway, another part of this is about confidence. And we think we need to build up our confidence, right, to say the things we need to say to enforce our boundaries. And so…

We’re told to build your confidence. Oh, focus on your strengths. Think about how great you are in all the different areas. Focus on that. Or stop thinking negative thoughts. I don’t disagree with these at all. These are just other things that are told to us about confidence. Focus on our strength. Exercise, I think exercise is amazing. Act confident, you know, do the confidence stance that…

I forgot her name, but she wrote the whole book, I think a book or study about how to stand confidently. And I was at Ted Talk, dress to look confident. So it’s almost like to feel confident, we’re gonna be perceived by others to feel confident, which isn’t, you know, of course you feel good when you’re dressed nicely, you know, put together. But I haven’t found that.

Other people’s perception of me looking professional adds to my confidence. I would feel unconfident. It’s kind of like a, well, they talk about dissatisfiers at work, right? Like things they talk about. Pay is not a satisfier, but it’s a dissatisfier within a certain pay, which is appropriate for what you’re doing.

But I think dressing well with respect to confidence is more of like a dissatisfier than a satisfier, meaning if you’re dressed appropriately, you’re fine and you don’t think about it, it’s not really on the radar, but if you’re dressed inappropriately, like overdressed or underdressed, then it makes you not confident. So it’s more of like avoiding non-confidence than it is gaining confidence. Of course you feel good when you’re dressed up, but.

I don’t know how far that can take you ultimately when you’re making a presentation or something, you wanna feel good, but that’s not gonna help you make an amazing presentation because it’s not true inner confidence, it’s kind of based on something more outside. Anyway, we can get bogged down in the minutia of that too, but looking confident, practicing self-care is one of the…

Typical things we think about with confidence, working on your growth mindset, people say that a lot, being proud of the things you’ve accomplished, thinking positively, getting more training, just learning more, learning more, and then you’ll be confident. Do mastery, you know, the thing of, it takes 10,000 hours to be a master at something. I used to be like a hopeful when I got to 10,000 hours of my work, I would be so confident about it.

And although I feel good about it and definitely more confident than I did, I don’t think that is what gives us our confidence entirely. It doesn’t hurt, you know, you know what you’re doing, but it’s still easy to second guess yourself or if you have imposter syndrome, it’s easy to fall into that, even if you have done.

Whatever you’re doing for your 10,000 hours. So mastery, while it’s helpful and supportive, I don’t think that entirely buys our confidence. You tell me, I’m curious about other people. Like if you’re excellent in your field, do you think that just time and training has given you confidence? I think it does.

It does and it doesn’t, you know? So I would love to hear your opinion about that. Without it, you don’t have any confidence. But then like how much confidence can it get there? Can you get all the confidence that you need, right? Because then there’s a certain point, if you’re well-trained and a master at something, then you know all the, you know what you don’t know. That’s like Einstein thing, right? The more you know, the more you know what you don’t know.

That’s what I’m getting at with that part of confidence. Oh, a power, sorry, that’s my dogs, a power playlist, like powerful songs and music and sound can be so powerful. But a lot of times people will talk about that confidence. And oh, the other one that I like is that people talk about, oh, don’t be nervous or don’t be, yeah, don’t be nervous. That’s your, the.

Body, we can’t tell the difference between nervous and excited. So whenever you feel nervous, just tell your body that, oh, I’m not nervous, I’m excited. Oh, okay. But I’m not good at telling myself stories and like believing like if I feel nervous, I’m like, no, I’m actually nervous. And so I don’t really like that idea.

To me, it’s almost like toxic positivity, but not like I get it. I get the intention of it, but not totally sure about that. So what I’m saying now is that confidence, boundaries and flexibility are all tied together. And I kind of dove into confidence a little bit because I think it’s really related to having boundaries because when we start practicing them.

We have to have enough nerve to do it. I think confidence is tied to most everything we’re gonna do in life. So, first I think with confidence, we should take a step back and not overdo ourselves with how we should be doing with our confidence and boundaries. Like we should have stronger boundaries and we’re doing it wrong because we didn’t uphold our boundaries because then…

That does this downward spiral of, well, I didn’t do it the way I wanted to. It wasn’t exactly the outcome I wanted. I feel like I kind of like gave in and then you feel worse about yourself and then you have less confidence. And then the next time, you already don’t have as much confidence. And so it’s kind of a downward spiral. So I’m saying let’s get out of this downward spiral of where we should be.

Doing something different and we’re gonna beat ourselves up. We’re done with that. That’s old school, we’re not doing that anymore. So that’s that Ram Dass saying, don’t should all over yourself, so we’re not gonna should all over ourselves anymore. And here’s something that I think ties together confidence and boundaries. And that is, for me at least,

The idea that it’s one thing to have boundaries with people. And that’s what we talk about so much of like, well, their behavior is not acceptable. So I’m gonna have a boundary with them. And I have to have this boundary with this person and my family member or my dog or whoever, you know, colleagues at work, whatever thing, entity, usually people that we’re having a boundary with, it’s always external. But I found that

When I can control my inner boundaries, that helps me have so much peace with enforcing a boundary with other people. And by that, I mean thinking about something a whole lot, you know, like overanalyzing it or ruminating it, as some people say, that’s not having an inner boundary. And when I say not having it, again, I wanna be super careful.

And not go into an area of shame and blame because we’ve had enough of that. I’ve had enough of that. I don’t know if you have, but I have. So just as a side note, I never want you to walk away from anything I’ve said feeling shame or blame, please. If you do let me know, we can work it out because that’s not my intention at all. And so these are just areas to hopefully.

Uplift us and learn to walk with more peace and power, confidence in our lives. Okay, so that’s the side note. So this is about an inner boundary. And a big boundary that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is our inner boundary with our inner critic, because this part of us can just go off.

And go off, you know. I know something would happen at times and, you know, other people have moved on. And then a few days later, I’m still thinking about, oh my gosh, I should have done this. I didn’t enforce the boundary or I did enforce the boundary. Whatever it is, like this continual thinking of it is what’s hurting me.

It’s not even about the other person or the situation, it’s me having these thoughts over and over and over about the situation or what I should have done different or what’s happening when the reality of the moment is everything’s okay. And so I’ve found, you know, just this week I was thinking about this and I was like, you know what? I’m gonna not indulge myself. And this is a huge self-discipline of I’m not gonna indulge myself in.

You know, going down every rabbit hole of, well, what if this happens? What if that happens? And, oh, somebody might be mad at me or I might be mad at them or, you know, whatever. I decided I was gonna indulge myself in a phone call to a friend and I did that. And luckily she was very supportive and didn’t mind talking to me. This was a situation in my life. And then,

It was over. I decided I’m not gonna keep thinking about this. And when we can have power over our mind and our thinking, it’s so wonderful. So I decided I’m gonna start thinking about affirmations, I’m gonna meditate and pray, that’s what I do. And it was so helpful. And I’m not saying ignore situations.

I’m not saying don’t address situations. I’m saying that sometimes when we keep thinking about things, because our brain wants to automatically figure things out like a puzzle, right? And then if these situations come up like boundaries, if the situation come up and it doesn’t work, we’re kind of like sideways like a puzzle piece. And we want to turn the puzzle piece the right way to make it fit so bad to like make everything make sense in our head of why they did that and why we did this

What they were needing and what we were needing and all the, and then it’s just this big, huge kerfuffle. But if things are sideways and we can find a way to put it down, that gives us some space to come up with a creative strategy to actually solving it. Instead of being in the state of being triggered or upset by what’s going on, instead of overthinking or having self-blame or guilt about something.

If we can put it down and get some space, then the strategy has room to come in. Or maybe there’s nothing else to do. Maybe we just held a boundary and then we’re having this kind of boundary hangover of, oh, I don’t know if I should have done that. Was that, did that work? Did I say the right thing? Am I overreacting? You know, all these things. If we put a boundary up and say, I’m not gonna indulge myself.

In re-reviewing this. I did the best I can at the moment. I think my judgment is sound about this. You can pray that your judgment is sound, pray for wisdom, whatever it is that you need to settle yourself. But there’s a skill in learning to settle ourselves with a shade of the whole thing not being entirely rectified.

At least that’s something that was helpful for me to realize, you know? And actually I just heard this week also this other tip and I wish I could remember the creator who I heard this from and I can’t if you know, let me know. But they said, instead of saying, is this reasonable? Like is what the other person is doing or saying or acting.

What they’re doing, is that reasonable? Because I know I spend a lot of time doing that, like, is this reasonable? Am I asking too much? Am I asking too little? Are they asking too much? Are they asking too little? You know, like analyzing it, instead of doing that saying, am I comfortable with this? Does this feel good to me? And it simplifies it so much, because instead of like doing this outer thing of, are they okay? Am I okay? I don’t know.

And so doing that, just say, is this okay with me? And if it’s not, that is legitimate. Please know if something is not okay with you, it’s legitimate. Because I think we’re gaslighted, especially as women, that, oh, you’re just being emotional about it. Well, there’s a reason. Sometimes we get emotional and that’s okay. I’m not saying to act out of your emotions all the time, but I’m saying we have reactions to things and it’s not a bad thing.

To not wanna go along with somebody else because you have a feeling about it. So for the record, that’s. So it’s good to have your boundary.

Yeah, let’s see. Okay, so this thing about letting our thoughts go and the lack of boundaries, it’s almost like we’re lacking sovereignty over our thoughts. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot of, because one of the things I work on in myself is being even minded. And I think I have been.

Over the course of my life, you know, up and down somewhat emotionally. And like, so I’m in adulthood, feel like I really focused on emotional regulation and, you know, nervous system regulation, a lot of things. But this idea of sovereignty over my thoughts is so exciting to me because it’s just a huge relief. Like I don’t.

I have to sit around and worry about things if I don’t want to. And I think for a long time, I had this belief that if a thought came up, I had to follow it. Like, oh, should I have said that today at work? Should I have said that at my kid’s baseball game? Like, did somebody, were they offended that I sat in the wrong place? Anything, you know?

And instead, I don’t have to follow that strand if I don’t want to. And so it’s like, it’s such a peaceful, pleasant way to live to be like, no, you know, I, where I’m sitting in the baseball game doesn’t matter and I’m good, so I’m gonna let that go. And intentionally redirect, and that’s an important thing too. We can’t just say, I suppose some people can that are very skilled at clearing their mind, but I’ll…

for me at least I need to redirect myself. It’s like a toddler, you know, like this brain, my brain is going and going and so I’m like, okay, we’re not gonna think about that right now. The here’s where we’re gonna focus and let’s do something constructive with our time and mental energy instead of letting our, you know, having no boundaries and it’s like the water, like my thoughts are just like fluid, you know, they go around. But if I have some boundaries within myself,

It keeps things constrained so that my thoughts are my servant, not my master. So they are sustaining life, not ruining it, spilling everywhere, tearing things apart, right?

And then another part of boundaries is our state. And Tony Robbins talks about our state all the time. And I’ve listened to Tony Robbins since I was a teenager. So what, that’s 40 years? 30, 40 years, anyway, a long time. And our state, I was listening, I was thinking about

Taylor Swift because she was saying in her interview that she ran the whole time on the treadmill singing all her songs so that her songs would be part of her and she got it into her body and her learning that way. And so she could enjoy the concert and be with the concert goers and interact with them more while she was singing. And I was thinking about this in terms of our boundaries and how…

A lot of us didn’t learn this growing up. And so it is necessary to like really practice and really say, I don’t know, what am I gonna do? Maybe I do need to look in front of the mirror and talk to myself, you know. But I do think there’s a certain point where we can practice it and get into a state where we’re comfortable, we’re more comfortable with it. And part of that is having a regulated nervous system and having confidence. And…

Knowing that we have the ability, whatever the outcome is, to handle it. I think a lot of times, we aren’t sure in ourselves that we’re gonna be able to handle the outcome. And that’s part of that inner critic or the thing in us that keeps us alive. But it can also do some pretty destructive things if it’s not kept in check. You know?

So what I’m saying is I think boundaries are more of an outcome than an effect. Or because we…

are the effect or outcome. So what I’m, hold on, let me mark that because I want to just pause there.

So what I’m saying is, boundaries are more of an outcome than a cause. So if we are regulated and comfortable and confident in our own skin, and we know who we are and what we stand for, the outcome of that will be boundaries. And I’m a little concerned that we try to…

Do this backwards of saying, I’m gonna have boundaries. And if we don’t know who we are and what we stand for, just flat out, that part gets wobbly. The boundaries part gets wobbly. But if we know who we are, if we get on the treadmill like Taylor Swift and sing, this is who I am. Like these are my values. This is my mission in life. This is what I’m about.

We practice that enough and we focus on that enough and that’s what we do in life design. We define our mission, our values, who we are and what we’re up to. When we can really define that, then the boundaries become a lot easier because you’re like, well, I know this is important to me, here are my values, that’s not in line with it, so I’m not gonna do it. And then we have this thing where we don’t let our thoughts go amuck.

And we have sovereignty over our own thoughts. And yeah, that creates a pretty good place to live in our brain, in our world, in our environment. So.

The other part about fearless flexibility is that we need flexibility. One of our main, one thing in life that’s super important is knowing that we have choice. When we don’t have choice, we feel trapped. And that is just like our nervous system. You know, I just, thinking about being trapped just makes me constrict, you know? It’s so we can go into fight or flight or shut down.

Different responses to that idea of feeling trapped. So we also need to know we have choice. And by that, that’s what I’m saying, we need some flexibility. So I don’t think most of us want to live this black and white, here’s my rules. You know, sometimes there’s hard lines of boundaries. Of course, of course. But to me, the boundaries that get me, you know, in my thinking,are the ones that are a little bit more gray. And those are the ones that, well, we can hold the boundary, but also have some flexibility around it. So I’m gonna go about eight o’clock, and if you want this chore around the house done, sure, I’m happy to help with that, but we’re gonna have to do it at a different time. So that way we have some flexibility. We’re not just saying, no, I’m going to bed. That’s the end of the story.

We can say like this, we have a different way to handle it. We have this boundary and the boundary is not gonna move because it’s something that’s important to us to get the right amount of sleep for our physical health or rest and things we need, right? But then we have the flexibility like the water to come up with different strategies to make it work for everybody, which is the fun. Like that’s so fun. I don’t think anybody, unless people are just, you know, intentionally attacking you or something.

Which that would be a very hard boundary. But if they’re not, and you want to work together with them, it’s instead of this thing where you’re pushing fist to fist, pushing against each other, it’s a way to turn and go with each other while maintaining your boundary, while maintaining your autonomy, while maintaining your own choice. It can still connect with the other person.

And have some flexibility about having a creative strategy to figure out what everybody needs and how to accomplish that.

And so these two, we have these two very, very basic needs for flexibility and boundaries. And I contend that boundaries is this very basic level in our brain, because that’s protection, right? Anytime we need a boundary, we need protection. And some of us grew up not really learning that as much, and then we have to learn it in adulthood. But we don’t want it so rigid.

That we aren’t able to have some movement where we can create different ideas and have some creativity and respond appropriately. So, and you know, a Tony Robbins thing is our needs. And I’m like with nonviolent communication, there’s a huge believer in all our human needs. And two of those needs are stability and change like adaptability, right? And flexibility.

And so there’s two very important needs and they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. They can exist at the same time. And that’s actually the fun and the joy to figure out how our stability, our boundaries can exist at the same time as our flexibility exists like the water, because that’s what sustains life and that’s where we meet each other and that’s where we connect in that rigid

There are like a stone, there are things that we need to have boundaries about that we need to hold tight to this, you know, our moral compass, like things that are ethically important to us. That’s very important to stand firm in. But there’s also an area of flexibility. I’m not saying, please don’t take it that I’m saying be flexible with your boundaries. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying be thoughtful and discern.

When to stand firm in something and when to have some flexibility with yourself and other people, you know, because then you can sustain life.

So I am inviting you to join this beautiful dance of boundaries and flexibility, being bold with your boundary, being, I’m inviting you to enjoy and participate in this dance of bold boundaries and fearless flexibility because that is the juicy fun part of life.

That’s where we can live our authentic selves the most because we can have our strong foundation of what we believe in and who we are, but also have some flexibility to address what comes up in the moment, who appears, what situation happens. Integrating those two is how we elevate our life. We design this into our life to live out who we are.

And to successfully navigate life, we have to integrate our strong foundation, our strong boundaries and flexibility to use our judgment and see what’s happening in that moment.

Then I’ll just, okay, I’ll tell you one more story. This is something I’ve heard advice. You know, there’s, I’ve studied these, you know, Bhagavad Gita and some ancient Indian texts. I’ve studied different things like that in addition to all the different books I’ve read. But one of those, I think maybe it was Gandhi, they were talking about nonviolence and…

Oh, I think it was the Bhagavad Gita. It was that argument of like, if someone comes into a town and starts killing people, should you kill them or not? You know, and that’s this debate of like, what does the divine want us to do? What does God want us to do? What are, what’s the right thing to do? What should we do? And people want an answer for that. And what I learned is that

We may not know that ahead of time, but if we know who we are in the moment, we are able to make a good decision at the time. And that’s why meditation practice, different, whatever you do as a practice for a connection with something bigger than you, for me it’s meditation, or prayer.

Could be good, but it’s that practice of that long term. When you’re doing that, then you’ll be prepared for the bigger things in life. So that’s sort of a side note, but I think it’s important in the integrating the boundaries and flexibility because we have our boundaries. But when we practice a connection, you know, in meditation or prayer, when we practice these grounding things, when we practice knowing who we are,

And when we practice discipline, we practice these values that are so important to us, then we don’t have to have the whole plan figured out. We have confidence, it builds our confidence, but we know we will have the confidence to deal with any situation that comes up..

So this interconnection of boundaries and flexibility is a way to live a very rich, meaningful, purposeful, powerful life where you are practicing holistically your values and your mission and your purpose and what you really believe in. And I have enough faith in humanity to believe that if we all did this,

We would go in the right direction. And I think a lot of people were not going in the right direction right now, but I think if we really focused on living our highest values each individually, it would make a huge, huge difference in the world right now. So thanks for joining me today. I will see you next time. I’m gonna start a series next time. I will see you next time.

I’m gonna start a series about the different areas of our life and applying life design to all these different areas of our life. We’ll be talking about career, home, physical environment, finances. I’ll do a podcast on each topic. So join me for those. I’m really excited about it and can’t wait to share more. Thank you.