Ep.64 “People Pleasing Is Manipulative”: A Boundary Setting Bootcamp With Michelle Elman

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1:17Because when your operations are smooth, your impact can be bigger. Visit business.warmart.com to get started. Today, we are having a bootcamp on boundaries. Michelle Ellman is a master practitioner, a master hypnotherapist and a psychologist but these accolades are more than just a job for Michelle, they're personal. I died when I was 11. I had 15 surgeries before the age of 19, a brain tumour, a puncture intestine. So thinking and having been told that you could die pretty soon, what are the key ways that that changed the way you live and your mindset? I would even go as far as to say that people pleasing can be quite manipulative and it's actually just nonsense.

1:56If it's something that's so easy then why are we all struggling with it? The reason why women have been trained to communicate indirectly is you can't live your life scared you're gonna die every day or scared of anything. How can we practice self-love daily? Your inner voice is not yours it doesn't belong to you it's someone else who taught you that. You cannot profit off someone loving themselves you can profit off someone hating themselves. Being in a relationship will not fix your loneliness. So how would you recommend someone sets boundaries when they're dating? So do you think too many people are settling when it comes to dating and relationships?

2:30The reason why people settle is...

2:42Today we are having a boot camp, okay? I hope you're ready. I hope you're feeling enthusiastic. I hope you got your notes app out. We are having a bootcamp on boundaries, especially when it comes to dating with self-worth, with general relationships, with relationships with your friends in your life, all of that. I felt like I'd had an absolute pep talk on boundaries and how important they are and how we need to be setting them more and how much they just generally improve your life. So I hope you're ready. I hope you're ready to learn. I hope you're ready to have a full-on pep talk. This was very much a needed episode and I'm going to be taking these learnings the way and very much implementing them because I feel like we always just slip sometimes with our boundaries today's the boot camp I hope you enjoy it as always if you do enjoy it please make sure to rate subscribe like I literally don't know what app you're on so I can't actually help with what you should be doing but whatever it looks like you should be doing it would be really helpful if you could do and that helps us get great guests on and have amazing conversations so thank you so much and as always have a wonderful day Michelle Ellman is a woman with a psychology empire.

3:43Her qualifications speak for themselves. She's a five board accredited life coach, a master practitioner, a master hypnotherapist and a psychologist. Plus she's published four bestselling books. But these accolades are more than just a job for Michelle, they're personal. She faced serious health challenges throughout her childhood, having to endure 15 surgeries, followed by periods of intense self-doubt and low body confidence due to her scars. Aged just 21, she began her campaign, Scarred Not Scared, advocating for body confidence and sharing her story with the world. Now she spends her days coaching others on the importance of self-love, boundaries and acceptance.

4:15I'm so excited to share her wisdom with you in this episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. I'd like to start at the beginning so people can get a bit of background on you. I guess how you even got to your career now? Yeah, so I grew up in Hong Kong and then I came over here for boarding school when I was 11 and I guess the biggest part of my childhood is I grew up in and out of hospitals. So I had 15 surgeries before the age of 19. The 15 surgeries are from a brain tumour, punctured intestine, obstructed bowel, system I brain and a condition called hydrocephalus. So it was a lot of traumatic near-death experiences and thankfully my last surgery and hospitalisation was when I was 19 but I guess that created a lot of how I lived my life because everyone knows you're going to die but to actually live with the emotional realisation of that and especially when I was 19 in those two surgeries I had then I actually thought this is it so that's how I started writing my first book it had been an English project when I was 12 years old when I was in year eight to write an autobiography and I was like I can't leave this earth with nothing because in my mind studying was the process to get to the thing you want to do with your life this book ended up being like my legacy for my family and friends so that like I didn't just stop existing one day and that they would be able to see how what I thought about back then and what I cared about and all these things but the problem is once you finish a book and you want to publish it because you're like I've written 200 ,000 words I need it to be seen and that's what got me onto my author journey and along the way I've always been passionate about psychology I decided I was going to be a psychologist at 11 years old sitting in a hospital bed because I met a psychologist through being in the ICU which was in America and psychologists would come around checking your mental health all of that and that's when I decided I was going to be a psychologist and I guess where that took a turn was when I was in university in my third year I got PTSD from my medical situation so the last time I went into hospital was my second year of university and then in the third year that PTSD kind of brought up all my issues from 11 year olds sort of younger but 11 year old is when I had my most major surgeries and I then went to therapy for the first time and it was that ironic moment of I'm doing a bachelor's degree in psychology I want to be a psychologist I've known this for a decade but now I'm sitting in a psychologist's office and this isn't helping me so what do I do next so I graduated having no clue what I wanted to do and but I knew my mental health was not in the place it should be talking therapy didn't work for me and I think now we are much more open to the fact that there are other holistic ways to view things and it's quite a well-known fact that especially when it comes to trauma and PTSD talking therapy can sometimes deepen the neurological patterns by talking about it more which is why I was getting that feeling of walking out of a psychologist's office and I felt worse than when I'd walked in and there's a cliche saying of like it's got to get worse to get better but by the time it had been four months I was like it's not getting better yeah so what I ended up finding was havening which is a version of hypnotherapy and hypnotherapy led me into life coaching and basically the man who helped me in a session which sounds too good to be true at the end of the session I went whatever you're trained in I'm getting trained in too and that's what turned me into a life coach and who is this man because I need it well genuinely it was that thing of when you address trauma through the lens of it sits within your body it is a faster fix than talking about something that ultimately has no solution because I was feeling it in my body and I couldn't stop this physical reaction of I would think a thought have a memory start hysterically crying I couldn't even get to the depths of what the issue was because the crying was then bringing up all the stigma around crying all the stigma around women being emotional all of that and then you're not actually dealing with the real problem so it wasn't a one quick fix but it did stop the crying in a session and then I now have a life coach that I've had for over a decade now and a life coach who helps me and therefore when I life coach other people I can go hey you know what I've been in that boat I've been through that situation you're not alone and also what all the exercises I give you are things I've tried myself because if it doesn't work I don't suggest it that is such an incredible story and I can imagine having that experience of being in and out of hospital and having so many major surgeries at that age like if you're not going through something as traumatic as that which obviously the majority of people thankfully aren't yeah there's not this real kind of being affronted with being like oh this is very finite our time here is short and actually you know all of the trauma that comes with that especially if that's being kind of imposed on you so quickly and to such a strong extent that you as a teenager are being like you know will I make it through the surgery one of the things I've thought about it is like especially when I was 19 a lot of people assume that they're going to live to 90 so a lot of the life lessons I got weren't just things that my friends didn't know or understand but probably won't know and understand until the end of their life but there's this natural assumption that your life is going to be long and in many ways I'm now having to actually learn that because I've acted like life is so short right which obviously leads to problems like burnout or putting too much pressure on yourself I'm now actually having to like wake up and remind myself life is long you're still alive you're 30 years old you thought you'd die at 21 but you're still alive you can't do everything in one day and you wake up every morning thinking that's it that's it like and that's kind of how I did live my life which is quite understandable why I ended up getting PTSD because thinking your life is so limited and short does put an unnecessary strain on your mental health.

10:09So thinking and having been told that you could die pretty soon at 19, what are the key ways that that changed the way you live and your mindset? I attack life very aggressively essentially and I've always been told with anyone I work with that they've never known someone so efficient because it is that feeling of my time running out all the time but I also think it's things like I find it really difficult if I hang up a phone call and someone doesn't say I love you because I have the thought in my brain of what if that's the last conversation we're ever going to have which sounds lovely in some ways but also probably means you're living your life with a lot more fear and I think my learning process through the ages of 19 and 23 24 which was really when I found my feet again after PTSD were unlearning that you can't live your life scared you're going to die every day or scared of anything to be honest and a lot of my drive was coming from fear and now I try to create drive around what I love rather than being worried about something or scared of something and what about the positive shifts in terms of mindset and in terms of like you know I think probably we all need a little bit of a reminder to actually live our lives what are those kind of shifts that you had you don't take everything for granted around you and I remember shortly after I came out of hospital when I was 19 it was actually Valentine's Day and stereotypically and the previous year we had all the single girls had got ice cream out and sat around watching Bridget Jones and being sad about being single and I remember that year I was like we're not doing that this year we're not wasting 24 hours of our day being sad because what we have no love in our life that's absolute nonsense we have love we might not have romantic love but we have platonic love and why are we all being miserable together when we're literally sitting next to people who love us I think they indulged me that year because I had just come out of hospital so we did we did a quadruple date with all the single people on the corridor and it was things like that where I do think you're never going to emotionally realize you're going to die soon but I think by being around me during that period it did rub off on my friendship group where I was like we're not complaining about silly things that don't matter so ultimately it was perspective it was context there was a guy I was seeing through that period he ghosted me the moment I went to hospital which was great and I would have been really upset about that before and I saw him on that night on Valentine's night and he came up to me and he said some rubbish thing about how beautiful I was because I'd lost so much weight obviously I'd not eaten in the last six weeks because I was hooked up to a drain oh my god dodged a bullet there but it didn't affect my night I was like I'm having a great night you can't affect it you don't have that power and you aren't even touching what I've just been through so like no matter how negative or horrible your comment is you're just not going to have that control over me anymore and I hate that I had to go into hospital to have that but it's a feeling that I like to return to because once you emotionally feel that you can hold on to it and use your memories in a positive way and how do you return to that feeling so this is a real life coaching thing that I learned you know how if you think about a sad memory in your life long enough you will start feeling sad what we don't realize is you can do the same with happy memories but almost reverse engineer it go back to a time in your life when you felt most confident I actually do this before public speaking and I remember I did this before my TED talk where I remember going back to a time in my life I met felt most confident a time in my life I felt most calm and when I say go back to that time you literally imagine yourself in your body at the time breathing how you were breathing at the time sitting how you're sitting at the time and actually look through your eyes in that moment and go into your body and feel what you are feeling in that moment so you can borrow that confidence and what's strange is what I used for my TED talk was a meeting I had when I was 14 years old but I remember feeling so confident in that meeting and I went into my body at the time and I used that confidence to be confident in my TED talk you think of a sad memory you not only feel sad but your body adapts to what feeling sad looks like so stereotypically that's hunched shoulders and all of that but that's why the confidence things works because if you're confident your shoulders are back you're breathing differently you're breathing slower so when you go back in the memory you actually adopt the physiology you had at the time and if you're thinking about a sad memory and you've got the physiology of being sad a lot of times those are the moments where you go I can't remember the time in my life I was happy it's because you're sitting literally in a sad physiology and that physiology is actually connected to your memories so the next time you're feeling really down go put your hands on your hips and stand with your shoulders back and then try to remember the last time you felt happy the memory will come back to you faster because you are actually standing that way when you were happy I want to talk a little bit about self-love I know you speak about this a lot in your work and online why do you think I guess self-criticism is so endemic in in young people now I think for a long time we were taught to believe that if you criticize yourself constructive criticism it makes us better when actually especially when you do it to a child it becomes their inner voice and especially if it's coming from a main caregiver or a parent as a child you look at your parents as being perfect as always being right so if they criticize something like your body you take that in and you decide you are wrong and that means you lose touch with being able to trust your instinct being able to trust your body if it's around body shame or being able to trust even your opinions on things because mum and dad are always right and they always know more than me so it's not just a criticism on your homework or a criticism on the way you're dressing it's about who you are as a human and that's the difference between shame and guilt so maybe if you haven't done your homework you would feel bad about not doing your homework but the shame is when it becomes I'm a bad person for not doing my homework and largely that's because you're not realizing the power dynamic between a caregiver and a child who still can't fully rely on themselves to live so they're so reliant on you that they are so sensitive to what you say so a lot of the time it can be something as simple as if you were around a parent who was very critical if you smashed a plate for example I'm using that example because I'm a very clumsy person and they made a big deal about it and was like oh my god how can you break that plate all of that the next time you make a simple mistake as an adult what do you think's going through your mind it's the voice of all the caregivers around you telling you how stupid you are how clumsy you are if you can't even hold a plate how am i meant to trust you with xyz what is a really pivotal change as you become an adult is understanding that your inner voice is not yours it doesn't belong to you it's someone else who taught you that and therefore being able to tell the difference between a positive inner voice and a negative one and how do you think we can kind of break that cycle of self-criticism you know actively in the everyday so another way is that I think a lot of the time when you have an inner critic is that it's very loud and people tell themselves to stop so it'll be like oh stop saying that stop saying that I need to focus all of that the more you try to stop it the louder it tends to get because it almost engages with it and starts an argument instead imagine a dial like on a stereo and like turning the dial down so it could be quieter and most importantly you don't have to believe it or listen to it just because it's going on your head doesn't mean it's true and I like to use the analogy can you imagine if your brain said something like your hair's blue well your hair's not blue my hair's not blue I wouldn't think twice about it but it's when it says something that taps into something we already believe in that we hook into it and we start a dialogue with it but if we were able to let it go like a cloud in the sky like just passing through then we don't attach to it we don't spend more time on it and we don't spend more energy on it and I guess on the opposite side of self-criticism how can we I guess practice self-love daily so one of the things I love is called evidences and it's three things and at the moment I'm doing three things I impressed myself with today but you can do whatever your insecurities around so three reasons why I loved my body today three reasons my body got me through my day, three reasons why I was proud of myself.

18:30Whatever language resonates with you is what you should do every day but you have to make it a habit because if you think about how many times in a day you think negatively of yourself you have to be doing more to think positively about yourself to rewrite that. I think for me one of the things that really helped was understanding that there are roughly 50 to 80 ,000 thoughts in a day so how many of those thoughts are completely irrelevant and which ones are you attaching to is a really key thing and once I realized that my thoughts aren't facts it gave me the ability to create distance between certain thoughts so I probably do still have bad body image thoughts because I grew up in a world that is very critical of appearances but if I have a thought like your thighs are full of cellulite I'd be like oh I need to write that email and just move on it takes a millisecond and then I'm on to the next thought because I don't put weight in it anymore.

19:18I'm like, who cares? Who cares what my thighs look like? My body isn't as important as what I have to do today. And it's going to get me there and it doesn't stop me. On that one specifically, if someone was having a particularly bad body image day, what would you suggest for them to, I guess, turn that day around in terms of that bad body image specifically? So for me, body confidence is quite a lofty concept. And so the end goal for me is that you spend less time and energy thinking about what you look like throughout your day and that actually I think is the greatest negative of being insecure about your body is that you don't leave the house without triple checking your outfit changing a few times redoing your makeup you're not focused in the job interview you have that day because you're thinking about what you look like right realizing what is more important than your body and I think a lot of the focus at the moment especially within body positivity is you are so beautiful I do believe everyone is beautiful and I believe anyone who you don't think is beautiful you've just been taught to believe that they are outside the beauty ideal.

20:12But at the same time, what you do with your body is more important than what it looks like. And I think ultimately coming back to my hospital experiences, that taught me that more than anything. I spent my entire adolescence years hating my body, hating what I look like. For the people listening who can't see right now, I have surgery scars all over my stomach. I'm half bald behind here. I have surgery scars on my ankles. I have one here that everyone confuses with the nipple. And so I grew up very insecure about what I look like and it was only when I was about 15 I realized the one grace of surgery scars is you can't do anything to change it if I was insecure about my weight I could have changed that if I was insecure about my nose I could have a plastic surgery what am I going to get plastic surgery to remove surgery scars doesn't really make a lot of sense and so I had to accept it and as soon as I accepted it I actually started putting myself forward for leadership positions in the school but I accepted I was ugly and I couldn't change it but I could do so much more with my life and because I had those two feelings in my body of oh I hate my body but also I realized how short life is and I've got to make the most of life I actually just threw myself into everything that wasn't appearance space or aesthetic space and then over time I learned to love the way I looked and accept the way I look what came first is realizing I was more than a body rather than realizing I was beautiful the realizing I was beautiful part came maybe eight years later but In those eight years, I did so much with my life because I didn't let it stop me.

21:36The whole beauty myth thing, like it's a distraction sent to suppress and distract. And it sounds all like conspiracy theory. But actually, if you really think about it, it's like, yeah, sure, it's better if we spend all of this time concentrating on our looks. And it might sound like a conspiracy theory, but I think most of the world can understand that money runs the world. The amount of money behind it, it makes sense. And you cannot profit off someone loving themselves. you can profit off someone hating themselves and selling them cellulite products and selling them new tanning products and actually just thinking about how many hours in a week that a woman is spending on their manicure their pedicure their haircut their tanning regime their waxing all of that that men don't have to do or even I mean this is just a joke but I do tend to say it quite a lot I don't wear heels I've not worn heels in 10 years and I say I think it's purposely created to slow women down well I'm a very fast walker so I probably need heels to just like you know stop me a little bit so I can stop chasing everyone down the street and I think then there also comes the shame after that point when you still adhere to those beauty standards or attempt to fulfill them because I think it is such a natural I mean we're you know we're pack animals we want to we want to impress we want to feel good about ourselves we want to feel like we are doing well in in all aspects including how we look and I think that's really tough too because obviously that kind of plays into it and then you're very aware of the fact that you might be doing xyz for the male gaze like I would love to say that I do it all for the female gaze I don't like I don't think when you when it really comes down to it like there's it's so much more complex than that but then there comes like the guilt of also still doing the things it might be shaving it might be makeup it might be any of these different things so it's so layered as well what's really strange is when you think you're about to die everyone um especially in the movies they have this reel of like all the big moments in your life and actually that wasn't what was going through my head for six weeks what was going through my head for six weeks was a memory where my friends had gone to dance class and I had said no because I didn't want to be the fat girl in dance class and it's so small and it's so insignificant but for some reason I was like what I would give right now to go to dance class what I would give right now to see my friends and after that I made a promise that I was like I'm my body is doing its damn this to try to keep me alive the least I could do is try to help it and support it and I'm never going to say no to living my life anymore simply because of what I look like and I think that actually is the biggest shift for body confidence is your body has no power over dictating what you do in your life if you decide you're going to go do it anyway The market's uncertain.

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25:39This is LLC member NYSE SIPC.

25:45Okay, I want to talk about dating. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about your kind of view on dating apps. Yeah, so for years, I actually didn't talk about my love life online. Like I would talk about life coaching and body image and all of the things. And love life was the one thing I didn't mention. And then I kind of had a moment where I was a bit frustrated with the fact that anytime I would sit on a panel, the only questions around dating that I would be asked were negative assumptions so either around me being plus size or mixed race and being fetishized or the fact that I have a chronic illness and how difficult that is to date right and then the other people on my panel would be asked oh I like the positive experience the good stories and I was like okay but you didn't ask me that question so I can't tell you do not assume that I could have had yeah but the world does that doesn't it the world goes like you're plus size you're mixed race you're half bald you're you've got a chronic illness you're gonna have a tough time dating that's gonna limit your dating pool but no one ever stopped to actually ask me do I like them back and so it was this moment where I was like well I do have a great love life I have a great dating life I was single for eight years and I went on so many dates and had the best time and I was like I want to talk about it just if only for the only reason that it's positive representation that you can look like me i.e.

27:02I do think I'm beautiful but outside of the beauty ideal and have an amazing love life that's kind of what led to my book the selfish romantic was that I was like it's proof that actually this idea that the way you look limits your dating pool well if you're into festivals that also limits your dating pool I don't want to date someone who goes to festivals if you're vegan that limits your dating pool I'm a foodie and I like trying all kinds of restaurants there are so many other elements that limit your dating pool but the danger with saying something like around someone's appearance that is a permanence that they can't change is people believe it and so it was starting to look at my love life a different way because going into dating when I was younger with that mentality especially because when I started dating was really the start of online dating the danger with that was that you have this mentality that beggars can't be choosers that you've got to settle with whoever lands in your lap and unfortunately most of the time that leads to really negative situations and actually more times than not emotionally abusive situations because if you're in a situation where you will take what however they behave or however they treat you people tend to keep going down that path and you don't believe you can find better because you've been told that the way you are means you can't find someone else so you need to stick with your only option and what's even more insidious than that is that they are a saint for loving you at your size they are a saint for loving you especially through your chronic illness that you are a burden if you have a chronic illness and I'm now in a relationship and my boyfriend now still gets that to the day wow you go with Michelle to her MRIs like yeah sorry so did you think I would be in a two-year relationship with a guy who didn't come with me to the hospital it's a really messed up message that because I have a chronic illness it's a one-way love and it's not everyone just has a different issue whether it's you going through it's relative like exactly and also it shouldn't feel like a big deal if you love the person and I think framing a lot of these what people like to say minorities but if you actually put them together it is the majority everyone is going through something all of these things as inconveniences or things that are going to make people want to date you less is just such a horrible and frankly mean message and I think that's where my passion comes from talking about online dating because I know it's boring being on dating apps but my comparison is when people run a business no one tells you how much they love sending invoices they love getting paid so you send the invoice if you want to date you want to go on a date you want to love dating you've got to go on the dating app that's the admin side of it I love dating apps if they didn't work no one would go on them I have never met more interesting people than I have on dating apps and yes there are some dud dates if you date enough you're going to get ghosted it's all a part of it but I think the key is to not take it personally and one of the first tips I give anyone who's going out there before you even start dating is write a hundred reasons why someone would want to date you you need to know what you bring to the table so that someone else can't walk in the room and tell you who you are because you need to know who you are exactly and if someone walked into my life and treated me like I wasn't good enough I would be able to go off the top of my head well I have this and I do this and I'm this kind of person and that's why I am a valuable person today and if you're not going to treat me the way I deserve then I'm going to go find that from someone else the chances that you are going to meet someone and you actually be a good match are lower than the other way around and I think we have this perception that it's going to be you know that it's more likely that you do meet someone that you get on with or whatever it might be like why would that be the case like that makes absolutely zero sense and actually it's a almost like a you know as you say the 100 reasons why someone should date you they also have a hundred reasons why someone should date them perfect if those also align and in terms of like what you want from each other the chances of that happening are slimmer than we give credit for when we're upset that one date didn't work if that makes sense if you knew you had to go on nine dates to meet that tenth person it was going to be great you would be happy with each one of those nine going wrong because you're getting closer yeah and also one of the pieces of the puzzle is that when you go on a good first date and then they don't call you back you see that as a failure so it's what you're describing as failure that's creating this mentality in your head but if you had a really nice evening out maybe you've tried a new restaurant together how is that a failure you've learned something new about your dating life and so I think lowering the bar of what's considered a failure but also just walking into the dates with natural curiosity where you don't have to love the person you don't have to like the person just be curious about the person in front of you and I genuinely believe that you can learn from every single person you interact with but you have to be curious enough to actually ask the questions a lot of the time when people go oh I want to date more I want to get more matches the first thing they do is think of an aesthetic change oh this is why I need to wear more makeup this is why I need to get a new outfit no one actually thinks about the personal development that's required to find a romantic match thinking about the sexual element the romantic element adding that onto how hard it is to find a friend you can live with and travel with that's how hard it is to find a romantic partner what advice would you give someone in terms of like keeping on going I would actually tell you not to I didn't date for three years in my single period of eight years of being single I didn't go on a date for three years I was very focused on my career I realized the only reason I was dating is because I was feeling that pressure when people asked me if I'd been on a date to actually have an answer and you need to actually feel positive optimistic and curious about dates otherwise don't bother give yourself permission to take a break but also you're allowed to feel that disappointment so the piece around understanding how hard it is to find a romantic match is important because it's also reframing what a lot of people see as rejection as not rejection so if someone matches you and then you don't end up going on the date you don't have to see that as rejection because they don't even know you that's a stranger yeah so reduce the amount of rejection that's coming into your life there have been days I have cried over a guy I have never met because I was excited for the date yeah it's the potential it's not the potential the only person you're hurting by pretending those feelings don't exist is yourself and by denying those feelings exist it doesn't make the feelings go away it just makes it worse and that's when resentment around dating builds up and actually comfort yourself in the same compassionate way you would do to a child where you would say hey this is okay look I know you were really excited it's okay to feel that heartbreaking you'll feel okay tomorrow and then you can go on another date what advice would you give to someone who's struggling with their self-worth in general and is also actively dating and finds those two things hard to balance because obviously you do face more rejection than you probably would otherwise when you're putting yourself in front as strangers like you'd feel the same if you were trying to be friends with everyone everyone dates dickheads everyone dates people who treat them awfully the trick is to get rid of them faster and to know that you don't deserve to be treated that way so having that piece of self-worth and knowing what your boundaries are and actually being able to stand up for yourself boundaries are one of those things that people think especially in dating oh we're not serious enough for me to set my boundaries boundaries are there with everyone and you should be setting it from the get-go so the first date they plan a date that's five minutes around from their house and two hours away from you hey no unfortunately that's not going to work for me let's find somewhere somewhere in the middle if they text you two o 'clock in the morning from the get-go hey this is not an appropriate time to text I'll reply to you when I finish work tomorrow you actually setting those boundaries of what's convenient for you what works for you because why are you putting them as a priority in your schedule when again they're still a stranger and they haven't earned that right.

34:51So how would you recommend someone sets boundaries when they're dating? So it's saying those small things starting with where they choose the restaurant where how they reply. I remember with my boyfriend the second day we were texting he texted me at like 10 o 'clock in the morning I'm too busy during the work day to text and so I replied to him at six o 'clock and was like hey I don't text during the work day but feel free to text me and I'll reply as soon as I'm off work and so I set that boundary. Now over time he earned his trust, he earned my respect and I did reply to him during working hours but that took a few months and if he turned up late or if I found he was disrespecting my time I would communicate that I think it's that that difference between when you feel something you thinking oh if I stay quiet about this I will be more dateable and they'll like me more and actually realizing if you show them that in the beginning then you'll know sooner rather than later whether they are the right person for you we are definitely taught to be the cool girl like we're always taught to be as cool and chilled as possible and to let as much slide because that's more dateable not only is it harmful it's also a myth I spent like definitely over 10 years pretending to be the cool girl or pretending to be fine with things that I was actually bulldozing my boundaries yeah and actually then just feeling like well that's fine I'm basically doing my time to be more dateable and actually just realizing that not only is it entirely inappropriate not to set your own boundaries because you're basically disrespecting yourself it's also untrue because you make yourself harder to date because you're not clarifying exactly what is within your boundaries if it's not going to work out it's not going to work out yeah you'd rather know sooner rather than later and as women we are raised to be the cool girl yeah and because if you don't behave that way you will be stigmatized in society using words like she's really harsh in the workplace she's really difficult this idea that I was always taught oh men don't like opinionated women yeah like difficult women yeah and so but oh that's me out the window that actually does them such an injustice men are not a monolith there are men who won't like opinionated women but how am I going to find a man who likes an opinionated woman if I stop being an opinionated woman so it is that thing where you have to understand that if they disappear because you've set a boundary then that's a good thing and actually you want those boundaries from the get-go because what's worse is people have this idea of I'm going to be this easy breezy cool low maintenance girl and then I'm going to hook them with a relationship and then the mask will drop and I'll show them all my boundaries except you've now set a precedent for a relationship without boundaries and that person is now waking up going who the hell is this person yeah I've never met them yeah and so I would even go as far as to say that people pleasing can be quite manipulative if you look at the definition of manipulation it is the definition of changing yourself in order to get an outcome and that's what you're doing you're trying to get a relationship regardless of who you are or how you have to be you are going to do that in order to get that hook that hook that relationship in when rather I know on a first date that actually me going hey it's unacceptable that you were late for late for an hour I left 20 minutes ago but if you want to go on a date again then you need to book it ensure that you are on time and I'll meet you there it's realizing that actually all of these things which people tell you make you difficult to date aren't a big deal to the right person but the reason why women have been trained to communicate indirectly is because when we communicate directly we're called all those names so what happens instead is we have this stereotype of women gossiping behind someone's back or saying something in a passive aggressive tone or the stereotype of a mum who's loaded the dishwasher for the 10th time that day and gone fine no one's going to help me passive aggressively because she's not felt she could actually communicate the boundary of hey this is the communal dishwasher everyone needs to be pitching in so I will not be up unloading the dishwasher anymore and you all can sort out a schedule and setting that boundary is direct communication it's not passive-aggressive but this is why we focus too much on women are bitchy women are passive-aggressive but no one's actually focusing on why they feel like they can't communicate the other way and one of the best gifts of boundaries is that it simplifies your life I do not spend my time and energy now wondering whether my friends are angry with me because I know they have the confidence to be able to speak to me and tell me if they're angry because I tell them when I'm angry yeah and I don't have to question whether I've annoyed them or that comment was a little bit off but that comes from me having my boundaries and therefore they feel the permission to have theirs.

39:31The biggest hurdle I have when setting boundaries was word for word how do I actually put that into a sentence especially in dating because I was the same as you. Dating was the last area where my boundaries came into place. Like I had boundaries in all the other parts there was definitely parts of the internet still calling me queen of boundaries and I was like not really in my life. I was like I didn't really set my boundary on the last date but it was the last area that came and it was me sitting with my own life coach and going how do I say that and her saying and this is going to sound so silly but she said this doesn't work for me and I was like you can't say that and I was so scared to say that simple sentence it's one of my favorite sentences now also saying communication is really important to me and if that isn't within our relationship then this is not going to work also it is having that thing where you're willing to say goodbye to something that isn't working and if they can't communicate in the early stages of relationship the likelihood is they can't communicate in the later stages I'm not a big red flag and run person but I do believe you give someone a warning you set a boundary you reinforce the boundary in case the boundary is broken and then if they're repeating that behavior and there is no behavior change you need to listen to the evidence not the words they're saying one day i posted about how my boyfriend always makes me a cup of tea i can't remember the last time i made a cup of tea and i said every time he makes a cup of tea i say thank you and the whole comment section is like that's bare minimum you can't even find yourself a guy who makes you a cup of tea sorry but if you take that small action for granted you will take the rest of the relationship for granted and that's how you lead to a long-term relationship where the most comments you make to each other are criticism and not appreciation it is very easy to forget about the small cup of tea that a guy makes but actually day to day the impact of that on a healthy relationship is such a positive you should absolutely be saying thank you if anyone does anything for you and I do think that when when we diminish these bare minimum things it's like well if it was such a bare minimum then everyone wouldn't be talking right why are we struggling with it yeah and I just think we there are some of these um love life things especially online that have started being toxic which is why I said I'm not pro red flags because it's this mentality that like red flag break up with them how about red flag communicate that you didn't like that behavior you reinforce that behavior when they break that boundary which usually people do at least once because they aren't clear on what the boundary specifically is and then if the behavior continues then break up but a lot of the time this fear around bare minimum this fear around red flags is actually someone not being that person who's saying it having a fear around not making themselves vulnerable enough to have the hard conversation yeah and I think that's the point that you hit on is that with your your partner you can have those hard conversations but it's not just a conversation it's the behavior change after and it's the same thing with my boyfriend it was the first relationship where I didn't have to repeat myself twice right and it's such an important thing and it's not bare minimum it's not a low bar yeah because most people are just listening yeah to get the conversation over with it then leads to people getting to relationships and dismissing the small things and actually I think when it comes to long-term relationships the small things matter and those small things cannot be dismissed continuously because then the thing that will be emphasized is the moments where you're criticizing each other or you're pointing out the one thing they do wrong rather than the one thing they do right if you want someone to do more of what you already like you compliment what they do right not just the thing that you want them to change what I do think is bare minimum while we're on the topic is the amount of reels I've seen on my feed at the moment of people being like when your husband looks after to the baby for the morning oh that yeah well that's just misogyny so that absolutely they're like or that husband's babysitting it's like what you can't babysit your own child i totally agree with you on that you definitely i just keep seeing them pop up and i saw one the other day being like when you don't have to write your your husband a manual for when he's looking after your i saw that one child and i was like a manual i think there is a difference my dog sits on a manual i think there's a difference between a bare minimum and also settling and I think it's leading back to that thing that I said about especially if you are in a minority you get convinced that you have to settle for these things because the world is not your oyster like someone who lives in the beauty ideal but actually sometimes when you look at the bigger picture of like oh I want to be able to date people it's too overwhelming break it down to boundaries of like see a behavior you don't like correct the behavior you don't like those people will weed themselves out already you don't have to look at the bigger picture but where a lot of people who have been told oh if you're a certain race or you're a certain size or you're a certain ability you're going to find it hard to date right when you're on a dating app what they do is they reject themselves so they see someone who maybe fits the beauty ideal and they go oh well they wouldn't be interested in me because they bought the narrative that society has told them no matter what you look like there is someone who will find you attractive and who will see the thing that you view as making you difficult to love as the easiest thing in the world.

44:50Do you think too many people are settling when it comes to dating and relationships? The reason why people settle is because they don't know there is a person out there who exists who will actually treat them the way they deserve and what usually is the reason why they stay in that relationship is because there's so much fear-mongering around being single. as I said I was single for eight years and can you imagine the comments I got during those eight years like oh you're just too picky or you're looking too hard so you can never win you're either looking too hard or not looking hard enough right sure actually being okay with being single is a really pivotal part of knowing you aren't settling in a relationship because otherwise you will settle for the first person who walks in the door because you don't like your own company and if the worst thing in the world is I end up forever alone then I end up forever with me and I like me so that's okay whereas if you think oh I'm going to be left with myself and I don't even like being alone and I have 50 best friends because I never want to even sit in my apartment by myself then of course you're going to run to anyone as company but for you to actually have standards and criteria and for you to look at do you like them not just do they like you you have to know what you deserve and that ultimately comes down to knowing the difference between being lonely and alone and being in a relationship will not fix your loneliness there are people in a relationship who are lonely because they are not being understood by their partner who walk through the world as if they're a single anyway but just have their partner in their life because they feel they need that to match what society tells them they should be especially around age if you're a certain age and single or if you're single at for a certain length of time they've been told you're too single you're you've been alone for too long all of those things and actually if you're happy in your life that's all that should matter and what would you recommend to someone who is struggling and they know they're struggling with settling and generally going for the first person who walks through the door or the first kind of like semi good date they have what would you say to someone in terms of advice in order to be able to stop settling so I think it starts with that first date where you go on the date with the intention to impress them start letting them impress you so what are you looking for in a person and actually go on the date and ask yourself whether that is a person you would be proud of to introduce someone you would actually respect I know there's this like wishy-washy thing of be yourself but actually you know there are moments where you've been inaccurate, you've exaggerated something to be more impressive, actually taking just 10 % on a date to try to be more you and show maybe the nerdy side of you that you're insecure about, or if it's something physical, turning up on a date without makeup, and actually letting yourself do that vulnerability and show yourself, actually, this isn't the worst thing in the world, because I think a lot of the times we have these negative what-ifs of people are going to reject me to my face especially when I was insecure about my surgery scars I genuinely thought I would take my top off and people would run screaming from the room when because of my surgery scars but that whole narrative was created in my head because of my own insecurity and so actually the only way I got through it and improved my point of view around my scars was by taking my top off without feeling like I had to give a disclaimer right or explain my surgery scars and it took everything in me to like keep the words in my mouth and not say anything and I was probably really awkward at the time and I was probably that specific situation he probably thought like she's acting a bit weird but the next time I was more comfortable it's only difficult once the first time you do it is difficult and then it gets easier same with setting boundaries the first time you say hey that's not going to work for me it's difficult you might throw your phone across the room and put on airplane mode and not want to check it I specifically did that the first time I sent a breakup text because I believed in that like beggars can't be choosers I never ended it so with the first guy I ever broke up with was a really decent guy he was a great guy I just wasn't interested and that was enough he didn't have to be an awful guy for me not to be interested but I was so scared I sent a text while I was on the tube and I was going into a TEDx and I was like well okay I can't be distracted during my TEDx preparation meeting so I said to other tube put on airplane mode and then I it clearly connects connects to the wi-fi in between getting to the meeting and the tube and the text came through and it was a positive text and it was a positive reply and it's the first time I've ever rejected a man and got a positive reply and I was like it was this really reaffirming moment of oh wow I'm dating a different quality of human now right like I said I'm not interested anymore and he didn't return with abuse he returned actually with a really nice compliment about how like I'm really inspiring and my career is great and I did put that text in my book and a lot of people have responded to that going oh you should have given him another chance and I was like this is where it goes back to the minimum because I was like a nice reply is actually what you should expect yeah and we've got so normalized that people respond with abuse or hurtful comments when you reject them that this is now the unicorn in the pile when actually that doesn't make us a match just because he replied to it kindly yeah no you're so right well thank you so much for coming on you have been absolutely amazing I feel like I've had like a boundaries boot camp on it which I feel like is always very necessary and always very reaffirming but thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story and your wisdom a lot of people will really appreciate it thank you so much

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