 Hello, hello, what's up everybody? I hope that you're all doing well. Welcome back to my channel. Today we are jumping into our podcast series again and we're at episode six now. I took a little bit of a break really just because I've been so busy lately and haven't had time to really sit down and plan out one of these videos. Today I really just wanted to talk. I don't want to really like teach you anything. I really kind of just want to talk about what's on my mind and what I've been learning. We're going to be talking about the idea of boundaries because I've been learning so much about so many things really but one of them being boundaries and what they are and how to set them and it's okay to set them and I say all the time right in these podcast episodes that I'm not trying to preach to you in any way shape or form. I just because I've been learning so much I just feel like my head is exploding with things and information that I want to share with people and I know that so many of you are also going through similar things that I have or it's really just being in your 20s and 30s and we're all just trying to figure it out and so I just want to have an open conversation with you guys today about boundaries. Also I just wanted to point out that in my last podcast episode someone did request that maybe I bring in an external mic because my camera mic just wasn't doing it and honestly I agree with you so I do have a mic here today so I hope that this sounds a little bit better so let me know but okay let's just jump into it. So one of the things that I have been learning lately that has to do with setting boundaries is protecting my peace and what that looks for me and it looks different for everybody but I've been learning what things do I want to allow into my life what things do I not and we'll get into that but first I looked up I wrote notes like a good little podcaster even though I'm not a podcaster at all but I wrote some notes down and I wrote down the actual definition of a boundary and a boundary is a line that marks the limit of an area it's a dividing line so essentially it's a barrier that protects one side from the other now we know that but I think in talking about it it's it's kind of cool to start with the actual definition in the English language of what a boundary is so it's a line or a barrier protecting one side from the other so for example our skin is a boundary our skin protects our bodies the inside of our bodies from external things that they wouldn't mesh really well together that's just one example you can I'm sure think of many different examples of of what a boundary is so the cool thing is is that as we grow as people and we learn what we like what we don't like we get to define what those boundaries are for ourselves and no one can tell you that you're wrong and so one of the questions I found myself asking myself was Sam are you protecting your peace or are you entertaining things that don't serve you and setting boundaries it requires self-awareness it requires you to know who you are again like I said earlier it requires you to know what you will and won't stand for what you want in your life and what you don't so this can go for really anyone in your life you can have boundaries with a co-worker maybe that you don't know really well and that maybe I be getting a little nosy or you can set boundaries boundaries with friends for example if you have friends that live to gossip right you can set that boundary and be like hey if this is the kind of you know discussions you want to have about our other friends like I'm not really I'm not really interested in that that's a boundary you're telling that person don't come to me with those things and that's something that I'm really trying to implement now as I like mature into my late 20s that anything that I wouldn't say in front of someone I am trying my absolute best to just not say it at all to anyone so that's something that I that I'm implementing so a boundary for me to set up would be to say hey don't include me in the gossip I don't want to know I don't want to be a part of it I don't want my name on that right a big one for a lot of us in our 20s and 30s I'm sure is the topic of dating I've talked about that on my podcast a little bit for a lot um what will you accept and what won't you accept what qualities do you want in a partner now what qualities do you not want in a partner so for me an example of protecting my peace lately has been and this is really like lately like I had like a light bulb and I was like Sam why are you entertaining someone when you want a relationship with someone who is also a believer right and who shares the same faith why are you entertaining guys that don't share that faith right and it's nothing about them as people I'm not saying they're bad people but not at all but if I know that that's not what I'm looking for why am I going to even entertain it because then it's not going to end well regardless and then your peace is all kinds of messed up I've actually recently um turned my notifications off on the dating apps that I am on just because I needed a mental break and I needed to protect my peace because my peace was not feeling so peaceful the last couple weeks the apps can be quite draining um and so to protect my peace and to protect my like mental state I was like okay I'm gonna take a little break and it's been quite peaceful let me tell you it's been quite peaceful so those are just some examples of boundaries but there can literally be millions of them that you could think of and if you're a people please are like me it can be really uncomfortable to set boundaries because you feel like you're doing the other person wrong but the thing that I had to understand was that we're not setting boundaries to reject people or to keep people away we set boundaries to protect ourselves right that's the definition of a boundary and it's okay to be a little selfish even though I don't even think it counts as being selfish but for lack of a better word it's okay to be a little selfish sometimes when it comes to your peace and because I know that I have had a history of being a people pleaser I know that I had this like unhealthy need in the past to be understood and to be validated and to have people always be happy with me and I never wanted them to be upset with me or else I would literally go crazy in my mind my mind would go into overdrive I would upset myself and it was just not good for anyone but now I know that if I have a boundary and something isn't going to work for me I don't need to offer you an explanation I don't and you don't either when you're setting your own boundaries you don't need to offer an explanation if it's something that you're not comfortable with you're not comfortable with it and that's it and let me tell you right now that the people that have problems with you setting boundaries are the ones that benefit when you don't have them does that make sense so the people if you come to your friend you say hey don't gossip with me and they have a problem with that it's because they benefit from you not having that boundary you know what I mean so someone who is not okay with you having those boundaries is like is that really someone that you want around you know and I've had I've had that in the past multiple times with multiple people where I come to you and I say hey this makes me uncomfortable hey I don't like this and they're like now you're just overreacting it's that's that's not respecting a boundary and that's not okay and I see now that I put up with quite a bit in the past because I had this fear of losing people well one fear of people not being happy happy with me or being upset with me and two the fear of losing people and so I was okay with putting up with things that either weren't serving me that didn't feel respectful etc etc I was okay with putting up with those things and I would have just dealt with the half-hearted apologies if it meant that I didn't have to lose those people because losing people is a really bad feeling for anyone and so little by little every day I am learning how to be stronger and I think this time where I have been single and I've been growing has actually been really good for me because my self-awareness went from like here to like here and I still have so much room to grow beyond that but I am learning what I will and won't accept in in in relation to a romantic relationship for example if you don't know what your boundaries are if there are none in place then things are just going to come at you and you won't know that it's not good for you mentally emotionally whatever you won't know that it's not good for you until it's already hit you until it's already happened and I think you know when you're younger that's why a lot of relationships don't work out and friendships too you outgrow a lot of friendships there are plenty of people from high school and college that I don't talk to anymore and when you're younger you don't have you don't have that division you don't have that line you don't have that protection so if you take anything away from this video at all I guess let it just be that you're not being selfish when you put boundaries in place you're actually being really smart and you're being kind to yourself and if you are maybe watching this video and you're like hmm I don't really know what my boundaries are to be honest with you I don't know what all of mine are not yet but my list is growing and when you figure it out don't be afraid to put them in place it's just going to make your life so much more peaceful so when I do make more time to maybe start dating more again and maybe turn the notifications back on although it's been really nice to not have them on um I'll know oh I don't like that instantly now oh that feels like it's not really respectful for me instantly now and I have no problem with walking away and I know saying walking away sounds so mean it really does and it's still it's still uncomfortable for me a little bit I'm not gonna lie but you're doing yourself a favor by just protecting your mental health because once one thing happens and you don't address it and then another thing happens it really just starts to snowball and then after a certain point that big snowball just smacks you in the face and you're like what just happened and you kind of have to almost rebuild from scratch a little bit um and I feel like that's what I've had to do but it's been the biggest blessing for me I think um and it can be for you too so don't be afraid to put your boundaries in place don't be afraid to explore your mind just sit and like reflect if you need to about your wants and the things that you don't want and your dislikes and your likes and and really put them in place it's gonna be hard and uncomfortable but I just think in the long run it's gonna be so much more beneficial for us so I hope this video made sense I like did have notes but they were real like skeleton notes and I feel like I kind of talked in circles a little bit but I hope that this helped a little bit and gave you some sort of encouragement I was really praying I was like Lord please give me the words to say in this video because I know I want to talk about this topic but I don't really know what to say um so I feel like I'm not gonna really know what I said until I sit down and edit this video but I hope that you guys can leave this video encouraged and if you have any questions or comments and you want to leave them down below I look forward to reading them thank you guys so much for being here episode 7 will be probably in a month or so but I have a couple of other video ideas that I want to do in between so that this channel isn't just podcast but it's like vloggy sort of things too still working it out still feeling it out but um either way I will see you soon again thank you guys so much for being here it would mean the world to me if you subscribed if you haven't yet and I'll see you guys in the next video bye guys