Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself

"Yes, I love this book. It’s a beginner’s guide to boundaries, which has become a bit of a buzzword. People who have had a lot of therapy will be familiar with this word, but I only came across it quite recently. Nedra has been a therapist for nearly 15 years. She’s very good on Instagram, but having a physical book of her knowledge is very useful. She describes how having bad—or what she’d call ‘porous’—boundaries impacts your whole life. You might not like your friends, because you’ve let people in who aren’t right for you. You say ‘yes’ to events that stress you out. You’re drinking on nights out when you don’t want to. Basically, if you’re someone who feels like you’re getting pushed around your life, this book is just amazing. It helps you get under the skin of why you’re doing that, and perhaps without even realising it. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I’ve got so much from it. It’s across family, work, romance, technology. For example, some people want to please their parents too much, even as an adult. She explains that if you don’t have good boundaries you will burn out much more quickly than someone who does. There are practical quizzes and scenarios in the book. And it’s really, really interesting once you’ve noticed what you’re doing. Eye opening. Yes. There’s another book out called Please Yourself by Emma Reed Turrell, which is all about that. I think a lot of people feel like that—wanting to please everyone around us, and make sure they like us all the time. Definitely, it’s all about realising what’s not serving you any more. It can be really difficult. I found it quite confronting, because there are some relationships that probably would change if you start putting boundaries up. As she describes in the book, there are a lot of people unfortunately who quite like it if you’re that person who says yes to everything. Especially in a work context. I found that once I learned to say no to things I didn’t want to do, some people would be quite shocked, because I used to say yes to everything. But it’s freeing me up to say yes to things I want to say yes to. It’s an amazing feeling to look at my calendar and know deep down that I do want to do everything on it. That’s shifted everything completely. Although obviously I have more agency than some, that comes with being self-employed. It’s scary, but it’s amazing when you put it into practice. One thing that really helped me is having ready-made templates. I bought a book, a self-published book by Natalie Lue of the podcast Baggage Reclaim, which is like four hundred ways of saying no . I remember copying and pasting some of them into an email, and saving them to use whenever I needed them. She says that you don’t have to give excuses. Don’t write, like, a massive paragraph about why you can’t do it. Just say, ‘I’m sorry, I won’t be able to do that right now.’ And what’s really great is that it really takes the pressure off. It gives you the power to realise that you are allowed to say no. You don’t have to flap around making excuses. It’s just a no."