In this episode, Rebecca and Emma talk about why relationships (with a partner, family member, or friend) can sour, red flags to look out for, the importance of boundaries, and how to repair your relationships before they fall apart. If you’re looking at beginning a romantic relationship, the coaches have that base covered for you as well!
Intro
Rebecca: When I was a kid, I didn’t have people that I was close enough to, to call them my friends. I wanted to have friends, but I just didn’t know how to talk to them and have meaningful connections. Over the years, I’ve realised how important strong relationships are. Yes, we do live in a society, and that society is made up of people. Today on the podcast, we are going to be talking about relationships with my good friend and co host, Emma.
Emma: Okay, so like Rebecca said, today, we’re going to be talking about relationships and we actually put out on our Insta stories, what kind of content do you want from us, and everybody was like, we want that homeschool tea and we’re not going to give you that homeschool tea, instead, we’re going to try to say something slightly intellectual about relationships, whether it’s friend, romantic family, whatever it is, we are going to be focusing this episode on that today.
Rebecca: We’re giving you a buffet, a sturdy, wholesome meal.
Emma: That’s important for your soul.
Boundaries? Check Yes, Juliet
Emma: You know, even though boundaries are very important, not very many people understand how to communicate them. And not very many people understand that, even though boundaries are there for a little bit, they can change with the season in time.
Rebecca: Yes. And boundaries aren’t there to necessarily restrict what you can do, but it’s there so that you can do whatever you can but in a healthy way.
Emma: In a safe environment, yeah. Well, so we talk about boundaries a lot. Okay, well, I’ve talked about boundaries a lot. But I’m not explaining what sort of my boundaries are. So like, for me, if I am phone counselling somebody, I make it a point that they know, okay, I can’t always be the person who’s there for you. That is my boundary. If you are calling me and you’re really upset about something, it’s not that I don’t want to talk to you, sometimes I just don’t have the emotional capacity to. It’s not fair to you if I can’t give you what you need. And it’s not fair for me, because it’s not what you need. It’s not what I need.
And I can’t be the only person who is there for you, I need to know that you have other people to talk to, I need you to understand that I can’t always be there for you, every minute, every second of the day. Like, I’ve had some people be upset at me for taking, like, maybe an hour, I feel like an hour- okay, like I’m the person who has like 100 unread chats, just because I don’t open them. And sometimes like I genuinely do miss messages. But I’ve had some people be upset at me for that, Because they’re like, you say you care about me, but you don’t respond to me. It’s not on purpose, you know, okay, I’m not typically ignoring somebody on purpose. Like, if I feel that it can wait, then yeah, it can wait, I think I know enough about you to know when something is really serious. Not to say that I’ll only step in when something is really serious, I think it’s important to catch toxic behaviors before they become really bad, but in trying to catch your toxic behaviors, I don’t want to let that infect me.
Rebecca: So for me, one boundary that I set for myself in any relationship, is to not say yes…right away. I need time to think about it and it has happened in the past where I just said yes and I didn’t know what I was getting myself. It may not be a major thing, It’s not like I was coerced into anything. But it was more like people said, oh, you know, you’re going through so many people.
Emma: Yeah and you feel bad, so it becomes a moral obligation.
Rebecca: Yeah, it’s a little bit of emotional blackmail, even though it may not be intentional. And even like little stuff, like, do you have time to talk now? Things like that, I feel really bad saying no. As a kid, I’ll be like, should I say no? I don’t really wanna. So I set this boundary for myself, because I felt that I needed time to think through and maybe ask more questions to know a bit more. So if it was a project, or someone needed help with something, it wouldn’t be just like…
Emma: Immediately yes.
Rebecca: Yes.
Emma: Because once you say yes once, people are going to expect you to say yes.
Rebecca: And they’d be like, you said yes.
Emma: And if they liked working with you, especially, then they’re just going to keep doing it. It’s a bad thing. But also, it’s nice to know that you’re wanted, but you can’t always be available, and your no is so powerful, it is so important to find friends who will respect that. Like, if you respect me for saying no, if you respect my answer, then I am more likely to want to do projects with you because you respected me when I said no, and you’re more likely to respect me when I say yes.
Since Emma was a member of the podcast team, we asked her a question about how her life has been since the ending of the podcast (2023).
Emma: What’s changed about my life since ending the podcast?
Well for one, I think the team collectively realised how much time doing the podcast actually took. I think the first month, me and Rebecca were both kinda stunned with how many more free days we had. Nothing much has changed for me (aside from getting paid work) because I’ve been trying to finish high school to apply to college.
One thing finishing the podcast made me realise was how much I miss collaborating, so the project wrapping up has forced me to look for new avenues to work with other people in. Because of the podcast, I’ve also gotten a lot better at communicating in a team and learning how to delegate work. I think now, I’m a lot more proactive about putting myself out there to meet new people and be in new situations.
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