Episode Introduction

Hi, I’m Annie Wright, and I’m thrilled to share this episode of Sorta Awesome with you, where we dive deep into the complex and sometimes charged topic of boundaries during the holiday season. The holidays are often pictured as warm and harmonious, but for many people, they also stir up difficult family dynamics and relational trauma that can make this time of year feel anything but joyful. In this episode, we talk openly about how to recognize, set, and maintain healthy boundaries to protect your emotional and mental well-being amid the chaos.

Whether you’re navigating strained relationships, managing expectations with extended family, or dealing with past hurts being triggered, my hope is that this conversation will empower you with practical advice and compassionate foresight. We explore what boundaries really mean, how societal conditioning influences our ability to hold them, and offer real-life strategies to defuse tension, including handling sensitive or unwanted conversations gracefully. Most importantly, this episode is about helping you reclaim your peace and agency during the holidays so you can show up feeling sane and supported.

Key Takeaways

• Boundaries are the invisible fences that protect and support us emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, and sexually, and they shift depending on context and relationships.
• Setting boundaries starts with understanding your deepest needs and desires—knowing what you truly want before communicating it to others.
• Feeling guilty or selfish about boundaries is often a result of social conditioning, especially for women, but practicing self-care and self-support through boundary-setting is crucial for mental health.
• We can control what boundaries we set but not how others will respond; preparing for discomfort when boundaries are challenged is part of the process.
• Unwanted or triggering conversations—such as politics or religion—can be addressed proactively by setting clear expectations, using humor to deflect, changing the subject, or removing yourself when necessary.
• Preparing “safe” topics ahead of time and practicing conversation redirection can be effective tools to navigate difficult family gatherings.
• Recognizing that many families struggle with holiday dynamics normalizes the experience and helps reduce feelings of isolation or failure.

Notable Quotes

“Boundaries really help protect and support us in this world across I think five different areas — emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and sexual.”

“Setting boundaries is actually really important for our psychological health. So I just wanted to say that in case you’re worried about people perceiving you as selfish, they may perceive you that way — it doesn’t mean that you are.”

“You have to make the choice that you’re more willing to tolerate the discomfort of others being disappointed than the discomfort of yourself feeling overwhelmed or unsafe.”

“We don’t get to decide how people respond to our boundaries. That’s a big … I have to self-talk myself through that a lot.”

“Going into a situation with challenging family members, prepare a list of topics that historically have been non-inflammatory to turn to, and that preparation can really help you stay grounded.”

Topics Covered

• Understanding Boundaries: The definition and importance of boundaries as invisible protective fences that shift across emotional, mental, physical, spiritual, and sexual domains.
• Social Conditioning and Gender: How societal expectations, especially for women, influence the difficulty in setting and holding boundaries.
• Holiday Family Dynamics: Why holiday seasons amplify relational tensions and the commonality of experiencing strained family interactions.
• Setting Realistic Boundaries: How to identify what you deeply want and communicate boundaries clearly, kindly, and firmly amidst complex family situations.
• Handling Unwanted Conversations: Practical tools to address politically or religiously charged topics, including humor, redirection, and physical disengagement.
• Preparing for Pushback: Understanding that you cannot control others’ reactions and learning to tolerate the discomfort of setting boundaries.
• Self-Support and Psychological Health: Reframing “selfishness” into self-care, recognizing boundary-setting as an act of empowerment rather than guilt.

Full Transcript

Meg Teets: We’re leaving today and entering a world of Mickey Mouse waving, princess meeting and greetings, lightsaber clashing, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror dropping, Banshee flying, Space Mountain launching, galaxy rewinding, what’s the whole network galaxy rewinding, fireworks igniting, world of other worlds. For whatever you love, infinite worlds await at the most magical place on earth, Walt Disney World Resort.

Meg Teets: This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence, helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com.

Meg Teets: Hey everyone, I’m Meg Teets and this is Sorta Awesome.

Meg Teets: Hello and welcome back Awesomes. You are listening to the show that is all about helping you be smart, strong and social. We are in your earbuds every single week with all the awesome that you need to know and you can find us on Instagram at Sorta Awesome Show or over on Facebook in our Sorta Awesome Hangout group. This is episode 121 of the show and as all of you know, we are now officially in the holiday season. I am so excited to tell you that this year we are releasing our Sorta Awesome Gift Guide 2017 to all of our awesome listeners. That will be coming out later in November, but our super awesome listener supporters will get early access to that episode. It features all four of us on the Sorta Awesome team sharing our picks for holiday shopping for everyone on your list, even and especially those people that are the hardest to shop for. And since it’s a group show, there’s a good amount of giggling and shenanigans just a little bit. It’s a group show. What happens in a group show? Yes, I know. Craziness. Always, always. So that’s happening too. So if you would like to get early access to that gift guide, you can do that by becoming one of our listener supporters over at SortaAwesomeShow.com/support. You’ll also get access to our private Facebook group that is just for our supporters as well as access to all of our supporter only episodes. And again, you can find out more details on all of that at SortaAwesomeShow.com/support.

Meg Teets: Okay, yes, here we are, episode 121 of Sorta Awesome, and I am really so excited about this week’s episode. This is the time of year when we start to have lots of conversations in our Hangout community about how best to handle those tricky, and I think I’m being generous with the tricky here, tricky family dynamics that always seem to come up at the holidays. And so today, first of all, I am joined by my dear friend and very lovely co-host Kelli Gordon. Hello, Kelli.

Kelli Gordon: Hello, Meg, and hello, Awesomes. We have brought in an expert because a lot of these situations, Kelli, we read them in the Hangout group and we’re like, this is so above our pay grade.

Meg Teets: So above our pay grade, like we are not licensed. And yet our heart goes out because we recognize that these are real and they are hard and we have them in our lives too. And so we said, this is the time for the people who get paid to do this. This is the expert season.

Kelli Gordon: Yes, definitely. So we have brought an expert back to help us deal. We’re bringing back to Sorta Awesome, Annie Wright. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, and she is here to help us answer all of your questions about creating and maintaining good boundaries throughout the holiday season. So we’re going to get to all of that in just a minute. But first, let’s start this show the way we always do with our Awesomes of the week. It’s the moment in the show when we each get to share with you about the books, the TV shows, podcast music, whatever it is. It’s making our life a little bit more awesome this week. Kelli, I have a feeling that you have brought something delicious.

Kelli Gordon: I have. And this isn’t something that I have made myself. This is just a snack, Awesomes. And this one is something that you would just go to your neighborhood grocery store and buy. You could go get it today, I’m guessing, because I think this is pretty widely available. And the reason it’s my Awesomes of the week is because, as I mentioned on the podcast before, I am trying to get rid of my sugar tooth. And so I really am looking for snacks that kind of satisfy that sweet craving, but that are healthier and that don’t take me down some sort of a spiral of just needing more sugar and the cravings of that. So what my Awesomes of the week is Chobani Greek yogurt, but specifically their flips. Have you ever had any of these?

Meg Teets: I have and they are delicious.

Kelli Gordon: And they are delicious. So my gateway to this was something actually at Costco. So if you’re a Costco shopper like I am, they have a big box. Right now mine has just the one flavor. It is the One Coco Loco, so it is a coconut yogurt, and then the genius of these, and really for me because yogurt just can be a little too creamy without anything on it. I almost can’t eat plain yogurt. It’s just a texture thing. I want some crunch in there. So these have the crunch built right into your packaging. So you peel back the yogurt and then you keep peeling and you get to a little portion where they have the flip stuff that goes in. So this is a coconut yogurt and what you’re flipping in are dark chocolate pieces and almonds. And you guys, it is so good. It really does feel like I’m eating dessert.

Meg Teets: And of course there’s some sugar in there.

Kelli Gordon: There’s dark chocolate, all the things, but it really is much healthier than me actually eating a piece of coconut pie followed by a dark chocolate bar, which might be what I want. Or my daughter is the only other person in the family, one of my daughters, who actually likes the Almond Joy candy bars. And so my kids are always trying to pawn off their unwanted coconut chocolate Halloween candy on me. They’re like, Taylor can’t eat all this mom, you have to eat it. And I’m like, how do I resist? So this yogurt is helping to meet me right where I am when I want that coconut chocolate craving. But I have read about some of the other flavors. And so I’m gonna have to go to a regular grocery store that has more options to try some of these because there’s one that’s like a peanut butter dream. It’s a peanut butter yogurt. It has chocolate and peanut butter clusters that like get dumped into it and some peanuts. There’s even like a coffee break bliss. It’s got biscotti and dark chocolate that you’re dumping into coffee flavored yogurt.

Meg Teets: Interesting, okay.

Kelli Gordon: Yes, there’s a PB&J sort of version where they get that peanut butter yogurt, but it’s kind of got more of a peanut butter and granola on top. There’s one, this is going into, now that we survived pumpkin spice latte season, minter is coming.

Meg Teets: Ah, you know, right?

Kelli Gordon: It’s everything mint.

Meg Teets: It’s true. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, if you ask me.

Kelli Gordon: Right, minter. So they have a minter version of their yogurt. It’s mint Oreos that are being dumped into a vanilla yogurt.

Meg Teets: I don’t know if that’s just seasonal.

Kelli Gordon: But they even have some, and this is what I’m curious about. So Awesomes, if you’ve ever tried these, they have even some that are a little bit more savory instead of sweet. They have a Chipotle pineapple.

Meg Teets: Mm, okay. Have you ever seen this?

Kelli Gordon: Okay, so have you ever tried this?

Meg Teets: I’m just curious. I haven’t.

Kelli Gordon: I haven’t tried the savory ones, but yeah. Interesting. So they have, you know, sort of things like it’s a pineapple yogurt, and then it has a Chipotle granola with pumpkin seeds that you dumped into it. Anyway, there’s lots of varieties. I’m guessing that you can find one that you like, and you could substitute it for something that is sweeter, one of those candy bars, or something that you’re gonna end up at the work, vending machine, that’s tempting you. So if you have one of these, Chobani Greek yogurt flips, my awesome of the week. So good, and really a great healthy treat for the time of year where suddenly there are sweets everywhere all the time.

Meg Teets: Right, and I feel like in these next few weeks, we just have a few weeks to kind of prepare ourselves for the true onslaught.

Kelli Gordon: So it’s kind of like if I can start to set some good habits now, maybe I can continue the one.

Meg Teets: Yes, ma’am. I love it.

Kelli Gordon: Okay, my awesome of the week this week is a podcast that I am completely obsessed with. It’s called, Kelly, it’s called True Crime Obsessed.

Meg Teets: Uh-huh.

Kelli Gordon: Wait, are you Laura?

Meg Teets: What’s going on? No, I know. Are you guys having like a weird, like what’s happening, what universe am I in moment?

Kelli Gordon: I am not.

Meg Teets: I am.

Kelli Gordon: Listen, I personally am not true crime obsessed, but I am obsessed with this podcast. It is one of the recommendations that has come into my life via our Sorta Awesome Hangout group. A few people have mentioned how much they have been loving this podcast. And what got me to try it is the people who shared this in the group said, you do not have to enjoy true crime. You don’t have to be a true crime fanatic. It is funny. It’s a comedy podcast.

Meg Teets: What?

Kelli Gordon: Okay, let me just start at the beginning. My whole brain just like went boom. I know. I was tracking down true crime. I was hearing law and orders, theme music in my head. And then you’re like, and it’s a comedy.

Meg Teets: Yes.

Kelli Gordon: What? So here’s the setup. I should have started here. I’m so bad at explaining things. Okay, so the setup is, it’s hosted by two friends, Patrick Hines and Jillian Pensivali. I was not familiar with Patrick before, but I was familiar with Jillian because she’s the co-host on another podcast that I enjoy called Hamilcast, about all things Hamilton. So I know Jillian is legit with her podcasting cred. Well, these two are both obsessed with true crime documentaries. And so the setup for the show is, they watch a true crime documentary. Some of them going back even into the 80s and early 90s, but lots of them that are current, that are on Netflix right now, that are easy to find. They watch it and then they walk you, the listener through this documentary. So you don’t have to watch it. If you’ve watched it, I’m sure that you will get more out of it. But a lot of these are a little bit too intense for me because I’m like way on the periphery of true crime. I can handle a little bit. I can handle like serial season one level of true crime, but that’s about the edge of where I can go with true crime. So they watch the documentaries. They talk about them and they basically like make fun of, you know, like all of these different characters that are, you know, that are idiots or that, you know, like detectives that are terrible or journalists that are awful. And they just tell the story of it. They really walk you through and they are so funny. They are clearly very good friends. They have very hilarious commentary on these documentaries. And Kelly, I have to tell you as a podcast producer myself, this is one of those podcasts that is so well produced that you don’t even realize how well produced it is because what they do, they don’t just talk about it. They pull in clips from the documentaries to like give you an example. So again, you don’t have to watch the documentary, but you can still get a little bit of the voices of the people who are on these films. I know they must spend so much time in post-production pulling those clips out, matching it up to where it goes in their conversation. But it’s all completely seamless. Such a great listening experience. So I wanted to tell you a few that you could check out, even if you don’t like true crime, that you can get a taste for how awesome and amazing this podcast is. If you go back to