How much sharing is too much (or too little)? Today,  Dr. Emily is joined by Coa CEO, Alexa Meyer, and StudioPod Cofounder, Julian A. Lewis II, to talk about how to avoid an emotional hangover with the help of boundaried vulnerability.

Thank you for listening! Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why the Emotionally Fit podcast with psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Monday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health. Join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!

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The Emotionally Fit podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Katie Sunku Wood is the show’s producer from StudioPod Media with additional editing and sound design by Nodalab, and featuring music by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew!

Ready to break an emotional sweat? Welcome to Emotionally Fit with me, Dr. Emily Anhalt. As a therapist, I know that staying mentally healthy takes work and repetition, that's why I'll share emotional pushups; short, actionable exercises to help you strengthen your mental fitness. From improving your friendships to managing stress, let's flex those fields and do some reps together.

Hey, they're fit fans today. I am with Alexa Meyer, my Co-Founder and Coa CEO, and Julian Lewis of StudioPod Media. Alexa and Julian, thanks so much for being here today.

Hey, Emily,

Emily.

One of the most common questions I get about mental health in the workplace specifically, is how much of our personal lives we should share at work. It's a tough question because there really isn't a clear line between our work and our personal lives these days, at least for a lot of us. I know for me, I answer emails until midnight and I'm friends with my coworkers and I'm zooming in from my living room, so I'm bringing a lot of myself to work anyway, so it can be tough to know, especially when we're going through something tough, how much to share and how much to keep to ourselves. And by the way, Alexa and I work at a mental health company, so it can be even more complicated to figure out what the right amount of sharing is, so one of the skills that we teach and practice at Coa is something boundaried vulnerability.

Boundaried vulnerability is a term that I use to describe the act of sharing enough of yourself, that you invite connection with others, without sharing so much of yourself, that you wake up with an emotional hangover, or expect other people to be your therapist who are not your therapist.

What's complicated about boundaried vulnerability is that it's more of an art than a science. How much we share tends to be context dependent. It's going to depend on who we're talking to and what environment we're in. But I do think that it starts with each of us understanding more about our own sharing tendencies. We all tend to be somewhere on a spectrum, from too tight to too leaky and I'll explain what that means.

Too tight means we're all buttoned up. We're not sharing vulnerably at all. We don't invite connection from others. I'm sure you know people like this. People you've worked with for years, but barely know a thing about.

Definitely.

On the other side of the spectrum is too leaky. When we're leaky, we go from sharing with others in a way that's helpful and connection building, to sharing in a way that requires the other person to take care of us, especially in ways they're not able to or responsible to. So, in the middle of the spectrum is boundaried vulnerability and I'll share some examples.

Imagine you have a meeting with your manager and your manager shows up looking really flustered or overwhelmed. And so you say, "Hey, are you all right? Are you doing right?" Too leaky would be, if they just unload on you and they tell you all the things they hate about their own manager and they talk about how these things happen to them at every job. And by the way, it's happening at home with their partner, which is why they're considering getting a divorce and they ask you, what should they do? And how do they fix it? That's leaky. They've become a puddle on the floor that you now have to clean up and you might not be in a position or have the desire to do that.

On the other hand, too tight might be them saying, "Yeah, I'm completely fine. Everything is great. I don't know what you're talking about." So boundaried vulnerabilities is in the middle. It might sound something like, "Yeah, you know, I am having a tough day. There's a lot going on that I'm sorting through. I've been navigating a tough relationship with my manager. We just had a tough conversation, but I'm getting the support I need to have these conversations. Thanks for checking in on me." So this is just one example. There's a lot between too leaky and too tight, but you get the point.

So, how do we identify if something we share is going to be too tight or too leaky, I have a litmus test. So, if you're about to share something personal and you worry that you might be too leaky, you should ask yourself these two questions.

One, is this the best person or situation in my life for this information or would it be better suited for a conversation with my best friend, or my therapist, or my partner? And then number two, if the person I share this with were to give me a nod and then move on from the discussion, would I still be okay or would I feel abandoned in a tough moment? Would I regret sharing? So if the answer to that is yes, then it's probably not the best place to share.

On the other side of things, if you worry about being too tight, you might ask yourself, will I leave this conversation? Having offered an opportunity to step a bit closer to me and to create connection? Could I have challenged myself to open up a tiny bit more?

So our push up today is all about coming toward the middle, toward boundaried vulnerability. So, step one of this pushup is, take a few minutes to think about where you tend to live on this spectrum. And again, it might be different at work than it is with your partner, but pick a situation and think about where you tend to be. And for those listening in, feel free to press pause while you think of your example.

So Julian, when it comes to this spectrum of tight to leaky, where would you say that you tend to live?

This is easy for me. I'm definitely on the leaky side.

Okay.

Yeah.

Tell me more.

Yeah.

But not too much.

I'm just an open book in terms of my feelings and what I'm going through and it's hard for me to be a different person in different situations. In general, if it's personal, if I'm going to therapy or what I'm working through, then I'll share it.

I had a running joke with my team at my last company that as I was leaving the day, I was like, "I got to go because I got to go to therapy and I got to talk about what happened today with you guys and how you guys gave me a hard time." And so it's kind of a running joke, but I think it allowed for people to feel more open to sharing things that they were going through and I think allowed for them to be a little bit too leaky, but I think that's just how I like to operate.

Yeah and all throughout there that sharing that you're going to therapy, I do not think is too leaky. I think we all need to be normalizing that just as we would say, "Oh, I'm going to the doctor." So, I say kudos to that but do you think there are situations where it would serve the conversation you're in to pull back a little bit, to create more room for the other person to share or whatever that might be?

Yeah. I think there's something to be said about being in a work environment and knowing that you're there to work and get things done and sometimes I think when I share it too much, then it leads to a longer conversation that might distract from what needs to get done.

Yeah. That's well put.

So Alexa, how about you? Do you tend to be more on the leaky side or more on the tight side?

I think my default in both personal and work and family is on more of the tight side, where I'm careful and more closed off in what I might share in any given moment with people.

That makes sense.

So step two of this pushup then is to challenge yourself to take a step toward the middle of this spectrum today. So, if you're a person who tends to be too tight, maybe try sharing a little bit more of yourself in one meeting. Whether that's voicing an opinion or an idea, or sharing a small bit of personal information about yourself.

Whereas, if you tend to be a bit more leaky, try reigning it in a little bit today and making space for someone else to share. Maybe substitute curiosity questions about your conversation partner, instead of details about yourself.

So Alexa, when you think about what this might look like for you today, what do you imagine? How do you think you could take one step toward the middle?

Yeah. I have a really supportive partner and often my default, when someone will say, "How is your day?" Or, "How are you feeling?" Is like, "Good." I think because generally I am feeling good, but good is a very non-descript response and I think one of the vehicles of deepening connection and partnership with somebody is to share a little bit more detail about what you might actually be feeling.

So instead of just saying "Good," I could maybe use the lens of, "Here's what was really exciting for me today and here's something that was actually a little bit more challenging that I'm working through today."

I love that framework. What a great way to take a step toward the middle.

So Julian, what do you think taking that step might look like for you today?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's when first greeting somebody, even when we were greeting each other today and I was telling you a long story about my neighbor. Instead, I could have just said, "My time wasn't allocated in the way I would've liked to this weekend. I had a highlight with spending time with my father. Just wasn't in the way that I wanted to." And then asking you more about your weekend so we can get to know each other on kind of an even playing field.

Hmm. That's really thoughtful. Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, of course.

Well, good luck with your pushup today.

Thank you.

Thanks, Emily.

Thanks for listening to Emotionally Fit hosted by me, Dr. Emily Anhalt.

Did you do today's pushup alongside me and my guest? Tweet your experience with the hashtag #emotionallyfit and follow me at @dremilyanhalt.

Please rate, review, follow and share the show wherever you listen to podcasts. This podcast is produced by Coa, your gym for mental health. Where you can take live, therapist-led classes online. From group sessions to therapist matchmaking, Coa will help you build your emotional fitness routine. Head to joincoa.com. That's join-c-o-a.com to learn more and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @joinCoa.

From StudioPod Media in San Francisco, our producer is Katie Sunku Wood. Music is by Milano. Special thanks to the entire Coa crew.