I heard a statistic on the radio (yes, a radio, it's still a thing) that said, more of us are single than in a romantic relationship or marriage. That means more of us are going to die younger than necessary.
Human beings require intimate connections with other human beings to stay alive. To further highlight this point, there was a study decades ago that coined the phrase "failure to thrive." It proved that people who have food and water but little or no intimate connections or touch from other people pass away faster than humans who are being hugged, kissed, and spoken to regularly.
Here is another eye-opener. In our lifetime, we spend more time on social media (5 years, 4 months) than we do eating and drinking (3 years, 5 months). Hello! More time watching other people "live" than we spend doing something that is required to stay alive is a problem! But, there is hope. There is something that can protect us from these modern-day silent killers: Boundaries.
Healthy boundaries are the elixir to all that ails us. Many of us aren't aware of where our boundaries lie, let alone if they are healthy. Healthy boundaries can quite literally cure us of mostly everything we suffer from, mentally and physically.
Knowing what you want or don't want and being consistent with honoring your desires is the way to develop healthy boundaries.
It is also the only way to feel and actually be genuinely happy. We don't often recognize when we are compromising our boundaries, especially with the seemingly simple things in life. Take the scenario test below to see where your boundaries lie.
Once you get a sense of how weak or strong your boundaries might be, then you can take steps toward making your boundaries healthier. There are only two answers you can give to each scenario: YES or NO. There is no MAYBE. Be honest with yourself. When answering, your answer MUST reflect what you've done in the past, not what you wish you did or what you plan to do moving forward.
Quiz:
A girlfriend asks you to brunch when you want to stay home and funds are low. Do you pull out the credit card and go? YES or NO
Your cousin asks you last minute to watch her kids for 30 minutes. Last time, 30 minutes turned into 6 hours. Do you agree to watch the kids? YES or NO
Your bestie ask you to do something that will interfere with your plans to go home, take a bath and watch Love Is with your cheesecake. Do you comply with her request? YES or NO
Do you look at social media instead of making your to-do list, taking yoga class, cooking a good meal, or writing another chapter in your book? YES or NO
You've eaten poorly and drank with friends all weekend and your body is feeling it. Monday night work dinner with the company bigwigs, the boss suggests that you try the restaurant's decadent 5-star dish. This dish is everything your body doesn't need right now. Do you comply to show off your team player skills? YES or NO
Your "maintenance man" is texting to ask for a late night oil change (wink, wink). You would rather chill alone for the night. Because you know you've used this guy for the occasional early morning tire rotations or evening engine flush, do you agree to his request? YES or NO
A boundary is a point or line that marks a limit. It is a borderline or partition between the life you want to live and the life everyone else is trying to make you live.
If you had more YES's than No's, you need to tune your boundaries to a higher and healthier frequency. Here is how:
At the beginning of each month, decide on your top two priorities for the month. For example, firm up my thighs and write 15 pages of my novel. Before you agree to requests, demands, or suggestions from others, ask yourself these three questions:
1) Does this keep me on task with my top two priorities for the month?
2) If I do "this," will I get closer to achieving my goals or completing my plans?
3) If this doesn't turn out to be amazing for me, will I be upset or frustrated?
We all have moments when flexibility is required, but for the most part we need to know what we want and reject all the things that won't get us there. Think about it like this, creating your boundaries is like roller-skating. You set your direction and speed while allowing yourself to have fun and try new moves, but if you let someone else push you, there is a good chance you will wipe out.
Big or small, any step past your personal boundaries is a step away from your peace and happiness.
La Shell Wooten is a NYC-based licensed therapeutic life coach who enjoys a good cup of tea, beautiful sunset and a quality tire rotation. Check out her website: www.lashellwooten.com
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Skylar sees things differently. At the time, she was shooting content on her iPhone. Temi came into the picture with a new perspective, an understanding of tech, and, eventually, a camera. “He doesn't give himself enough credit,” Skylar says. “He wasn't just my tripod. He wasn't just standing behind the camera and going ‘click.’ He was giving advice. He was giving me insight to how I could look at things from a different perspective. And I was like, 'Oh, he’s an artist.' I think it was maybe a heartbeat of that kind of energy of like, ‘Baby, can you take this picture?’ And it turned so quickly into, we're partners. We can work together in a way where we're advancing each other's creative thinking.”
The pair often says they’re two sides of the same coin. Skylar is an Aquarius. She attended art school, paints, and loves poetry. She’s more than happy to let the couple’s management firm and agency, Kensington Grey, handle their admin work. And, she loves to sleep in. Temi, on the other hand, wakes up early. He’s a Virgo. He loves a to-do list and regularly checks in on the couple’s brand partnerships spreadsheet to make sure everything is on track.
Because his storytelling was steeped in his love of technology, he didn’t always think of himself as a creative person. “Where I [am] the dreamer who wants to pluck things out of the sky and spend all day with my head in the clouds, Temi [is] so good at grounding me and helping me figure out how to make things make sense on paper. We just work together in such a complimentary way,” Skylar says.
It’s been more than six years since Brooklyn-based couple Temi and Skylar started dating, and nearly four since they cemented their working relationship. On TikTok and Instagram, the couple’s travel, fashion, and home content regularly rack up hundreds of thousands of views. They’ve worked with brands such as Coach, Aesop, Away, and Liquid IV, bringing their vibrant perspectives to every campaign they execute. Still, nearly two years since both Temi and Skylar committed to full-time content creation and creative directing, the couple says their romantic connection remains their priority.
“We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting,” Skylar says.
Working from home can make it hard to separate work from personal life for any entrepreneur. It can be even more challenging when your business partner is also your lover. Temi and Skylar had already used couples therapy as a tool to help them effectively communicate with one another. When they ran into challenges while working together, their therapist helped them set physical boundaries to help combat the issues.
"We told each other we would much rather go back to full-time jobs and preserve our relationship than to be full-time freelancers, barely getting a night's rest [and] barely kissing each other because we're so busy shooting."
“It actually took us doing very specific physical things to create boundaries between work and play in our relationship,” Skylar says. “So, for instance, we will only have conversations about work when we're out of bed or we're at the table or in the office. Initially, when we started, we had to light a candle to say that, 'Okay, this is a space where we're connecting, we’re not talking about work.' We needed really hard boundaries at the top. And then it became a little bit more organic.”
The boundaries have been crucial to implement, especially because the couple began working together so naturally. When the pair first met, Skylar was NY-based a social strategist for BuzzFeed and was using content creation to drive business to her lingerie company. She was shooting her own content. Temi was working for Microsoft in D.C. He’d recently traded in his DJing equipment for a camera. “I've always loved taking pictures,” he says. “Even when I was a kid, my African mother would wake me up at 3:00 a.m. [during a] party, and be like, 'Come take the family picture.'”
Growing up, Temi says he watched his parents support each other and be the true definition of partners. He knew he wanted the same for his own relationship. But, the couple also wanted to make sure they were being financially responsible. The pair didn’t quit their traditional jobs until they’d saved up two years' worth of their cost of living. And, Temi received his Master of Business Administration from New York University with the knowledge that it could either help him advance in his corporate career or be applicable to his business with Skylar.
Temi and SkylarCj Hart @hartbreakToday, they say their working relationship is more of a “quiet dance.” They still implement some of the boundaries they learned in therapy, but they also lean into their natural strengths and deep love for one another. When we speak, Temi has planned a date for the couple to see Princess Mononoke in 4K IMAX and added it to their Notion so they can factor it into their busy schedules. “I fully plan to date for the rest of my life,” he says.
Skylar says the couple doesn’t just wait for date nights to check in with one another, though. This often happens in the mornings, after Temi has made her peppermint tea and poured himself a cup of coffee. When they ask each other how they slept, she says, it’s not just a “nicety.” It’s a genuine question meant to foster connection.
“A lot of it happens during the day in the midst of work. We'll stop and we'll hug. Or we’ll slow dance in the kitchen,” she says. “Sometimes it's hard to set a whole date night when you have 7,000 things going on. So, we must grasp these moments and check in when we can. And I think it's become so organic to us that I actually didn't even realize how often we do it. But all day long, we're like, 'Are you good? I felt like your energy shifted,' because we're best friends, we just know. We just feel it happen.”
What’s better than being in love? Building wealth while doing it. Watch Making Cents here for real stories of couples who make money moves together.
Featured image by Cj Hart @hartbreak