“No Thank You”: Setting Healthy Boundaries as a Woman with Bela Gaytan

Christine Thomas  
Bella is the technical instructional designer and Community Manager at Pantheon and the E learning designers Academy. She is known for authenticity and vulnerability, and she unapologetically disrupts space to create change, which I personally appreciate and love. So I know we really want to give you as much time as possible, please, if everyone in the audience would like to have questions and things like that, Bella, if it's okay with you, if they're something that I think are really, really relevant, I'll pop them in so that we can address those and keep it engaging. Otherwise, I'm gonna go ahead and hide myself and turn it over to you. Let me know if you need anything.

Bela Gaytan  
Awesome. Thank you so much, Christine. I do want to make one quick correction. And this is probably on my part, because this has been one of those weeks where I'm kind of running on fumes, I am no longer the community manager for Tim slates, elearning Academy, so just want to throw that out there. Much Love for Tim, everything's okay, but just wanted to be transparent there. I'm going to go ahead and get my presentation up, because I am so phenomenally excited about this. And I just want to jump right into it. So and I want to let you know, also, this is going to be highly, highly, highly interactive. So get your, your thinking caps or you know, your thinking hairpins on maybe, and let me go ahead and get this started. I love how every time I go to present and I say this every time I feel like such a noob like I'm looking between monitors back and forth like I've never done this before.

Um, let's see. All right.

Well, it would help if I clicked share on here, right? Let this be a lesson for anyone who's first time speaking like everybody goes through this. Alright, so we are going to share that one. Can I get some thumbs up some hearts some Hell yeah. If you can see. I see lots of thumbs that cool. And he says, you're in good company. Love that. Erica? Hell yeah. All right. Awesome. I love seeing the hell yes, come through. So what are we going to be talking about today setting healthy boundaries as a woman. And I loved that I titled it No, thank you. Because I hope that you will all feel really empowered by that statement after you've gone through this. Again, much appreciation to to DC for allowing me this platform. And I'm going to go ahead and get started friends. Okay, let me know. If you all you're not seeing the chat on the side, right? My windows are being a little bit weird today. You're just seeing a full screen presentation. Okay, thumbs up. Awesome. All right. So I'm Bella Gaitan. My pronouns are she her, I'm fine with any that are used respectfully though. I'm the Technical instructional designer at Pantheon with the ever glorious Heidi Kirby as my boss who is here. And I see some other Panther yours that are here supporting me as well. So much love and thank you for that. I have a Master of Education and Learning and Technology and my undergrad is in human resources management. And I consult with NASA astrophysics as a what they call an idea practitioner, which is inclusion, diversity, equity, accessibility have to run that through in my head. I also own a zero talent, which is an Inclusive Workforce Agency, the website is under construction right now. So if you go there, you can just sign up for the newsletter to be notified whenever it goes live. And I can now say that I'm a course instructor, which is really cool on the editorial platform. And I consider myself a pretty fierce advocate. And let me get through here all right. I'm noticing an issue here so hang on just one second.

I'm going to stop sharing

Give me just a moment my friends. While we're waiting I'd love if like it while you're waiting on me I should say in the chat. How many of you already have boundaries that you are you have set an our firm and you are able to

tell others

Carolyn says have set firm boundaries causes serious issues. I feel that so much. Okay, let me get back in here

I'm going to switch windows here and again, I apologize. I'm doing something a little bit different with the way that I'm presenting this, or the way that I'm looking at my windows.

Perfect. Okay, I think we've got it.

Let me go back. All right, let me share now struggling with it and says, Yeah, Virginia's has had them I had but haven't communicated them. Okay. I think we're good now, my friends. This is so strange. Okay, are you nope, now you see. Oh, my goodness. Isn't technology. Amazing. All right. So we're going to because normally, I'm looking over here at your chat, and I wanted to be able to look at all of you, but that is just not working out for me. So I'm just going to go back and present the normal way that I do and my apologies for all of this

Okay, thank you, Shannon. I appreciate that. Don't know why this has given me such problems today. I think I got it friends. I think I got it. Okay. Let me get back here. This over here. I'd be so proud of myself if I got this share screen. I want that one. Okay, are you all able to see the full screen and just the full screen of the presentation? Oh, my goodness, thank you so much. I'm gonna reward myself with Starbucks later for this. I'm pretty proud of myself. All right. So let's go back to where we are. Hi, it's me, Vela. I like to say that I disrupt spaces through the lens of di AB to bring about change. For anyone that's unaware, D IB is diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging. And the way that I do that is I like to leverage my lived experiences as someone who is queer neurodivergent visually impaired, and physically disabled as well as Latina. To be able to, you know, bring my lived experiences to the table and give people a different way to look at D ay ay b, because so often, we don't really feel that we can relate to it. So I think that when we bring in lived experience, it just makes it so much more relatable.

And we're gonna hop into this, and I just realized I have a slide

out of order. Hang on. Okay, I'm gonna jump back around here. It's been a week, my friends, I can tell you that. So today's agenda, what are we going to talk about why it's important to set healthy boundaries as a woman, how to determine your values and vision, creating your boundaries, assessing when boundaries are needed, confidently declaring your boundaries, and how to handle rejection and negativity when your boundaries are expressed. Because I'm here to tell you, it's going to happen. One thing I did forget to do, I want to give a visual description of myself. I am a light skinned Latina with short, very curly turquoise hair. I'm wearing a hot pink, asymmetrical top, orange scarf, yellow, high waisted pants that you might see behind me as a greenwall, lots of plants and some art. So let's jump into this because we have a lot to cover. So why is it important for women to set healthy boundaries, both in your professional life and your personal life? First thing I want to mention is the patriarchy. Patriarchy often treats women differently than men when they set boundaries. We so often see when men set boundaries, very firm boundaries. Oh, he's driven, He's strong. He's confident and he's a go getter. He really knows what he wants. Right? On the flip side, and I'm gonna pull up chat here. How many of you?

Oh, I'm seeing

sorry. I just glanced and saw Kayleen responding to someone I'm not saying the chat on her screen is everything okay with the way that you're saying this? Like you're saying the full presentation. Okay. All right. So, I would love to know in chat who has felt this before? We just talked about how people typically respond when men set firm boundaries. What about when women set firm boundaries? Have you ever heard of them or yourself being labeled as difficult, hard headed, stubborn, emotional, unrealistic, one whiny pain in the ass, or worse, right. So a lot of that really boils down to patriarchy. And it's not here to say it's, it's men's fault. Patriarchy has been going on for as long as hundreds and hundreds of years. And unfortunately, we have women that buy into the patriarchy, because that's how they were raised their mothers pass that down from them from their mother, from their mother, and so on and so forth. So it's really healthy for us to set boundaries. Because we do get treated differently when we set firm boundaries. Oftentimes, we're socialized to put others needs, put the needs of others before our own. And we're expected always to be accommodating and nurturing and understanding. So it can make it difficult for us to set boundaries, even internally, when we have set a boundary even with family, or our children or our significant others. Sometimes we may feel like we're letting them down. But it's just that this has been tattooed into our minds, that we have to be the nurturers. And so another thing is, setting and sticking to boundaries is empowering, and can prevent others from taking advantage of you. This is a big one. And it's it's so important because once you start setting your boundaries, you'll find that people will stop trying to cross them, it may be a difficult path to get to that point. But eventually, they have no choice but to respect them. And then finally, prioritizing your time and energy and your happiness is essential for a fulfilling and healthy life. I don't think I even need to explain that one. I think we all know the effects of stress, and when our boundaries are crossed, how they affect us. And just think about how it affects your energy, how it affects your happiness, how it affects your your physical, your emotional, your spiritual well being right. All right, so we're gonna push through here, we already did the agenda, all right, values and vision. So that's going to be the first step before you start creating your boundaries. So when we're talking about values, understanding what is important to you, knowing what you stand for, and recognizing your boundaries and limits. So knowing your values is is crucial because you know, setting healthy boundaries helps you understand what's important to you, and what you stand for the principles that guide your actions. When you know your values, then you can know what are your boundaries, because you don't want people to cross over into an area where you are putting your values at risk, or you're foregoing them completely. So as an example, if honesty is one of your values, then you're going to be less likely to tolerate people who are deceitful, or maybe just a little bit sneaky, you know, when they're trying to get you to cross your boundaries. You may if privacy is important to you, you may have a boundary about how much you share about your personal life at work. Or even vice versa, how much you share about your life at work when you're at home. Right. So knowing those values really will help you to, you know, be able to prioritize, prioritize your energy and your time, so that you can focus on the things that will matter most to you. Okay. So once you've determined what your values are, then you determine what is your vision. A lot of times when we hear vision, I think people think of woowoo you know, vision board and all this other stuff. And there's nothing wrong with vision boards. They're amazing. But some people scoff at them and think it's new age, you know, spirituality kind of bullcrap, right? But it's really helpful for you to sit down and imagine like, where do I want to be in three months? Where do I you know, envision myself in six months, in a year in five years, when I retire, when do I want to retire? When do I want to start traveling the world you know, but creating a very clear picture of what you want. And identifying your goals, your aspirations, and like what's your purpose in life? What do you feel is your mission in life is really going to help you be able to like guide yourself and setting those bounds agrees. So you want to focus on the values and vision. I'm gonna get a drink of coffee and check the chat. Oh, my goodness, the chat is alive. I love all this that I'm seeing does anyone have any questions so far? I don't want to take up too much time in between here and you'll see why. But if anybody has any questions, let's see

I love that Cassie mentioned healthcare. Yeah. Debra, I fill you with a management thing. It's one of the things that I tell people all the time when they asked me like, you know, at a job, where do you see yourself in five years? I'm like, better at what I'm doing now. Well, what about shifting into management? And I'm just like, No, thank you. I don't have a desire to be a manager. But I appreciate your confidence in me, right? I love the hearts that came up with that. So let me bounce back over here. And so let's go in a little bit deeper on like, how to figure out what are your values? And what is your vision. So first of all, reflect on your experiences. So think about the positive and negative experiences in your life that have had the most impact on you. Because these are the things that have shaped you. There are moments that have helped you build like what your perspective is, and influenced your beliefs. It can be painful sometimes to go back and focus on negative experiences. And sometimes involved in that is having to go back and revisit trauma. Do you want to toss a disclaimer out I want this to be a safe space psychologically for everyone involved. So I would ask that you please do not talk about traumatic experiences in the chat so that you can prevent, you know someone else being harmed psychologically, but feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss anything. Or just add in some comments privately, like, Absolutely, by all means. So as you're reflecting on your experiences, let's say when, when you were younger, your mom was we're gonna go with the management, one that was in chat, let's say your mom was a manager. And you watched her come home excited. But day after day, she looked more tired, her eyes were kind of sunken in, she was constantly yawning, she didn't feel good, all of a sudden, she seemed very unhappy, she would snap at you. That kind of experience probably led you to believe. And I don't want to say believe like it's false, but led you to feel that, oh, my gosh, management is stressful. And I never want to go into management, because I fear that that will become me. So that could be you know, one of the experiences that is considered negative that you can reflect on, right. So I'm just looking at the clock, I want to be really mindful of the time. So identify your passions, think about the things in life that excite you and energize you. If you're a gamer, then you know, you love gaming, and you want to be able to do it every chance that you get, you might think, you know, I would probably be really happy if I tried to get into a career that is involved with gaming, right? So it can be hobbies, interests, activities, anything that you feel really passionate about. And this one, I think is the most important, and the one that so many of us as women have a problem with is determine your non negotiables that we may be able to determine them. But oftentimes, again, as I said, with you know, due to the influence of the patriarchy, and us being expected to be nurturers, and providers and carers, you know, we may struggle in being firm with those non negotiable values that we have. So you can think about the things that you absolutely cannot compromise on, that can be related to your personal integrity, your family, your beliefs, your career, and anything else that is important to you. And so when we're talking about determining your vision, this is where you're looking, you know, values, you're, you're going back to your past, and you're just going to the present for your vision, you're looking to the future, right? So reflect on your goals, what is it that you want to achieve in life, and they should be very specific and meaningful to you? It shouldn't be like, hey, you know, my, my manager, Josh said, you know, I would be a great, you know, project manager, so I should probably go do that. Like, Thanks, Josh. I appreciate your confidence in me. But that's not what I want to be, you know, make sure that they're very meaningful for you and only you I'm not what anyone else has tried to influence you with. Visualize your ideal life. So one of the books that I have that I really appreciate, it's, it's talking about how to figure out your niche is for someone like myself who is a multi potential light. And like a scanner, you know, type. And I'm into a little bit of everything. So one of the activities is sit down journal, what does an ideal day in your life look like? When you have reached the point where you are satisfied with your work, your location, whatever, sit down and very descriptively write out your ideal day? What time do you wake up in the morning? What do you do when you wake up? Do you run to the computer to check emails? Some people might enjoy that my assistant coming through? Or, you know, do you go sit outside and you know, in like a rocking chair and have your you know, your morning coffee? What kind of work are you doing? Are you on a, you know, nine to five schedule? Are you just working as you feel you want to? Are you traveling? Where do you live? What kind of people do you interact with daily, you know, really get into the very fine details of that day. And that'll be really helpful in helping you realize like how the steps that you need to make to go ahead and have your ideal life. And then finally, a mission statement. We don't often do this as individuals, and we see organizations do this, but just create a really brief and powerful statement that summarizes your purpose and your values. And it should inspire you to take action towards your vision. One thing I want to point out, knowing your values and do you know doing these exercises to figure out what are my values? And what is my vision? Chat, GBT is amazing to help with this type of stuff. So if you go to chat GPT and just say, hey, I want to determine my vision. I want to reflect on my goals, visualize my ideal life and develop my mission statement. Please ask me questions. So that I can be able to develop this like, Please give me prompts. And it will truly help you so much and giving you different prompts like okay, ask yourself, Where do I want to be in five years, just as a brief example. So I highly recommend using a chat GPT or any other types of AI platform that you that you are using. Oh my goodness, Bella, you forgot to do this screen? Actually, no, I didn't. So this is why I said I wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time here. Because we're gonna build out the rest of this presentation together. I want us to collaborate on this. I will provide you no guidance. And I'm not just going to sit here and let you guys build it out for me while I you know, play with my cat and drink my coffee. Rebecca lurch blame your assistant. Yeah, this is actually not her fault for once. So yeah, now I'm going to, I'm going to keep sharing, but I'm here focusing on the chat. Toss out any ideas you have for how you can create your boundaries? Considering what we've just learned that we're going to set our we're going to determine our vision and our values. So what do you think you could do to sit down and actually create your boundaries? This is not expressing them to anyone? Because before we can tell anyone our boundaries, we have to figure out what the hell are boundaries, right.

Unknown Speaker  
Assess your needs.

Bela Gaytan  
Okay. Oops, trying to figure out how to get over here where I can type on it. I don't know if I can type on it actually.

Nope, it's not gonna let me type on it. Okay, friends. So what I'm going to do, will still continue going through this, before I leave, for my presentation, I'm going to get a copy of this entire chat. And then I'm going to plug those in there. And then I'll upload this to my website. So we'll just we'll just talk actually, this is kind of cool. That way, I'm not focused on typing. And we're all just having a conversation around this right? Social Learning Community. So I'm going to scroll up and look at some of this stuff. And this is going pretty quickly, so bear with me, if I don't like I'm not able to read yours. Hey, Don, Don says Say it aloud clearly, concisely and confidently Yeah, that's definitely like how to communicate your boundaries. Let's see, choose your most creative time and make that time off limits to attending meetings. I love that. Saturday if something doesn't align with my core values I can set a boundary there. Yes, yes. You can even create like a little, you could even create like a little chart with like different things and just say, Does this reach my alignment or my values like check, then I can do that. There's a formula out there. And I was gonna bring it in here, but then I realized it would take too long to go through it. But there's a formula called beat. And I think the B stands for body, like check in with your body, how is that going to make you feel? You know, check in with your mind? Are you going to feel you know, okay with it? Is your heart gonna feel okay with it? E is for effect, like, how is it going to affect you, if you say yes to this request, or you don't, you know, stick to your boundary on this. A was for, and I'm already forgetting, but I can I can give that resource out later. But if you want a really easy way to kind of do it, you know, the little song Head, shoulders, knees and toes. Do that, when you're figuring out like, what is this going to be a boundary that I want to create? How is it going to make you feel in your head and your mind? How is it going to make you feel in your heart? And if you kind of go down to stomach and think about stress? Because I don't know about you all. But when I'm stressed My stomach is the first thing to start acting up. Think about how is it going to make me feel physically, right. And I'm going back to the chat now. Oh, my God, I am blown away by everything in here. Josh, I recently did a self reflection and deep work on figuring out what matters most and deciding that everything else is a distraction. That is amazing, Josh. Oh, my goodness. And Josh, I think I used your name earlier. So it was no offense, just the first name that I thought of. Oh, my goodness, body check ins from Clarissa I love that. Determining if someone bound violates a boundary of mine, and how I will behave in that circumstance. Yes. Oh, my goodness, this is so amazing. I can't wait to be able to share this with all of you and everyone. So another thing that we want to do is assess when boundaries are needed. I'll start off here and feel free to enter stuff in the chat as well. Yeah, Stephanie says beat does not mean beat yourself up over not having boundaries set yet. So I developed this big formula for this presentation friends. And then I thought, I'm not going to have time to go through it. But it's called beat the heat. And each letter stands for something. So if that's something you'd be interested in me doing like an additional, like zoom call or something, like reach out to me on LinkedIn or something and let me know if I get enough of you interested, I'm more than happy to just like have like an additional session where we can come together and collaborate and go through that. So but please, like message me on LinkedIn, because I am very forgetful. All right, so assessing when boundaries are needed. How do you know? What is it that tells you like, whoa, somebody might be crossing a boundary with me right now? What is it that comes into your mind? What is it that you feel? And while people are going ahead and populating that into the chat, I'm going to talk about how I feel. I'm going to give you what may seem like a very silly example here, but it is one of my boundaries. I absolutely do not go to the social selling type parties like a Tupperware party or an Avon party. That is a firm boundary for me. Why? Because most of the time, I'm not going to use this stuff. The person there that's hosting the party is trying to persuade you to get it. And I know the host is once I love that people are getting me on this. Yeah. The host is the person who's hosting it like my friend. They're hoping that you buy because man, they want that three piece wall hanging, you know, for their bathroom, right? That has pigs in a bathtub or something weird like that. So that is my firm boundary. So when someone invites me to one of these parties, I just say, Oh, that sounds so cool. But I don't go to like parties where you have to purchase something. Well, you don't have to buy anything. Well, I just come like it'll be fun. And I'm like, Oh man, I'm sure you all are going to have like such a great time but again, like it's just it's just one of my rules. I just I don't enjoy myself at parties like that. So I appreciate that. Let me know if you ever have some other kind of like social get together that doesn't involve like, you know, catalogs and samples and stuff and like, I'm there you know, and I love that Halle said it's also a very dangerous and predatory industry. It absolutely is. So the other thing is when you're setting your boundaries, you know that. Maybe you don't have a boundary in place yet. How do you feel when someone says like, hey, I need you to work till 10pm Tonight, you know, I've got this project, I've been swamped this week. So like, you're going to have to help me. First thing that you're probably going to feel is your head is probably gonna say F No, right? You may start to get all of these thoughts flying in my head, like, well, what am I going to do with my kids? What am I going to do with my dog? You know, how am I going to find a train or a bus to get home that late at night. And then you might start to feel the stomach stuff, you just feel that uncomfortable feeling your heart rate may go up a little bit. And we are built with that fight or flight response for a reason. However, we no longer typically have the danger of a woolly mammoth chasing us and our life is on the lines, you know, so although it served way back in the day when we needed it. Now, unfortunately, our autonomic nervous system is dysregulated, based on stress based on blue light based on just our schedules, and just, you know, we've evolved, and that has evolved with us to kind of make us feel stressed out. So sometimes you don't want to trust that gut feeling. But most times you do. If you start to get that gut feeling, just stop for a moment and think, why is this making me feel this way. And if you don't want to do like, in the moment, if I'm face to face with someone, and I start feeling that, let me give you an example. When my son and daughter were younger, and I went to drop them off at school, someone said, Hey, Bella, wanted to approach you because like, we think you're amazing, we would love for you to join the PTA, which is the, for those not familiar Parent Teacher Association, I think is what it stands for. We would love for you to join the PTA, we think it would be great. And immediately I started kind of feeling gross. Because that's not the I wanted nothing to do with that. And so in that case, I said, No, thank you. They were shocked. The women that were asking me this, their mouths dropped, like how dare she say no. And they both were just kind of like confused. And they said, Excuse me, sorry. And I said, No, I appreciate your confidence in me. But that's not something I would be effective as because I'm very disorganized. And I don't do well with time management. And also it's not something I would enjoy doing. They could not believe it. And I kid you not, they never treated me the same after that. They had this I guess bad taste in their mouth because I told them my boundary, right. But let's say that I didn't have that boundary at that time, or I didn't feel comfortable or like psychologically safe with you know, expressing my boundary. What you can say is just Hmm. I need some time to think about that. Let me get back with you. Right. And then you can kind of go home or wherever you're at, you know, take some time and figure out does this align with my goals? Is this going to make me happy? Is this going to take away from what's important to me? You know, and then you can kind of go back and to say, You know what I thought about it, and I just don't think this would be something that I would be interested in doing. But thank you, right? My take a drink of coffee and read the chat here. Oh, Danielle, perfect, because women are conditioned to suck it up and say yes, again, patriarchy and also to the men that are in the audience. Like this is not saying Oh men are evil or anything like that patriarchy has been around much longer than than you have.

Jamie says I often ask for time to think about it because my knee jerk responses to say Yes, always. I hear that so often. And for me, I've never been that way. And I don't say that to sound like I'm boasting about it. I've always been really like hard headed and stubborn and defiant. Quick story, one of the funniest stories I like about my childhood is I was riding my bicycle. With the training wheels in the alley behind my house growing up, I was like five or six. And I wasn't allowed to go out of the alley just up and down. Excuse me. And so my mom like leans out the porch and she's like, Hey, don't go out of the alley. As I'm turning the corner, I turn around and I'm just like, I'm not. So I've always been like that kind of like rule breaker and everything. So sometimes it's hard for me to understand and when people are like a yes person, but again, you just you have to sit down you have to create those boundaries and And you have to get comfortable in expressing them. Looking at the time, I want to be really mindful here. But oh my gosh, I'm loving everything that I see here. Also, can I just say how happy I am to see so many familiar faces here. Like it just warms my crazy little heart. So confidently declaring your boundaries. I kind of touched on this when I said, you know, you can just start by saying like, No, thank you. Honestly, that should be sufficient. But unfortunately, it's not because people want to know why. Or people get hurt. They take it personally, when you say no, thank you. One thing to keep in mind, boundaries are for you. They're not for anyone else. And what I mean by that is, let's say you have a friend and they want you to, well, let's just use the Tupperware party, like my friend wants me to go to a Tupperware party. And I know I'm aging myself by saying Tupperware. But you know, and you tell them, No, thank you. Well, you're not saying Hey, friend, I don't like you anymore. I don't care what you're doing. I don't believe in you know, supporting Tupperware parties. You're telling them that you personally do not want to attend this party. Right. And another thing I want to point out is from a very young age, we are conditioned to not have boundaries. How many times when you were little, and, you know, Uncle Bob came over, and maybe you didn't want to hug and kiss him and your parents were like, Hey, go hug and kiss your uncle Bob. And you were forced to you were forced to go and cross a boundary that had to do with touch. We do this to children all the time. Oh, Cassie, I love that says forsaking boundaries for the sake of politeness. Don says body autonomy is real. But just think about that. So think about little girls that are you know, forced to do that. They they have their autonomy, their bodily autonomy removed from them. And then think when you get older, and certain situations. Again, I don't want to be triggering here, but certain situations may make you think, Is this okay? My mind and my heart tells me it's not okay. But Am I overreacting? Am I being too emotional? Am I being unrealistic? Right? So Oh, Allison, I love that one. Alison says toxic positivity to where you are told to smile, or pretend to feel a certain way to help other people's feelings. This isn't necessarily related to this topic. But as someone who is disabled and multiplayer disabled, a lot of times when I mentioned that, and especially when I mentioned that they are progressive and degenerative, I'm expected to hurry up and say something funny or change the subject because of other people's discomfort. And what I like to tell people is learn to sit in that discomfort. So we need to be teaching people that are crossing your boundaries to learn to sit in that discomfort. So when you're declaring your boundaries, try saying no, thank you. And if they say, Well, why not? Just say like, I appreciate the offer, but it's not something I'm interested in, and just continually say like, No, thank you until they get the point. They may never get the point. Right. But that's on them. That is their issue. That's for them to handle that's for them to go sit in discomfort and try to figure out why someone is setting a boundary with them, right.

I'm not sure if I'm saying your name right. Micheli. But McKelvey says through this conversation, I've just learned that I do have a lot of boundaries that are non negotiable, and I stick to them. That means that I can do that in other spaces to such empowerment. I want Listen, I want everybody to like, copy that. And put it in a document and let that be your mantra for you know, when you're working on your boundaries, because that is so important. We all have boundaries, and sometimes we don't realize that we are firm on them. And it may be something like, Don't you dare put honey in my coffee, you better load that thing up with sugar, right? Sounds very simple, but that's a firm boundary, what you're telling someone you know. Okay, so I'm gonna move forward. I want to make sure we have plenty of time. I think this is the last slide was going to check. Yes, it is. Okay. So handling rejection, we've talked on that as well. If someone gets upset, like okay, and I know that's hard to say, and it's especially a little bit more nuanced when it's like your boss right now But at the end of the day, like they have to deal with it. And if they can't accept that they don't respect you, they don't value you. They're not concerned with your happiness, your vision, your goals, you know, one of the things that I've done is, and this is for handling almost anything in life, I continually have conversations, I don't know if continually is the right word, maybe constantly. But I have conversations with myself, I talked to myself, when I was planning this, I walk around the house with my phone, and I have it to like, you know, send my slick voice to text. And I pretend that I'm giving the speech. And that's how I start to get my ideas. When I'm going to have an interview, I do the same thing. I walk around the house. And I'm like, So Bella, you know, tell us why you would be a great candidate for this role. And I just walk around the house. For me, I find it easier when I'm moving. And I just have that conversation with myself. After you do that a few times, it's, it's like it becomes etched into your mind. And you're able to access that learning. I'm a constructivist when it comes to learning. So that's, you know, I feel like you're putting that in there as the foundation. And the more that you say it, and you get into situations where you have to use it, it's like you're building upon that foundation. Right? So um, let's see here. We are very close to time. I don't know if I am done at a quarter till or if it's on the hour. Um I'm looking here, I think I've been getting some private messages. And I apologize here because I've not seen them. I'm Christine if you want to let me know if we have more time. Oh, 1145 is the time limit. So my friends, my beautiful lovely friends, my time is up. So I just want to pop this up here. Feel free to take a screenshot but essentially, I am everywhere. Just under my name. If you forget my name, the last name. So it's Bella with one L and Gaitan. You can think of gay I'm queer. Not gay, but close enough. Right? And I have a little bit of a tan. So really quickly, I just want to say thank you so much to everyone that came here. I literally you just made a copy of the entire chat. And oh, no, I did not. Christine. Can you let me know if there's a way that I can download this entire chat?

Does anyone in here know how to download the entire chat? I just want to like copy and paste. Oh, Louis says I can get you the chat later Bella.

Christine Thomas  
Okay, awesome. We can get that no problem.

Bela Gaytan  
Perfect. Perfect. Well, just very quickly, like thank you everyone for spending some time with me this morning. I hope that that was helpful. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. I'm happy to help you talk about boundaries or anything and everything so much love. Be a super cool human and be kind, please. Thank you.

Christine Thomas  
All right. Thank you, Bella. It was wonderful hearing from you. I did want to let everyone know. We have a couple other sessions. I believe the mentorship is coming up next you have a couple of minutes please feel free to check out some of the hosted lounge area and tables and we'll see you in the next session. Thanks, everybody.

Unknown Speaker  
Take care everyone. Bye

‍