Top 40 Nedra Glover Tawwab Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Setting boundaries is not a betrayal of your family, friends, partner, work, or anyone or anything else.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

2. “Friends are your chosen family, and these relationships should bring ease, comfort, support, and fun to your life – not excess drama.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

3. “The ability to say no to yourself is a gift. If you can resist your urges, change your habits, and say yes to only what you deem truly meaningful, you’ll be practicing healthy self-boundaries. It’s your responsibility to care for yourself without excuses.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

4. “Stop following people on social media who make it appear they have it all together all the time.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

5. “It may be hard to just listen without offering advice as people share their problems, but this is often the best support we can give.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

6. “Disappearing, ignoring, or cutting people off is avoidance. Not responding to a request, delaying setting the record straight, or failing to show up are ways that we avoid situations instead of dealing with them proactively. But prolonging issues by avoiding them means the same issues will reappear over and over again, following us from relationship to relationship.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

7. “Boundaries are expectations and needs that help you feel safe and comfortable in your relationships.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

8. “How they treat you is about who they are, not who you are.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

9. “Discomfort is a part of the process.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

10. “We don’t naturally fall into perfect relationship; we create them.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

11. “Defensive people aren’t listening while you’re talking; they’re personalizing what you say and crafting a response. Their response has much more to do with them than it does with you. They are focused only on getting their needs met and resisting any change in your dynamic. But healthy relationships are not one-sided. The needs of both individuals are equally important.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

12. “Neglecting self-care is the first thing to happen when we get caught up in our desire to help others.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

13. “Fear is not rooted in fact. Fear is rooted in negative thoughts and the story lines in our heads.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

14. “Focusing on how others might respond is one way we ruminate, which impacts our ability to act.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

15. “Boundaries are a way of advocating for yourself. Boundaries are a way to maintain the health and integrity of a relationship. Boundaries are an excellent way of saying “Hey, I like you so much. I want us to work on a few things.” Boundaries are a way of saying “I love myself.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

16. “Assume that people know only what you tell them, honor only what you request, and can’t read your mind.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

17. “The hardest thing about implementing boundaries is accepting that some people won’t like, understand, or agree with yours. Once you grow beyond pleasing others, setting your standards becomes easier. Not being liked by everyone is a small consequence when you consider the overall reward of healthier relationships.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

18. “People don’t know what you want. It’s your job to make it clear. Clarity saves relationships.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

19. “There is no belief so strong that it cannot be set aside temporarily to learn from someone who disagrees.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

20. “It’s hard to change your habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. You have a new goal and a new plan, but you haven’t changed who you are. – James Clear.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

21. “It’s just that their generation often believed that they were obligated to do everything for others without complaint.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

22. “We can’t create more time, but we can do less, delegate, or ask for help.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

23. “If you experience depression, it can be helpful to set boundaries about how many things you expect yourself to do in a single day.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

24. “We simply can’t have a healthy relationship with another person without communicating what’s acceptable and unacceptable to us. If we aren’t proactive about this in our relationships, we can be sure the other person will set their boundaries.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

25. “Tell people what you need.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

26. “At work, as in the rest of life, it isn’t realistic to try to get your needs met through waiting for situations to improve magically. Bouncing from one unhealthy circumstance to the next won’t help either. You can’t outrun your inability to set boundaries.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

27. “People who have been abused find it especially challenging to believe that others will be willing to meet their expectations.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

28. “It’s true that setting boundaries isn’t easy. Paralyzing fear about how someone might respond can easily hold us back. You might play out awkward interactions in your mind and prepare yourself for the worst possible outcome. But trust me: short-term discomfort for a long-term healthy relationship is worth it every time!”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

29. “According to Celeste Headlee, author of We Need to Talk: “To have important conversations, you will sometimes have to check your opinions at the door. There is no belief so strong that it cannot be set aside temporarily to learn from someone who disagrees. Don’t worry; your beliefs will still be there when you’re done.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

30. “It is necessary, and even vital, to set standards, for your life and the people you allow in it. – Mandy Hale.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

31. “If you experience any of the above, know that the damage wasn’t caused by your boundary. The relationship was already unhealthy, and your boundary brought to the surface the issues that needed to be addressed. Setting limits won’t disrupt a healthy relationship.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

32. “Boundaries are expectations and needs that help you feel safe and comfortable in your relationships. Expectations in relationships help you stay mentally and emotionally well. Learning when to say no and when to say yes is also an essential part of feeling comfortable when interacting with others.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

33. “You can love your parents and be upset about how they raised you.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

34. “We can be traumatized by what we observe someone else experience.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

35. “Those of us who are people-pleasers assume that others won’t like it when we advocate for what we want. Therefore, we pretend to go along in an effort to be accepted by others. But healthy people appreciate honesty and don’t abandon us if we say no.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

36. “In seeing clients for more than a decade, I’ve found that passive-aggressiveness is the number one way we communicate our feelings and needs. When people describe their passive-aggressive behaviour, I say, “So you haven’t communicated your need, but you’ve acted it out?” The problem is that people can’t guess our needs based on our actions. They may not know what our behaviour means or even notice that we’re trying to communicate something new. Our desires simply have to be verbalised.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

37. “Have you ever been excited about something? Of course you have. You didn’t stop everything because of it, right? You didn’t miss work. You didn’t stay in bed all day. You did whatever was usually on your agenda, but you felt excited at the same time. You can also carry on with your life while feeling guilty.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

38. “It’s okay for a small child to set limits like not eating meat or feeling uncomfortable around certain people. Parents who respect those boundaries make space for their children to feel safe and loved, and they reinforce the positive habit of articulating needs. When parents ignore these preferences, children feel lonely, neglected, and like their needs don’t matter – and they will likely struggle with boundaries as adults.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

39. “Affirmations for people who struggle with anxiety: “I’m entitled to have expectations.” “In healthy relationships, my desires will be acknowledged and accepted.” “After I set limits, people will remain in a relationship with me.” “I can set standards even through my discomfort.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

40. “If you deal with frequent anxiety, it’s important to become aware of what is a reasonable expectation and what isn’t.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

41. “Avoidance is a passive-aggressive way of expressing that you are tired of showing up. Hoping the problem will go away feels like the safest option, but avoidance is a fear-based response. Avoiding a discussion of our expectations doesn’t prevent conflict. It prolongs the inevitable task of setting boundaries.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

42. “Critical thinking is a threat to unhealthy systems, and questions make people think.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

43. “Of course we have no way of knowing how someone else will respond to our assertiveness. When someone has a history of rage and anger, it’s understandable that we would avoid setting limits with that person. But we victimize ourselves further when we let our fear prevent us from doing what we need to do.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

44. “Long-term resentment affects how we perceive the intentions of others.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

45. “Whose standard am I trying to meet? Do I have the time to commit to this? What’s the worst thing that could happen if I don’t do this? How can I honor my boundaries in this situation?”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

46. “I wasn’t helping people by “fixing” them. I was getting in the way of them doing the work that they needed to do for themselves.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab

47. “I’m not doing this to disrespect you. I’m doing this to respect myself.”

— Nedra Glover Tawwab