Mental wellbeing is often framed around rest, exercise and self-care. Rami Chuene offers another perspective: sometimes protecting your wellbeing starts with deciding who gets access to your time, energy and attention, and just how much of it.
Kindness is usually spoken about as something we give to other people. We help, accommodate, forgive and make space for them. But there is another side to kindness that receives far less attention: knowing when being good to somebody else is starting to come at the expense of being good to yourself.
In a recent conversation on The Anele Podcast: Her & Now, actress, singer and author Rami Chuene describes kindness as a kind of currency. Much of her career, she says, has been shaped by people who supported her, opened doors for her and showed generosity when she needed it. That has made her equally committed to extending kindness to others. But her understanding of kindness is not the same as giving people unlimited access to her time, energy or goodwill.
When kindness needs a boundary
Chuene uses the analogy of a buffet. You place something generous in front of people and then pay attention to how they behave. Some will treat what they have been given with respect, while others may take advantage. What changes afterwards is not necessarily your commitment to being kind, but how much access that person receives the next time.
It is a simple idea, but one that speaks directly to mental wellbeing. Boundaries are sometimes treated as a sign that a relationship has gone wrong. In reality, they can be part of what keeps relationships, workplaces and friendships healthy. Being kind does not require constantly saying yes, making yourself available or accepting behaviour that leaves you depleted.
First for Women's 2026/27 Her & Now Report found that 46.6% of women surveyed have felt dismissed or not taken seriously by a product, service or institution. Only 11.5% said they generally feel considered. Those figures point to a broader question about mental fitness: what happens when women are expected to keep accommodating environments that do not always accommodate them?
Chuene’s own career has required her to confront that question. She has spoken publicly about the professional consequences she experienced after supporting concerns about unfair treatment in South Africa’s entertainment industry. Despite the cost, she has maintained that standing her ground remains one of the decisions she is proudest of.
What mental fitness looks like in relationships
Her message is not that every difficult situation requires confrontation, it’s that self-respect and kindness do not have to be opposites. You can remain generous while becoming more discerning. You can care about somebody and still decide that they no longer get the same access to you. You can be respectful without constantly overriding your own needs to make other people comfortable.
That matters because mental fitness is often reduced to what happens privately: journalling, breathing, exercise, rest or meditation. Those practices can be valuable, but wellbeing is also shaped by the relationships we maintain, the situations we tolerate and the way we respond when our limits are repeatedly ignored.
Sometimes protecting your mental wellbeing looks like recognising that somebody consistently drains your energy and changing the relationship accordingly. Sometimes it means saying no without spending the rest of the day feeling guilty about it. Sometimes it is accepting that another person being unhappy with your boundary does not automatically mean the boundary was wrong.
There is also a broader workplace dimension to this. Independent research has found that women can face a social penalty for assertiveness, particularly when their behaviour clashes with expectations that they should be more agreeable or accommodating. A study published in Organisational Behavior and Human Decision Processes found that women who advocated assertively for themselves could be judged more negatively, even when that behaviour helped them achieve better outcomes.
This tension is also reflected in South African workplace research. A study examining women in leadership found that women described having to work harder for recognition while also navigating expectations that they should be nurturing and less assertive.
Knowing your worth without losing your kindness
Chuene also speaks about believing that she deserves to be seen, heard, loved and respected simply because she exists. It is an important idea in a culture that can easily teach people to measure their worth through productivity, success or how useful they are to others. When self-worth depends entirely on what you produce, provide or tolerate, it becomes much harder to recognise when enough is enough.
There is a similar principle in how she approaches work. Chuene emphasises professionalism, understanding contracts and knowing both your rights and your responsibilities. Knowing your worth does not mean avoiding accountability. It means being clear about what you bring, what is expected of you and what you are prepared to accept in return.
Perhaps that is a more useful way to think about mental fitness this Mental Health Awareness Month. It is not only about becoming better at recovering from stress. It is also about recognising the people, situations and habits that repeatedly create it, and making choices that protect your wellbeing before you reach the point of exhaustion.
Kindness remains valuable and so does generosity. But neither requires giving every person unlimited access to your time, attention or emotional energy. Sometimes protecting your mental wellbeing does not mean becoming less kind, it simply means learning to include yourself in the kindness you give.
Rami Chuene appears in Episode 5 of Season 2 of The Anele Podcast: Her & Now, presented by First for Women.
