Setting healthy boundaries!
This is a very important area to talk about as I continue my 10-part series on love! Whenever people hear the word “boundary,” they tend to think of walls or an official line to keep something or someone out. While that may be the literal interpretation of the word, it also implies limits and words that you can impart to respect your physical and emotional space in life.
Often unhealthy boundaries came from things learned at an earlier time in your life. Maybe you watched a parent that was a people pleaser, so they never paid attention or respected their own needs. Perhaps they just couldn’t say “no,” and so neither can you.
Maybe you observed someone significant in your own life be physically or emotionally violated in some sense. This then became set in your own unconscious as an “acceptable” behavior, and it became repeated on some level in your own life. Did you see significant people in your life tolerate anger, put-downs or demeaning remarks or behavior? Is that evidenced someplace in your own life?
In all of these cases, these people were most likely repeating patterns from their own years of growing up and didn’t have the awareness or knowledge to change them. This is where you can learn to do things differently.
Be a good example for those looking up to you!
You have the awareness to set healthy boundaries in your own life, for you and/or any little people that might consciously or unconsciously be observing what’s going on in your life.
Tips on how to set healthy boundaries!
- Acknowledge your feelings. There are no “wrong” feelings. Express your feelings to others to meet your needs without having to defend them.
- Please yourself as well as others. There is no need to please others at the expense of sacrificing what is best for you. Find the balance of how that feels to meet your needs as well as to others.
- If you find yourself up in the middle of the night, rehearsing things you need to say to someone from a conversation you’re still bothered by, it’s clearly time to have a talk with that person. Everything you feel is valid. Express your feelings without anger and with good communication.
- Are you avoiding someone’s phone call, leaving an email unanswered for days, or not answering your own front door? These are all clues that there are unhealthy boundaries that need to be addressed in those relationships.
- Start with the easiest person first. Create and set a nice environment for speaking to them. Feel the balance as you express yourself. Setting boundaries that are too restrictive or too loose do not truly clarify your feelings. Listen to your intuitive self before you speak, and the right words will flow into the conversation.
- Thank them for listening to you. Thank them for being in your life as someone you can be honest with your feelings.
You have now created healthy relationships to meet your body, mind and spirit’s needs. You have showed respect to yourself and increased your feelings of positive self-esteem.
If you need any guidance on setting healthy boundaries in your life feel free to contact me at petey@newpathwaytohealing.com. I’d be happy to help you identify, reframe and communicate it in a healthy frame!
How do you set healthy boundaries in your life?
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