Boundaries are what you are willing to accept. As Brenè Brown defines them, they are your personal rules around “what is ok and what is not ok”. Our boundaries are relevant to all aspects of our lives, including our intimate relationships, friendships, work and career situations.
We need boundaries. We need them to feel happy, to feel authentic and to feel personally aligned.
When we turn our back on our boundaries, and allow them to be crossed by others, it leads to big-time resentment. We get frustrated and angry. Those emotions cause piles of energy, and if you are channeling all of that frustration into yourself, you are doing damage.
Allowing your boundaries to be violated will lead to you having no choice but to disconnect from yourself so you don’t feel your own pain.
I’m telling you, that price isn’t worth it. Pulling away from yourself to endure less than you deserve will never be worth it.
I learned the lesson of boundaries via the path of life experience. I wish I could have learned it through textbooks, but it was one of the lessons I learned the hard way. In my early 20’s I was prone to completely pushing my needs aside and trying to make everyone else happy.
I truly thought the key to my happiness lay in keeping everyone else happy.
My modus operando in relationships was to always put my partner’s needs before my own. I have a caring nature; I just never extended that level of care to myself. As you can probably imagine, completely subjugating my needs lead to incredibly unhealthy relationships. I would get into patterns where my personal boundaries were regularly being crossed, and my partners relied on me to do more and more for them, while I allowed myself to get less and less in return. Thank goodness I snapped out of it!
I came to truly understand that:
- Nobody else could make me feel happy – only I could do that.
- There was no level of approval from someone that would make me feel whole – wholeness was something I had to find within myself.
- My feelings and emotions mattered – they were my inner guide that had always been there telling when I was on the right path or not.
I don’t believe there is blame to be assigned. Any type of human relationship is a messy mix of personalities learning how to work together. People are generally doing the best they can, and most are not intentionally hurting another or pushing boundaries. This is something that happens unconsciously, and depending on our nature and our circumstances, some of us are more prone than others to letting our boundaries be pushed, crossed or violated.
Still to this day for me, protecting my boundaries has to be a very conscious act. The motto I use to remind myself of the importance of boundaries – Do no harm, but take no shit.
Boundaries really do matter, and you have the right to make your boundaries whatever you please. If we don’t protect our boundaries it causes us internal pain. It scars our soul and disconnects us from our truth. Boundaries allow us to have real, authentic and truly deep relationships with others.
You have the power to stand up for yourself and say what is and is not ok for you. Your life, your rules.
As Glinda the Good Witch from the Wizard of Oz says:
“You always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself.”
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If you feel this is a lesson you could improve on, Brenè Brown who is one of my favorite authors and researchers filmed a clip about the importance of boundaries and speaks a little of her journey in understanding their importance. It’s 5 mins well worth watching to help hit this message home. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecb6ExBaW80
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Hi. I’m Kate Snowise. I’m a Life & Executive Coach who helps people who want the good stuff out of life, get it. I believe life is about more than surviving and it being good enough. Each of us truly has the ability to thrive and live a beautiful, aligned life where we remember and connect with our authentic power. I have an MSc in Psychology (the positive kind that concentrates on what is right with you). I teach people how to reconnect with themselves and their spirits through my signature coaching program The Thriving Life Project. To read more about it click here.