Boundaries

What Are They? Why Are They So Important To Have? Whats The Current Status Of Yours? Are They Strong Or Do You Struggle With Them? If The Later Is True For You, Lets Find Out Why? And 7 Tips On How To Go About Setting Boundaries In A Loving Way…

- By Michelle Therese

All relationships improve when we are able to speak our truth as to what we expect from others. Having clear boundaries not only fosters great connections with other individuals be it romantic, friendship, familial or otherwise but also brings about the most transformational relationship with the self both internally and how that is mirrored back to us from our external reality. This happens when we value ourselves and our own health above those around us and truly embody the energy of self love. Identifying what makes us “feel” good when engaging with others and what makes us “feel” not so good when engaging with others and then expressing our needs in a healthy, confident manner keeps us physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually balanced.

Our own personal boundaries I believe are sourced originally from our internal soul space. As we go inside and “feel” into what makes us happy and what makes us sad when engaging with others, we are able to then develop our own set of fundamental non negotiable requirements for what supports not only healthy connectivity with others but our overall wellness where it pertains to our emotionality, physicality, spirituality and psychological state. Sometimes we have a hard time either communicating these requirements or fear that if we do communicate our needs we will be rejected or abandoned. This fear may drive an individual to have weak or non existent boundaries. So what exactly causes a person to have weak boundaries? Below, are two perspectives some people may relate to,

1. The Psychological Perspective

Unhealed earlier experiences. e.g. When the individual was a child they constantly had to perform, chase or compete for the love of an emotionally unavailable parent or caregiver. Most times this wound is not healed in childhood therefore resulting in a pattern being formed. This becomes an issue when we mature and start to engage in adult one on one relationships. We develop a sense of co-dependancy and desperation as we seek out the love from another that we didn’t receive from our caregivers as a youngster. This often results in an individual sacrificing their own needs and identity in order to not put a strain on the connection and/or possibly experience abandonment.

2. The Spiritual Perspective

Whereby there are weaknesses in the energetic body, particularly in the following three chakras,

Solar Plexus Chakra This chakra is the centre of personal power, self esteem, confidence and warrior energy. When there is a weakness in this energy centre an individual may have trouble standing up for themselves in an empowered way. Therefore lacking confidence in their own power to set boundaries with others if need be.

Heart Chakra This chakra is the centre of love not only for others but more importantly the love of self. Compassion, empathy and forgiveness are also ruled by this energy centre. When there is an imbalance in this chakra the individual may struggle to integrate the energy of self love and therefore has trouble valuing their own wellbeing above others leading the individual to tolerate, make excuses or have a sense of misplaced compassion and empathy resulting in the acceptance of bad behaviour from others,

e.g “My partner has been really unkind to me as of late, but thats ok I know work has been very stressful for them”

Throat Chakra This chakra is the centre for communication, speaking your authentic truth, hearing and being heard. When there is a weakness in this energy centre the individual may have difficulty communicating what they expect from others. May also fear that if they do communicate and their truth is heard they may experience abandonment, rejection or judgement.

In this blog post I will help you assess the current status of your boundaries. Are they in place and working for you? Or are they weak to non existent? If you are in fact struggling to enforce boundaries I will help you to gain clarity on why this may be so, and give you some healing guidance so as you are able to step into your power. I will also share my 7 helpful tips on how to go about setting up healthy boundaries, so as you can live your relationships in a more empowered, soul satisfying way…

How Do I Know If I Have Established Strong Boundaries With Others Or Not?

So lets check the current state of your boundaries. Are they strong and working for you? Or are they weak to non existent? A great way to determine if you have strong boundaries in place that are working for you is to do this little exercise. Take out your journal and start with reflecting and answering the following two questions,

1. How would I like the people in my life to treat me?

• My Partner

• My Friends

• My Family

• My Co-Workers

2. How am I being treated by the people in my life?

If you find after some deep reflection on these two questions that the way you are currently being treated does not match the way you would like to be treated, we could determine that you may need to do some work on setting up better boundaries with others. But firstly let's try to understand, why you have weak or non existent boundaries in the first place?

Through my work, I have come to the understanding that some people having issues with creating stable boundaries, are still working on unhealed earlier experiences and/or weaknesses in their energetic body. The list below, outlines some signs that I have witnessed. You may resonate with some of these, all of these or none at all. It's important to note, these patterns are learnt responses, not personal failures.

• Over giving. The belief that the more I give the more I will be valued.

• Chasing Love

• Saying yes to things you would rather say no to out of wanting to please others

• Competing for attention

• Giving into sexual intimacy before feeling ready, out of fear of abandonment

• Accepting and or making excuses for bad behaviour or treatment from others

• Merging in connections, no sense of self. Puts the other first, sacrifices own wellbeing

• Co-dependancy

• Desperation

• Lacks confidence to stand in ones power

• Hides truth out of fear of abandonment or rejection or being seen in an unfavourable light

• Has a lack of self love. Settles

• Finds it hard to be joyous in ones own company, needs others

What Can I Do If I Recognise Any Of These Behavioural Patterns Playing Out In My Connections?

• Seek out a therapist to do some inner child work. Becoming consciously aware of the original wound will help you to release these patterns.

• Seek out an energy therapist to balance your chakra system, revitalise and clear stagnant energy from your energetic body.

• Connect with your inner child regularly through meditation and creativity.

• Place a photo of you as a child somewhere where you will see it everyday and speak words of love, nurturing and praise to that adorable child. This will reset any negative self talk that is currently running on repeat in the mind space.
  

How Do I Go About Setting Boundaries With Others In A Loving Way?

1. Do the healing work with your inner child and energetic body. This will help you to understand yourself more. You will feel more confident, know your truth, and be able to engage from a loving space.

2. Get really clear with yourself on how you expect to be treated by others. Providing you have done some thorough introspection on this in step 1 above, you should be conscious of your desires.

3. Set up a private time with the individual or individuals in question to have a conversation and discuss your need for change in the dynamic. It’s best to not have this discussion in the midst of conflict as nothing will be resolved in a positive way. Best to step away and come back when things have cooled down. This also allows you to go away and gather a higher perspective on the matter.

4. When communicating with other individuals it is most effective to use “I” at the beginning of a statement rather than “You”. e.g.

(Avoid saying) “You didn’t call or message me like you said you would, you need to follow through”

(Try saying) “I feel really worried when I don’t hear from you. I care about you and just want to know you are safe. I would feel less anxious if this doesn’t happen again”

This gives the listener more of a chance to resonate with how you are “feeling” and helps to steer clear of them feeling like they are being blamed. It is also more likely to stop the listener from shutting down, becoming defensive or lashing out to justify their actions.

5. Communication is always about being heard and hearing. Its never a one way street, where only one opinion is valid. Be sure to always communicate with respect and be prepared to hold the space for the other to share their perspective on the matter. This facilitates growth and learning for both individuals.

6. Setting boundaries with other individuals can have varying outcomes. A positive outcome would obviously be insight and clarity are achieved after clear communication and both parties agree to working towards a healthier dynamic. And of course there is also the probability that the opposite may happen where the other individual is unwilling to compromise, or see their wrong doing in the situation. The individual may also resort to guilt tripping, shaming and making you out to be selfish for wanting to have your needs met. In this case accept that they are not willing to compromise, but do not give your power back over to them in order to soothe their discomfort, this will only perpetuate a toxic cycle.

7. Stand your Ground! The people that are meant to stay in your life will stay and elevate with you. The ones that are unwilling to resolve the issue with you in a conscious way will soon understand that you mean business. They will either go away and reflect and grow and come back towards you in a healthier energy or they will cycle out of your life…

Establishing boundaries with others is so important when it comes to our overall wellbeing. Many of us think that setting expectations on the way we would like to be treated in relationships comes from being selfish and this is the very reason some of us give our power away and resort to having weak boundaries. But actually the opposite is true. The more we love ourselves and protect ourselves from physical, mental, emotional and spiritual exhaustion the healthier we become. We are then able to give a higher frequency of love to those who deserve it…

Love Always,

Michelle Therese xo