A healthy adult knows when a boundary has been violated. They know how to communicate with others about how something makes them feel. They set their own boundaries and even enforce consequences if necessary.
They do not live in fear, anxiety, or worry about what someone will think of them. They have learned how to be transparent about how they want to be treated.
In this mini-course, we will discuss the key components of having healthy standards, which will then allow for healthy boundaries. If you do not know how you want to be treated or cannot recognize when someone has crossed a line, you will always be susceptible to abuse or being taken advantage of in life.
You might be surrounded by people who knowingly or unknowingly take advantage of you. They do not show you respect, nor do they understand how to respect your thoughts and feelings.
While some might fault those people, a healthy adult will take responsibility for their own selves.
They will learn how to create healthier standards, set boundaries, and communicate those boundaries with others. This is necessary to teach people how you would like to be treated.
In this video, we will dive into boundaries: why you do not like setting boundaries, why you may struggle to enforce your boundaries with others, and how you can begin teaching others how you want to be treated with these simple tools.
WHAT ARE BOUNDARIES?
The definition of a boundary is 'a line that marks the limit of an area.'
Boundaries are our way of communicating with others what we will tolerate, what we will not tolerate, what decisions are in our best interest, and where we draw the line.
THREE TYPES OF BOUNDARIES: physical, emotional, and mental.
PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES
Your physical boundary is where you protect your physical space. This could be your car, home, bedroom, personal items, or your own body.
EMOTIONAL BOUNDARIES
Your emotional boundary is where you separate your thoughts and feelings from someone else's. When you struggle with codependency, you have poor emotional boundaries because of how you allow your own feelings to be determined by how someone else feels. There is no separation between the two sets of thoughts and feelings.
The people who struggle the most with emotional boundaries are empaths. They encounter difficulties with emotional boundaries because it is in their nature to focus on other people's emotions and energies.
It is easy for an empath to neglect their feelings and emotions because they are consumed and in tune with how other people feel. When this happens, the empath can become extremely frustrated and feel resentful towards the other person. They may even experience feelings of being depleted because they are not tending to their own thoughts, feelings, and needs.
An important detail to remember about self-care is to practice detaching at times from someone else's problems and issues. It is not always healthy or in your best interest to rush in and save every person you meet. Trying not to get involved in everyone else's business can be challenging since this has been your programming for most of your life, but you are capable of it. We may love someone and want to help, but it cannot come at the expense of our well-being.
MENTAL BOUNDARIES
Your mental boundaries concern a person's values, opinions, and thoughts. In this area, it is important to know who you are. If you struggle with understanding yourself, your opinions, your thoughts, and your values, then you will have poor mental boundaries.
If you do not know who you are on the inside and what makes you tick, it becomes easy for someone to gaslight you and influence you to be who they want you to be.
The true test of a healthy person lies in their ability to know themselves and express who they are to other people. It is not only important to know who you are but also what you expect from the relationships in your life. Your standards are of utmost importance.
Once you are aware of your standards and have addressed your inner wounds while understanding the process of self-soothing, you will be able to express yourself clearly and confidently to others.
Having confidence in yourself empowers you to communicate your standards and boundaries calmly. You can manage your emotions when engaging with someone who disagrees with you or begins mistreating you. You know how to articulate your standards and enforce your boundaries if necessary, and you can comfort yourself when you experience discomfort, such as disappointment or fear.
WHY DO PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH BOUNDARIES?
(1) The first reason is that we do not know how we want to be treated. If you do not know what acceptable behavior is and how you expect to be treated by your friends, family, partner, or co-workers, then you will always accept whatever behavior they choose to exhibit. You will also remain unaware when you are being mistreated.
(2) The second reason is a lack of self-esteem within yourself. When you have low self-esteem, you do not feel worthy. Your self-worth is everything. How you view yourself from a genuinely authentic place is what will allow you to establish high standards and maintain healthy boundaries.
Once you possess these two attributes, you will know what you want, what you deserve, and you will have the confidence to communicate those standards to whoever crosses your path, regardless of the circumstances.
A person who does not genuinely love themselves will never bother to ask themselves these important questions:
"What do I want?" - "How do I feel?" - "Is this good for me?" - "Is this person's behavior acceptable?" - "Is this how I deserve to be treated?"
When you neglect to ask yourself these questions, you will accept whatever someone says or does to you. Your low self-confidence can also lead you to experience codependency issues at times when you may know what you want but still give in to someone else's desires due to fear.
This fear may stem from concerns about someone not liking you, leaving you, abandoning you, thinking you are mean, or believing you are asking too much of them when you are simply establishing your standards. It's essential to remember that a standard typically represents the bare minimum for someone to be in your life.
The last reason why people struggle with boundaries is that they have not learned how to create an emotional barrier around themselves when dealing with emotionally abusive people. When you are still operating from your ego, you are not practicing the art of maintaining strong boundaries.
In order to have strong boundaries, there is internal work that must be done.
(1) FOCUS ON WHAT YOU THINK AND FEEL
Staying in tune with yourself is the best way to recognize when a boundary has been violated. Once you realize that someone has crossed the line, the next step is to ask yourself, "How would I have liked to be treated?"
(2) PRACTICE EXPRESSING YOURSELF
Often, we feel uncomfortable expressing ourselves because we have many assumptions about what might happen if we share our feelings or expectations.
You must start letting go of that baggage! Prioritizing how someone else will feel over your own feelings is not a way to take care of yourself.
The stories you create may not even come true, and if they do – for instance, if someone makes you feel bad or becomes angry – remember that it's their issue, not yours. They must address their inner work and deal with how something made them feel.
(3) THE ENFORCEMENT
Over time, if someone who "loves you" does not respect you, then the relationship is not a healthy one. When we become afraid of losing someone because our inner fear story tells us that "we will never find another friend or partner again," it paralyzes us in an unhealthy dynamic.
The scarcity mindset believes that "this is it," that there will never be anything better than what we have, so we should hold onto it. This mindset also traps us in unhealthy relationships, keeping us on a never-ending cycle.
We go round and round, never finding happiness in our relationship because we're too scared to make a move.
Enforcing your boundaries means learning not to remain stuck in unhealthy dynamics and recognizing that if you must leave a relationship, it's for your benefit and well-being. You must let go of the stigmas you've created concerning boundaries. Sometimes, we concoct these stories in our minds, believing these false narratives that lead us to live in fear.
Fear of what others will think.
Fear that someone else will be disappointed by what we have to say.
Fear that, if we stand up for ourselves, it might upset the other person.
Fear that, if we communicate our standards, this person may not rise to the occasion.
Fear that someone will give up and leave us.
By generating all these fears in our minds, we become stagnant. We remain silent and suppress our feelings, continuing to endure abuse, exploitation, and manipulation by doing what someone else wants.
HEALING STARTS WITH AWARENESS.
First, be aware of when you are not speaking up. Know what you want from a situation or how you want to be treated by another person. Ask yourself internal questions to determine what is in your highest good. Let go of worrying about how your standards will affect someone else.
Learn to say “NO.”
Approach communication of your standards and boundaries from a place of inner love. Stop internalizing other people’s feelings about your boundaries. If someone does not rise to the occasion and respects your boundaries, then that person is not someone you should have in your life. "Not everyone you lose is a loss."
CHALLENGE
After reading and watching this video, you should hopefully know when you are suppressing your thoughts, feelings, and opinions and not communicating your standards with others. Once you realize you are doing this, it is time to find out why.
What are the stories you are telling yourself that are keeping you stuck in silence? This is where we uncover the negative self-talk and inner wounds that have prevented you from moving forward.
Once you uncover the fears behind your actions (or lack thereof), you can then begin to CHOOSE whether you want to continue being fearful or push past the fear to take care of yourself, stand up for yourself, love yourself, and put yourself first.
