Knowing our standards, needs, values, and limitations, significantly affect how we interact with the world. What we allow in our lives, is dependent on whether or not we have made crystal clear boundaries, and whether or not we have followed through with our boundaries.
Making clear boundaries requires self-exploration, deep insight, and knowledge of self. Creating healthy boundaries will leave you feeling stronger, fulfilled, confident, and satisfied.
What are some ways to make crystal clear, healthy boundaries? What and how do we follow through with them? Let’s explore:
1. Define what self-care looks like to you and make it a habit to fit it into your schedule.
What do you have to do to honor your physical, emotional, and mental with family/friends, in your work environment, and in your personal time?
2. Allow yourself to feel and process painful feelings after a negative experience has occurred.
Examples of negative emotions are discontent, sadness, heartache, fear, worry, mental exhaustion, and dissatisfaction. Giving yourself the proper time and space to feel negative emotions, may help you understand the boundaries that you need to create, or re-create.
Deeply contemplate on this experience. Ask yourself a series of exploratory questions. What can you control in that situation? What can’t you control? What specific emotions do you feel? What happened in these circumstances? Who was involved? What was the environment? What specifically happened? What specific interaction made you feel uncomfortable? How would the circumstance be different if you implemented specific boundaries? What would these boundaries look like? How would it have made you feel if such boundaries were in place during that uncomfortable situation?
3. Contemplate on similar experiences of the past.
How were they similar or different to this experience? Did you do anything different in the past experiences? What boundaries would have been helpful to set in the past? How would the ideal past boundaries be similar to the present boundaries in these similar experiences?
4. Be compassionate and kind to yourself.
While exploring painful memories, it can be easy to fall into the “what if” trap. Don’t fall in! Remember that you did the best that you could, with what WAS at that time. The purpose of examining the past, is not to dwell on what should have been different. The purpose is to understand the theme of our negative experiences, or whether or not there is a theme.
Don’t feel ashamed for the mistakes of the past. Mistakes enable us to become wiser, stronger, and more understanding of our needs. Mistakes are unavoidable in the journey upwards. Thus, we should feel grateful when we are able to see them because such sight gives us an opportunity to evolve.
5. Be direct, open, blunt, and honest with yourself about what it is that you can tolerate, and what it is that you cannot tolerate.
Create rules that cannot be broken. For example, a rule can be “If someone cheats on me, I have to break up with him/her.” Stick to this rule in order to test it. When executing the rule, does it make you feel better? If you need to alter your rule, ask yourself if the pain that will be endured from such alteration, is worth it. Analyze, assess and examine why you want to alter your rule. If you find that the alteration is needed in order to better fulfill emotional/mental/physical needs, then do so. Test this altered rule. If it isn’t successful, you can either return to the previous rule, or make a new one. Don’t be afraid to experiment with yourself! This is a journey into the depths of yourself. You are allowed to make and break your own rules for the purpose of making them the most compatible to your wellness/self-care goals!
6. Accept yourself and love yourself for where you are.
Trust and accept your emotions. It’s okay to feel what you feel. Emotions come, go, and transform over time. This is why it may be helpful to journal the rise and fall of different emotions right after undesirable interactions have occurred.
Perhaps you can use a red pen for anger, a blue one for compassion, and a dark green one for sadness. If you are having a difficult time understanding where your emotions end, and where other’s emotions begin, you can write your interpretation of how they rationalize their emotions/actions/words/thoughts in dark yellow, and you can write how you rationalize your emotions/actions/words/thoughts in purple.
Of course, you can choose whatever colors you like! It’s okay to be where you are emotionally. It’s normal to have an influx of changing emotions after something hurtful has happened. Just watch the emotions and sit in them, until they flow away.
7. Be mindful when feeling resentment or discomfort.
These emotions can indicate that you have not followed through on a boundary.
8. Be assertive
Respectfully and compassionately communicate what your tolerance level is with yourself and with others.
9. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
A therapist may be able to help you figure out how to set healthy boundaries for yourself. If you cannot afford therapy, there may be discounted services available to you. In addition, friends, family, and other members in the community, can help hold you accountable to the boundaries that you have set for yourself.
Meet The Author: Dushyanthi Niyangoda
Dushyanthi is a graduate student intern who strives to empower adults with their energy source, values, creativity, and their belief systems. Her strength is to help others align their core values with the healing power that comes from Trauma. Through CBT, talk therapy, BT, Adlerian, person centered, Freudian, Narrative and feminist-based therapy, she helps guide clients towards their visions of wellness.
She specializes in meditative practices and creative outlets for stress management. She helps people understand the source of their suffering in order to reduce their anxiety, depression, transitional worries, and/or distress. Her immediate goal is to help others develop deep self-awareness so that they can manifest their dreams and act in accordance to their purpose. Her dream to create a relaxing and holistic environment, where people can make loving movements into their authentic self, as they unpack their trauma and difficulties.
When she is not doing school work or seeing clients, she works with DJ’s and MC’s as a brand ambassador/professional dancer. She also spends time cooking and finding exciting pescatarian free recipes. She really enjoys watching Sci-Fi related shows/movies like sense 8, X-Men, and travelers, synchronicity, and Arrival.