Happy Wednesday everybody! Boundaries are a tough subject, and one I know we ALL struggle with. As humans, we struggle with setting them, we struggle with respecting them, and sometimes a little bit of both. I think it was within the last 2 years of my life that I even learned the importance of what boundaries are. Boundaries are a lot easier to enforce with others when you know yourself and what your wants and needs are. Once you start to know yourself enough to know what those boundaries are, communicating them is the next challenge we run into. A lot of us end up losing ourselves because we are scared of how our boundaries are going to make other people feel, but at the end of the day the boundary is to protect yourself so that you can in return give your best self to that relationship. It is the differences we all go through in life that create experiences, both negative and positive, that require us to have to set these boundaries for us to feel secure within ourselves. Boundaries are not something to apologize for, they are something to embrace and to be proud of.
While I have challenges with setting boundaries, I have also struggled and can say I have had challenges respecting other’s boundaries. Call it generational or whatever excuse feels good to us, but I grew up in an environment where boundaries were not a thing. If I set boundaries, they were not respected because I was a kid so I did not call the shots in any way. Now a days, I see parents allowing their young children to set boundaries with them and empowering them to do so. When you didn’t learn boundaries young, it is easy for them to feel like a personal attack sometimes, especially if they come from somebody you love. I have learned recently that it is never okay to invalidate someone’s boundaries, as you are not walking in their shoes. Boundaries are tough, and when someone is finally strong enough to tell you how they want to be treated or whatever that may look like in your story, it is not your job to defend or challenge or do anything really but listen. When someone loves you enough to get real with you and ask for what they want, have the courage within yourself to give them that. When you view boundaries as a personal attack, you spend the time you should be validating someone who was vulnerable with you, and instead you go to a place of defense and trying to find reasoning in your mind for how you can justify your behavior. It is an ugly cycle we all probably get on, but it is one that gets us nowhere. I would much rather keep my power and use it for good and own my wrongs and validate someone I love when they want to tell me what they need. Who am I to challenge other’s boundaries, when I don’t want my own challenged?
My journey with setting boundaries and respecting boundaries has been tough, as I never learned exactly how to do it the right way. I have had a long journey with learning how to be direct, love myself, and be the woman I want to be, while still maintaining a certain amount of tact in life. I have feared that being the nice guy or being sensitive can get me walked all over and puts me in a more vulnerable position in life, so I have somewhat lived life as my happy self, but also had a bit of a chip on my shoulder when setting boundaries. This protected me for so long, but when you get around other good humans who are also sensitive and nice, you learn that the chip on your shoulder can actually hurt people and you can find yourself competing with your own teammates. You can get caught up in wanting to be right so bad and being so set in who you are, that you get blind and complacent to the fact that people who love you are going to see parts of you that are ugly and could use feedback. It is probably one of the most brutal things in the world to hear about the things you don’t like about yourself from somebody you love, but man if we can just flip the script and embrace the power we have to change those things, that feedback is crucial to your self-growth. Boundaries are not a weapon, and they are not a shield to prevent yourself from having to let people in. Boundaries are a tool if we can use them right and learn how to express them to the people we care about. There have been so many times I have waivered on my boundaries because I want to be loved, and I am not sure why setting boundaries make us feel unlovable? Why are we programmed to think knowing ourselves should push our partners away and why as partners do we feel offended when our partners do in fact know themselves enough to set these boundaries? We have to do better. We have to love ourselves and each other more, and we have to be willing to understand our wants and needs in order to keep our cups full and flowing. Cheers to setting boundaries, respecting boundaries, and giving enough grace to yourself and others to not always getting it right the first time.
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