Better and Healthier Boundaries

Today, I am covering tips for better and healthier boundaries.

In this podcast, I will suggest several ways to tell if you need better boundaries and present five ways to help you set boundaries.

First off, we all have boundaries.

Maybe you don’t feel like you do, because of the many times in the past when people have overrun your boundaries.

Establishing boundaries for ourselves is a necessary part of life.

All creatures set boundaries.

The challenge is that not everyone has learned how to create boundaries or how to communicate them and enforce them well.

There are several warning signs that your boundaries need work.

Here are some of them, but this list is not meant to be exhaustive.

• You feel guilty whenever you do something for you or indulge yourself.
• You agree to things you don’t agree with to avoid ‘rocking the boat.’
• You tend to say ‘yes’ even when you want to say ‘no’ when people ask you to do things.
• When someone bullies you, and you stay silent.
• You feel like you are the one who does all the giving in your relationships.
• When someone is in your personal space, you don’t say anything, despite how uncomfortable you feel.
• You don’t speak up when the joke isn’t funny, or it’s at your expense.
• You worry all the time about what people think of you.
• You’re frequently playing the victim.
• People take you for granted.
• When someone tells you to ‘do something for yourself’ you have no idea what to do.
• You over-share when talking to others about yourself.
• You take on other people’s guilt as though that will absolve them somehow.
• You’re in a career that was chosen for you, rather than in one that you want to do. For example, you might work in a family business you had no desire to be part of.
• You wind up in relationships with controlling individuals.
• You see yourself as the ‘sacrifice.’
• You feel like people won’t like you if you don’t do things for them.
• You use actions as currency with people by doing things in hopes that they will someday do something for you in return.
• And finally, hearing this list is making you feel uncomfortable because you’ve already recognised more than one thing on it that sounds like you.