By Steph Lavelle
When we’re little we are taught boundaries by being told ‘No’. We are often told this a lot and it leads to us feeling like we are missing out on something that we really want.
I remember the day my 14 month old son sat screaming with tears rolling down his face because I’d told him not to eat a tealight candle. In that moment his whole world crashed and the one thing he wanted to do had a huge NO sign in front of it.
So it’s no wonder that when we become adults we have a love-hate relationship with boundaries.
Instead of being able to see boundaries as healthy assets to our lives, we can often struggle to identify where we need boundaries, how to maintain them when they are pushed and how to respect them, both for ourselves and others.
In order to feel safe to fully express yourself and live a life that lights you up it’s essential to have self supporting boundaries!
Now, I use the term ‘self supporting’ because I believe boundaries are most powerful for you when they support you to be the best version of yourself. So acknowledging them as self supporting helps you to feel more appreciative of your boundaries and you are more likely to uphold them when life gets difficult. They’re no longer limiting you, they’re supporting you!
Self supporting boundaries can be used in every aspect of your life and relate to physical and emotional boundaries. Physical boundaries are in relation to your physical body and immediate surroundings and emotional boundaries involve your feelings and the feelings of others that you might be interacting with. No area of your life is off limits when it comes to creating standards that feel right for us to live by, you might need to speak your truth more, use technology less, change your food intake, adjust the words you use or your tone of voice, or address the way others interact with you. No matter where you decide to make change, knowing that self supporting boundaries are healthy and totally unique to you is super important.
Basically, in order to have boundaries that help you create a better life it’s crucial to see yourself as important and know that you cannot live a life that feels epic and brings value to the lives around you unless you see yourself as your most important priority. Prioritising yourself by having clear and supportive boundaries is not selfish, it’s essential to being happy!
Implementing self supporting boundaries can feel really confronting if it’s not something that you have included in life till now. Whenever we implement or adjust a boundary it takes practice to actually live by it and that will take time, so be supportive of yourself while you’re learning to live inside this new boundary that you know is best for you!
So, remember that every time you back yourself and uphold your own boundaries and respect the boundaries of others, you are literally rewiring your brain to respect yourself more and it is through this self respect that it becomes easier for you to stay true to yourself and your self supporting boundaries in order to create the life you really want to live.
Having self supporting boundaries can support you to achieve so much in life, most importantly they help you to feel safer, calmer and more confident.
Where are you going to adopt a self supporting boundary right now?
