For The Love of Boundaries
Boundaries. Something most women are pretty terrible at. Of course it’s not entirely our faults. We’re taught that being nurturers, caregivers and putting others’ needs before our own is how to love right?
Wrong.
Jesse Elder says, “The most loving thing we can do for anyone is let them have their own experience.” It’s the truth, and part of that experience is having healthy boundaries.
Back in Dec I wrote this blog about choosing, “Responsibility” as my word for the year. Personal responsibility that is. The radical kind. Where blaming others for my experience isn’t an option. Where jumping into others’ experiences or taking responsibility for them isn’t an option.
This choice has brought a lot of peace, freedom and ease to my Life.
A big component in this practice of radical self-responsibility is setting boundaries.
Boundaries as a critical topic keeps arising. It’s come up at two events for me in the last month and even an emergency coaching call with a 1:1 client recently who asked me to walk her through a conversation with a close relative to help her create boundaries with this person.
INSIGHTS
“Thank you for taking care of your needs.”
I went to an event a few weeks ago where we practiced saying yes and saying no.
When someone said no, “Thank you for taking care of your needs” was how we were instructed to respond to their no.
This response and the why behind it has been reverberating my Life so much since then.
When someone says no, not only is it not personal or a rejection, it’s a beautiful thing to witness. – Click to Tweet
It’s beautiful because that person is honoring themselves. If you’re the one saying no, you’re honoring yourself.
It’s not your job to please others. Saying yes when you’d really rather say no is dishonorable to both you and whomever you’re lying to. Because that’s what it is, a lie.
So honor your no, honor your yes, above all else, honor yourself and TRUST.
Trust yourself.
Trust that people can handle your no.
The other thing Monique Darling, the facilitator of that event explained is that when you can trust someone’s no, you can trust their yes. Because when someone is comfortable saying no, you know that their yes always means yes.
Gorgeous.
So this is a great place to start with boundaries.
Identify the places where you’ve been saying yes and meaning no. And, practice not taking it personally or as a rejection when someone says no to you, but rather honoring that they are taking care of their needs.
Feels good, right?
