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Building Healthy Boundaries |
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Building Healthy Boundaries |
Time is our most precious commodity and needs the greatest protection. If we don’t set healthy boundaries, it’s easy for competing demands and commitments to consume this limited resource. Setting appropriate boundaries is a great way to manage your energy and maintain balance in your day. Understanding Boundaries
Unhealthy Boundaries “Healthy boundaries help protect your time, energy and well-being,” says Hayley Flott, PDRMA Wellness Consultant. “When boundaries blur, you may find yourself saying ‘yes’ when you want to say ‘no,’ because you feel guilty about not meeting everyone else’s needs and expectations. Over time, this can leave you feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained and burned out.” Impact on Mental Health
Self-check Awareness Pay attention to situations that leave you feeling uncomfortable, frustrated or emotionally drained. These can be signs you need to strengthen your boundaries:
Practical Boundary Building You can create boundaries based on your specific needs. Below are a few examples you can work from to suit your purposes.
Growth and Self-compassion
PATH Resources Don’t forget to use PATH resources to put your plan into action. Media Journeys.
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Benjamin Franklin once said, “Lost time is never found again.” It’s your boundaries that prevent time loss. A combination of your culture, environment and personal experiences help shape those boundaries. They define how you present yourself and how others treat you. Boundaries are an essential part of self-care that you can learn, practice and strengthen over time. When you use them properly, boundaries help establish mutual respect in relationships.
Constantly prioritizing the needs of others before your own creates tremendous emotional exhaustion. If you find it difficult to disconnect and don’t give yourself enough recovery time, it can increase your anxiety and stress. Relationships may become strained if you feel you always have to be available to someone else and can’t control your time. Eventually, constantly overextending yourself to please others can lower your self-esteem, because it causes you to ignore your own needs.
As with most new things you try, be patient with yourself as you practice setting and enforcing healthy boundaries. Think of boundary setting as a muscle that grows stronger the more you use it. The goal is to protect your mental and emotional well-being while fostering respectful, healthy and sustainable relationships with others — without losing your own sense of identity.