Hey everyone,
I’ve been taking a hiatus from the blog for a while. I honestly didn’t feel like writing anything and I don’t believe in doing some just for the sake of doing it. However, now I am feeling the pull to write and share again, so here I go! Thank you all for understanding the ebb and flow. Today I am writing about boundaries. Honoring them for ourselves as well as respecting other’s and the boundaries that they have for themselves.
This topic has been very relevant in my life lately. Setting boundaries has been a hard thing for me to do throughout my life. Sticking to them has been even more difficult for me to do. I don’t like making other people feel bad or uncomfortable, but I’ve noticed that when I put others wants and needs in front of my own it usually ends in me feeling drained emotionally and physically. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t put others in front of ourselves sometimes, I think it is great doing things for others! But it’s when we are constantly putting others in front of ourselves that the situation can turn sour.
Not having boundaries can lead to us feeling bad about ourselves and our ability to stand up for what we really want in life. Sometimes it is good to say no! To take time away to focus on self-care, following our dreams, or even dreaming about what we want. But if we are constantly saying yes to things we know we don’t want, just because we are worried about what others may think, we take away from ourselves. Whether this be energy, moments, time alone, hobbies, etc.
Society likes to tells us that we are selfish if we put ourselves first instead of others, but we are actually being selfish if we let others dictate how we want to live our lives. Selfish in a way that we are not truly our best selves when we don’t follow the boundaries we have set up for ourselves. If we don’t feel our best inside; if we feel depleted energetically and emotionally within; than this will for sure show up in what we project to our outside world.
It can be difficult to set boundaries because we have fears about missing out on certain events, fears about what others will think of us, etc. But when we do this others will know what to expect of us. They will learn to respect us because we respect ourselves and our needs. If you don’t respect what you really need and want, how can you expect others to? This is a hard lesson that I had to learn!
Remembering to respect the boundaries that others have set for themselves is an important aspect as well. A lot of people put their happiness in others, again this all comes back to attachments! Ah, everything really is connected! But something I’ve been learning also recently is that real love means letting someone live their life how THEY want to, and not how we think they should. If they want to do something alone, take up a new hobby, meditate every morning, then we should let them do what they would like! And if that doesn’t include us, then we have to accept that. None of us belong to anyone, none of us own anything, and when we act like we do, it can sometimes feel suffocating for ourselves and for others.
Setting boundaries may look like choosing to stay home and practice yoga instead of going out with friends or working on your latest project instead of binge-watching a show with your roommates. Sometimes the latter is great, but again it all comes back to balance. It all comes back to listening to ourselves, to the inner voice. It’s easy to get swept up in our outer world; in our friends, family, jobs, affiliations. It’s easy to get lost and forget what it is we actually long to do in this life, who we are/who we would like to be. But it’s important to remember that we are all human, and we all stumble, but eventually we all pick ourselves up again and have the opportunity to grow and learn from what life throws at us!
Its all a crazy journey, yet exciting! Feel free to message me or comment. Hope you all are dong well out there!
Peace humans,
Rylee
