Boundaries: Why You Need Them & How to Set Them

#selfhealers, I hope this video around setting boundaries is valuable. I bought a new mic, so I hope the sound quality is improved. Let me know what you think in the comments or if you have any questions. I'm happy to answer. -Nicole

This should be a school curriculum 🥺 I wish I would’ve known this early on in life

Listening to these boundaries I realize how movies and series actually portray human relationships as boundary-free (you have to be always there for your friend, listen to them, lend them your stuff, be super open about your feelings, constantly do favors)... I always had quite strict boundaries and this was making me feel like I am not a good friend, daughter or girlfriend, and I am sure I'm not the only one. I mean, some series and films do try to show the complexity of human relations but most of them just take the easy way out, which can affect our mental health a lot.

This makes me angry to watch, thinking how often my boundaries were violated. How as a child we can't defend against that, and then we bring our childhood patterns into adulthood. And then it makes me angry how often I, as an adult, allowed my boundaries to be violated - all in the name of being kind, and not wanting to disappoint anyone.

I used to be a doormat, I didn't know what boundaries were. Always defending myself, always giving thousands reasons, i lied to protect myself from blacklashes but now i only respond "i dont need to have a reason, i just don't want to" I have struggled all my life with people pleasing, i thought i wasn't enough but thank God, after 4 years working on my codependency, I finally start to see my worth.

This is hard work. Not knowing about this stuff means you don’t understand other people’s boundaries. You end up overstepping them and having generally rollercoaster relationships. Hell.

As a child I wasn't allowed to speak up. I had to shut up, obey and serve others (not the good way of serving others but where you don't count), putting my life on hold and almost like I didn't matter. And it's been like that my whole life, where everyone takes advantage of me, exhaust me, betray me, my friends, my family. I've recently come to realize this as a pattern in my life and that I need to break the cycle. It's not about them or what they did or didn't do, it's about me and what I should do! And they are just the players/actors in my life mirroring at that moment what (childhood trauma) I need to work on. And I know this and can feel the resistance when my boundary is crossed when the situation occurs. And at the same time I get triggered by my fight/flight response and my egoïc mind will explode and make it 10x bigger and have me focus on the other person and what they did to me instead of me focusing on what the trigger to the past trauma event is and working on that. What could just be to express myself and tell the person what his/her action did to me, how it made me feel in the here & now moment. But having been told to shut up from early child- on to adulthood that is another challenge on top of it, feeling resistance to speak up. This is so hard for me, I can feel my stomach turning, my throat clenching, my chest tightening. But if I dont speak up, more similar situations are showing up. Which is what has been happening at the moment in the past month. Sometimes I just want to cry. It's getting easier to see the patterns and knowing what needs to be done, the inner work. But it's a challenge to become aware that to change the outcome of the situation I need to change me and not change the situation. It was so much easier when I was unaware and blamed others for what they did and how it made me feel. I wish I had a guide to help me go through this in every step. Perhaps I can meditate on this and speak to my higher self/the universe and ask for guidance.

i thought my GF did nt like me. I see clearly that she has boundaries and wants to take it slowly

I wasn't really aware of the boundaries concept a year ago. I had been always thinking that doing a favour for somebody is more important than how I feel about it. I used to put others in the first place before me. Afetr watching this video, I realized that it's normal to have boundaries. It's normal if somebody doesn't like my boundaries. I am not less of a human if I have the boundaries. It's totally fine if I don't want to drink water from the same bottle with people. It's ok if I don't want to share my clothes with my friends. That's not a tragedy if I don't want to lend a big amount of money. I have a right to set boundaries and it doesn't make me less worthy. I feel great about that.

I would always sacrifice my comfort and sanity to say yes to people, and be too passive/vague with setting boundaries, so when the outcomes weren’t successful, I’d get angry about never feeling heard. I’d say yes, then get too stretched thin and cancel, then feel like shit for cancelling, and the cycle would continue until the relationship inevitably fell apart. Setting strong boundaries and implementing them consistently and not feeling bad about it is key to your happiness, and their respect for you.

I grew up having my boundaries constantly violated to the point I grew up thinking it was normal to push boundaries. So I developed the bad habit of not only pushing my own boundaries and emotionally exhausting myself but pushing those of others too. In my family we only find out each other’s boundaries when we cross them and the other person gets upset. So the concept is a bit foreign to me but I’ve been learning to set them and trying to learn how o recognize them in others.

This is so incredibly helpful and empowering. The notion of setting, maintaining and/or respecting boundaries can feel so daunting and frightening, yet the way you break it down into categories, and the definitions thereof, demystifies the issue, and makes it an accessible possibility. Your voice and explanations are always so clear, and your ability to use yourself as an example takes the topic out of a clinical environment and humanizes it for all. Truly powerful. Thank you so much!!

BOUNDARIES are RULES. WE MAKE OR CHOOSE RULES TO PROTECT ONESELF & her body. Self Respect/REGARDS.

You’re a life saver. As someone who is “too nice” and abandoning myself for the sake of other people’s needs, I am struggling with setting boundaries as I fear that they misunderstood that and stay away from me. It also rooted from a traumatic childhood. Now, I’ve realized that boundaries are actually good and helping me towards self-care and authenticity. I will now do my best to speak up and stand up for myself when being disrespected 🥺

Being able to set and own boundaries is really vital for our mental/emotional health. The more I live the clearer it's becoming to me that relationship between living beings, specially humans, has a lot more to do with power than we could suppose at first glance. We will always push each other's boundaries, like kids do with their parents, in order to assess how far we can get, in our own benefit and convenience. All living beings will unconsciously behave this way and, if confronted about it, will always come up with some very plausable religious-socio-cultural justification for their behavior. Truth is whenever we fail to set and own our boundaries, we are letting go of our personal power and it most certainly will be used against us by every being we interact with, not purposefully on a conscious level, of course, but because that's the way living creatures appear to be wired. I'm 45 and that has been my experience with my own parents, relatives, friends, boyfriends, bosses, you name it... Every single relationship so far, even with my cats! Lol

Great presentation, at almost 60, creating boundaries is relatively new for me. It’s easy to see how and where I gradually lost my self worth without having boundaries, and feeling shame when on those rare occasions out of sheer exhaustion and frustration I thought to stand up for myself or my belief or opinion and was shut down. Thank you wise woman. Deep respect and gratitude for the knowledge and experience you continue to share. Lots of love to you. Love Lili.

I truly love you ! thank you for reminding me that it's okay not to feel comfortable about certain things.

I really admire how you acknowledge your own shortcomings in the past about contacting someone when they have asked you not to (:

I am going through something in my life right now, where I feel confused on how I can be a spiritual person and still set boundaries and be strict with them. This video came at the right time.

This would be even more helpful if there were more examples of what to say to people who violate boundaries. Thanks.