Why Are Healthy Boundaries Needed?
Having healthy boundaries, whether a romantic relationship or relationships with friends, family and work colleagues, is vital. You cannot have a good relationship without setting healthy boundaries.
Having unhealthy boundaries can cause a whole host of issues within relationships.
It could be a breakdown in communication or issues with jealousy and paranoia in your relationship. It may be feeling uncomfortable with being intimate with your partner, whether its sexual intimacy or just being able to open up to and talk to them freely.
Or maybe you feel resentful and feel like you’re always the one having to compromise. It can play out as having a sense of over-giving or being short-changed within your relationship. It can start to feel like you have given up so much to be with your partner, but are now wondering if it was worth all the hassle.
According to the Oxford English dictionary, the definition of a boundary is “a line which marks the limits of an area”.
In a psychological sense, personal boundaries relate to the fine line between normal behaviour or behaviour that causes physical or emotional harm or distress.
Boundaries are something we learn from a young age. People whose boundaries were not respected or valued as a child, often struggle with setting good, healthy personal boundaries in their adult life. The same is true for those that witnessed authority figures in their life with boundary issues.
Unhealthy personal boundaries can either be too rigid and inflexible, or on the other end of the spectrum, unclear or weak. Either extreme has adverse repercussions to existing relationships, so getting the balance right is vital.
Signs And Symptoms of Unhealthy Personal Boundaries
1) Abusive relationships
– this could be emotional, physical, mental or sexual in nature.
2) Inability to say no
– or serious guilt associated with saying no to others. This may also be associated with feeling like you must sacrifice your own needs and prioritise others’ needs before your own.
3) Finding people always take advantage of you
– feeling powerless to others, which can cause a lot of inner anger and resentment. This takes up a lot of energy.
4) Inability to let go of control
– this is often due to the constant fear and feelings of being unsafe or anxious of other people or situations.
5) Difficulty in asking others for help
– this can be exhausting, as you feel you have to do everything by yourself.
How to Set Healthy Boundaries for Yourself
1) Become more self-aware
Get to know the “real” you. What are your fears? Think about what you want in life and what makes you happy.
Learn to recognise you own thoughts and feelings so you can identify what is your “stuff” and what is others’ drama that you are just energetically clinging onto.
This helps to identify all the things in your life that are no longer serving you, so that you can make conscious decisions about what is and isn’t working for you.
2) Respect, value and honour yourself
The truth is, your outer world is simply just a reflection on what you think and believe inside.
So if people are taking advantage or crossing your boundaries, it’s simply because on some level, that’s what you feel you deserve.
You attract what you think you deserve!
3) Establish some boundaries and voice them to others
This is where you need to learn to be assertive, without being aggressive. If you don’t voice your opinions and put your foot down, nothing will change.
You need to gently but firmly tell the other party that whatever you’re unhappy with them doing, is not acceptable. Be open to being flexible and coming to a mutually beneficial compromise – but be aware that you’re not just compromising your own needs in favour of the other person’s needs being met!
You need to have your needs valued and met as well.
4) Self-care
It is vitally important to take care of yourself, because if you don’t take care of you, then how can you expect someone else to do it?
Read, go for a walk in the park, get some fresh air, exercise, have that facial or massage…whatever it takes to just clear your mind while taking care of your own mental and physical well-being.
5) Be prepared to let go of control
Have faith and trust that you are being supported; this could be support from your partner, the Universe, your friends or family.
Relinquish the need to control everything and the need to have perfection in everything.
This will free up a lot of time and energy for you to build and grow your relationship.
For some, old memories, subconscious limiting beliefs, past hurtful experiences, trauma and current challenges can cling on making it difficult to be able to set and adhere to healthy, flexible boundaries.
How Can ThetaHealing® Help With Setting Healthy Boundaries?
If you feel like you’ve tried all this but to no avail, it may be that you have negative subconscious programmes running which prevent you from letting go and moving forward.
As a ThetaHealer®, I have tools and techniques to identify and release these negative programmes and replace them with positive, empowering programmes to cause positive and quick shifts in your life.
When you start to align your conscious needs of having healthy, flexible boundaries with your subconscious beliefs, you empower yourself and you will see immediate shifts and transformations in your life and in your relationships.
You will attract better people, your existing relationships will improve, your health will improve and you will have more time and energy to fulfil your own needs.
Are you ready to improve your relationships with your loved ones?
Imagine being able to hold your ground and get what you want in a loving, gentle yet assertive manner, so that everyone involves walks away feeling happy.
If you are ready for all this and more, I would love to help and support you in transforming your life and relationships NOW!
I offer both individual sessions and intensive programmes. The intensive programmes are designed for those of you that are ready for huge, positive shifts in a short space of time, that will help to accelerate your path to attracting your perfect soulmate or supercharging your existing relationship and taking it to the next level.
Set yourself free from bad relationships and start your very own love story!