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Self-honoring—sounds good, right?
It has a nice ring. Sounds like something positive. But say or think “boundaries” and the “ick” can creep in.
The “ick” meaning, that feeling of aversion that comes when we think of saying No to something or someone to honor your own needs, limits, values, and goals. It’s the kind of feeling that makes us want to avoid boundaries.
It comes in the form of guilt, shame, or anxiety, as we anticipate pushback from other people, or worry that we are being bad or selfish. Sometimes it’s from our own discomfort with communicating, or supporting ourselves. Our mind associates “boundaries” with these icky feelings and thoughts. So even though self-honoring and boundaries are actually the same thing, we don’t see them as the same thing.
These feelings and associations can cause us to hold back on a boundary:
Say yes when we want to say no.
Stay when we want to leave.
Engage when we want to disengage.
Tolerate when we don’t want to tolerate.
Stay the same when we want to be different.
The ick about boundaries starts to fade when we can begin to see and feel them as positive (or even neutral). That is, when we open to other ways of seeing self-honoring and boundaries that feel better.
Here are a few ways I see boundaries that have helped get rid of the ick, and instead, feel and know them as a breath of fresh air.
1: It’s just a choice.
A boundary is just a choice. Your choice:
What you choose to do and not to (with your time, resources, spaces, and so on).
What you choose to agree to and not agree to.
What you choose as okay with you and not.
What you decide about what you need.
What you choose as your goals and values.
Think about how different life would be—how different you would feel—if there were no such word as “choice”.
Choices are good. They are a symbol of your freedom, of opportunities.
What if a boundary were just a choice? What if it were just about how you choose to be in this world, in this life?
2: The ick isn’t really from you.
Because you feel icky, it’s easy to think you’re the icky one—to have or want a boundary, to desire to make a choice that feels good for your wellbeing. But no one is born thinking or feeling a certain way about boundaries. We (unknowingly) create emotional associations to boundaries based on what we have observed and experienced from other people and our culture. It’s these outside sources that (often unintentionally) feed us the story that boundaries are the ick.
This is why some people feel uncomfortable with boundaries, and others don’t. It’s why one person might tell you you’re being ridiculous for having a boundary, and another person might tell you that it’s good and okay to have it.
You see, it comes down to what any particular person has learned, observed, experienced.
What if the ick you feel about boundaries doesn’t really come from you? What it isn’t actually an ultimate truth? But rather, just a particular idea you picked up along this journey called life?
What if you could now decide how you want to think and feel about boundaries?
3: Start saying Yes, instead of just No.
Much of the ick about boundaries comes from seeing them strictly as “no”, “stop”. This is why we can view boundaries as a wall, rather than something that is supportive to our life thriving and relationships. Putting up walls feels cold, mean even. Hence, the discomfort like shame, guilt, fear, or feeling like you’re doing something bad.
There is always another side to a coin:
What can you say Yes to?
What is that yes, on the other side of the No?
What choice can actually support your thriving, and your ability to more deeply connect with others?
Start using your yes. Start seeing how your no could actually open up a yes that feels good.
4: People are allowed to be disappointed, pissed off, or otherwise in disagreement with your choices. (No, really, it’s okay).
What if you just let people be people?:
Feel their feelings.
Think whatever they will think.
Exercise the same freedoms you have—to feel, think, and be, whoever they are, from wherever they are at internally.
What if you didn’t need to convince anyone that your choices are good, and right, and okay?
What if you could just let them be? What if you could just let yourself be?
Feel the relief.
5: It’s about authenticity.
I’ve noticed that what bothers us most when we ignore our boundaries to please others or avoid upset, isn’t about something on the surface: like how difficult someone else is being, or how pressured we feel to do one thing over another.
It’s that deep down, we want to be authentic.
Not honoring our boundaries keeps us away from that authenticity. This is the source of that sinking feeling we can get by dishonoring ourselves.
Having boundaries honors your authenticity—what your limits, your needs, your goals, your values are. Being authentic feels so much better than being inauthentic, even if it’s hard or challenging.
Being inauthentic is more painful, more bothersome to our inner self, to our soul, than just being authentic even if it’s judged. It’s harder to be someone we’re not. It’s more work. It’s more brain power. It’s more pushing. It’s more energy. It’s exhausting.
What if your boundaries were the solution?
What if your boundaries were about you living authentically?
The next time you want to make a self-honoring choice with your yes or no, don’t let the ick creep in and stop you.
Gillian
Get more insights, actionable tools, and growth inside Gillian’s Book, Happy Boundaries:
