Establishing Boundaries to Cultivate our Self Respect

September 10, 2023

Hi everyone, this is Ludemia (aka Mia), and welcome to Heart-Mind Equation. So this is Episode 9 of our CEN series. Today, we are addressing recommendation #6, which is: Establishing Boundaries to Cultivate our Self Respect. And don’t forget to go on my website heartmindequation.com to access worksheets I’ve put in place to accompany you throughout this episode.

Just a little reminder to all of you, that we are addressing this recommendation in the context of people-pleasing, consequently to CEN (childhood emotional neglect).

So why is it more difficult for people-pleasers to be comfortable setting boundaries? Well, some people who were victims of CEN (childhood emotional neglect) growing up, tend to manifest behaviors related to HSP (highly sensitive people) or commonly called empaths. So they are very receptive to other people’s feelings. As they are often scared to hurt others or to make them angry. They would prefer not to set limits at their own expense sometimes.

Another reason would be that they fear the other person’s perception of them. Don’t want to be seen as bad people (in their mind), which could lead to being rejected or confronted.

They can even have some anxiety prior to set limits, during, and mostly after setting those limits, where they experience some guilt for doing it. Even if we are not people-pleasers, it is normal and pretty common to feel stressed when we have to set boundaries with someone. Why is it so important to set limits in any kind of relationship? Well, simply to notify people how to treat and respect us. It is necessary for our self-preservation and mental well-being. Need to point out that we need to hold ourselves accountable for respecting the same limits we set for people.

Before suggesting ways to set boundaries, we need to see how we can get more comfortable with this idea of setting limits. First of all, we need to define the word boundaries.

There is a website page called Strive With Me, for personal development and social impacts, helping us to empower our best selves. It has defined boundaries as follows:
‘’Boundaries are personal limitations we set for ourselves and those around us. It establishes what is acceptable and not tolerated within the relationship. This includes behaviors, access, shared activities, comfortability, and limitations.’’

We first need to consider establishing boundaries like something positive instead of negative. Need to see it as a way for us to now look out for ourselves… especially if, growing up, we felt that our emotional needs were overlooked. We get to inform people today of our needs, expectations, and limits. Need to change that limiting belief that makes us look like ‘bad people if we set boundaries’.

Second thing is to work on our fear of possibly hurting this other person’s feelings… and convince ourselves that in the long run, we are going to be the ones who benefit from setting those boundaries.

Here are 10 things we need to consider or do when we are setting limits.

To establish proper boundaries, we need to:
Be aware of our needs, and expectations;
Be aware of any disrespectful behavior someone displays or can potentially display toward us in a certain situation;
Make a list of the expectations we have from certain people
Make sure that those expectations reflect our self-respect
Set a time and place that we are able to discuss boundaries
Always start by reassuring the person first
Be calm, kind, firm, and assertive while toward this person
Establish our realistic limits
Be willing to walk away if escalating conflicts;
Be able to set a reminder to those certain people who unconsciously ignore your boundaries… and if they consciously ignore them, after a few reminders, we need to keep them at a distance.

To get to know more suggestions about other different ways to establish boundaries, I am inviting you to read this book by Patrick King, called Establishing Boundaries: How to Protect Yourself, Become Assertive, Take back control, and Set Yourself Free.

If that episode was helpful to you in any way, feel free to like, share or comment. Stay tuned and get a notification for our next episode, where we will discuss our recommendation #7, which is: Learning how and when to say No without feeling guilty.

You can follow me on Fb, Instagram, YouTube, or simply on my website: heartmindequation.com, ‘… to unlock hidden potentials’.