I rebelled against God and my mother most of my life even after accepting Christ as my Savior. I only walked in faith partly. Once I chose to totally surrender myself, I’ve grown to know that it is He that I am most careful not to disappoint or let down. I once did a bible study called Respect Dare by Nina Rosner and the biggest and best thing that came from that intense study was that I had been so disobedient to God for so long it absolutely crushed me to know how deeply I had pained my Heavenly Father. Over the last ten to fifteen years, my obedience and love for God has grown and I truly know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He saved me from destruction and has set me on this path to heal totally, learn, encourage and to help others like myself overcome trauma and live in peace and happiness.
God Himself, tells us to guard our hearts and minds as stated in Proverbs 4:23 and Philippians 4:7. God also had boundaries for Himself. He would set time apart to pray and be away from the crowds. I’m not sure why it’s so difficult for most of us to make and keep boundaries, but it is. One of the biggest issues with being an empathetic person is not having boundaries in place and loving yourself enough to enforce your boundaries. Boundaries are like our property lines they show where one thing ends, and another begins. To me the boundaries I place are not so much about keeping others away or out but keeping me within my parameters safe and peaceful. They are an essential and necessary part of our healing. Healthy boundaries actually create trust and help form and build healthy relationships. When placing boundaries in our relationships we create and form respect. I’ve learned that if someone truly loves or cares about you, they will respect boundaries you’ve placed. They also help create safety in our relationships. Our boundaries will change as we heal and grow. Mine have changed in just a year. In my case the more I love myself I place more boundaries around me to safeguard my peace. Peace is a sweet, sweet feeling after being in toxic relationships one after another. There is absolutely nothing better than going home and looking forward to your evening in peace.
Sometimes situations can arise that we didn’t realize we needed boundaries and after we experience it, we realize a boundary is much needed. There’s really no set guideline for making boundaries, each individual has their own. What may be a boundary for one will not hold true for another person. I personally call them hard stops. When we take the time to set these hard stops, we are helping people respect or show up for us, and we also become better at respecting them as well.
There are different types of boundaries/hard stops; physical, emotional, material, intellectual, sexual, and time. Again, these all are based on the individuals needs and wants from their standpoint. Some examples of each are such as when someone stands to close to me, and they are in my personal bubble. Another one of course is being touched in a manner you don’t like or that’s inappropriate. A material boundary example is someone taking something of mine without permission or letting someone borrow a book and not returning it promptly or not at all. An emotional boundary is learning and recognizing how much emotional energy we can take into ourselves and validation of feelings for others and respecting their ability to take the emotional information. An intellectual boundary may sound like, not talking about a situation at the moment but requesting to address it at a later time.
Some examples of my hard stops are:
- Valuing my opinions
- Not compromising my personal values
- Knowing my personal needs and wants and actually communicating them.
- Saying no instead of yes, all the time.
- Staying focused on my personal growth and healing
- Trusting my decisions
- Not allowing others to deter my direction on those decisions
- Know who I am and what I want
- Keeping track of red flags instead of ignoring them.
Unhealthy boundaries/hard stops are making someone the center of your world, changing how you dress or behave because of what someone thinks, all or nothing thinking, and not noticing how your boundaries are being overstepped. These only leave you feeling resentful over time and codependent in the relationship.
I decided on my healing journey that I would not allow fear of rejection, abandonment, disappointment or people not liking me to stand in the way of me making my hard stops. Having these fears are what kept me unhappy and in toxic relationships. Fears also make it uncomfortable to change. Change is necessary in healing for all of us. My hard stops are what is important and makes me comfortable which is necessary for my well-being as well as my self-love. As I’ve practiced my hard stops, I’ve gained peace, confidence, safety, worthiness, and overcome fears that was not possible before.