Boundaries

Hi you all, it is Leilah from Gracing Lives, and last week I know I haven't posted any videos because I had a slightly busier schedule than normal. Before I start speaking about my videos, I would like to say to everyone who watches my videos and sends me messages, thank you very much for your support. Thank you very much for your feedback. I'm truly grateful. All the feedback that I get from you guys, it helps me and it really motivates me to be of service to you. So this week I'm going to concentrate on something, something that's very, very dear to my heart. I'm going to speak to you guys today about boundaries. Now, boundaries became a very important part of my life when I started becoming a therapist and when I started doing healing work with my clients. I've done a lot of work around boundaries, so much that I actually also studied the Assertiveness Coaching course, which helps me and my clients work on boundaries what crosses them, what are their values, and what are the expectations of how people should treat them. Okay, so do you have any boundaries? This is a question that I want you to think about as we progress further into this conversation. Do you have any personal boundaries? Hold on, I might have rephrased that wrong to start off with. Let's first check your knowledge on boundaries. Do you know what boundaries are, or the significance of what an actual boundary is? A personal boundary is a protection mark or align, replace, which we are responsible for on our mental, emotional, and physical self. Let's make a slight example if you're still struggling to understand what a boundary is. You're driving along on a nice sunny afternoon and you pull up to this little park and it says to you, private property, 'Please do not cross.' That's actually a boundary. That is someone's personal property that they are responsible for. Now let me ask you again, do you have boundaries in place? And think about this: if you do not have boundaries in place, the chances are you probably have low self-esteem, or you're struggling with the self-love thing in your life. You're struggling with the self-love compartment in your life. You may also struggle with people pleasing. You may be a people pleaser if you struggle with boundaries. You may be doing things at other people's cost and expense and not at your own, which means you may have a people pleasing program running which we as therapists call appeasement. You may be running a program of appeasement, and all of this comes hand in hand with having stronger boundaries. When you have stronger boundaries, you have more protection and you have more resilience to look after yourself. Um, what is someone breaching your boundaries? It could be in forms of verbally attacking you, making you feel intimidated, making you feel uncomfortable, physically hurting you, physically distressing you, emotionally distressing, emotionally hurting, manipulating. Anything that makes you feel uncomfortable is a process, is a breach in boundaries. Now, how do you know when your boundaries are being breached? Okay, so how do you know if someone is crossing your boundaries? You know that very gut internal feeling we have in our tummy, that little voice in our tummy that goes, "Ooh, no!" I listen to my mom speak and she goes, "Ooh, nee!" That little feeling inside your tummy, that is your little voice. You know, if you're driving and something tells you, "Look, I don't trust this," or don't go this direction. That is your little sat-nav, your little tom-tom, your little sat-nav, your intuition, or your guiding star. I call it my soul's compass. It's my voice of reason. And what— how I deal with this in a situation, or what happens to me when I know my boundaries are being crossed, I really listen to my internal sat-nav. I think, where are these feelings coming from? Why? Why these feelings? And that's a strong indication that this person are testing me and pushing my boundaries. Okay, if you have stronger boundaries in place, you are likely to lose a lot of friends after this video. If you realize, hold on, this doesn't feel good, this person is overstepping my boundaries. And the moment you'll voice your feelings, it will make someone else feel uncomfortable, but that is okay. Rather live in your own truth than live to please someone else. So let me ask you, would you rather be fake to make someone happy, or would you rather be miserable to make somebody else happy? Or would you rather be free and live in your truth, alone? To be honest, I would rather be me, be my own person, have minimal friends if they can't, you know, if they can't respect my boundaries, than live to be someone who I am not. You know, I would rather question my love for myself first You know, for someone violating your boundaries, we have this imprint that it has to be physical. You know, someone needs to physically hurt us or harm us. No! Someone crossing our boundaries can be emotional, it could be physical, it could be violating, they could be distressing us on a mental level. You know, someone keeping you out of sleep. Because they need to upload their problems onto you, is a violation of your well-being. Someone calling you names is a violation of your freedom, of yourself, of your— of anyone. I can get so passionate about this subject right now, you know. Sexual abuse is a violation. Physical abuse is a violation. Mental and emotional. And not even just abuse, but anyone who makes you feel uncomfortable inside means they're violating you. And you know what? When it comes to boundaries, it's okay to remove toxic people out of your life. Who keeps crossing your boundaries, if you have a friend and they keep crossing your boundaries, if you have a sibling, if you have someone in your family, if you have anyone in your life who keeps crossing your boundaries, it's okay to remove them. Because we need to learn that with everybody we love, we don't need to have them in our lives, we can love them at a distance. You know, when I say that, my heart really, really explodes, because I've been in the experience where I've had to say, "I love you, but I've got to love you from this space." And sometimes we need to put those in place, because we love ourselves, and we honor ourselves a lot more. Okay, so— I've got a little tick list. I'm just going to check to see if I have covered everything off my tick list. How to set boundaries. No boundaries, no, no esteem, no self-esteem. Decide what values you have. Decide what makes you comfortable. So even if this is in the professional, even if this is in a professional environment, Know that you can set boundaries. Know that it's okay to say no thank you. Know that it's okay to say, to walk away. You don't owe anyone an explanation, and you don't need to give anyone an excuse if something makes you feel uncomfortable. Decide what your values are and decide where you want to be and what you want out from a relationship. Make sure that your boundaries are The right people who are meant to be in your life will stay in your life. The people who don't respect you, who are not meant to be in your life, won't be in your life. Remember, at the end of the day, we are all here to evolve and to learn.