Setting Boundaries Toolkit
Boundaries are necessary.
We each have an internal world we are responsible for tending to. When we don’t honor and protect our boundaries, we stop tending to our inner world, and it gets damaged. We also have less protection from the outside world, so our resources are quickly worn away by the words and actions of others or our personal circumstances.
As adults, we are the ones responsible for keeping our integrity, for caring for our inner world and keeping it healthy. In order to do this, we need to be able to say no. We have to be willing and able to express what we find unacceptable, and to accept another’s possible displeasure when we assert ourselves. We have to learn that our needs and feelings are very distinct and different from the needs and feelings of others, and that we are each responsible for our own—and no one else’s. We have to know that we deserve to take up space, just like every other human and creature on earth, and that starts with the space within us.
There are consequences to both having boundaries and not having them. If we don’t protect our world within, then our own decision-making is compromised.
We no longer have the resources we need, which impacts the ways that we show up for others and ourselves.
Conversely, when we uphold our boundaries, we can show up fully and completely in our lives.
We have the internal resources we need to be authentic and creative in our daily actions.
Click here to download this boundaries toolkit handout.
It provides reflective questions you can use to evaluate your boundaries in three key areas, and tools for what to do to keep boundaries in each area.
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