Setting Boundaries and Saying No
Hey there! Welcome back, and thanks for checking out today’s blog. Boundaries are defined as a dividing line between two separate areas. In this instance, I want to talk about how boundaries effect our relationships, our self care and how our life experiences define and change us as we age.
So first of all, I want you to pretend that emotion didn’t exist. Imagine that scheduling yourself to do something ONLY depended on whether you were available or not. That makes things pretty easy, right? If you have 24 hours in your day, and you simply had to add a task in a time slot, you would get a lot done. The problem is that we are social creatures, and experience emotions, and feelings. We are not robots and we get tired. We need sleep, alone time, personal time, kid time (if you’re a parent) and there’s not a lot left over.
When I was younger, I had a boyfriend who I spent ALL my time with. I think a lot of us do that; you find someone, and because the romance is new, you’re infatuated with that person and you want to spend all your time together. There are so many things wrong with this, but the point is I never spent time with anyone else. Every time one of my friends, or my mom or sister asked me to do something, I would always say no. Eventually, they stopped asking and then one day, I realized I didn't have any friends. This is an example of having too many boundaries. It was just easier for me to say no because I wanted to stay home and spend time with my then-boyfriend.
On the other hand, my mom never says no. (I did get her permission to use her as an example!) For instance, I used to ask my mom to babysit every week and she would always do it but then she would get upset with me because I never gave her a break. So, obviously this is the opposite end of the spectrum.
I feel like sometimes it’s hard to say no because you feel like you’re missing out on something. Say for instance you are really tired and you have to work the next morning, but your friends want you to go out with them. If you go, you’re going to be tired and may not be able to focus on work the next day. However, if you say no, you might feel guilty because you feel like you’re letting your friends down, or you might have FOMO (fear of missing out). When you’re young, this is a catch 22 - you don’t really win no matter what you do.
Depending on your life experience, I think our boundaries get clearer the older we get. This comes through wisdom; knowing what we want and setting goals for ourselves. If our tasks don’t align with our goals, we will be more likely to turn them down and choose to do something that develops our personal growth, or gets us closer to our goals. Examples of this are turning down brand deals that don’t align with our personal beliefs or principles.
There really is a fine line between too many and too little in regards to boundaries. If you always say no to everything, you will probably be lonely and not have a whole lot of people that count on you. You might also feel guilt that you didn’t say yes. You can also develop feelings of depression, because you feel like you’re all alone. On the other hand, if you always say yes and then get burned out, there are a number of things that may happen.
You get exhausted and are ALWAYS tired.
You start to get depressed because you never have any personal time for self-care.
You’re always scurrying about and don’t get as much time for future planning.
You may start to blame other people.
If you ever do say no, you feel guilt and may let others make you feel guilty, since before, you would always say yes.
You find yourself getting grumpy and easily irritable.
So obviously, if you find yourself running out of time every day and are getting less sleep or no time to eat because you are too busy, you really need to cut back. This type of schedule is interfering with your ability to physically care for yourself. When you’re tired, you cannot focus, you get grumpy and irritable and your productivity decreases. Sleeping and eating are necessary functions of life, so you should always make time for them and ensure you’re trying to lead a healthy lifestyle. Taking breaks are healthy too. It’s always healthy to step away from a task or project for awhile. This can lead to reducing fatigue, new insights, or even a breakthrough for an important idea.
If you experience anxiety from saying yes or no to something (I’m sure this happens to every single one of us at least once in our lives), know that you are not alone. However, if you start to notice a pattern and it happens more frequently than once a week, you may have a problem. Anxiety can lead to depression as well. Depression is one of the worst feelings a human being can have and can lead to suicide. If this happens to you, get clinical help immediately, but also talking with someone can help too. It’s important to take care of yourself first. If you can’t function as you normally would, you also can’t take care of anybody else.
When you are so busy making commitments to other people, you don’t have time to sit down and do some planning. It’s important for us all to have goals to work toward in life. You can easily turn your dreams into reality with a few simply steps every single day. It’s just a matter of planning for them. Having goals gives us something to look forward to in life; a purpose to make us feel useful or work towards personal growth. If you don’t take time for yourself to do these things, it can easily lead to burnout and it will always feel like you’re working to put money in someone else’s pocket - not your own.
When you can’t say no, sometimes it’s easy to put the blame on other people. No one wants to admit fault or defeat, so blaming others feels like it’s a good idea because they’re making you do something you might not want to do. The problem is, saying no isn’t up to them. They don’t know how you feel unless you tell them. (This is all about communication and asking for what you want). Internalizing how you feel helps no one - especially not you. Blame creates resentment and that leads to arguments that otherwise could have been avoided. It is not fair to expect the other party to just “know” how you feel. It’s also not their fault that you don’t say no. Healthy communication is part of personal growth and is a learned habit. Our children watch us as adults in our dealing and communication, so we should start by setting good examples for them.
I think guilt is probably one of the worst feelings you can have in learning to say no. It’s hard sometimes to say no in the first place, and then you have to learn how to NOT feel guilty. Again, it’s all part of the learning process. However, as with anything in life, the more you do something, the easier it gets.
Self care is the act of doing things for yourself to maintain your well-being. That means taking care of yourself physically, mentally and emotionally. In order to do these things, you need time for yourself, and a plan, which also takes time. So, if you feel burned out because you find it hard to say no, take a step back and ask yourself whether you truly need to say no.
xoxo SAN 💋
