At the beginning of 2022, I was in a much different place in life than I am now. I thought I was in a relationship that was going to lead to a marriage. I was struggling with my emotions and mental health daily but I didn’t know why. After an abrupt breakup, I was forced to really examine where my life was and where I wanted it to be. It took me a couple of months to begin to figure out what I really wanted for my future. Now after healing the heartbreak, shedding the tears, soul searching, and learning a lot about what healthy boundaries look like, I finally feel like I’m back on track to building the life that I want.
As I was learning about boundaries, I was lucky to have someone coaching me through it and a group of women all learning the same lessons that I was. In February, I started my journey with these women in the Broken and Beloved Project with local photographer, Mary Breuer. This project was a combination of boundaries study, practicing boundaries in a safe space, portrait therapy (which is essentially using photoshoots to build self-confidence and self-worth), and learning to celebrate our progress along the way.
What are boundaries?
Boundaries can be a tough topic to wrap your head around if you overthink them. Which is what I was doing before I started learning about them. The most simple description of a boundary is where you end and where the other person begins. Boundaries help to define what is your responsibility and what is the other person’s responsibility in a relationship. This concept extends to romantic relationships, friendships, and working relationships.
When you might need to set healthy boundaries
The best way to recognize where a boundary needs to be set is to identify anywhere there is unnecessary tension in a relationship. Hearing this explanation of where a boundary was needed is what finally clicked for me. This helped me to understand boundaries more and helped me to set healthier boundaries in my personal and working relationships.
Now that I have studied boundaries, I can identify when a boundary needs to be set more easily. Before if I was anxious or stressed about a relationship, I thought I was overreacting. I told myself I just had really bad anxiety and that I wasn’t handling it well. But what I didn’t realize was that the anxiety I was feeling was my intuition.
This tension that I was feeling was because I wouldn’t set boundaries in these relationships. My intuition was telling me something wasn’t right and that I should do something about it. I had ignored this feeling for so long that I forgot to listen to what my body was telling me.
Boundaries in relationships
Over the past year, I’ve been on quite the journey. That breakup at the beginning of the year had me reeling. After all the reflecting I did afterward, it turns out I still want the same things my younger self dreamed of. I still crave adventure, happiness, and more time to enjoy life. During that relationship, I stopped prioritizing what was important to me because my dreams didn’t align with my partner’s dreams.
I thought relationships were about give and take, which they are to an extent. But you need to make sure that give and take is equal between the two partners. I thought the concept of give and take meant that I had to give up some of my dreams for the relationship to work. I tried to stop wanting the things I dreamt about and tried to just be thankful for the relationship. But it turns out, I had tried to give up too much and started to lose myself in the relationship. In the end, neither of us were happy.
Recognizing you have a boundary problem…
At first, I didn’t even realize that I was having problems with setting healthy boundaries. I thought that life just doesn’t work out the way you want it to sometimes. I was trying to make peace with that and kept telling myself that we would have better days. And we might have if that was the only problem we were having.
Sadly, my romantic relationship wasn’t the only relationship I was struggling to set boundaries in. I also had a few friendships where I couldn’t seem to enforce healthy boundaries either. After almost a year of learning about boundaries, I realized my worst boundary conflicts were in my relationship with work. Learning about these boundary issues was my first step to taking control of my life again.
Boundaries at work
My major breakthrough when I was learning about boundaries was when I would get upset and stressed about work. I felt powerless and felt that I could never say no or voice my opinion at work. This is something I recognized that has followed me throughout my entire working life thus far.
I always felt that to be successful, I needed to sacrifice things in order to make a living. As a result, I was continually getting burnt out because I could never seem to catch up. I was so frustrated that all I was doing was working to pay rent and could afford little else.
I would continuously accept jobs at lower pay than I requested because it sounded like a decent job and let’s face it I needed the job. Then I would be assigned more tasks that weren’t in my job description and I felt like I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t bring myself to ask for more pay or to say no to additional tasks.
When I did try to take action, I was more or less told no. This ultimately ended in me just leaving whatever position I was in because the stress I felt was overwhelming. Then off I went to find the next job that was marginally better.
What setting healthy boundaries can do for you
It’s taken me years to realize this pattern. Now I know that it was because of my lack of strong healthy boundaries. Even though this has been a constant struggle for me throughout my adult life, I am thankful that this cycle forced me to start my journey as an entrepreneur. After starting my business (alongside a flexible part-time position), I finally feel like I have control over my relationship with work.
Setting healthy boundaries can help you to live a lower-stress life. It can also help you to gain back a sense of control you may have lost if you stopped enforcing healthy boundaries in your relationships. If I was able to learn this much and find solutions to my boundary problems in one year so can you!
Where can you learn more about boundaries?
I am so thankful I was able to learn about setting healthy boundaries in such a supportive community of women through the Broken and Beloved Project. If you are looking to learn more about what the project entails and are interested in being a participant, find more details here: https://marybreuerphotos.com/thebrokenandbelovedproject
If you want to hear more about my boundaries journey, check out this article I wrote where I reflect on being part of the project and share some of the biggest lessons I learned throughout:
