Boundaries Allow For Us to Be the Directors of Our Own Emotional Experience

Hello and welcome, beautiful souls!

Nobody tells you that B O U N D A R I E S are a form of Self Care. Self Care is so much more than superficiaal acts that make you feel cared for, like bubble baths and face masks, it' also energetic care that is invisible to the naked eye, that dosen't necessarily enhance your physical body as much as it protects your heart and soul. This applies if you’re an “empath” or feel highly sensitive, but also if you’re human. If you have the beautiful gift of sensitivity then boundaries will greatly determine the quality of your life. It is very important that we learn how to lovingly assert our boundaries, especially in r e l a t i o n s h i p s. This does not just include intimate “romantic” relationships, this also applies to our children, friends, co-workers and f a m i l y.

One of my missions in this lifetime was to cultivate Self Care / Self Love as a way to harmonize my energies. I was extremely imbalanced internally and this caused a lot of instability in my outer world. I felt heavy energies that kept me tied down to unhealthy habits because I struggled to let go and a c c e p t. I couldn’t accept the feelings I has experiencing, constantly denying them and running away from myself, it was exhausting and depleting my Spirit day after day, trying to fight these feelings I did not want to “let in”, beauce I thought that if I let them in, they would never leave. I was scared to greet them, sacred to look them in the eye, scared to receive the information they held.

This lead me to start forming a healthy relationship with my emotions and it required for me to start implementing boundaries in areas of my life that felt extremely unpleasant. Like with my family members, friends & co-workers. I was teaching myself how to stand up for myself, to not allow for my inner world to be completely disturbed by what was out of my control, like other people's opinions, judgements and sometimes harsh reaction to my boundary request. I had to accept and then s u r r e n d e r to the emotions that arose when I placed them to be able to move through the discomfort, because If I didn’t allow myself to feel my emotions I would look to something outside of me to validate, fulfil or gratify me, to numb or ease my vulnerability. I found that as I began to place boundaries in different areas of my life that it created so much inner p e a c e.

Boundaries allow for us to be the directors of our own emotional experience. They allow for us to c h o o s e what we allow into our inner world and what we energetically c o m m i t to when we come into contact with others and the world. Boundaries allow for us to acknowledge the unpleantresies of life, it’s stresses and pain without taking it on as our own. When we begin to place boundaries and no longer take on the unconscious responsibilities of others emotions or judgements of us and we free up so much s p a c e internally and this begins to shift our perspective on life. We’re no longer seeing the world and our human experience through such a narrow scope, we’re broadening our horizons and o p e n i n g up to the unlimited possibilities life has to offer. We’re no longer prisoners to our emotions, we’re directors of them.

No one has the p o w e r to make you feel anyway that you don’t want to. Will they still do what they’ve always done? Maybe, but that means you have to uphold your boundary and d i s c i p l i n e yourself enough to keep that promise to yourself. And this is one way we heal Self Betrayal. A lot of us we’re taught that to s a c r i f i c e is to love. That we must sacrifice our own feelings and experiences in order to receive the love of another. That you must carry the weight of others in order to be “worthy” of receiving love, it’s a limiting belief that “love is hard”. This belief keeps you stuck in relationships that reflect your belief. Your relationships may be challenging, imbalanced or painful because you b e l i e v e that in order to r e c i e v e love you must suffer and abandon yourself and your NEEDS.

When we’re taught at an early age to caretake our caregivers in any capacity (emotionally, mentally or physically) this feels like a burden that can make us feel weighed down. We’re giving all we’ve got to this relationship, but at the cost of our own peace and p l e a s u r e. The constant emotional enmeshment can induce stress and the nervous system learns this familiar chemical cocktail and starts producing it at a young age. We no longer feel the lightness of our innocence because we’re carrying the emotional burdens of others. And later on in adult relationships it can cause us to attract partners that mirror this “wound” to us, that have us abandoning ourselves again and the relationship loses its lightness and begins to feel more like a burden, and this is so that we can learn how to place boundaries and take our power back by caring for ourselves, first, before placing others cares ahead of our own.

As a highly sensitive person, that is your power, that is your gift and you have to make sure you do your job to p r o t e c t it. It is precious and it will give you a sense of control over your life again. You no longer begin to allow others' emotions and burdens to be yours, you can empathize with them from a place of understanding, but you don't have to feed your nervous system them. Boundaries allow us to d e t a c h from our emotions and the emotions others may be experiencing around us. We begin to see that our emotions are just like waves, they rise and they fall. They are data that store information. They are not who we are, they are not our identity. But when we’re constantly and obsessively thinking negatively we create a lot of unnecessary internal conflict that makes us feel imbalanced emotionally.

Boundaries create equilibrium, they bring us back into inner harmony and then this begins to reflect to you, in your relationships, in your mindset, and in your environment. Where you once limited yourself in so many ways, now you’re opening, unfolding and blossoming in new ways, because now you’re meeting your own needs, you’re finally putting yourself first and care-taking yourself, nurturing yourself and loving yourself. You’re providing mental and emotional stability for yourself and with that comes a sense of clarity and with that clarity comes a new found sense of confidence. You’re no longer getting walked all over, disrespected and neglected, you’re showing up for yourself, you’re committing to yourself and that is one of the greatest rewards I think we could ever receive in a lifetime, to get the chance to step into our fullness and own our l i g h t.

We are the light, but sometimes we forget because we’re consumed with darkness. That is okay, your s h a d o w is nothing to fear, it is how we return to our essence, to our divinity and when we form that relationship with divinity it begins to illuminate and warm you in the dark. It is what holds you through your deepest pains and fears, it comforts you like a loving mother. Reuniting with our Inner Mother feels like being in a womb, it is a space created for us to grow. As we transform our consciousness we can access this Inner Womb that feels like Home, it feels like we are safe to feel and express all our emotions, that we’re never “too much” or “too sensitive”--we are l o v e r s of the soul, not the surface. We are deep, multifacited and expansive, our truest state is eternal, unexplainable and complex. We're not here to be understood, we're here to be more understanding of our own magic, our own mystery.

Boundaries allow for us to mend our hearts and open up to love again, even if we’ve been hurt by it in the past, even if we’ve experienced pain, trauma, betrayal and suffering, we still have the Free Will choice to align with Love in every moment, to see through the lens of love by selecting our thoughts like we select our clothes each day. And as we do this, as we consistently and diligently practice this number one Self Care ritual of setting boundaries we restrain our minds to see the love and beauty in our lives and it lightens us up and we no longer feel that heaviness we once were trained to feel, we return to our natural state of joy, peace and love. It’s here we are One with All That Is. Here we are c o n n e c t e d to the whole while still being genuinely individual in our unique signature quantum filed.

I created and linked a video on my YouTube channel this week for my bi-weekly Relationship Toolbox that will give you more information and tools to protect yourself energetically from outside negativity. Please, Like, Subscribe and Share! :)

Thank you for reading!

Love and blessings, Ashley <3