Last blog dug into ‘I have no choice’: how it takes away your power and how you can take  back agency through a considered decision. There’s another part to this – and it’s boundaries. Good boundaries free you.

When we make decisions from a place of agency,
we understand why we’re making that choice.

How can we continue to feel good about that choice
and stick to it?

Good boundaries free you

It can be hard to hold a boundary. Some people don’t want to take no for an answer and are trying to guilt you into changing that to a yes. Perhaps they’re even used to you caving in if they keep wearing you down.

Have you unwittingly trained people to keep nagging you –
knowing you’ll eventually cave in and change  your no to a yes?

Do you want to give your valuable time and energy to the person who tries to wear you down pushes the hardest.

You can hold you boundaries with love: out of love for yourself and for those you care about. You can do it with a loving intention.

Know where to put your energy

A while back I was making dinner for a relative who was in town. About an hour before she was due for our nice get together, she started texting me a stream of moving targets telling me how late she was going to be for dinner. At first it was half an hour – I think she ended up an hour and a half late. I was upset – it didn’t feel this was at all respectful of the fact that I was timing cooking our dinner and that we’d planned a nice evening together.

She arrived full of apologies. She had been helping a friend and it took a lot longer than she thought it would. It seems this friend kept telling her things like ‘oh it’ll be just  another few minutes’ and ‘I don’t know if I can finish this on my own’.

It’s so easy to go along with that – the person in front of us often gets our atttention. Yet there was another action she could have taken.

She could stepped away from the pressure of her friend, realized that her priority should be to the person making her dinner and offering hospitality. She could have stayed firm to that and left, lovingly saying ‘I’m sorry this is taking so long – but that means I now have to leave.  I’m already late and it’s unfair on the person cooking me dinner’.

It was hard for her to step way from the the friend she was helping’s pressure – but if it had been you, wouldn’t you have felt better being kind but firm you had to leave and honoring the meal your relative was preparing?

Have the conviction of your values

This is where digging into your priorities and how you actually want act is so important. Then you’ll find good boundaries free you – and help you feel confident in how you move through life. 

When you do that, and when you’re grounded in that way, not only do your actions come from your values and your heart, it is so much easier to be clear about this and to stick to it, with grace and love.

You can tune out the noise and the pressure, tap into what you should be doing to be true to yourself and then lovingly hold your boundaries.  Maybe you’re even on time for dinner!

Interested in going deeper? Find out more info about working with me
https://bit.ly/stepintonewnormal
or email me antonia@newlandscapeyoga.com