You get to set up your life.

Relationships

Yes, I know society says that you are to find your one person and that one person is supposed to give you everything that you want, desire, and need. You are to live happily ever after spending most of your time with this one person until you die. That's what social norms say, and I just want us to sit and process this way of living.

Ask yourself, does that suit you completely?

If it does not then, what does a relationship look like for you? Think about any relationship that you've had in your life that made you feel safe, secure, connected, seen and nurtured. These qualities are the foundational pieces of a healthy relationship and then romantic intimacy aka sex or love making can be added.

A wise client had an epiphany and said, "A hard lesson for me is to learn that our relationship is not responsible for our happiness, we are both equally responsible for our own happiness."

The first relationship that you should have been the one that you have with yourself. You must decide to give yourself the foundational pieces of a healthy relationship. To reiterate, these pieces are safety, security, connection, seeing, and nurturing yourself. You know what you like, want, and desire. You use your values as deal breakers. You are disciplined about yourself-work.

After you have been able to work on giving yourself these things, you are a whole person. A whole person cares for their physical, mental, emotional and spiritual selves. It is a lot of tough work.

As a whole person, then you are equipped to be in a relationship with others. You can stand on your own and allow individuals to stand close to you as their whole selves. You do not allow them to push beyond your boundaries. You are not enmeshed with them or codependent. You decide and choose daily if you want to continue on the same path together.

Evaluate your relationships, especially the one that you have with yourself in order to tend to your #mentalhealth

Personal Boundaries

The last part of the "I Feel" statement is the boundary. This is where you would assert exactly what you would like that person to do differently. You are asking that person to recognize that you feel a certain way, and that the feeling is based on the behavior that they are doing.

For example, "I feel frustrated when you squeeze the toothpaste from the middle. I would like you to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom, so that it is easier for us to retrieve toothpaste."

You may be thinking, what if this does not work and they keep squeezing your toothpaste from the middle. Well, first of all, you need to evaluate the relationship. If you are willing to continue reiterating this boundary, it may take at least seven times.

A follow up "I Feel" statement would be, "I feel disrespected that you did not abide by my boundary regarding the toothpaste. I would like you to be sure not to use the separate toothpaste that I bought for myself." This statement notes 2 things. First, boundaries are meant to keep you safe and not place rules on others. If a person does not abide by your boundaries, then, ultimately, they do not respect you, so you must eliminate their participation in helping you with your feelings. Second, you should take a moment to note within, if you allowed other behaviors to happen without asserting yourself and what is the consequence for continuing to disrespect you. Are you willing to disengage from someone who does not honor your request? If you choose to not have consequences to your boundaries, then having boundaries is pointless. People will push against it and you will continue to let them.

It takes a lot of bravery to assert yourself with "I Feel' statements. This communication formula can be life changing because you are taking full responsibility for your emotions and safety. "I feel" statements are an empowering tool.

Now I would like you to fill in the blank.

I feel love for myself when I ____________________________________________.

I would like to ___________________________________________________.

I feel like for myself when I _____________________________________________.

I would like to _______________________________________________________.

I feel trust in myself when I _____________________________________________.

.I would like to ___________________________________________________________.

Personal boundaries are disciplines that you do for yourself. You must make agreements to which you should be consistent and committed to doing for yourself. Leaders neglect themselves by putting others first when the key to being a transformational leader is being disciplined enough to care for themselves first. All of the counseling skills are disciplines.

This is an insert from my book, Honey, You Need Counseling Skills. It can be purchased on Amazon.

Physical Boundaries

Physical boundaries refer to personal space and physical touch. Healthy physical boundaries include an awareness of what's appropriate and what's not in various settings and types of relationships.

Is it OK for someone to hug you? Are you willing to not shake hands at an event if you simply do not want to do so? When can someone kiss or touch the small of your back?

Your physical boundaries may be violated if someone touches you. You are definitely being violated when they invade your personal space, for example, rummaging through your purse or your bedroom or opening the doors to rooms when they come over to visit.

Let's break down each part.

Each person has an idea of what personal space is. It varies. You must understand that individuals come from different cultures. They come from different environments. They come from different conditioning so they may think personal space means a certain thing and you may think it means something different. The important thing about boundaries is that you must assert your particular boundaries for every single relationship and in every instance. If someone is accustomed to interacting in a certain way, then they may unintentionally violate. It's important that you reiterate over and over again once you first say it as well.

I don't want someone to be too close to me or breathe on me.

Due to our whole world pandemic, we now understand that six feet of each other is the boundary. Personal space means something different when you are interacting with people that you know and trust. For example, people who live with you could possibly stand next to you. If someone that you are having more of an intimate relationship with, such as a friend, you would allow them to hug you. If it's someone who's even more close, such as a sexual intimate relationship with you then there is a different personal space that you allow.

Otherwise, you must assert yourself on what you want and what you don't want to happen in your relationships regarding personal space and physical touch.

You must decide and be clear of what you allow and disallow to build your physical boundaries. If you do not take a stand, then people will capitalize on you not deciding for yourself. A lack of assertion means admittance to people. Safeguard yourself by knowing how you want to be treated and ensure with your words that you are not violated.

I had a friend who liked me to be within 3 feet of her, but she did not want me to touch her. She had clear boundaries on physical touch. I must admit I am a touchy-feely person who likes hugs and love taps when I am laughing at a joke they made. Despite what I like, I respected my friend's boundaries.

Physical touch is when someone extends their body to touch your body. This includes hugs and kisses but it could also mean even being grazed or pat on the back.

Just like personal space, physical touch is based on a person's culture and how they relate within it. It could be that something unfortunate happened which caused a person to be rigid with their boundaries regarding their bodies.

Additionally, consideration should be given to how you would like physical touch to evolve as you are getting to know someone. You need to be clear when you want more to occur by using your voice. Consent for all physical touch is absolutely paramount and a person does not have a right to your body at any time without a clear "yes!". Otherwise, it is a "no!". It is our responsibility to uphold our boundaries and make it apparent to everyone what feel safe for you or not.

As we continue to walk through boundaries, you will continue to recognize that knowing yourself sets the course for you to have healthy boundaries.

Write out 5 physical boundaries that you have.

For example, I would like people to call me before coming to my home.

Do not think people know or boundaries are common and/ or norms. You must be clear with how you want to set up your life.

Mental Boundaries

Mental/ intellectual boundaries refer to thoughts and ideas. Healthy mental/ intellectual boundaries include respect for others' ideas, and an awareness of appropriate discussion (should we talk about the weather, or politics?). Mental/ intellectual boundaries are violated when someone dismisses or belittles another person's thoughts and ideas.- Therapist Aids

Let's break down each part.

Influence

Influence is the capacity to have an effect or the character, development, or behavior of someone or something or the effect itself. The verb is to have influence on something or someone.

We all are influenced by those around us, our environment, and social norms. Our environment can consist of the use of social media, the culture of organizations to which you belong, and your home life.

Healthy environments allow for you two have freedom of the things that you think and your ideas.To have freedom in your ideas and thoughts, you are allowed to be creative, and you understand how to think instead of being told what to think or being told the definition of how things are to be or how you should be.

Mental and intellectual boundaries must be considered in every single environment and culture. You deserve to have control of your thoughts based on having an understanding of your reality, your definitions, and your feelings/emotions.

Take a moment to notice how you are being influenced in your life. Ask yourself if these influences align with your values. Create boundaries to ensure that you are the only one that has control over your thoughts or ideas.

For example, if you are noticing thoughts that are not the most kind, then ask yourself, "Whose voice is that?" Ask yourself, "How were you influenced to think this way?" Then decide if that is what you would like to continue to think or if you would like to make a change by setting a boundary.

Define things for yourself at all times. Question everything and discover the answers for yourself through research, deep thinking, and going within yourself to know what your intuition is telling you.

Negative Self Talk

• Negative self-talk is an inner voice that guides Your thoughts about the things you are worrying about. Here are four types of negative self-talk
• Personalizing - Meaning you blame yourself when things go wrong.
• Polarizing - Meaning you see things only as good or bad, no gray areas or room for middle ground.
• Magnifying - Meaning you only focus on the bad or negative in every scenario and dismiss anything good or positive.
• Minimizing- Meaning you are not able to balance negative circumstances in you with positive ones
• Catastrophizing - Meaning you always expect the worst.
• Splitting- Meaning you have black and white thinking, or all things are all good or all bad. You will not be able to see two things as both true at once.

A great way to contract negative self-talk is to create. This is a good time to create boundaries to safeguard you from the thoughts. For example, decide to be responsive to negative thoughts with good skillful coping skills such as.

• Remind yourself of how amazing you are. Do not have success amnesia.
• Ground yourself with gratitude by stating things that you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel to which you are grateful then other things for about 3 minutes.
• Ground yourself with noticing what you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel in order to bring you back to the present
• Create by generating new ideas, visualizing, looking ahead, and considering the possibilities without judging them
• Remind yourself that your Judge is telling you lies and tell your Judge what the truth is about you and the situation

Irrational Thoughts

The term "irrational" is not a judgment. In this context, it's a clinical term. It refers to something that's not based on reason, logic, or understanding.

From a psychological perspective, irrational thoughts:

• are not based in evidence
• operate mostly on assumptions
• are rooted in beliefs based on past experiences - positive or negative

We all have irrational thoughts from time to time, and in the general sense, these thoughts are not "bad." However, they may cause you great distress and create friction in your relationships

Irrational thoughts can act as fuel for the fire of anxiety, leading to rumination.

Rumination can then put you into a cycle of fear: The thought loops make you anxious, and then the anxiety makes your thoughts even more persistent.

A way to combat irrational thoughts is to become a lawyer. The idea is that all thoughts are innocent until proven guilty. So, your job would be ways to prove the thought wrong.

Here is a great example:

• Identify the thought.
• "My partner is upset and wants to break up."
• Find exceptions.
• "Every time things are tense, we lovingly work it out."
• Discredit with proof.
• "Last weekend, my partner told me at dinner how happy they were to be with me."
• Replace it with a helpful alternative.
• "There is a reasonable explanation and I trust that they will tell me what it is."

After doing this process, it would be time to set boundaries around your thoughts to ensure that you do this process. Furthermore, home in on your strengths with an empowering statement.

For example, "I will investigate my thoughts to ensure they are ground in reality before taking an action"

When irrational thinking becomes a pattern, it creates a cognitive distortion. This is an error in thinking or logic that affects the way your mind processes information.

Cognitive distortions refer to your mind making judgments, assessments, and inferences about a situation that are not based entirely on logic or evidence. This is usually the result of past experiences.

Cognitive distortions can shape your beliefs, mood, and how you view yourself, others, and the world in general.

Working on your Interpersonal Skills will help with having relationships that are safe to create and reiterate boundaries. Remember, people alway want to push against the limits so do not feel upset that people push your boundaries. It is your responsibility to remind them and yourself on how you should be treat. Here is a list of interpersonal skills and ways to improve them.

Interpersonal skills

Interpersonal skills are the skills required to effectively communicate, interact, and work with individuals and groups. Those with good interpersonal skills are strong verbal and non-verbal communicators.

List of Interpersonal Skills

If you're looking for ideas and examples, here is a list of the most common interpersonal skills:

• Awareness (of yourself and others)
• Caring about other people
• Collaborating and working well together with others
• Comforting people when they need it
• Clear communication skills
• Conflict management and resolution skills
• Constructive feedback (ways people can improve)
• Diplomacy (handling affairs without hostility)
• Empathy for others
• Encouraging and inspiring people to do their best
• Flexibility in thinking and operating style
• Humor and lightheartedness
• Inspiring and motivating others to active greatness
• Listening well
• Mentoring and coaching team members
• Networking and building relationships
• Nonverbal cues and body language
• Patience when dealing with others
• Public speaking and presentation skills
• Respect for everyone, no matter who they are
• Sensitivity toward the preferences and wishes of others
• Socializing skills
• Being good at team building and at building trust
• Tolerance and respect for team members

How to Improve Your Interpersonal Skills

• Once you know where you stand, it's time to start planning out how to improve your interpersonal skills. Some of the best ways to improve are:
• Monitor your body language and ensure you're not doing things that make people think you're disengaged or aggressive (crossing your arms, looking around, avoiding eye contact, etc.)
• Practice active listening with family, friends, and coworkers - repeat what they've said back to them to ensure you're accurately listening
• Try being friendly and chatty with colleagues
• Practice leading a meeting or presentation
• Be enthusiastic and engaged when interacting with people
• Project an image of being confident and approachable

You must understand that individuals come from different cultures. They come from different environments. They come from different conditioning. The important thing about boundaries is that you must assert your particular boundaries for every single relationship and in every instance. If someone is accustomed to interacting in a certain way then they may unintentionally violate. It's important that you reiterate over and over again once you first say it as well.

Otherwise, you must assert yourself on what you want and what you don't want to happen in your relationships regarding your mental/ intellectual boundaries.

You must decide and be clear of what you allow and disallow to build your mental boundaries. If you do not take a stand, then people will capitalize on you not deciding for yourself.

A lack of assertion means admittance to people. Safeguard yourself by knowing how you want to be treated and ensure with your words that you are not violated.

As we continue to walk through boundaries, you will continue to recognize that knowing yourself sets the course for you to have healthy boundaries.

Write out 5 mental boundaries that you have. For example, I inform others of who I am.

Do not think people know. Do not think boundaries are common and/ or norms. You must be clear with how you want to set up your life.

Sources

Negative Self Talk: What It Is and Strategies To Stop It (mantracare.org)

How to Manage Irrational Thoughts and Cognitive Distortions (psychcentral.com)

Interpersonal Skills - List, Examples & What You Need To Know! (corporatefinanceinstitute.com)

Emotional Boundaries

Emotional boundaries refer to a person's feeling and emotions. Healthy emotional boundaries include limitations on when to share, and when not to share, personal information. For example, gradually sharing personal information during the development of a relationship, as opposed to revealing everything to everyone. Emotional boundaries are violated when someone criticizes, belittles, or invalidates another person's feelings.

First, let's define emotions and feelings. Yes, there is a difference, and it is important that you know that we are very complex.

Our emotions reside behind our self-consciousness. Self-Consciousness is knowledge of one's own existence, especially the knowledge of oneself as a conscious being. Our self-consciousness is our guard that protects our emotions, except for emotions that are needed to survive. These emotions turn into feelings as they move beyond the guard and are connected to our five senses.

• hearing
• seeing
• tasting
• touching
• smelling

In other words, our feelings are meant to ensure our survival such as the ones that most people recognize easily, which are

• glad
• sad
• mad
• fear
• disgust

Our feelings create our vulnerability or triggers to respond to danger in the way of;

• fight
• flight/run
• freeze
• fawn
• flock

Our feelings are instinctual and gut responses of our senses which creates the stimuli for a thought and/ or behavior. Our feelings, thoughts, behaviors are connected in a triangle. This is called the Cognitive Triangle.

In order to set boundaries, you first notice each vulnerability that shows up for you, then you create a boundary that combats against behaving impulsively with your instinct.

For example, if someone tells you that you should not feel how you feel. Instinctively, your body feels warm, your face frowns up, you want to shut down, make yourself small, detach, and stop communicating. Instead with healthy boundaries,

• you are brave
• you do not stop communicating
• you share your clear boundary of how you can remain present and find a consequence

An example would be "I feel sad that you told me I should not feel my feelings. I would like you to know that my feelings are valid and ask that you not discredit them. I use my feelings to guide me and my feelings cause you to want to minimize mine. I do not want to continue speaking with you but if you would like to continue our conversation, my feelings will be shared."

Please note that context means a lot with communicating so it does matter if you;

• value the relationship and want to build a bridge
• have tried more than 7 times and you are now ready to severe the relationship
• believe that the person is receptive or unreceptive

At first, your boundaries should be rigid in order to safeguard you. Rigid boundaries means that you keep others at a distance. The reason for this step is to establish a sense of safety within yourself. Many times we have porous boundaries where we overshare information, can't say "no" to others, people please, feel complacent, accepting of mistreatment, and base our self-worth on the opinions of others. These attributes usually derive from conditioning in which you were not allowed to assert your identity. You were told that you could not say "no" or could not feel your feelings when they showed up so you decided to please those who subjected you to this culture or norms. Remember in the previous boundary post, people learn from their surroundings to have rigid, porous, or healthy boundaries.

A sense of safety means to have your basic needs met as well as knowing, liking, and trusting yourself.

After you have discovered and hold safety within yourself, it is then possible to ease up on the rigid boundaries to move into healthy boundaries. Healthy boundaries is the capability to be able to share your feelings, say "no" or "yes" based on what you want to do, own your identity, and stay true to your values.

With a list of apparent boundaries derived from your vulnerabilities, you then can use your self-knowledge and love for yourself to create healthy boundaries. Self-knowledge comes from standing in front of the guard of your self-consciousness and asking it to let you inside of yourself. Remember mentioned earlier that we are complex. We have a beautiful emotional world inside of us. As humans we have thousands of emotions to experience and to get to know. We have an inner world that is magnificent, vast, beautiful, and exotic with the whole purpose of celebrating you.

Yes, this is where self-actualization can be found but let us not get ahead of ourselves. With the topic of emotional boundaries, what happened to us that is experienced by our senses clouds us from spending time with our emotions. Our boundaries can only be truly healthy when you tap within yourself to discover the emotions that are behind the feelings.

In other words, in order to set and manage healthy boundaries, you have to give yourself at least 15 minutes a day embarking on a journey within. You would do this by doing nothing. Yes, I typed that correctly. I noted that stimuli cause us to respond so the goal is to eliminate all stimuli and be with yourself. This is not meditation. It is simply stopping and being. It is a time to let yourself respond to a lack of distraction.

During this time, your emotions will call out to you. At first, it will be scary because of course, if you have never been somewhere, you may be afraid about venturing there. Just remember that your inner world is made just for you, and it celebrates your existence. Yes, the big emotions that have been trying to get our attention, will show up first but you can handle them. You are the ultimate and powerful ruler of yourself.

Try on "be me" time. Let me know how it goes.

Spiritual Boundaries

Spiritual boundaries refer to connection with others and yourself. Spiritual boundaries protect your right to believe in what you want, worship as you wish, and practice your spiritual or religious beliefs. Healthy spiritual boundaries include an awareness of what suits you best in how you connect and not allowing anyone to sway this understanding.

As mentioned in previous boundaries blogs, each of us are born into a culture, conditioning, and norms, which sculpt our perspectives. As part of our growth, we must assert who we are by deconstructing and questioning our world. Every part of our world should be noted. Then you decide if you want to keep or rewrite the messages to create what suits you best in your life.

The process of figuring out where you begin, and end as opposed to our parents, society, norms, and culture is absolutely one of the bravest and toughest phenomena of your life. Many people choose to submit to what was given to them instead of fighting for themselves. Yes, it is a fight to be free to be who you want to be, do what you want to do, and how you want to do it. Everybody including the old self, who is comfortable and seemingly safe, which calls you back home. Home cannot be a place that resides outside of yourself. It is a paradigm of self- safety, knowing, trust, love, and like.

Furthermore, celebrating every single nuance of yourself is a stance of acceptance, fulfillment, and satisfaction. Spirituality boundaries ensure that you can practice and connect with yourself and others. Anytime you discover through your intuition that you feel your spiritual boundaries are being crossed, you must assert yourself.

Let's break down each part.

As opposed to other boundaries, more people know that spiritual boundaries and practices vary as opposed to other boundaries like physical boundaries. For example, a person may reach for a hug, which could be a violation of your boundaries, more readily than exploring your religious and spiritual practices in order to obstruct a boundary. Holding the spiritual boundaries against people outside of your circle can be quite easy because you can protect yourself by not putting yourself in certain circumstances. Many times, spiritual boundaries and other boundaries are being violated simultaneously. Spiritual boundaries are most definitely violated by family and friends who expect you to continue practicing as they do.

Moreover, religious practices are the ritualistic activities of a defined group. Spiritual practices are the creative activities of connecting with oneself and others. Religious practices can be housed under spiritual practices.

Spiritual boundaries can be tough to assert since more than any other boundary, it is tied intimately to the culture in which you were born. It is important to explore and learn from other people, there are groups out there for everything. Seek out a group who believes what and how you believe in order to find yourself even more. Joining with a group of people will provide you with the confidence and connection to hold true to your spiritual boundaries.

Otherwise, you must assert yourself on what you want and what you don't want to happen in your relationships regarding your spirituality. It should not be a secret either. Your spirituality can shine for the world to see as it can be a beacon for others to find refuge, connect, and practices that feel right to them.

If you do not take a stand, then people will capitalize on you not deciding for yourself. A lack of assertion means admittance to people. Safeguard yourself by knowing how you want to be treated and ensure with your words that you are not violated.

I was talking to a friend, and she told me that she was going to get an alligator head. Then, she said that a lady told her to put money in the head so the alligator can protect the money and bring money to me. I thought this was unique and fun so being intrigued, I am trying it out. Part of my spirituality is to be open and notice how all the occurrences and circumstances are orchestrated so absolutely beautifully. In my opinion, only God could create such flow, connection, and satisfaction in life. I am overwhelmingly grateful for life.

I tell you this to let you know who I am. I stand firm in it. I do not care what you think about it. It belongs to me, and I know it does not harm you, so I am doing other parts of who I am, which are tied to my values of intimacy, freedom, growth, and intimacy.

Your spiritual boundaries should be tied to your values. Values are the things for which you stand or in other words, your deal breakers.

Write out 5 spiritual boundaries that you have.

For example, I would like to be free to be.

Do not think people know or boundaries are common and/ or norms. You must be clear with how you want to set up your life.