Creating Boundaries for Empaths and Sensitive Souls
Boundaries are not meant to limit you in life, they are meant to support you and to protect your energy.
As a recovered people pleaser one of the main lessons I had to learn in life was creating boundaries and how I am allowed to stand my ground in decisions & choices that are for the best of me, even if other people are upset by these decisions.
As a Spiritual Mentor and Mental & Emotional Wellness Coach many of the clients I work with have experienced burnout, mental breakdowns, and past trauma. The very first step we work on together is creating boundaries in order for each person to live a life filled with joy, peace, fulfillment, success, love and support.
The majority of my clients are empaths, sensitive souls and intuitives, those of us that identify with these titles can find it extremely difficult to create boundaries in our lives. This is why I’ve written this blog, so you can gain some insight and wisdom around how to create boundaries to protect yourself and your energy.
Looking through an old journal of mine I found an entry from October 2019 that called to my heart & soul.
“I learnt that without boundaries I can be affected so deeply within me. Without boundaries my characteristics can be influenced by those around me and not for the better. Without boundaries ego takes control and brings forward jealousy, comparison, judgment, blame and all sorts of other bad characteristics. I was focused more on someone else’s dreams and less on my own. I was worried about how someone else perceived me more than what I thought of myself. Without boundaries I chose to ignore my intuition. Without boundaries I didn’t feel strong or worthy to have my own opinions. Without boundaries I let someone else control my life (worklife).
I am choosing to stop pulling the victim card and instead step into the role of maker of my life.”
As an empath you are easily affected by the emotions & feelings of the people that surround you on a regular basis.
You feel those emotions so deeply in your being that they start to seem like your own feelings and emotions. You can begin to identify with those emotions. The scary part is you can lead yourself down a path not meant for you because you are feeling someone else’s emotions so strongly that you forget they aren’t yours.
As a sensitive soul any emotion or feeling that moves through you, whether it’s yours or someone else’s, can be felt ten times stronger than somebody who isn’t as sensitive.
This is NOT a bad thing, it only seems terrible when you are constantly feeling harsh and heavy emotions. On the flip side, when you feel uplifting and light emotions you too feel them ten times stronger. Joy, peace, bliss, amusement, serenity, elation. You have the power of feeling these as strong as you feel sadness, anger, resentment, frustration, and overwhelm.
Boundaries are not meant to limit the life you desire to live. By creating boundaries you will be able to support yourself to CREATE the life you desire because you will have more energy than ever before.
This leads us to HOW.
How do we create boundaries to support ourselves?
The first question you need to ask yourself is actually not how, but instead WHERE.
Where do you need to create boundaries to support yourself?
If you don’t know where these boundaries need to be placed then it doesn’t serve you to know how to create them. Let’s unpack the determining factors of WHERE boundaries need to be created for empaths and sensitive souls.
The first step is always AWARENESS.
Being aware of yourself and how you experience life is the secret to everything!
You need to be willing to dig into your own emotions, asking yourself how you feel in this moment and recognizing when your emotions change drastically like the flip of a switch. By seeing a common trend in your daily life you will be able to pinpoint where boundaries are needing to be created.
Let’s dig into some key examples so you can start to connect the dots in your own life.
BOUNDARIES WITH PEOPLE
There are always going to be people in your life that you do not connect with in a positive way. We aren’t meant to be liked by everyone in the world and we aren’t meant to like everyone in the world. This would make things way too easy! Let’s be honest, life is hard. It’s our job to navigate through the difficulties so we can create more ease and grace for ourselves.
How do you know which people you need to have boundaries with?
Do you have a family member that is always gossiping about everyone else, placing judgment on other people's choices and decisions?
This is a very low vibrational energy (think about quicksand) and the moment you are surrounded by this energy it pulls you in and tries to bring you down to it’s level. The person usually has NO IDEA what they are doing and how they are affecting the people around them.
The thing with gossip and judgment is it’s very addictive energy because the person doing the gossiping feels better than the person they are gossiping about. It’s as if they are giving themselves power because they are taking power away from the subject of their conversation.
When the gossiper leaves the conversation feeling higher and more powerful than before the conversation started they are creating a positive enforcement with the habit of gossiping. The addictive behavior continues because after a while that power leaves them and they need/want more power, so they find something new to gossip about.
This is an ego-based behavior and ego is never satisfied. Remember, you are not in a place to judge this person, because then you are also giving into that ego behavior and thinking of yourself as more powerful than the person doing the gossiping.
KEEP READING TO LEARN 3 TIPS IN CREATING BOUNDARIES FOR EMPATHS*
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Back to boundaries - it’s all about recognizing HOW you feel when you are around these types of people.
How do you feel when you walk away from them after the gossiping & judgment has finished?
How do you feel when you are listening to them?
How do you feel when you know you are about to go see them?
Pay attention to these feelings because they are most likely a SIGN that you need to create a boundary for yourself. Your soul doesn’t want to interact with this energy and so your emotions that pop up while in this experience are guiding you to learn something.
The lesson to learn? It’s time to create a boundary to protect yourself.
(this is only one example of where we need to create boundaries in our lives with the people we interact with.)
BOUNDARIES WITH PLACES
Locations and physical spaces also hold their own energy, which can have a positive or negative effect on us. Have you ever noticed when you walk into a store or building you all of a sudden get the chills throughout your body? Or maybe you’ve spent an hour walking through the forest and you feel more at peace than ever before in your life.
As much as people can have an effect on our energy & emotions, so can a physical space. It’s time again, to build awareness on how different spaces make you feel. Here is an example of where you may need to create boundaries with yourself and a specific space.
You sit down at your desk and feel frenzied & overwhelmed with all the things you have to accomplish for your work day.
You look at your desk around you and there are papers scattered everywhere, dirty dishes from yesterday’s afternoon coffee and snack, and there is a stagnant, dull energy/feeling that surrounds you in this space. It’s extremely UNmotivating and UNinspiring. No wonder you struggle to “want” to do any work.
This physical space is affecting your energy levels.
Now, you may be wondering, “okay Sydney, where do boundaries come in and help me in this space?”
You can create a boundary that states “I must clean my desk area at the end of every work day so I can start tomorrow with fresh, clean energy.” Once you build a habit doing this begin to notice how your energy levels shift.
You can create a boundary that states “I must have a window in my office that I can open, this way I can invite fresh air to circulate through my space.” This will clear out any stagnant, old energy that is leaving you unmotivated.
Your direct environment ALWAYS has an affect on you, your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual wellness will be impacted.
Creating boundaries is not only about removing something from your life, it can also be about increasing something in your life that you know will support you and your energy.
BOUNDARIES WITH THINGS
By now you must see the connection in what I am sharing, and that is that EVERYTHING has an affect on you. People, places and things can all influence you negatively or positively and you may not have control over what happens outside of you and around you. BUT, you sure as hell have control over what you allow or don’t allow in your life, this is why boundaries are imperative to your overall wellness.
How can things affect your energy? Well, let’s break down an example so you can understand where you may need to create boundaries in your life.
Recently I’ve been doing some self-reflection (who am I kidding, I’m always doing self-reflection) and I’ve noticed how Instagram has been having a negative impact on my mindset. There are many things I’ve tried to change in my life in order to support myself and my energy.
I downloaded a Screen Time App to my phone that controls how much time I spend on social media.
I’ve worked hard at trying to change my mindset and work on my beliefs & perspectives around Instagram.
Everything I’ve tried I’ve given a good go at and still my awareness tells me that there is a negative influence I’m experiencing when it comes to Instagram.
A new boundary needed to be created in order to protect my energy, my emotions, my mindset, and my spiritual and physical health.
So I deleted Instagram from my phone.
I had to create a boundary to remove this thing from my life in order to connect back to my Spirit.
I spent 10 days Instagram FREE and my life was filled with more peace, joy, contentment and bliss than I’ve experienced in a long time.
Now, in speaking truthfully with you, after 12 days I added the app back to my phone and I have a completely different perspective around this social media app and how I plan on using it moving forward. I needed to remove it from my life fully in order to get grounded in who I desire to be and how I desire to live.
Today I know my intentions with the app and I can hold myself accountable with how I am using it in my day to day life.
If I notice a downward spiral taking place again, then I will shift my boundary as needed to support myself.
In this blog I have only shared 3 examples with you today on WHERE YOU NEED TO CREATE BOUNDARIES AS AN EMPATH & SENSITIVE SOUL. I’m sure each of these examples has got you thinking about your own life and where you may need to create boundaries to protect your energy.
This is only the beginning of creating boundaries for empaths and sensitive souls. I plan on sharing more information with you in the future, but for now I encourage you to grab your journal and start asking yourself what is currently in your life (people, places, things, habits, beliefs etc.) that is having a recurring negative impact on you and your energy levels.
Learning where you require boundaries in your life is the first step.
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This is YOUR life and you get to choose how you want to live it!
Until next time, I am sending you all sorts of love & light on your journey.
Sydney Smith
Founder of Adventuring with Poseidon Wellness
