Boundary setting is hard because we want to be kind, try our best to help those in need, at the same time we want to take charge of our wellbeing, be the bosses of our lives. People who lack personal boundaries often find their lives spiralling out of control, drained, tired, miserable and resentful, they sometimes become abusive and take it out on people closest to them. Some are suicidal and some become chronically ill in various ways, boundaries affect people more than they think, our boundaries are constantly being violated through systemic oppression, the micro aggressions we encounter daily is traumatic for us, it all adds up.
1. When you say no, greater social cohesion occurs. If you're a woman who refuse unwarranted advancements from men, women in general will have an easier time. Same goes for being a POC or a lesbian or someone of any marginalised group, as long as you're visible and representing, you're doing it for yourself and also them.
2. You can only heal in a conducive environment. A large part of restoration is rejecting people who can't spare a thought for your wellbeing. I once had a self proclaimed higher conscious male spiritualist message me for a free consultation, this is for a talk he is planning, instead of inviting me to the talk and giving me credit like he should, he decided it was much better for me to educate him behind the scenes so his talk can be successful and he can be accredited for my expertise. I said no to him and in stereotypical misogynist fashion, he exploded with anger. I sure was glad I said no. The first people to have boundaries with are the unreasonable ones.
3. You don't become a justification for an irresponsible person. Whenever news of sexual assault hit media headlines, there will always be a few who go "they're gold diggers", "some women sleep their way to the top", etc. While we cannot control the way everyone thinks or behaves, we can in our small daily ways not be part of the problem by proving there is a basis for these generalisations.
4. It takes courage to have boundaries. Setting boundaries is often met with hostility, some are more serious like death threats, online harassment and some are daily violations to our bodies, spaces and psyches. For example queue cutting is seen as the act of a discourteous person, it is a crossing of boundaries that disrupt necessary social order. When I tell queue cutters that I was here first, each time they got angry at me instead, they felt entitled to jump ahead of me. People who feel entitled will feel entitled in larger ways as well.
By starting to notice these small daily violations, you start becoming more aware of larger social conditions that have nothing to do with you at all and all to do with a group of people. Unsurprisingly, out of all the queue cutters I ever encountered, a large portion are men and a much smaller portion are women.
Ask yourself why?
5. Your mental health improve tremendously. Takers have no limits, they will keep on taking, they don't know when to stop, you have to stop them by refusing to indulge them, teaching them to respect you.
6. You stop keeping dirty secrets for them. Selfish people often depend on others in private so they have the energy to bolster their image in public. As you exhaust yourself by being their free therapist/friend/labourer, they're working on their careers, investing in people and activities that matter to them. You put yourself on hold for them, they do not do the same for you in return, you end up burdened with their problems, see how ugly they're when stressed out and how you must keep their dirty little secrets for them. They could very well live authentically both in private and publicly, they made a choice not to and that is not your responsibility.
7. Boundaries is an act of self preservation. It's not a once off affair, the more you bend over backwards, the more you shove your discomfort aside, the more you silence yourself, the more you feed that entitlement, the worse it becomes for your personal life and other people's lives. If there are no rewards for boundary violations, they will have to wake up and understand the problem is them.
8. Aggressors expect you to earn affection, credit and love that they give freely to people like them. Without social change, self determination can only get you that far, privilege isn't someone not having struggles in life, it's not attaching the same value for similar struggles because you're dehumanised in their eyes.
Even if you overcome what they cannot, they will still refuse to see you as courageous, capable and strong, the lens of bias clouds their judgement and you will always be taken for granted. Withholding those things is how they continue to exploit you, give you false hope that they will change.
It need not be about your character or behaviours at all, it's an automatic prejudice they have been conditioned to take on and see it as the natural order of human value, you life is worth less, your efforts are worth less and your achievements are worth less as well. Switch them out for people who do see value in the work you do and do not take your contributions for granted instead.
9. Predators prey, manipulators manipulate, abusers abuse. You do not need to be dysfunctional or come across particularly vulnerable or do anything wrong for them to want to do so, the problem is them not you, you already have a hard enough time fending them off, helping them is enabling them, when you refuse to help, they now have the best chance of addressing their problems. This is not the kind of help they can see as help anyway, they would make it something wrong with you.
As long as you know who you're, be at peace.
They need long term professional help and they're capable of getting it if they wanted to. They do not have the awareness to see themselves at this point in time.
10. It can be jarring when you actively set boundaries, I know people started showing me their true colours really quickly when I did that in 2017. A writer messaged me to undermine me, by saying how I should try to get published in a certain publication, while trying to get information about Search Engine Optimisation. I never heard of her, she herself isn't published anywhere, doesn't have a blog or a website, from her photos it is obvious to me that she is faking her happiness as well, she is using external validation to feel good. Like many internally empty and externally validation hungry people, she resort to manipulation to get what she wanted instead.
This is the beauty of truth telling, you see things clearly and quickly, it can also initially be disillusioning just how many are incessant takers, how many are dysfunctional and how many are unethical, I know for the best part of 2017, I sunk deeper into despair before I broke through 4D consciousness to 5D, so hang on tight if this is you, stay firm, hold on, you will eventually fly high.
When we set boundaries, we're often torn between passing up on opportunities and doubling down to make things work, it helps to remind ourselves that when someone or something isn't aligned with our principles and values, doesn't align with our highest God selves, we lose nothing, it's tempting to come from a place of worry and fear, hang onto old habits that don't serve us, afraid that we won't have blessings or new better doors that open up.
Each time I decided to pass someone or something by, I got what I really want eventually. It's not easy because we don't know if we will have better opportunities later, it's easy to say stand firm and reject it automatically, life is full of the grey instead, we can all have a moment of insecurity or a life crisis beyond our control, our survivalist monkey mind can push us to make decisions that we will regret in the long run.
So, if you made some unwise choices in your life previously, do not judge yourself, surrender to God and choose self forgiveness instead.
That is also a kind of boundary with ourselves, a psychological boundary of compartmentalisation, to not let one person or one crisis take over a bright shining future of unlimited possibilities.
Love Light Peace