Setting Health Boundaries During the Holidays!
This week commences the major Holiday Season. This is a great opportunity for you to strengthen your boundary-building muscles and learn to protect your personal energy.
Personally, as a Latina who is not only a recovering people pleaser and not living an authentic live, learning to set boundaries within my life has been one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn. At the same time, it’s been the driving force behind changing my life and creating happiness without all of the guilt, and believe me that’s SO liberating!
When we focus on setting healthy boundaries during the holiday season, we are giving ourselves a chance to realign with the true meaning of the season. We can focus on spending quality time – as much as you wish – with Familia and friends and remember the power of gratitude in EVERY moment!
What are healthy boundaries?
In general, healthy external boundaries are physical, emotional, and mental limits. It’s important to create these limits in order to not feel used, violated, or manipulated by others. I have learned a LOT about this helping to raise teenage boys from my partner.
When it comes to your internal boundaries, think of it like keeping a promise to yourself. It’s a form of self-respect and a mechanism to protect your thinking, behavior, and feelings.
So, in essence, healthy boundaries are boundaries that protect your ultimate happiness and your truest self. They keep your physical, emotional, and mental needs as the priority and clearly communicate to others what’s okay and what’s not okay.
How do you set healthy boundaries?
Setting healthy boundaries is, as you can imagine, a very personal process. So, how do you develop boundaries?
If you’re a people-pleaser, it takes time to uncover what it is what makes you tick. I suggest by starting to look at a time you felt angry, resentful, or frustrated and ask yourself if there was a boundary being violated.
Having healthy communication is a very important part of setting healthy boundaries, as you can’t let others (and yourself!) know what’s okay without verbally explaining it. I suggest starting with finding ways to say NO that feels approachable to you. Discomfort is normal while setting boundaries, but the payoff is worth it!
Setting healthy boundaries during the holidays
The holidays are usually a time filled with love, laughter, and lots of brie. It’s a time to reconnect with loved ones near and far and remember the true spirit of the holidays.
Of course, until it’s not.
Holiday time can also be filled with prying relatives, demanding work schedules, and a crazy amount of travel. With so many gifts to buy and people to see, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
Oyé: there’s nothing worse than regretting something you didn’t say or do during this time of year. Leaving you with a feeling of regret because you didn’t feel present enough or because you were harboring so much resentment towards Tia Rosita.
So, believe it or not, the holidays are the perfect time to flex your boundary-building muscle. Begin to uncover how you’re feeling and when. Make adjustments accordingly.
Healthy boundaries and self-care
If you’ve been following my work for a while, you know I am super passionate around self-care.
To me, true self-care, the type the saves and changes lives, starts with a look within. We have to figure out what’s important to us, what’s worth fighting for, and where we draw the line.
It is up to us to teach others how to treat us. We can’t expect them to read our minds or guess what we’re thinking.
Only you hold that power, take your power back!
