My Therapist Told Me To Draw a Line! So I did.

Drawing lines and setting boundaries, that is one of the most common issues which, we, therapists meet.

This advice is given due to finding out that, a person is hurting herself, or letting herself be harmed by the third parties, in disregard of her own feelings and desires. 

However, this advice is usually taken in a very wrong way. When you tell someone that she does not have personal boundaries, due to her compliant nature, the person goes on to think that she is a faulty being with no solid personality. First of all, know that this is not a "disorder". This is merely a weakness born out of the spiritual essence of the person.

The people who have hard time saying no are usually the ones with the kindest hearts, they are very giving, compassionate, lovable, loving, easy-going, joyful, beautiful spirits who know how to share, and lift the energy group which they belong to. They are perfect peace-makers, mediators and teachers by nature. They are the harmonizers. 

You see, these kind of people have very strong personality traits and they should be proud of themselves, however when they are adviced on setting boundaries, their natural reaction is to get rid of all of the nice and strong qualities which they naturally possess and they suddenly try to be a harder, stricter, non-giving person, who suddenly starts to demand things from people. But this is not them, this is not in harmony with who they are, and their social circle will react to these "mixed signals" coming from the person they have known for years. 

You cannot gain the respect of others, unless you start to respect your own nature first!

When someone tells you that you should set boundaries, it is because, this person has noticed that you are hurting yourself, or letting be harmed by others or that you are not living your own truth. It does not mean that you have no personality or that you should change your entire attitude towards people. 

I see many people, trying to "copy", the independent, strong, survivor-type people, when they get this advice, and the results are almost always disastrous, why? because you cannot lie to people, they will sense your true nature, no matter what you do or say and this happens in energy level. So no matter how much you say No! just for the sake of being able to say "No!" nobody will think that you are standing your ground, in fact, what they will think that there is something weird going on with you and that you are not yourself. And this is true, because you are actually "not yourself" when you say no, just for the sake of saying no or when you demand something from people, just to prove that you can be a demanding person just like anyone else. This is not setting boundaries, this is forcing to be someone else! It is exhausting and another form of hurting and disrespecting yourself.

When an expert tells you that, you have to set boundaries, what you should do are the following:

1. Analyse your thoughts and feelings, know yourself first. Who are you?

2. Act in accordance with your own thoughts, feelings and truth and dare to express them. 

3. Are your actions hurting yourself? Are you letting to be harmed by others because of your chosen actions? If yes, don't do that "thing" which causes harm.

And that's it.  You should not get rid of your loving and giving nature just because someone told you that you should set boundaries. You should learn to appreciate your unique nature and loving qualities and make small adjustments as such listed above and continue to be who you are.

With love and light;