10 Buckets for Work Life Balance: #5 Setting Boundaries for Worthiness

Do you have a hard time setting boundaries?

Do you experience people walking all over you?

Do you feel that other people use you?

Do you find that you are really sensitive when someone gives you feedback or criticism?

Do you find yourself thinking, “people should be more respectful of me!”

Can you relate to this? 

If you do, this video is one you DON’T WANT TO MISS!

My story about worthiness:

10 years ago, my husband (at the time) decided I wasn’t the woman for him. I couldn’t believe it! I thought I was perfect! (I actually believed this.) How could he not want ME!? I mean, I was aware that he would change the tile in the bathroom every 6 months, and he wasn’t satisfied with anything… but ME!? I was doing EVERYTHING I thought he needed! I was the PERFECT wife! Or so I thought.

What I really was, and what I learned with 10 years of personal development, therapy and 12-step program, was that I was full of resentment and control. I was trying to control everything around me, yet was trying to be something for someone else.

This never works.

When you try to be something for someone else, even if it’s the person you love the most in the world, it isn’t going to work.

You will only be happy if you are YOU! Click To Tweet

But, what if you don’t even know you, or think you deserve happiness or love?

Boundaries:

We experience people taking advantage of us when we don’t have a firm sense of SELF. When, truly, deep down, we don’t think that we are worth standing up for ourselves. We may feel unworthy or unlovable. We may secretly think that no one will ever love us. We definitely don’t want to get angry, because we have learned that getting angry means people won’t like us.

When we don’t have a firm sense of self, we can become chameleon-like. We can be especially attuned to what OTHERS need, but not ourselves. When we spend time taking care of others needs, and not our own, we end up feeling bitter, resentment, alone and quite frankly, not taken care of!

This is where BOUNDARIES come in.

When we learn our own VALUE and WORTHINESS, we can start to learn to say no, because we aren’t afraid of who we will insult with our truth. Click To Tweet

The most basic description of what I believe boundaries are, is:

To know yourself well enough, and trust yourself enough, to know whether or not what someone else is doing is affecting you in a negative or positive way.

I think, in psychology, we talk about boundaries as saying NO to people… which is important. We also talk about when we should say YES to things, as I go over in my FREE BOUNDARIES TRAINING on my website… but what I’ve found over years of working with coaching and bodywork clients, is that people don’t even know themselves well enough to know what the YES or NO is!

And that’s where WORTHINESS comes in.

When you feel WORTHY of being stood up for… you start to stand up for yourself.

When you feel WORTHY, you start to express yourself and get to know yourself.

Until that point, some people just stay “People pleasing” others, and losing their identity in the process.

I help clients to access this worthiness by tapping them into their (usually stuffed down) anger.

Anger is an amazingly powerful energy that most people in our culture equate with BAD and WRONG.

That’s really too bad.

Because your anger is like a pressure cooker:

Can you imagine if the lid of the pressure cooker never released? Can you imagine what the pressure cooker that never released FEELS like!? The tension and the heat brewing inside of that pot! Eventually, it will EXPLODE!

That’s what it feels like in the bodies of people who are being taken advantage of, being used, or manipulated.

But the truth is, they are ALLOWING others to take advantage of them, by not taping into their anger and self-worth!

Generally, these people express their anger in a passive aggressive way.

I heard at a personal development seminar that it’s like a sideways fart. If you hold that fart in too long, eventually it’s going to come out, probably when you least expect it. Then, you look around, wondering who made that fart, when you know it’s you.

This is what denial is like. People in denial don’t want to believe they are angry, just like someone doesn’t want to fart… but eventually, it comes out. These unconsciously angry people think they are wonderful, sweet people! Many other people describe them as “nice.”

I personally don’t want to be known as “nice,” because nice sounds like a pressure cooker to me. It sounds like someone who is holding something back. I don’t know about you, but I prefer the people who let you know who they are, so you know what you’re dealing with!

A person with self-worth who knows when and how to say NO doesn’t let someone else use them. Click To Tweet

This is a HARD CONCEPT for most of my clients to understand.

They say things like, “You mean, they aren’t taking advantage of me, I am LETTING THEM!?”

When a client gets to this point, they are coming out of denial.  When they realize they have something to do with it.  When they realize their victim mentality is what is creating other people using and manipulating them. 

It’s a challenging place to be. But it’s a place of power and releasing the victim mentality. As long as I think I will get more by acting like I can’t do things or ask for things, life will do me. I’m not doing life.  This is a victim stance.

We want to release this and CLAIM our lives.

Do you feel like life is doing you?  Things are HAPPENING to you.

Do you want to do life, instead of life doing you?

Can you see how boundaries come from an inner sense of self-worth? And that, when you know your worth, you are willing to not only ask for what you need in the world and get it, but you also KNOW WHAT YOU WANT to start with!

This is what I help my coaching clients with.

First, we look at the body pain and beliefs, then we start working on filling up the self love and self care buckets, which leads to self worth. Then, we start looking at anger and boundaries and standing up for ourselves with empowerment.

If this is sounding like something you’d like to do, please book a breakthrough session NOW!

If this is sounding like someone you know, who gets taken advantage of, and you’re tired of seeing them hurt, please pass this blog post on to them.

My mission is to create peace in the world by connecting each person to their truth, to their source and to each other.   If you are aligned with this vision, please share this post!

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Over the years, I have been a serial learner and practitioner, taking in information about psychology, religion, spirituality, science, medicine, quantum physics, relationships, parenting, and overall, general happiness and work-life balance.  I’ve been fascinated in what it takes to and have created my life of pure joy, happiness, balance and peace. It is my mission to spread what I have learned and practiced to you in ways that are simple, easy to understand AND implement.  I have served people in achieving realignment in their bodies, relationships and purpose for over 20 years.  If you liked this article and you want to read more, please visit one of the links below:

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