Protecting Your Inner Peace: How to Keep Your Heart Soft and Safe

When I first heard of boundaries, I was immediately uncomfortable as I thought that boundaries were an excuse to be selfish and egoistic rather than generous and loving.

Learning more about boundaries, I realized the exact opposite is true: boundaries are the secret formula to being the most generous and loving.

Boundaries help you realize where your identity and your values lie, helping both safeguard and optimally utilize your best qualities.  Knowing your boundaries gives you the opportunity to most fully reveal your heart while also protecting your self-worth and inner peace.

Let’s take for an example a house.  There are different parts of a house: the front yard, the front porch, the kitchen, and the bedroom.  We know that not just anyone has access to all the parts of your house.  While a package courier may be allowed to enter your front porch, they are certainly not invited into your bedroom.  On the other hand, a trusted loved one is invited and welcome into the inner recesses of your home.  If an individual let everyone into their home, the house would be neither safe nor beautiful.

Conversely, boundaries are not walls. Keeping everyone out of your home, even those that are trustworthy is creating a wall not a boundary. Knowing where to let others in and where to set boundaries, safeguards one’s heart and allow this person to become their most authentic self.

Types of Boundaries

Physical: include personal property such as a home, car, keys as well as personal body space

Emotional and mental: entry into your energy and feelings

Financial: access to money, bank accounts, and long-term financial goals

Time: when, where, and how you spend your time including communication availability

Spiritual: core values and ethical principles

Signs of Unhealthy Boundaries

• Difficulty saying no
• Agreeing to things out of guilt or fear of disappointing someone
• Oversharing your or others personal information
• Tolerating disrespectful behavior from others
• Constantly apologizing, even if you might not actually be at fault
• Feeling chronic burnout
• Feeling resentful towards others
• Feeling taken advantage of
• Rarely asking for help
• Difficulty being vulnerable or articulating your needs

Components of Healthy Boundaries

Identity: knowing who you are and what your value system is. 

Returning to our house analogy from earlier, it is important to understand all the components that make up the home from the front yard to back yard and then determine the value of each component.  For example, knowing that there is a public sidewalk in front of the yard that is okay for strangers to walk on but that it is not okay for this stranger to enter the front yard.  We must also know who we are and who is able to access our physical, emotional/mental, financial, time, and spiritual aspects.

Responsibility: understanding what I am responsible for and what another person is responsible for.

Each person is responsible for the care and upkeeping of their own house.  This includes lawn upkeep, cleaning, and repair work when something breaks.  When a neighbor experiences a crisis (such as pipes breaking and flooding the house), other neighbors may offer to help, but it is ultimately the responsibility of the owner of the house to ensure the house is repaired.  We also must determine what things are our responsibility regarding physical, emotional/mental, financial, time, and spiritual components and what is the responsibility of someone else.

Access: knowing who is trustworthy and when to allow them access.

A total stranger has not proven they are trustworthy and therefore, they are not granted inner access to one’s house.  A loved one must continue to demonstrate they are trustworthy regarding our physical, emotional/mental, financial, time, and spiritual areas or access may need to be decreased or even removed.

Boundaries Story Spotlight

While there have been many adaptations of the well-beloved story of ‘Cinderella’ over the years, “A Cinderella Story: If the Shoe Fits” offers a compelling modern perspective on importance of healthy boundaries in interpersonal relationships.

A Modern Cinderella Story About Boundaries

The story opens with the familiar Cinderella storyline, as Tessa (aka Cinderella) is forced to constantly cater to the demands of her cruel stepmother, Divine, and her two ditzy stepsisters, Athena and Olympia.

In an intriguing twist of a story within a story, Divine brings her daughters to a resort to audition for a musical production of Cinderella. The most sought-after role in the production is, naturally, Cinderella. A part that will place the successful actress opposite famous pop star Reed West, who serves as the production’s “Prince.”

Trapped in a Life of Servitude

Unknown to her stepmother, Tessa has always secretly dreamed of becoming a musician and dancer. However, her aspirations seem out of reach as she remains trapped in a life of servitude, with her self-absorbed stepmother and stepsisters treating her as little more than a personal servant.

Finding Freedom Behind a New Identity

In an unexpected turn of events, Tessa meets Georgie, the show’s makeup artist, who takes on the role of her fairy godmother by transforming her into an unrecognizable young actress.  Under her new identity as “Bella”, Tessa auditions for the production and, unsurprisingly, earns the coveted role of Cinderella.

Learning to Stand Up for Herself

Divine is, of course, furious that an unexpected stranger has secured the coveted role she wanted for one of her daughters. Determined to undermine the new actress, Divine attempts to intimidate and discredit her, unaware that the mysterious newcomer is actually Tessa.

Although terrified that Divine will discover her true identity, Tessa, as Bella, must finally find the courage to stand up to her stepmother and stepsisters and refuse to submit to their unreasonable demands and controlling behavior.  Divine and her daughters, accustomed to getting their way, respond with anger and resentment.

Is Bella More Worthy of Love Than Tessa?

As rehearsals unfold, Tessa begins to embrace her new identity as Bella while still carrying the insecurities and self-doubt that have shaped her life as Tessa. Through her relationship with Reese, who knows and falls for her as Bella, she discovers a confidence and freedom she has never experienced before.

However, Tessa fears that this acceptance is only possible because of her disguise and worries that she is not worthy of love as her true self. Believing that her fairytale can only last as long as the production continues, Tessa resigns herself to the idea that once the show ends, she will have to leave behind her life as Bella and return to the reality of being Tessa.

The Courage to Be Seen as Her True Self

Everything appears to be going according to plan until the live production, when Divine discovers that Tessa is actually Bella and manages to lock her in a room. To escape, Tessa is forced to abandon her disguise and take the stage in the final scene as her true self.

As she takes the stage, she tells Reese, “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you who I really was…I was afraid a prince like you could never love a girl like me.”

A Happily Ever After Begins With Self-Worth

Seeing Tessa embraced and celebrated for who she truly is, Divine realizes that her own path to fame depends on Tessa. When Divine attempts to convince Tessa that she has always supported her, Tessa, now confident in her identity and no longer willing to give access to heart to those not trustworthy, calmly and assertively tells Divine that it is time for them to part ways.

Tips for Setting Healthy Boundaries

First, determine who you are and what are your core values.

This may include:

• • Personality traits: compassionate, ambitious, curious, confident, resilient, etc.
  • Core values: such as integrity, authenticity, compassion, respect, courage, loyalty, responsibility, independence, creativity, growth, justice, kindness, perseverance, humility, etc.  Use this tool to discover your top values: https://www.think2perform.com/values/#start
  • Strengths and weakness: skills, talents, personal qualities, etc.
  • Limitations: balancing your strengths and weakness

Second, determine who has access to the various levels of your heart based on trustworthiness.  If a person has tries to access to a certain part of your heart but does not always prove trustworthy, determine what negative consequence will occur when they step over that line.

For example, say kindness is one of your core values and you have a friend who is prone to gossiping about other people.  A negative consequence would be to change the conversation or to walk away if this person begins to gossip.

Third, communicate to other person your core values, your boundaries, and what the negative consequence will be if the boundary is crossed.

While the other person may not listen to you, the negative consequence will not come as a surprise or feel like you are ignoring or avoiding them.

Fourth, know that unhealthy people do not like boundaries – and that’s okay.

A healthy person will respect boundaries and will change either before or when a negative consequence is established.  An unhealthy person will not respect and will most likely resent the boundary.  If an unhealthy person continues to violate more and more established boundaries, they are most likely a toxic person, and the boundary may need to become a goodbye (i.e. ending or significantly limiting the relationship).

How Homeopathy Can Help

Homeopathic medicines are gentle, highly diluted, non-toxic preparations that are generally considered safe and are commonly used without risk of adverse effects. Homeopathy, through using the principle of like cures like, may help individuals who feel:

• anxiety saying no
• chronic burnout
• resentment towards others
• being taken advantage of or injustice
• being overly responsible or accommodating
• suppressed emotions or feelings
• increased emotional sensitivity