Appreciating Yourself with Inner Boundaries

Tell me about your Inner Boundaries and I can tell you how much you appreciate yourself. Why? Because Inner Boundaries are a key ingredient to creating healthy goals, making joyful progress, being in healthy relationships, and accomplishing what matters most to us.

When we have good Inner Boundaries the world around us tends to feel more in control and we walk into it with more confidence. We want that for the people that we appreciate.

What do I mean by Inner Boundaries? Here are a few examples:

★ I will not allow myself to talk to myself in harmful ways.

★ I will not stay longer than 2 hours at this event.

★ I will not schedule anything during the time of day I feel most creative.

Often, we think of boundaries in terms of other people - what behaviors of theirs are ok and not ok with us. Those are really important boundaries and sometimes they can be really good indicators of what Inner Boundaries we are lacking.

The truth, though, is that many of us (if not most of us) mistreat ourselves. Our emotional dysregulation, lack of clarity, over-extending, double-booking, broken commitments, and under-performing on what matters are caused by the way we are behaving with ourselves.

Others have written books about why we do this to ourselves and I recommend you dive deep here if you haven’t already. In this blog, though, I would like to offer a few tips for becoming fantastically Inner Boundaried for your outer success.

Don’t make decisions right away.

In a world of instant communication that values acting quickly, this can be difficult, but allowing yourself to take time with a decision can give you a moment to go within and see how it will affect the things that matter most to you. I find most people respond well when I simply say, “I would like to think about this and will get back to you tomorrow.”

Practice listening to your inner dialogue.

We live a lot of our lives in default mode which often does not even acknowledge that we have an inner dialogue. But, trust me, you do. Furthermore, you have inner conflicting voices. Get to know them and what they say so you can turn up the voices that support you and turn down the ones that don’t.

Contemplate your broken commitments with yourself WITHOUT judgment.

Look, we all fail to keep up with the endless list of promises we make to ourselves. But there are certain ones that really sting. There are certain ones that can even haunt us if we keep neglecting them. This is an opportunity to be curious. Find out what is getting in the way. Discover what might be helpful. Even consciously admitting it to ourselves can make a big difference.

Ask someone who cares about you what they notice about how you treat yourself.

Sometimes we can’t see what we are doing to ourselves. An outside perspective from someone you trust (Be selective here!) can be invaluable. What patterns do they notice? What have they observed about how you speak about yourself? What would you like to change about this?

Know what you want to hold sacred.

You can think about this in big ways or small ways. Starting small can be helpful. For example, maybe you want to hold sacred the break you take to have an afternoon cup of tea. Knowing this will make it less likely that you will set up a meeting at that time or skip it because you feel “too busy.”

Create accountability.

Tell someone in your life what you want to do for yourself. This makes it more likely that you will follow through. Back to that afternoon cup of tea - if you tell someone you are not working between 1:00 - 1:30 pm to relax with a cup of tea, you also reinforce that within yourself. You build your inner conviction and you get your brain on board.

Be gentle in the process.

Boundary-setting is a process. It is not one-and-done! Be gentle and curious as you practice creating boundaries with yourself. They can be done with kindness and sincerity. Know that they may shift (boundaries are not rigid walls) as life shifts and as you experiment with them.

Appreciate yourself.

I’m bringing it full-circle here because it is a message I want you to savor and walk away with. Make a list of appreciations for yourself. Get in the habit of appreciating yourself daily. If you appreciate yourself, you will take better care of yourself by creating and upholding the necessary Inner Boundaries that are required.

As we enter into this season of gratitude, I want to say that I appreciate you. I appreciate the creative energy, vision, processes, and results that you share with me and the world. I wish you an ending to 2023 that feels nurturing and inspiring on your creative journey.

☆★ Creative Challenge ★☆ Doodle one thing you appreciate about yourself. Show/tell me about it!

Hungry for more conversation about boundaries? I have the perfect Doodle-to-Doing episode for you!