Thanks, but no thanks: Setting boundaries to protect your peace this holiday season
85% of people experience high stress when their boundaries are violated, according to gitnux.orgYet, only 37% of people feel comfortable asserting their boundaries with family members.
What does that tell me?
Apparently, people are worried about the consequences of saying "no" to expectations, obligations, and to those who disrespect them.
As the assumed family caretakers, women are particularly prone to tolerate and even excuse disrespect in order to keep the overall peace. The additional expectation to put others' wants and needs over their own creates resentment that is often not expressed, primarily out of fear—of judgment, shame, and ridicule for being selfish.
So, when women experience boundary violations in their family, they tend to suppress their feelings about it. That stress festers inside of them, eventually manifesting into physical symptoms and illness.
That is what happened to me towards the end of my first marriage. The chronic stress, as doctors called it, of living in abusive circumstances, caused my body to produce astronomical levels of the stress hormone cortisol. My white blood cells went to eradicate the threat, but killed themselves off instead. As a result, I suffered various random autoimmune reactions and developed a rare lung syndrome that the neurologist likened to having COPD and Fibromyalgia altogether.
The anxiety and depression I experienced as symptoms are prevalent in anyone enduring increased levels of stress. The incidence of anxiety and depression in the United States alone is proof enough that people are too often allowing others to disrespect them, by not setting proper boundaries.
Sadly, 1 person takes their life every 40 seconds as a result of the sadness weighing on their hearts.
It doesn't have to be this way, though. People CAN choose to assert themselves. We CAN choose to set boundaries with anyone who disrespects us, even if they are biologically related. Yet, we so often tell ourselves that we "can't" or "shouldn't."
Biological relations do not imply a social obligation to tolerate disrespect.
You read that right. NOBODY has the right to violate your boundaries without your consent. I would even argue that anyone who truly cares about you in the least would not intentionally disrespect you.
What, really, are you preserving by not honoring yourSELF, anyway?
😔Relationships with toxic relatives who demean and diminish your sense of yourself and your right to live your life on your terms?
😔Are those relationships really worth saving at the cost of your own disrespect?
😬And is your health worth the price of suppressing your rightful feelings for the sake of someone else's egotistical need to make you feel inadequate or inferior?
I know the people-pleaser in you is saying, "But . . ." But nothing.
You have a choice. You can choose to tolerate disrespect or choose to respect yourself more.💖
You have a right to your feelings. You also have the right to decide what's best for you and what's not, regardless of whatever expectations people have of you.
✨Additionally, you have the right to honor yourself without explaining why.✨
What is most important is your peace of mind, and you won't have that if you dishonor yourself because that opens the door for others to follow suit.
So, give yourself permission to say "no" to whatever or WHOever disturbs your peace. Because people will treat you the way you treat yourself; and there's no time like the present to set the expectation for how you deserve to be treated.
➡️For more on breaking free from expectations and dissociation from family, particularly during special occasions and holidays, check out the long-awaited sequel to my best-selling and award-winning debut memoir. RISING FROM THE ASHES: Breaking the Cycle of Narcissistic Abuse is available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.
