Help others to help yourself
Let’s face it most of us have that one person in our lives that drain every single bit of our energy. Don’t get me wrong we love them, but they can take their toll. A great way to protect yourself in this regard is helping others understand what your boundaries are.
Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries is essential to any good relationship here are some aspects that we can use to educate others about our boundaries.
1. The knowledge of me
Before we can express our needs to others we need to know what they are first. We can only advise others about our own boundaries if we are aware of our own limitations, needs and wants. Therefore take so time to get to know you. Ask yourself what do you like? What don’t you like? What do you want from life? What are your goals? Then educate people in your life about these things.
2. Emotional awareness
Be aware of your own emotions as well as the behaviors that accompany them. This will be very useful in relationships when I am able to communicate my frustrations without using negative techniques like sarcasm, avoidance behavior, and passive aggressiveness or if you are anything like me just making grunt sounds.
3. Be direct
No one likes being mean, no one likes conflict unfortunately in order to avoid these issues we tend to sugar coat our feelings, this in turn causes conflict. Don’t get me wrong I am not saying you should just say whatever you want, you should still be respectful, but not just of someone else’s feelings you need to respect your own boundaries as well. Therefore if someone does something that you do not approve of or makes you angry it is important to discuss the matter with that person. How else are they going to know you do not appreciate their behavior?
4. It is not the what but the how
We can communicate anything to anybody. The effectiveness there of will rely on how the message is sent and not what them message holds. Therefore, don’t be afraid to help others understand you just do it in such a way that you remain respectful of both your and their boundaries.
Have a great day!!
