How to Use Your Voice to Create Healthy Boundaries

One challenge I see a lot of powerful women struggle with is creating healthy boundaries.

Why?

Many of us have been conditioned to believe that we should be available ALL the time to the people we love: our children, our partners, our parents, our coworkers, our friends.

We haven’t been taught that it is OK to set healthy boundaries around our time or our availability.

We think it’s selfish or unfair, or that we won’t be loved if we aren’t always striving to please, appease, support, and do everything for everybody else before we consider taking care of our own needs.

Then we wonder why we’re so burned out. We wonder why we have health issues or even health crises. We wonder why we feel unhappy in our lives.

We also haven’t been taught how to use our voice to create healthy boundaries.

It’s time to change that–so you can reclaim your health, vitality and happiness!

Here are a few simple tips for how to use your voice to create healthy boundaries.

1. Listen to your heart. The first step to creating healthy boundaries is knowing what you truly want. Let your heart be your guide.

If someone asks you to do something, and you feel yourself inwardly recoil, you don’t really want to do it. Listen to that. Your heart (and your body) contain wisdom that you may have been taught to suppress.

When you start to listen to that wisdom again, you start to identify what your boundaries actually are–before you find out the hard way by having them crossed.

2. Honor your inner wisdom and speak up about it. Instead of overriding your inner wisdom, honor it, and speak up about it.

Many of us feel/ sense/ hear our inner voice, but we suppress it because we’ve been taught to people-please. We’ve been taught to “go along to get along.” Instead of suppressing that truth, acknowledge and speak up about it.

You don’t even have to have a logical “reason” for why you are setting a boundary. You can just honor it because you are choosing to honor yourself.

For example, you may say, “I’m not sure why, but that doesn’t feel aligned for me right now.” or “Hmm. I’d love to do xyz instead.” or “Maybe we can find another time. That time really doesn’t work for me.” or “I’lI need some time to make a decision about that.”

3. Say “No” when you mean No. Many of us have been taught that it isn’t polite to say “no” when someone asks us for something.

We go out of our way to make sure the other person doesn’t feel offended or rejected, or that they don’t think we are being unkind.

Remember that “No” is a complete sentence. Some pushy people will try to steamroller right over your no. Just stand firm, knowing that your “NO” is a healthy boundary. You are a sovereign human being who has a right to say no when you want to.

Even if you have said yes to something in the past, you have a right to change your mind and say “No” if you choose. It doesn’t make you a bad person or a “flip flopper.” Human beings are complex and if we’re lucky, we continue to evolve and change our whole lives. We may think that the entire world will stop moving when we start saying “no.” Practice saying “no” with small things and watch what unfolds. It’s OK to say no!

4. Say “YES” when you mean yes. Similarly, many of us do not feel safe saying “YES” to our true desires.

Women in particular have been conditioned to fear what we really desire deep down. As teens, we worry that we’ll be called “easy” or a “slut” if we follow our sexual desires. As adolescents, we may fear our peers judging us for choosing a different path than them. We “go along with the crowd” because it just seems easier to “fit in” to be liked.

As we get older, we may find ourselves acting out these familiar patterns of suppressing our true desires. Following your YES is a sacred calling. It is your soul speaking through you. It may seem a bit scary at first to say yes to something you really want. What if it doesn’t work out?

But when you follow your YES, you find that life actually becomes much easier because you are living from your truth, your soul. It is actually who you were created to be. And it’s the fastest and easiest way to create a more abundant, joyful, and fulfilling life. So say YES to what you desire. It is the gateway to joy!

Creating healthy boundaries requires building new neural pathways in your brain if you’re accustomed to overriding your desires. As with any new skill, practice makes perfect.

Take baby steps at first and slowly build your confidence as you explore setting boundaries that feel good for you. Before you know it, you will trust your inner voice, and feel your health, power, joy, and vitality return to your life.

Want more support with liberating your voice?

Book a Soul Voice Session here.