The Crib Sheet
How Setting Healthy Boundaries Builds Stronger Relationships
Setting boundaries is how you teach others to love and respect the real you — without boundaries you risk losing yourself trying to please everyone else.
We are all taught from a young age to protect our physical assets:
- We put fences and borders around our property
- We lock our windows and doors
- We install alarms systems
- We even get insurance policies to safeguard the physical assets that matter most
But when it comes to our emotional assets — our time, our energy, our peace of mind, our self esteem and all importantly our heart, we receive little training at all and as a result, allow people to walk cross our boundaries, drain our energy, create stress and even damage our self esteem.
The Key Boundaries
Without healthy boundaries we absorb other peoples negative emotions like a sponge and allow others to guilt-trip, manipulate or dump on us.
Our three most valuable resources are:
- Our Time - of which you only have a finite amount
- Our Self Esteem - the engine for your self care, self compassion, self respect and self love
- Our Emotional Wellbeing - at any given moment, your most direct link to peace and contentedness
Creating healthy boundaries around these three resources cannot fail to improve the quality of your health and life.
Strategies
Say no - its your life!
Never feel obligated - do because you choose to, not because you believe you have to or must
Accept that other people’s moods, criticism or drama speak more about them and their stuff than it does about you and yours
Stop trying to "fix" other people and their emotions - not only is it impossible, but it prevents them from learning and growing
Say no to emotional dumping and the inevitable sponge effect.
Refuse to engage with meanness or disrespect.
Don’t feel obligated to defend your position - you are entitled to your own opinion.
Remember:
You are not an all-you-can-eat buffet. You’re a curated menu — you choose what’s available and when.
Your emotional energy is like a Wi-Fi signal - not everyone gets the password and you decide who gets access, limited access, or no access at all.
Protect your emotional energy like money in a bank - you don't let just anyone withdraw from your account - boundaries are like PIN codes, withdrawal limits, and fraud alerts.
