3 Steps to Setting Healthy Relationship Boundaries

Set the stage now for the kind of love that can stand the test of time.

Knowing how to establish healthy boundaries in relationships is the key to true intimacy.

To establish healthy boundaries, you need to be self-aware. Having a sense of confidence is also important. It gives you the strength and willpower required to set healthy boundaries in relationships. When you do, your interactions will be life-enhancing instead of life depleting.

Here are 3 keys to creating healthy boundaries in relationships.

1. Be Aware of Your Inner World.

When you’re aware of your inner world, you’re able to energetically protect yourself. You’ll refrain from inappropriately taking on other people’s problems or issues as your own.

You’ll have better communication skills and the ability to express your needs in a productive and heart-centered way. You won’t get pulled into something that isn’t for your highest good.

You’ll still be loving and supportive, however, you’ll maintain a clear sense of self. You won’t fall prey to becoming a rescuer nor will you let yourself be dominated or want to dominate others.

Controlling others, being over-emotional, manipulative, or losing yourself in a relationship won’t be part of your life. These are all qualities of a dysfunctional relationship that leaves you feeling disempowered.

The way many women were raised, it’s easy for us to take on other people’s energy. And we think it is our energy! Anatomically, you were designed to bear children, be their caretakers, and nurture them. They are beautiful qualities. The downside is that those qualities can leave you vulnerable to codependent behaviors.

If you haven’t done the inner work to have healthy boundaries in a relationship, your caring can easily become outer focused. Their needs become your needs and your needs get buried.

Staying connected to your inner world helps you maintain a sense of self. Knowing your needs and feelings, separate from another, is important to keep in check. Otherwise, you risk losing yourself in a relationship.

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2. Don’t Lose Yourself in a Relationship.

Have you ever lost yourself in a relationship? Do you sacrifice your personal needs for the needs of another to the point that is beyond normal self-sacrifice and caring? Have you ever looked to others for approval when you really needed to accept yourself?

Imagine what that does to your body’s energy field, let alone your identity and power. It’s always good to give to others. But when you don’t take care of your own physical, emotional, and spiritual needs first, you’re unable to give to others in a healthy way.

Healthy relationships are inter-dependent rather than codependent. Unhealthy relationships lack the necessary amount of communication, cooperation, and co-creation to make life enjoyable.

3. Keep Your Energy Field Bright.

Relationship dynamics can take on different energetic forms. In a love relationship, this is often the case. As a result, it takes a tremendous amount of self-love, self-nurturing, and healthy boundary-setting to keep your energy bright. There are a lot of unseen energy dynamics happening in intimate relationships.

Sometimes, one person takes on the emotions of the other. This typically results in the person becoming over-emotional when the other person is unable to show emotions.

Another energy dynamic is one person dominating the other, taking the other’s energy as a way to feel powerful.

These are examples of unclear boundaries. You don’t know where you end and the other person begins. This often happens when you “lose yourself” in a relationship.

Healthy boundaries in relationships are established when two people mutually honor each other’s opinions and uniqueness.

Establishing healthy boundaries in relationships can be challenging, but it is a must in order to keep your body’s energy field bright, live in your truth and not lose yourself.

Keeping the integrity of your energy and staying centered requires caring for your energy. Just as you care for your body, your teeth, or your hair, your energy needs the same.

Notice what happens when your energy contracts due to interactions with others. Take the necessary steps to go inward. Discover and acknowledge what’s happening. Then voice your truth from your heart to energetically stay centered. This will keep your energy field in a state of integrity.

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You’ll experience more joy in your relationships because you will have learned not to hold onto uncomfortable emotions and the associated dysfunctional behaviors that bring a relationship down. Your relationships won’t become tainted and toxic. Your energy field will be bright, powerfully invincible and pure.

This guest article originally appeared on YourTango.com: 3 Key Steps To Healthy Boundaries — And Healthy Relationships.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/3-steps-to-setting-healthy-relationship-boundaries/