SET YOUR BOUNDARIES

It took me many years through this journey of life to learn how to set boundaries and even what the heck that meant. Think of a boundary as a shield of protection around you and one that will provide health and happiness.  Go deeper with the meaning and understand that boundaries are an important part of self-love and not allowing others to treat you in a way that is not healthy for you and your life.  When boundary setting is not demonstrated for us as we grow up into “adult world”, the struggle to understand how to implement them can be difficult, and sometimes scary.  The sacrifice of self to the point of mistreatment by others can be the result if boundary setting is not put into place.  Boundaries make a clear statement of what is not allowed when it comes to each person, and when those lines are crossed, it is a painful process for the one that has been wronged in that way. Sometimes clear communication of the boundary can resolve the conflict and other instances will require radical choices of removing ourselves from the situation altogether.  The most uncomfortable part of a broken boundary is the trust that was there before has now been chipped away into doubt.

I am all for doing whatever it takes to learn how to set boundaries: counseling, support groups, church guidance, etc.  Once the gift of boundary setting has been established in life, it provides a confidence, strength, and overall feeling of worthiness never experienced before, and it will seem as if life has begun in a truly healthy way for the first time.  Once boundaries have been set, it is important to honor yourself by remaining true to those decisions and not allowing anyone or anything to rob you of your shield of self-love.  Even the best of boundary setter can backslide and be tempted into old patterns of trusting someone to the point of letting down a boundary, but in the end it leads only to anger, resentment, and hurt.  Along with the pain will be the shame felt personally for allowing it to happen in the first place and feeling the sting of failure to ourselves.  Boundaries teach us how to respect ourselves enough to know how we want to be treated, and further what is acceptable in our lives.  Boundaries remove the doormats that we as people may have once been, and replaced with a security door of emotional ability to conquer any circumstance placed in its’ way.  

Emotional health is a large part of our physical health and discussing topics like boundary setting are at the top of my list when it comes to being a healthy person.  The journey has been a tough one, but the positive result of learning how to set boundaries has created the person that I am today and I love myself for that. 

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Darla Leal, Fit at 50

Having a Relationship with Myself

Just ME

If I did not have a GREAT relationship with myself, I would be a complete mess.  This is just not a physical existence for me, but a very deep spiritual bond with God, and being truly content with me and my life.  The healthy lifestyle that I maintain comes from how I treat myself, how I allow others to treat me, how that is perceived, how I grow from my journey, continually being enlightened by both positive and negative experiences, setting healthy boundaries, and wrapping all that up into how I respond to life’s circumstances. 

 

As I have journeyed through this life, I have suffered physically and emotionally and would not be honest if I did not say that I have felt the sting of both from time to time even now.  The difference in the now is my past experiences have been a life education on how to love myself enough to see things and handle things in a healthy way, and navigate through boundaries that I now have to take

care of me.  A great example would be a person that has hurt me emotionally through an insensitive act or words.  I have realized that this has nothing to do with me or who I am as a person, but all about the offender not knowing how to be sensitive or compassionate in that moment.  Would it hurt…well of course but the important thing is realizing the behavior is not my fault, and even more important is responding to it in the healthiest way possible.  The best part about life is learning through the experiences, being enlightened by what is acceptable and not acceptable, not reliving the unacceptable, and “the knowing” of what is wanted and not wanted.  Looking at all things this way has created a healthy perspective of circumstances and a clear understanding  that God wants me to learn something from the situation and possibly create a circumstance that I will be able to help others going through a similar experience in the future.   Emotional growth has not been an overnight learning method of how to handle things, but a cultivation of experiences, over time that has developed my emotional self and created a bit of thicker skin as well in a positive way. 

Having a relationship with me also includes my physical day to day actions.  Believe me, there are days where I need to be In Your Face MOTIVATED to get my bootie moving to workout.  I feel very comfortable eating healthy a very high percentage of the time, but as I get older, I find that the workouts are my more difficult area and because of that, I have become wiser with my workouts.  This has become an enlightenment experience for me as well as some days I will be gang busters and full of pep in my step, and other days…OH MY…throw a towel over my ARC trainer monitor and beep when it is over.  I have also fine tuned my fitness training using what works for my body to reduce/avoid the chance of aggravation.  Nothing is worse than aggravating an injury during a workout and spending days rehabilitating something that could have been prevented.  My relationship with my physical health is all about HEALTH and feeling great, not so much on how great I will look on the outside.  Although, I do appreciate that my outward appearance is a reflection of living a healthy life.  I also want to add that I do not feel looking healthy to be a “vain or ego” thing and that it is OK to enjoy the “physical look” of living a healthy lifestyle.  Many people get so caught up in “acceptance”, and I think that is healthy to a point…but not to be taken to an unhealthy one.  No one should accept being in an unhealthy state of life in my opinion...how can that be a happy place or something to accept? 

Both the emotional and physical parts of my “self” relationship have taken years

to fine tune and develop, and still nothing in life is great all the time.  Life is not perfect or even easy, and in fact it is all the challenges, bumps in the road, hard work, and experiences that sand down the roughness of our inner and outer shells into smooth, beautiful gems.   Through it all, I have learned to not give up, be patient, and above all to know that I am worthy of great things, and I have definitely learned not to settle for anything less.  Life is too short to not want to be healthy physically and emotionally and the BEST place to start and maintain all that is within ME. 

IN YOUR FACE MOTIVATION

Me with My Fabulous Kids

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Stay Healthy~ 

Darla