Empower Wellness

Erin Tracy

Call Today: +1 919-616-9218

Setting Boundaries

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Chances are you’ve had times in your life where you regretted not setting boundaries.  Or in setting boundaries, you felt like you alienated someone or deserted them. Or perhaps you often feel irritated or resentful that you even have to set boundaries with certain people.

Setting Boundaries to protect your time, well-being, your health, your sleep, etc. can be instrumental in accessing more calm, feeling more peaceful, and getting well.  What are some indications that you need to set boundaries with people in your life and acquaintances?

  • you feel drained in group or some one-on-one interactions.
  • resentment creeps in when you do things for others that seem to go unappreciated.
  • other people seem to make you responsible for their feelings and actions
  • you feel responsible for others’ feelings and emotions and even their choices (hmmm…).
  • you avoid setting limits and stating end times to interactions because you might seem rude.
  • you frequently find yourself in situations spending more time and energy than you planned for and therefore something else important on your schedule suffers.
  • you frequently feel taken advantage of

 

Set boundaries with strength, peace, and clarity

 

As someone who struggled with boundary setting for many years, I can relate.  Setting boundaries with an open – heart resulted in less interpersonal drama and set the stage for stronger connections with mutual respect.

  • Set boundaries with LOVE – not irritation.  It’s not the other party’s fault that they can’t read your mind or that they aren’t aware of your needs. It’s your job to communicate (kindly and calmly whenever possible) what those needs are.
  • Setting clear, calm, and open-hearted boundaries helps let go of the notion that we can control how others respond to our communicated boundaries.
  • Be clear that other people don’t control your emotions. If the same situation with the same people activates feelings in you that you don’t enjoy, then change the situation or change the way you look at it.
  • Don’t take personally that people operate from their own set of assumptions.
  • When it’s time for you to leave, do so and leave martyr-like stories (expressed or in your head) out of it.

This list while SIMPLE is not always EASY to implement.  If we can set clear boundaries with a calm and open-hearted intention that honors our own time, space, and our health needs, we can more fully show up for others to support them when needed.  Setting boundaries with kindness is SELF-CARE and NOT SELFISH.

This point of view may be new to you or even creating some cognitive dissonance.  Yet, you may also be feeling that fully claiming a new paradigm around these ideas could be quite FREEING for you.

Contact me. I love talking to people (no obligation ever to explore) about how transformative change around setting boundaries can affect their energy, health, and well-being.

Letting Go: What Are You Carrying?

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“I am letting go of that,” Powerful – especially when you can really mean it – actually do it.  I first heard this story in Eckhart Tolle’s The New Earth.

Two monks were journeying together.  At one point, their path encountered a stream with a swift current. On their bank was also a troubled young and beautiful woman dressed in fine silks. She clearly knew not to ask the monks for help, yet she was distressed about how to cross the stream without soiling her clothing.

The two monks glanced at each other briefly.  It would mean breaking their vows to touch a woman.

In a swift motion, the older monk picked up the young woman, carried her across. and set her down on the other side.

The younger monk was stupefied.  He couldn’t believe this older monk had just done this.  Didn’t the older and more senior monk remember his vows? Their centuries-old customs? Stunned and indignant, he walked on in silence as an hour passed.

Two hours passed. After three hours, finally, the younger monk, too agitated to remain silent any longer, exclaimed, “How could you pick up the young woman? You know that we are not permitted to touch a woman!”

The senior monk stopped and looked at the junior monk and said, “My friend, I put the young woman down hours ago. Are you still carrying her?”

Often, I become aware that some unhelpful story loop is going around in my mind (i.e., the story contains judgement, perseverating, or is causing anxiety).

Often, I become aware that some unhelpful story loop is going around in my mind (i.e., the story contains judgement, perseverating, or is causing anxiety). If I am practicing being mindful, that unhelpful story loop might be interrupted with,  “Are you still carrying her?” That question reminds me that I have a choice. So did the junior monk. So, too, did the senior monk.

The message in the vignette above is could ultimately be about letting go and continuing unencumbered on your journey.

However, there is much subtle wisdom in this story:

  • Chose humbleness and grace over your convictions.
  • Righteousness and indignation block elevating to a more open-hearted, more unconditionally loving place.
  • Rigidity can stand in the way of offering true compassion and grace.
  • Let go of past actions so that today’s progress is not impeded.
  • Stewing on the actions and decisions (of others and self) could mean an unpleasant journey to your destination.

Are their other bits of wisdom from the story? What speaks to you the most?

Is there an aspect of the story you did not consider at first?

I invite you to look at where you know you hold on to something that is impeding your progress in the present.  When you have a practice of watching the mind, it can be a powerful starting point to stop the unhelpful thought patterns in their tracks.  It is not always easy to do – I totally understand and honor that because I have been there.

With the right support and a substantive quantity and quality of energy in your physical body, you can “set her down safely on the other side of the stream” and continue on your journey.

What would it mean for your ability to enjoy life, to heal, to manage stress if you could let go of some story loop?

I invite you to schedule a Discovery Session with me to discover and articulate what your vision and goals are for your life and to consider what might be getting in your way. We can meet in person (Raleigh area if available) or talk over the phone.  You don’t need to be local to participate in my programs and packages.  If you can’t find a time that works, let me know.

Cultivate Love and Kindness – Save the Planet

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Choosing to cultivate love rather than anger might just be what it takes to save the planet from extinction.
-Pema Chödrön

I have been thinking about how we treat each other as fellow inhabitants of this planet. I considered the teachings of my faith, the spiritual teachings of other faiths, and what I have learned from my many earthly teachers in the last few years.  Despite my own upbringing (and the spiritual and moral upbringing of most people I know), we don’t always choose Kindness and Benevolence as the basis for all that we do.

So, why don’t we? It is certainly more pleasant when more of us choose authentic kindness.  I, personally, want to be a part of a more pleasant planet. People who change their patterns of unkind action, words, and thoughts (their own and how they respond to that in others) generally find that such pattern change reduces their perceived stress and it enhances the healing process.

pema chodron quote

Here are some things I am fairly clear on:

  • When someone acts in a way that I perceive as unkind or unjust, I remind myself that I cannot control another.  I have no idea what their actual intentions and motivations are (I may think I do, but I truly don’t). I attempt not to take it personally for that reason.  Behavior that is continually unkind, unjust, selfish usually leads to me choosing to spend less time in that person’s presence.
  • It is never a justifiable, life-affirming action for me or anyone else to be purposefully be unkind or physically or emotionally hurtful. Telling myself that someone “had it coming” is truly not useful in the long run.  [Communicating boundaries or dislike for behavior with a clear and open-hearted intention is not unkind.]
  • My emotions and feelings are up to me and within my control.  Blaming someone else for my [insert unpleasant emotion here], takes away my personal power and leads me to identify as a victim.
  • Emotions themselves aren’t toxic.  Very simply put, what costs me is choosing to STAY with a thought pattern that isn’t serving me.   For example, anger itself isn’t “wrong” or “bad”.  However, verbally or physically attacking someone out of anger has a cost to the soul, not to mention our relationship with that person. By the same token, unexpressed anger can lead to a story in our heads of resentment, indignation, and blame. A story in our head based on resentment, indignation, and blame is not healthy, stresses the body, and eventually sets up the conditions for disease or physical ailments.
  • Balanced and resilient people have emotional states are not static – they MOVE and CHANGE.  In my experience working with clients,  the more we practice presence and the more we become crystal clear about our responsibility for our emotions, the more content and secure we become. We become MASTERS of not taking anything personally (or at least realizing it when we are and owning it as our CHOICE).

So what about when people are intentionally not kind or are disrespectful to others?

And when we ourselves choose to be unkind to others? There is usually a deep seated unresolved issue of insecurity (which comes from fear).  The ego is at play; the ego is protecting itself. [Love that part of you that wants to protect you.]

Do want to you to curb your own unkind language and thoughts towards others? We all know when we do it.  It can be especially easy to do with others who seem to regularly not treat us kindly.  We justify such retorts with a “what comes around goes around”. Does choosing a different pattern interest you?

What if you were catch yourself in the act of being impatient, unkind, or cutting with another (even just in your head)?

What if you got curious in that moment and dove in deeper to your own intention and motivation for the unkind language?

“What was really bumped into there that precipitated my attack/bluntness/retort/scathing criticism?”

“What am I holding onto as SO important that I am justifying talking to another this way?”

“Is there some other way I can “matter-of-factly” communicate my needs and point of view that is more open-hearted and less about bring “right”.

It’s not always easy to choose kindness.

However, I hold hope we can choose kindness more often, deliberately. Especially when it isn’t expected, we can make shifts in our own little world. Then continue the revolution to “save” the collective planet.

There are always ways we can invite shifts and openness into our lives.  Consider this Free Event if you live in Wake County:

3 Simple Tips to Transform Chronic Conditions and Stress into Your Energized Life

March 23 6-8pm Free

3700 National Drive, First Floor Conference Room

Raleigh, NC 27612

-just inside the Raleigh I-440 Beltline at Glenwood Avenue-

 

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