Relationships and social roles are meant to be places of support, celebration, inspiration, education, and growth.

Most sensitive folks are either putting way too much into unhealthy relationships and social roles or they’re hiding from meaningful relationships and social roles.

Putting too much into unhealthy, imbalanced relationships leave us feeling resentful, exhausted, and unfulfilled.

Hiding from meaningful engagements and opportunities takes away from the quality of our life, our joy, health, and resilience!

When we’re ashamed of ourselves or feeling resentful about our sensitivity, we find ourselves hiding the real us, and our genuine needs and boundaries. We feel we won’t be met or respected or understood and that it’s just “easier” to keep quiet and not rock the boat… ugh.

For most sensitive folks, there’s a deep sense of shame and resentment around our sensitivity and so relationships turn into places of over giving, overdoing, people-pleasing, and hiding our real selves and genuine needs.

People-pleasing is a form of boundary setting and feeling like you have trouble setting boundaries is a form of people-pleasing.

Let’s talk about how to effectively and easily set boundaries with this 5-step process:

Know yourself, know your values, and your boundaries.

For starters, it’s important to identify your own personal boundaries. What are your personal needs? What are your non-negotiables? What are your limits?

Identify the source of discomfort and the value or boundary being compromised.

Recognize the actual situation before you, as opposed to any hypothetical one you’ve created in your head or any fears you have around it. What’s happening in front of you and what’s needed? What’s being asked of you? What is not feeling good?

Decide what your ideal outcome would be and what that outcome requires.

What does relief look like in this situation? What is your ideal resolution and what does it take to get there?

Prepare to discuss your boundary with the other person, and have some idea of how flexible you’re willing to be in your boundary, if at all.

How flexible are you willing to be in this boundary? What’s your “wiggle room” here? When and where is the best place and time to have this conversation?

Express the boundary and invite dialogue with the other person

Less is more here. No need to over-explain, get defensive or justify things before you’ve even received a response for the other person. Invite dialogue to have a shared humanity experience and to support the ideal resolution in coming to fruition.

That’s it! Let me know how it goes for you! Share with me what your experiences are with setting boundaries – is it scary, easy, somewhere in the middle?

Relationships are such beautiful parts of life and you deserve and are capable of creating nourishing ones where you are free to be yourself and where your sensitivity is respected and celebrated. But, that starts with you first and the relationship within yourself.

All of this and more is what we cover in my program, The InnerSpark Method.

The InnerSpark Method is a proven, holistic, trauma-informed self-care system that teaches sensitive, deep-feelers how to embrace, safeguard, and lead with the gifts of their sensitivity to confidently and joyfully thrive in body, mind, and spirit, by living from their InnerSpark.