I never really gave much thought to personal boundaries. To be honest, I was never really sure what they were. But, I’ve been encouraged to consider thinking about them because as I suspected, personal boundaries are related to notions of self-worth. It makes sense that I never gave it much thought because as it turns out, I never really gave my sense of self-worth much thought either. But, better late than never, right?

I guess in order for myself to set up my personal boundaries, I need to establish a healthy sense of self-worth and/or (probably and) start valuing myself in a way that isn’t contingent on other people or the feelings that they may have toward me. Easier said than done. I don’t know why I care so much about what this one person thinks about me. And honestly, that’s likely the root of all my problems. Why am I seeking validation from someone who thinks so little of me? Who thinks that everything that comes my way is trivial? Who consistently makes me feel…unworthy? Why does my sense of worth have to come from him? Who the hell is he to make me feel this way and why am I allowing his absurd perception of me, fuck with my sense of self-worth? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but it’s high-time I start dealing with them because the longer I prolong this introspection, the longer my healing process will take. And ain’t nobody got time for that.

I think that the concepts of self-worth and self-esteem are often conflated. I don’t particularly think I have a self-esteem issue (because usually, I think I’m p dope), but I definitely think I have a self-worth issue because I haven’t established my personal boundaries. If self-worth is about finding intrinsic value in who I am as a person and I break that down into intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual and social silos, then I think my issue lies in understanding and building my emotional worth (and subsequently, my emotional boundaries).

I know that I’m entitled to my own thoughts (I mean duh, this entire blog is testament to that). I know that I’m entitled to my own physical space (I hate it when people touch me, I don’t even like massages. They are creepy, don’t @ me). I know that I’m entitled to my spiritual space (my entire apartment is set-up to be a cozy lil’ sanctuary because I sage this shit out of it on the reg). And I know that I’m entitled to my social space (I have the best friends in the entire world and would never put myself in a position to lose them, ever). So therefore, my problem lies in the fact that when I am in a relationship, I do not give myself any emotional space to feel things in tense situations. I always try to diffuse these situations as quickly as possible because I don’t like fighting with my significant other. I don’t like arguing with them. I don’t like going to bed angry with them because it gives me intense anxiety when things aren’t right. I get so anxious when things are left unresolved that I literally cannot concentrate on anything else. It consumes me. Which isn’t exactly ideal when you’re a busy law student who probably over-extends herself and always has a thousand things to do.

Even though I was upset or felt like I had reasons to be angry, I was always afraid to bring those feelings up with my previous partner because he had a habit of turning it around on me. He would get mad because I was mad. And I’d find myself apologizing for things that I really shouldn’t have apologized for in the first place because 1) I didn’t do anything wrong; and 2) I just didn’t want to fight with him. Hindsight is 20/20 and I should have stood my ground because how he treated me was not something I should have been okay with then, as it’s surely not something I would be okay with now…or ever again. He also made me feel like my feelings in certain situations were trivial, or wrong, or absurd. Like I was crazy for feeling a certain way. Or like he was annoyed or irritated or even angry that I felt a certain way. All of this made me think twice about my reactions and feelings towards these situations. Like maybe he was right. Maybe my feelings weren’t valid. Maybe they were wrong.

But that’s insane. I am entitled to feel the way I feel about certain situations, just as he was entitled to feel the way he felt about them. I’m never wrong for feeling one way - I’m allowed to feel that way and just because he didn’t feel the same way, doesn’t mean my feelings were invalid. Even though he made it seem like they were. If I had a stronger sense of emotional boundaries then, if I had set limits with him on what was acceptable and not acceptable behaviour towards me, then maybe our relationship would have ended a lot sooner than it had. Or maybe it would have lasted longer (unlikely, but still a possibility). Who knows?

What I am certain about is that this relationship happened in order to teach me a lesson on emotional boundaries. I should never have accepted being treated so poorly just to avoid a fight. This relationship taught me that I need to build and establish strong emotional boundaries between me and my future partner from the get-go, because if I don’t and I let the fear of losing them override these boundaries, then I literally have no self-respect and no sense of self-love. Because that’s what it circles back to.

I do respect myself and I do love myself. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be working this hard on bettering myself, for myself. I wouldn’t be meditating, or going to yoga, or going to therapy if I still wasn’t making myself a priority. But I am my priority. And because of that, I’m never going to risk losing my sense of self-respect again in any future relationship that I may have. Because I do matter. My feelings aren’t invalid. And I’m worthy of someone who doesn’t make me feel like I don’t matter.

OKAY, well this has been good. I’ve realized that I have issues in my emotional worth and need to establish boundaries around that. And now that I’ve identified my problem, I can start fixing it. I have no qualms with being assertive in areas beyond my personal life, so I feel like I can adopt that same level assertiveness in my personal relationships. And moving forward, I will be doing just that. So…

thank u, next!