Why Boundaries Are Important
First, it is essential to establish the importance of setting boundaries both for your emotional and physical well-being. When you set boundaries, you will start to experience freedom emotionally and physically.
If you are living with chronic pain, setting boundaries for yourself will help you navigate your day-to-day. But if you don’t have chronic pain, keep reading, because setting healthy boundaries can have a massive, positive impact on anyone.
Setting boundaries with Chronic Pain
When you’re struggling to make it through day by day in chronic pain, an important thing you can do for yourself is to set healthy boundaries. That is so easy to say. Easy to tell you even. But to carry it out? That can be incredibly difficult.
So if that’s you, and it’s hard to set boundaries, you’re not alone and we’ll look at some ways to help. We’ll look at the importance of setting boundaries and uncover some tips to help encourage you to follow through with them.
Before we dive in, an important question to answer for yourself, I had to as well, is this: do you want your chronic pain to define you? Or whatever it is that you are struggling with: do you want “fill-in-the-blank” to define you?
I don’t. It’s a part of me and my lifestyle now, but it’s just that. Just a part. It doesn’t make me any less than who God created me to be. Through my journey of living with chronic pain, God has blessed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined and I have found joy in Christ that I would not trade for anything.
When you can firmly see yourself through the lens of Christ, you’ll have a firm foundation to stand on. Go back and read that post if you need to on the powerful truths that will transform your self-worth. Once you have done that, come back to this 🙂
Having established the importance of a Christ-centered self-worth first, we can now dive into the nitty-gritty day-to-day and how setting healthy boundaries can have a positive impact on you emotionally and physically.
Why Set Boundaries
By carefully considering how you spend your time and deciding what is important to you, you can choose to spend your time with the things that bring you the most joy. That is why it is so important to set boundaries.
If your boundaries are not set, your time can get away from you. You can find yourself saying yes to things when a better answer would be “no” (more on that below).
You’ll start to feel fulfilled in your life and most importantly, you’ll find joy in ways you may not have seen coming. Even if that means you have chronic pain, like me, or if you are struggling in a different area of your life.
Tip to Setting Healthy Boundaries For Yourself
So how do you set healthy boundaries? From my experience living with chronic pain, the biggest impact for me has been accepting and being okay with saying the little word “no” to things.
Decide Carefully How You Spend Your Time: It’s Okay To Say No
Any perfectionists or people pleasers?? I am raising my hand to that! If you’re like me, it can be challenging to say no to things you used to love doing prior to the onset of your pain. Prior to my auto accident, I was working full-time in a marketing role.
I went back to work in a limited fashion a couple years ago. I thought if I could just get back to working again! “Then I’ll have it all together.”
But I couldn’t do it.
I would push through my time at work, but at the end of the day, I was miserable and in a ton of pain. After getting home, I wouldn’t be able to help with dishes, wouldn’t be able to help with my young kids, and it was awful. I had to step back and say no.
And that is okay.
It has to be.
It took me a long time to get there – to accept my limitations – and be okay with that.
But being on the other side of that trap? That trap that kept me saying “yes” to everything that came my way and continuously “pushing through” is absolutely freeing.
It’s okay to say no. Even if it’s family member or your best friend. Pray about it and see where God leads you. He will come through and deliver. Just. Like. He. Promises.
Setting Boundaries, Finding Peace
God has put on my heart the dream of encouraging women to find joy in their lives. Especially if they are in chronic pain, like me, or struggling through another difficult situation or circumstance. If any of that describes you, I want to help encourage you to set boundaries, even though it can be challenging.
It can be challenging, but at the end, incredibly rewarding. Because your situation may not change at all or in the timing you want. But what you can change? Is how you perceive it.
So when you set boundaries for yourself, it will help you perceive your situation differently. Instead of a repetitive falling into the trap of saying “yes” to please others or constantly try to push through, you will be freed from the constant chasing after everything you have said yes to.
The example I gave that kept me trying to “just getting back to work, to have it all together,” was replaced with a reality that I can choose how I spend my time and a peace sets in.
Peace is found when you start to set healthy boundaries. Peace that will settle into your mind, your decisions, your day-to-day.
And that peace is rooted in the truth of God’s Word. Open your Bible and seek Him out. I say this a lot – “seek Him out.” But transformation and change truly starts there. The living, active Word of God will transform your heart and mind.
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” Proverbs 30:5
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2
How To Follow Through Setting Boundaries
Setting boundaries is great, but following through with them is a whole different story. So how do you do that? How do you follow through with those boundaries you have set?
First of all, you have to become okay with saying no to things. I think a lot of healthy boundaries start right there: saying no and being okay with it. It’s okay to say no. Say no to things that would jeopardize your health physically, your emotional well-being, or your time with your loved ones.
A lot of times we can put undue pressure on ourselves and say yes to things because we’ll feel guilty if we don’t say yes or we’re afraid of what people will think of us if we say no. Or perhaps a combination of both.
But both are rooted in that same fear – that same lie – that your worth and value are tied to what you do and what people think of you. Neither are true. We circle back to a christ-centered self-worth. It is so important. And equally powerful. It truly impacts the day-to-day decisions we make.
I’ll leave this topic today with a question. A question you can answer privately for yourself or leave a comment to discuss: what boundaries do you need to set?
