When Samantha met me for our first session, she said:

“I hate letting people down. I tend to take on far more than I can handle. But I want to be someone who excels in the tasks at work and home. This is creating problems for my work-life balance as I simply don’t know when and how to stop. I find myself annoyed and exhausted as a result.”

We can burn out pretty quickly if we don’t set clear and firm boundaries for ourselves. I find this is particularly true for mothers, business owners or anyone who is working with ‘babies’—literal of figurative responsibilities or projects that need nurturing and attention.

Here’s what you should be doing to create boundaries that respect your being.

Get clear about your priorities

In my coaching programme and workshops, I invite participants to work on an exercise called ‘Your True North’. They look at their life from an aerial perspective and then break this down into short-term goals. Some questions that help them determine their True North are: what needs to be accomplished and experienced before they die? What legacy do they want to leave behind in their personal and professional lives? This exercise gives them crystal clarity about what’s important and what’s not. If a mother is busy with work and children, she doesn’t have to volunteer with the PTA. From this clarity about priorities, we can move onto the next step.

Say no

When we know exactly what’s important in the larger scheme of things, we can easily say no to events, people and opportunities that don’t align with our True North and life goals. I recommend learning the art of saying no. Let ‘No’ be a complete sentence. Say it without apologies, explanations or justifications. Sometimes we get caught up in trying to defend or over-explain our feelings and decisions. It’s OK to be gentle yet firm and direct. Repeat yourself if faced with resistance or criticism.

Remember these words by Gemma Stone: “Saying no to what deeply doesn’t matter means you say yes to what does.”

Create inner boundaries with morning rituals

According to Ayurveda, mornings from 4am to 10am are like spring season, setting us up for the vitality and creativity needed for the summer [which lasts from 10am to 4pm]. Creating morning me-time rituals can help significantly in setting clear intentions and moving our energy forward with clarity and focus. This time allows us to connect with our inner self and our boundaries. These rituals don’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Writing in your journal, a 10-minute meditation, a short walk, reading some affirmations, a quick dance, a cup of tea or coffee enjoyed leisurely are some examples. Tune in to see what practice you need to centre yourself and prepare emotionally, mentally and energetically for the day to come. This will help with prioritising and setting boundaries.

Tune into feelings and bodily sensations

Shakira wasn’t joking when she sang “hips don’t lie”. In fact our entire body serves as a navigational mechanism that can steer us clear of unhealthy, toxic people and experiences. While our mind might rationalise having our boundaries encroached upon, our body will not entertain any such breaches. I ask my clients to use this faithful, powerful ally when making decisions. Through our bodily sensations we can tell if our boundaries are being trespassed. When an opportunity, task or conversation comes up, how does your body react? Does it feel tight, contracted, heavy? Or does it feel light and expansive? Another technique is to feel the end result as if it has become a reality right now. How does that feel in the heart, body and mind? If it feels uncomfortable you probably need to protect your boundaries now.

Speak your truth with authenticity and power

Our words are powerful tools to relay our boundaries to others. We might be very good at setting inner boundaries as discussed in point number three but unless we come across with clarity and power at the time of conversation, our words are of no use. Disempowering words and expressions such as “Does that makes sense?”, “Kind of”, or the use of undermining qualifiers as we communicate our needs and boundaries result in us being taken less seriously. It’s important to be able to communicate clearly, authentically and powerfully both at home and at work. Start practising at home by yourself and keep these words by Frank Outlaw in mind:

“Watch your thoughts, they become words;

watch your words, they become actions;

watch your actions, they become habits;

watch your habits, they become character;

watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Building healthy boundaries is not something we’re taught as children at home or in school. It’s an acquired life skill that is as important as budgeting or taking care of our health. As we learn this skill and get better at standing up for ourselves, we find more joy and vitality available to us in our daily life.

In which area of your life do you need to create healthier boundaries for yourself?

The post To Prevent Burnout, Set Clear Boundaries appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Published by: Vermilion

ISBN: 9780091955038

Pages: 288

Price: INR 599

The book’s cover states, “The physics of vulnerability is simple: if we are brave enough, often enough, we will fall. Being brave and falling helps us grow and changes us for the better.”

Social scientist and best-selling author Dr Brené Brown has spent several years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity and shame. While her previous two books are a “call to arms” to wholehearted living, this third book is all about acknowledging the desperation, the shame, and the vulnerability that comes along with failure, and rising up to own our story.

When Dr Brown talks about failure, it is not just in some large-scale professional endeavour, but also the personal heartbreaks and catastrophes in our lives. She addresses the complex nature of failure, reminding us that we tend to “gold-plate” failure and grit, sugar-coating the process and the pain involved in falling and in deciding to rise again. The book is not about the tired cliché of failure being the stepping stone to success.

Rising strong from our failures involves a three-step process:

1.  The Reckoning: Walking into our story and recognising that a button has been pushed and that we are about to explode with negative or undesirable emotion.
2. The Rumble: Owning our story by being honest about what we tell ourselves, by admitting our deeper emotions of shame, guilt, blame, and being willing to revisit and challenge these self-narratives to arrive at the truth of who we are and how we engage with others.
3. The Revolution: Writing a new ending and changing how we engage with the world on a permanent basis.

Of these three steps, the Rumble is the messiest: the place of the greatest struggle, and, a non-negotiable part of the process—to become aware of the story we’re telling ourselves about our hurt, anger, frustration or pain. In an effort to come out smelling of roses, we tend to glorify our recovery and the redemptive ending while casting off the emotional darkness that engulfs us when we are down, face-in-the-dirt, struggling.

The book suggests that we write down our raw emotions and feelings at this stage of rumbling—what is called the SFD [“shitty first draft”, as per the author]—without filtering the experience or worrying about how our story makes us look. Then we examine our self-defeating assumptions by asking:

• What do I know objectively?
• What more do I need to learn and understand about the other people in the story?
• What more do I need to learn and understand about myself?

Now we can look for the delta—or space—between the story we make up and a more objective truth.

“Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”

As with the previous two books, Rising Strong is rich with anecdotes from Dr Brown’s own life. Early in the book, she shares a story about a tough moment that surprised her while swimming across a lake with her husband during a family vacation. Her self-doubt, emotional reaction, anger and pain will resonate well with readers who have had a similar experience. Instead of painting herself into perfection, Dr Brown tears apart that experience to seek the truth about her story and learn to own it, and thereby engage from a place of understanding and compassion.

“We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”

Our thoughts, actions and feelings are like a three-legged stool, each equally important to make a positive change in our lives. Positive thoughts combined with negative feelings will not lead to positive actions. Off-loading, bouncing, or numbing our hurts, or even stockpiling or bottling them up, or simply denying them, is not the way to deal with our deep dark pain.

Borrowing from Newton’s Third Law of Motion, Dr Brown proposes that for every emotion we feel, there is a definite response elicited in us. When angry, we can mindlessly lash out or we can be aware of what we’re really feeling and adjust how we respond. We learn that to be vulnerable and resilient is the best way to engage with the world so as not to be paralysed by fear of failure or hide behind the veil of perfectionism.

This was first published in the February 2016 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Why we need to clear negative energies

Your soul or spiritual energy has three aspects—your higher self, your soul and your heart.

Your higher self stays on the higher plane and dimensions of existence and is untouched by the negativity and challenges of life on Earth. When you are born and start a new cycle of life on the earthly planes, your soul energy unites with your physical body and from the very outset of your life it will be challenged by life experiences. These are intended to teach you and give you the opportunity to grow spiritually. As you learn and understand the purpose of your life experiences, your wisdom grows and this accumulates with all the wisdom your soul has acquired through every life time. This depository of understanding sits with your higher self, which becomes your own database of wisdom and knowledge. This higher understanding and knowing can be accessed at any time while you go about your daily life and is generally referred to as intuition—or for the male population who prefer a more grounded description—a gut feeling!

Your soul energy is connected to your higher self through your heart centre with a cord of energy. This cord or channel can be fully open or blocked. The connection is always there but remains blocked for most of us, most of the time. This means we are not fully connected and not fully in touch with our spiritual wisdom; which is why we find it difficult to make decisions or have trust in our higher self or the universe to provide for our needs and wants.

The energies that block us from our higher self are also the energies that bring down the vibrancy of our aura and general energy levels for physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. Let’s take a look at these blocking and harmful energies.

Energies that block

“All energies thoughts and feelings that are not of love will take you further and further from your goal of being fully connected to your higher self”

In the truest sense of the word, there is no negative energy, but there is energy that is heavy, unlike the light and vibrant energy of love. I call it loveless energy. However, to keep things simple and straightforward I shall use the term ‘negative energy’ to describe any atmosphere or energy that you create or attract that pulls you down and keeps you away from your higher self. Each day we pick up energies and attachments and create blocks and heaviness in our energy field. There are a number of sources of negativity and I will address those that most commonly affect us.

Thought forms created from anxious and negative thoughts

You are a moving mass of specks of energy. Although you feel dense and solid, you are in fact far from it because you are made up of energy. Therefore you are susceptible to the changing vibrations of the energies around you.

You are also affected by your own thoughts and feelings. Positive thoughts make your overall energy lighter and raise the frequency, while negative thoughts hold a heavier and denser vibration. Therefore, the more upbeat and positive you feel, the lighter is your energy; the more despondent and unhappy you are, the heavier and darker your overall energy becomes.

Apart from this overall effect, negative thoughts like anger, resentment, self-dislike, pessimism and anxiety will create actual blocks in your energy field. When you have the same negative thoughts about yourself or your life over and over again, the energies of those thoughts bind together and create a mass that obstructs the flow of energy through your system. Thoughts such as:

“I hate my body”

“I don’t know where the rent money will come from”

“I don’t have enough clients—I fear my business will fail”

“I wonder if this lump is cancer”

“I am so scared of dying”

“I am so useless—my mother was right”

All these will stay with you and bring you down, spiritually, emotionally and physically.

Avoiding other people’s negative thoughts

Your own negativity acts as a magnet to attract negative people and situations. As you heal [transform the energy from dark to light] your own scars, hurts, imprints and thoughts, you will find that you are affected less and less by the negativity of others. But while you are going through the healing process—which can take time—it’s advisable to use protection. Here are a few ways that you can keep yourself clear:

• Visualise yourself surrounded by a  violet flame of protection—this will clear both other people’s thought forms and your own.
• See yourself in a bubble of light that has thick walls through which nothing but love can enter; all emotional shafts that come towards you bounce off the walls.

How to get rid of negative energy

Here is a process that works well to clear and lighten your energy field. The principle we are using here is that you are dispersing the balls of negative energy that cling to each other like a magnet. These are your negative thoughts, which are drawn like to like to create blocks. Negativity from other people will be attracted in the same way. Once you release your negativity, you will find you are not a magnet for outside negativity either.

• Find a quiet place and shut the door—even if this is the loo at work!
• Use your hands as combs. Sweep and comb through your energy field and flick away the energies—this will disperse them.
• Hold the intention of lightening your energy field and clearing all that is not supporting and lifting you. If you are completely alone, say “I release all negativity that is in and attached to my aura” [say it in your head if you can be overheard].
• If you are in your own home, it’s useful to flick the unwanted energies into a bowl of water and sea salt, for salt attracts and holds negativity and it will help to keep your room clear.

What you need for successful self-healing

The process of self-healing requires:

• Awareness : You need to acknowledge that you have something that needs healing
• Intention : Set your mind and will to heal and gain understanding
• Open your mind and heart to allow the healing to happen : Set this intention by holding your hands, prayer style, in front of first your heart then your forehead then open them wide
• See the signs and read your body : Keep your awareness high as the energies you need come towards you
• Let it happen in its own time and don’t stress about the process : Go with the flow of it!

Healing happens when energies are allowed to change, when you are prepared to let the emotions flow, when you are honest with yourself, when your desire to be happier, lighter and free is stronger than your fear of the change.

Lastly, remember that healing will never happen whilst you blame yourself, other people, your circumstances or even the government!

Excerpted with permission from The Soul Connection By Anne Jones, published by Piatkus

The post Spring cleaning for your soul appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

For one thing, you probably feel like you don’t have the right to defend yourself, yes? Most people feel that it’s wrong to express anger, especially against people they love or respect, so they swallow their feelings instead.

Yet, this reaction is neither helpful nor needed. Understand that you are not obliged to own the actions or feelings of other people, no matter who they are. Although tempting, stewing over such things only leads to angst and bitterness.

But how do you prevent other people’s insults, criticisms or downright rudeness from causing you pain? Do you really have what it takes to protect yourself from the emotional tyranny of others? Can you even do this without causing more trouble? I believe you can. So let’s talk about how this is done.

There are no bad emotions

When we are at odds with someone, it can be hard to tell who is right or wrong. But I promise you that you can never be wrong for having an emotional reaction. That’s like saying birds should be ashamed of flying. At no time should you feel guilty for simply feeling anger, shock or any other emotion. Put in another way, it’s okay to feel whichever way you like.

As children we are often taught to refrain from being too wild, too loud or too angry. And no matter how old you get, this message stays stuck in your head. This is why we often struggle with intense emotion. We let it riddle us with guilt, fear and a deep-seated urge to remain silently dissatisfied.

However, having strong feelings, especially after someone has emotionally crushed you, isn’t wrong; in fact it’s normal. The question isn’t whether or not your feelings are okay. The real question is how to find a beneficial way to express and protect your feelings without producing guilt or regret in yourself.

To be understood you must first understand yourself

Before you go around blaming people for how you feel, you must first examine yourself. This is uncomfortable. No one likes to see their own flaws or admit that they might have something to do with a negative situation. But self-reflection is crucial. For example, let’s say you believe that your boss hates you with passion. He doesn’t like how you dress, speak or work. And so, whenever he’s around you feel nervous and awkward.

But what’s really happening? Is it that your boss hates you or could it be that you hate your boss but don’t feel that it’s right to feel that way? Is your boss really a bad person, or does she remind you of someone else you don’t like? Is it really this single person that burns you up inside or could it be that she represents something larger that you despise? The sources of our feelings aren’t always clear-cut. Take the time to examine why you feel the way you do, for hurt feelings are nearly always softened by careful thought.

Realise that it may not be about you

Sometimes when people struggle in life they take it out on others. Usually this happens when people unconsciously express personal stress without knowing it. That doesn’t mean that it is okay for someone to be abusive simply because they are stressed; it just means that sometimes it is helpful to imagine yourself standing in their place before you judge their actions. It is important to remember that empathy and compassion toward others, including people we dislike, can change our feelings even in the most difficult situations.

Accept that you cannot read minds

When someone does something to upset you, you’ll often try to read his mind to decrease your own anxiety. It’s a primitive way of preventing a worst-case scenario from happening. This, of course, is preposterous. Not only is your mind reading in vain, but it also increases anxiety and misunderstanding. It even gets in the way of using more effective problem-solving skills. Things like silence, assumption and sloppy guess work will only serve to intensify a situation rather than resolve it.

The key to protecting your feelings

So far we’ve talked about what to do when someone does something to hurt you:

• Acknowledge how you feel
• Understand why you feel that way
• Try not to take it  personally
• Try not to guess why the person did what they did.

But that’s not all. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to protect your feelings is to set clear boundaries with people. While you’re obviously not going to go around providing people with a list of rules, when someone does offend you, it is critical that you speak up.

To be fair, people sometimes have moments of stupidity and unintentionally act badly; forgive those people. However, if you notice a harmful pattern in the way someone treats you, then you must act. Tell the offending party how and why you were offended, but most importantly, clearly state that you will not tolerate their bad behaviour.

If expressing your concern directly is not an option, then introduce some space. Limit the time you spend with people that emotionally drain you and fail to respect your boundaries. You can even be kind about it. Trying to feel compassion and empathy for them will help you to increase your tolerance and patience towards them. Your gentle reserve will send a clear message that will be heard with time.

Whenever you take personal responsibility for someone else’s behaviour, you’re setting yourself up for sorrow, rage and anxiety. When you fail to care about yourself and your needs as much as you care for others, you are also setting the expectation that you are okay with people treating you poorly.

My advice to you: be kind and firm with others and you will better protect your feelings from bad behaviour.

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