Welcome to Mental Health Mondays, where we will dive into a myriad of topics to keep your emotional, physical and mental states on the up and up! Stefania here, kicking us off with one of my favorite topics – boundaries! It’s not just a marker of territories and state lines anymore, but of something that we all need, whether we know it or not!
Maintaining mental health often hinges on setting, practicing, and respecting boundaries – in your work, personal relationships, and even in your own habits and self-care.
Setting boundaries is not about shutting others out or imposing upon them, but about ensuring you have the room to nurture your own well-being, while speaking up about what you are realistically able or unable to do.
Boundaries can help us:
- Manage stress and prevent burnout.
- Allows us space to recharge and stay balanced.
- Protect emotional well-being by defining where our responsibilities end and where others' begin.
- Foster healthier relationships by clearly communicating our limits.
Take a look at these some of these go-to boundary setting phrases that can help you in a variety of situations! I encourage you to use or edit these, or come up with some of your own that you practice out loud BEFORE you’re in a situation where you might need to use them. It might sound silly, but sometimes it can be helpful to practice ‘saying the words’ before we are in the situation where we need to use them!
“It’s my preference to….”
“I would like to…”
“I don’t think I can do that right now, but I could at X time/day!”
“I don’t care for X, how do you feel about Y?”
“Let me check my schedule before I commit to that.”
“Let me get back to you.”
“Can we revisit this at another time?”
Stay tuned for future boundary setting installations! Until next time, be well and speak your boundaries!