Setting boundaries

13th April 2023

Living with a chronic invisible illness is a challenge. It's something we learn to accept as we learn more about our limits, our body and it's limits, symptoms and sometimes his medication and treatment can impact our bodies too.

Remember, boundaries are a method of self-care. They don't make you less compassionate or help you remove people from your life. In fact, they help you keep your day to day life active and your relationships with others healthy without crushing yourself in the process.

How can we learn to set boundaries to protect our energy?

I have learnt over the past 8 weeks that working on an empty tank and fighting my illness left me burnt out and running on empty. I spent a number of months ignoring my bodies signs, pretending I wasn't sick whilst waiting for tests and X-rays, ultrasounds and MRI's. I carried on working (too much most of the time), I didn't take regular breaks, I was working out, trying to do things for others, trying to have fun and have a social life all whilst ignoring my body's cues to slow down.

It got to the point where I had no option but to stop.

Everything was exhausting, I was yawning during my therapy sessions, I slept for hours on end until I hit a point when I couldn’t sleep at all. The pain was consistently severe for weeks, movement was tough and I couldn’t think about anything my mind was blank.

I have seen a breakthrough this week in my body's pain; on week 4 of intensive hydrotherapy. As I rebuild my strength and muscle mass to protect my core and reduce pain I’m thinking more about how I can protect my energy going forwards.

Setting boundaries around the use of my energy will allow time and space to rest, leaving me energy for things that fuel my heart and make me happy!

My plan to set boundaries:

1. Define my boundaries - It’s essential to know what my limits actually are in order to put them in place. I plan to write a list of activities that need my energy on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I'll then review the list to see what items are a priority,  items that can be delegated, postponed or that I can ask for help with. This alone will lift a huge weight off of my shoulders!

2. Use my voice - I will work on speaking up and being more assertive when it comes to my boundaries around my health and conserving my energy. I know this will be hard at first, but with practice I'll get used to it. I need to ensure that I Identify any problems, ask questions, or follow through on the boundaries I have set in a polite and clear way.

3. Give myself permission - to rest, relax, nap, or whatever I need to do to take care of myself. This is the key for me is allowing myself to stop, to slow down to do less. To rest, to chill to just "be". I need to learn not to feel guilty for doing it! (This will be one of my biggest obstacles). Resting has always felt counter productive to me. It's important to remember that the time we take to rest is just as important as taking medicine, eating well and exercise. 

4. Ask for help - Asking for help can be challenging, especially if like me you're used to doing everything yourself. Asking for help even with everyday tasks can bring so much relief and can give us that much needed time to rest.

5. Take care of myself - Make self-care my top priority. This can look different for everyone. Self-care for me is a nice hot bath with a Netflix film or series, a candle, bubbles and the lights dimmed. Getting in bed with a heated blanket on and reading a book or going a meditation. If you can’t function, nothing in your life will either, rest is essential when managing a chronic illness. 

Setting boundaries is a work in progress for me! Starting with boundaries with myself, battling with my mind vs body. My perfection driver and goal oriented personality pushing me to do more and my body telling me enough is enough!

I'll keep you up to date on the work I put in to set boundaries not only with myself but within different areas of my life and the people in it.

LBH x