In the past two weeks I have had over 6 conversations about setting healthy boundaries with both clients and friends. It’s not just women with autoimmune disease who struggle with this. Setting healthy boundaries is something that everyone seems to need help with. 

For me, setting healthy boundaries started with learning how to say no. For most of my life I have found myself trying to please those around me. I always felt that if I did what everyone asked of me or wanted of me then I was worthy of love. 

This idea became more and more ingrained the older I got. In the process of trying to keep everyone else happy, the one person who was not happy was me. I rarely, if ever, had time to do what I wanted to do. I kept giving until there was literally nothing left for me to give. 

Living in this way created a lot of anger and resentment. While sometimes I was dealing with other people’s expectations of me, often I was the one putting those expectations on myself. 

It was exhausting and I could not keep up with it all. Eventually, the stress would leave me run down, stressed out and sick. 

It took years for me to see the pattern I had set in place. I started to notice that there was this horrible feeling left behind when I didn’t say what I wanted to say; I could feel it in my body for hours, sometimes even days. This habit kept my stress levels high, my cortisol high, my inflammation levels high, and eventually my autoimmune diseases out of control. 

Do you find yourself doing this too; saying yes when everything in your body wants to say no? You can lie to yourself but your body always knows the truth. When you ignore the signs from your body you lose your sense of peace and you end up exhausted, frustrated, and often, sick. So now what?

Start by paying attention to the signs your body is giving you. Notice how you get that feeling in your stomach and how your mind starts spinning and justifying why you said yes when you wanted to say no.

 Next, practice saying no to things. Start with small things that you almost don’t have to think about saying no to and build up to the bigger, more challenging ones. Don’t give an elaborate excuse. You don’t have to explain why you are saying no, it’s just a no. 

When you start saying no you will feel the difference in your body. While saying no can feel very uncomfortable in the moment, it will help you feel better overall. You will have more to give when your yes is really a yes and not a no in sheep’s clothing. When your needs and wants finally make the priority list you will notice how much better you feel and the process will only get easier.

Once I was able to start using my voice to say no to things I didn’t want to do, I began to feel better physically. As my stress and cortisol levels lowered so did the inflammation in my body. I had the time and energy to work on my health and get my autoimmune diseases under control. As I was able to see the physical and mental results from setting healthy boundaries they became easier and easier to set.

Now get to it! Start practicing saying no today! Need help? I’m just an email away.