**This is an excerpt from a chapter on boundary setting in my upcoming book**

You’re going to have people or things in your life that probably make it easy to let your guard down, which is a great feeling and how I picture things SHOULD be when you surround yourself with those that you love. It also leads to potential boundary crossing which isn’t good for anybody. We all need to make sure that while we want to be there for the ones that we love, that showing up for them isn’t at a cost too detrimental to our own well-being. Sometimes supporting or loving someone from a distance is enough so that you can still make sure that your own mental or physical health is still being prioritized.

As someone who is always trying to make sure that everybody else in my life is good, it allows others to take advantage of me whether that be asking for my time, energy, or both. This isn’t necessarily on purpose or isn’t being done to be malicious, but regardless it still happens. I also think that managing a blog for 8 years and being vulnerable about my thoughts and emotions on the internet or in conversations has opened up the door for people to think that I am someone they can always confide in and that I WANT to hear about their problems. I’ve basically become a therapist for some of my friends over the last few years, but here’s the reality… as much as I do enjoy having conversations about the trials of life, these can be fairly exhausting given the severity of events that happen in life sometimes. It’s easy to talk about the weather or what someone is up to for the weekend, it isn’t as easy to talk about the abuse they are going through in a relationship or the feelings of failure they are experiencing from their career. I like to think that I have a decent handle on life (hence why I am writing this book), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own shit going on and sometimes my mental capacity is already working at 100% to stay sane and deal with that. When my friends come to me and start venting about their problems in life, it’s temporarily adding these problems to my plate which can be overwhelming at times.

A recurring issue of mine is that I want to show up for them every single time, and I don’t ever complain or tell them that these conversations are draining me. Instead, I try to help them in whatever regard I can which is usually listening to them for hours and providing feedback on what I think they should do or how they should approach their dilemmas. After these conversations are over, I find myself absolutely tired and sometimes in a negative place when it actually comes time to deal with my own life. This isn’t good.

So what did I do? I started to set a boundary with how much I am willing to listen or give to other people who need my help. For example: If I found myself repeating the advice I had given to the person and they just chose not to listen to me and kept making similar mistakes, then I wouldn’t continue to talk to them about the same problem. What’s the point if they aren’t willing to ACTUALLY listen to me anyway? I’ve also made a conscious effort to tell people when I feel like they are being too overbearing and that the conversation isn’t serving me anymore. Don’t get me wrong, this is incredibly difficult to do and given the sensitivity of what people typically come to talk to me about, I am risking upsetting them even further since they are usually in an emotional state to begin with. Regardless, it’s still something that I’ve been proactively practicing because it’s an important behaviour that protects my own mental health and ensures that I have enough mental stamina left in my day to tackle my own priorities. Doing this doesn’t mean that we are not willing to help others, or we are trying to only care about ourselves. I want to throw in a huge disclaimer that If any of my friends or family are reading this then I don’t want you to think that I am telling you to never come to me for help again. It’s more that I ask you to be aware that whoever you are talking to may be going through their own problems and that asking them for help or using them as a source to vent can be fairly draining sometimes. Please don’t be offended if I or anybody else tells you that they need a break or can’t talk to you at that moment. It doesn’t mean we love you any less, it just means that we are making the effort to love ourselves more.

That leads me to my final point: as much as setting our own boundaries are important, it’s equally important to respect other people’s boundaries that they have set too. Whether that’s accepting their version of ‘No’, giving them space when they need it, or not trying to push something on them that they either don’t want to be involved in or can’t take it on given their limited bandwidth. If you expect someone to respect the boundaries that you are working on setting up for yourself, then you have to also respect that they may have a set of their own that you may not necessarily agree with. Healthy relationships between individuals will have both people respecting each other’s wishes, and if anything, the boundaries they set will complement the type of relationship they are trying to have.