Boundaries And The Path Toward Self-Trust

Boundaries are one of the most misunderstood aspects of healing and recovery. For some of us, being “boundariless” looks like saying yes when we mean no, letting others decide for us, and living in fear of rejection or disapproval. For others, it looks like building walls, controlling outcomes, or cutting people off entirely as a way to feel safe.

Both patterns disconnect us — not only from others, but from our own truth and authenticity. In this episode, we’ll explore why so many of us struggle to set boundaries and how these patterns often trace back to fear, perfectionism, and old survival strategies. More importantly, we’ll shift the lens: boundaries are not just safe — they’re sacred. They are acts of self-trust and self-honor that reclaim our energy and invite authentic connection.

Transcript

Today we're going to be talking about boundaries but as I was sitting with sharing an episode with you around what a boundary is and how to set it and what it looks like to not be setting boundaries in your lives,

I was really thinking about the journey towards feeling safe in setting boundaries and I believe that the foundation beneath all embodied boundary setting is self-trust.

When you don't trust yourself,

Your boundaries collapse,

Decisions can feel impossible,

And you can stay stuck in these cycles of seeking outside validation and direction.

So it can often feel like a catch-22,

What comes first,

The self-trust or the boundary?

I have found in this work that they truly dance together alongside one another and this is where it really requires the courage to be listening to yourself and your body,

Your nervous system,

And to begin taking contrary action even if you're scared.

And it's a deep invitation into allowing for imperfection.

In the beginning of the practice of setting boundaries you're really learning how to become consistent,

Honest with yourself,

Connected to yourself,

And tuned in.

And why self-trust is the anchor for you in this practice is because without it you will be second-guessing or overthinking and giving your power away time and time again.

And when you come into a place of trust with yourself you can set boundaries without feeling guilty,

You can make decisions without affirmation or panic,

And you will start to remember what your desires,

Wants,

Values,

You start to remember all these pieces of yourself that you deeply care about,

All these pieces of yourself that are authentic to who you are.

When we are living in codependent patterns,

Self-trust is the first thing to go if we ever really felt like we had it to begin with.

And it's often the last thing that we reclaim in this journey of healing because all those years of self-abandonment has taught you to value other people's needs and opinions over your own.

And so what that looks like in your life might be repeated self-abandonment.

So that's saying yes when you mean no,

Ignoring your own red flags,

Staying quiet to keep the peace,

Keeping yourself super small.

If you've experienced gaslighting or invalidation,

When your feelings or reality are dismissed,

Or you start doubting your own perceptions of reality,

You lived in an environment or were in a relationship where every time you had a feeling or emotion,

You were told you were sensitive or the other person was upset with your reaction,

Then you can start to feel crazy.

And this is a very common thing.

This was a huge part of my experience in my codependency journey when I was with somebody who was not able to hold space for my emotional experience.

So they would defend themselves and attack.

Even if I showed up from a place of being calm or gentle or saying,

Hey,

That really hurt me,

They would defend themselves and then they would attack.

And when we've been in dynamics like that,

It can make us feel like,

Are we experiencing reality?

Is this person right?

Especially if we are more of a in close attachment person,

Or we tend to go one down and we don't go one up and puff up.

And so you can start to feel like you don't know what is up and what is down.

If you've ever been with a narcissist,

Or if you've ever been with somebody that uses anger and rage to manipulate and control,

Then you have experienced this feeling.

And it is really,

Really devastating.

And it can feel really challenging to come into a place of self-trust when someone is undermining your experience time after time after time.

And that really leads into perfectionism and fear of mistakes.

And somewhere along the way,

You're learning or have learned that being wrong is dangerous.

Being wrong will cause people to look at you a certain way or feel a certain way about you.

So you might experience being frozen and not able to make decisions or you just allow other people to make decisions for you.

So if you think about your story of self-trust and where you are in your life,

With trusting yourself,

You're going to find that it isn't just lost in one big moment,

You might have had a trauma happen in your life or a very specific relationship where you completely went into a place of self abandonment and lack of self-trust.

But there's also a good chance that when you look back at your story,

You'll notice that it eroded slowly.

And that our part in this,

Your part in this is that choice by choice,

In every choice point moment,

In order to protect yourself,

You self abandon,

Which led to more distrust.

And this is where you get your power back is in remembering that you have a choice from here on out to live in trust for yourself.

You might not feel self-trust,

But when you start to learn very specific tools,

Boundaries,

And ways to identify,

Oh,

This is a moment where I want to shut down.

This is a moment where I'm saying yes out of guilt or obligation.

When you start to be able to notice and live in awareness and compassionate awareness,

That's where you get a return to your choice point.

And we always talk about our nervous system and how it's linked to these experiences.

And so for a lot of people,

It's fight or flight.

So this isn't about forcing yourself to just start deciding.

It's about creating safety in your body so you can make choices from clarity.

And so think of part of your nervous system practice will be returning to the body,

Breathing,

Making room for your feelings,

And trying to stay out of the story,

But noticing,

Hey,

My inner child,

This part of me is really scared right now of making the wrong decision or really scared of saying no.

And trying to come into a place of seeing yourself as a separate archetype,

That you are the leader and the guider of the parts of you that have been wounded.

And it's coming into a place of believing that you are worthy of setting a boundary.

You are worthy of standing in your authenticity.

You're worthy of making the choices.

You're worthy of being a leader in your relationships.

When we micro abandon ourselves over and over again,

We're messaging to our nervous system that our voice isn't safe.

And so if that is a belief,

And if we do feel that way,

And we are living in this constant cycle where we're not building self-trust,

But we're self-abandoning,

Then it will be really hard to set boundaries.

And part of that is that a lot of times the core belief inside of boundaries for the boundary-less are,

If I say no,

I will lose love.

If I say no,

I'll lose connection.

So it becomes all about affirmation from the other person to keep us safe,

Lovable,

Or secure.

Some examples are walking on eggshells around people,

Saying something's fine when it isn't,

Again letting others choose for us.

It might always be saying yes.

There might be this hyper-vigilance to care take.

You might constantly be avoiding conflict by just disappearing into someone else's needs,

Not sharing how you feel or what you think.

You might feel guilty or shameful when you do take up space,

Or you do say what is authentic to you,

And then you turn around and completely beat yourself up.

There are two archetypes in this.

I personally was not someone who could always withhold.

So what I would do is I might just be myself,

Say whatever,

Share whatever,

But then immediately afterwards I would go into a spiral of disaster mind,

And I can't believe I said that,

And was that the right way to be,

And did I talk too much,

And did I say too much,

And oh my gosh making a lot of assumptions about people judging me or thinking I was stupid.

So I wasn't necessarily someone that stayed quiet.

That just wasn't in my nature or my personality,

But I would doubt everything afterwards.

Then there is the archetype of the person that stays super quiet and self-abandons in silence in the moment,

And so you might fall somewhere in that spectrum.

So all of these things can always look different ways for people,

But one thing about the boundaryless person is that they often don't know when someone is even crossing a boundary,

Because they're so used to having no walls.

So I really love this visualization when you think of boundaries.

Somebody who's boundaryless,

Imagine yourself standing in this beautiful green field,

And you have nothing in front of you.

It's just vast and open,

And if people want to come talk to you,

If people want to tell you what to do,

If anybody wants to come into your space,

They can run right in.

There's no boundary there.

Now somebody who is more walled off,

And we're going to talk about those that are boundaryless in terms of overstepping people's boundaries,

That person might have a full-on brick wall,

Where they sit behind a brick wall,

They don't let anybody in,

Maybe once in a while they will,

But they have no problem jumping over their wall and running into your field,

Doing whatever they want,

And then coming back and jumping over their wall.

A healthy boundary is a beautiful white oak fence that crosses along the field right in front of you,

And has a beautiful gate,

And you can see through the fence,

Through the slats,

You can walk up to your gate and open it and let people in,

You can close your gate,

You can peer over it and check things out,

So you're not isolated.

But it's this,

When we're creating boundaries with people,

We are either going from having a brick wall up to the sky,

Or absolutely no protection whatsoever,

And we are saying to ourselves when we build that fence,

That we are worthy of having a boundary.

We have the agency to say yes,

You may enter,

Or no,

You may not.

Of yes,

I'm going to leave the space and go be of service and go help take care of someone,

Or no,

That's not my responsibility,

I have other things to do over here,

And it's still loving,

And I'm going to let them take care of themselves.

And as that imagery unfolds,

It's going to be one of your tools that I'm going to ask you to take into your everyday life.

Visualization is very powerful.

I'm a meditation teacher,

I might have mentioned that on here already,

And I use highly guided visualizations to help people shift their perception and to come into a place of deeper trust for themselves.

And one of the ways you're going to use this visualization is that when you're with someone,

I want you to notice when you're with that person,

If you are completely boundary-less,

If you have a wall,

Or if you have this beautiful fence with a gate,

That way you can start feeling what your nervous system feels about this person,

Because your nervous system is going to tell you something.

You might have a very beautiful fence with the world,

And then as soon as your partner comes home,

Your gate swings wide open,

And you just feel like you can't close it.

Boundaries are not meant to be walls.

Boundaries are clarity.

They are clarity,

They are agency,

And they create safety for intimacy to grow.

They create safety for authenticity.

They are opportunities for the people in your life that rely on you for too much,

The people in your life that jump your wall.

They provide opportunities for those people to get honest with themselves and for those people to do their inner work.

The boundary pushers typically overstep because they're afraid of abandonment,

Because they're afraid of not being enough,

Or because they're afraid of losing control.

The boundary pushers tie hypervigilance and obsession as a way to self-suit.

Boundary pushers might check other people's phones,

Check other people's text messages,

Need to track someone's whereabouts,

Want to control decisions.

There is this subtle manipulation going on where they use guilt and shame to get close to people.

So most likely,

In your day-to-day,

You are going to see both archetypes.

The person that has no boundaries at all,

And then the other person that pushes people's boundaries.

That is also being boundary-less.

That is basically living in a way that's saying,

I don't really care what you need,

Or what your experience is.

My experience is the one that is important.

I've talked about the different patterns of codependency in terms of the one that goes one down and is more insecure,

And then the one that goes one up and is living in more of a grandiose place,

Uses this kind of professor,

I-know-it-all attitude.

Both people are scared.

Now when it comes to textbook narcissism,

A therapist,

Which I'm actually going to have an amazing therapist on the show for you,

I'm going to let a therapist tell us the difference between a narcissist and somebody who is just truly living in fear and does have self-awareness,

But acts like a narcissist.

Because just because somebody acts like a narcissist,

In my opinion,

Doesn't mean that they are.

There are a lot of people out there that are so scared that they have to use their power to keep them safe.

So when we see that these drastically different archetypes exist in our world,

It's not uncommon for those two archetypes to come together.

It's not uncommon to have one partner who is more boundaryless and another partner who likes to control.

I think we often find a mirror for our greatest inner work.

And usually what happens is that we become aware of these codependent patterns because we're in a relationship with somebody that activates them and triggers them.

So I really want to name that if you're listening to this and you're like,

Well,

I have great boundaries.

I don't let anybody in.

That part of your boundary healing is taking your brick wall down brick by brick.

It's understanding that the bricks you have don't necessarily have anything to do with the person in front of you.

Your bricks have to do with all the people in the past that hurt you.

So all of these behaviors that are these safety mechanisms we've put in place,

You know,

I talk about this a lot,

Is that I believe they all start as children.

And when we're younger,

If as children,

We learned that love,

Safety,

And belonging were conditional,

Then we will learn how to keep connection in pleasing,

Performing,

Keeping the peace,

And avoiding conflict at all cost.

And for those who are more defensive,

They might have experienced love and it was ripped away.

They might have been abandoned over and over again.

And so as adults,

It became far more safe to create a wall and not let anyone in.

Everything is boiled down to fear.

Fear,

Perfectionism,

Control.

Even when you leave your gate wide open,

That could still be a control pattern.

If you were to just do whatever this person wanted you to do,

Or let them have full reign of you,

Then you feel like you're controlling how much they love you,

How much they see you,

How much they accept you.

When we're healing our relationships,

We're learning to come back to ourselves as adults who don't require the love of other people,

The acceptance and the affirmation of other people to feel safe.

We allow ourselves to misstep.

We allow ourselves to make wrong decisions,

And it doesn't mean that we can't trust ourselves.

When we begin to set boundaries,

We start to reclaim our voice.

We start to hear our own inner voice.

And we invite other people to hear theirs and to be with theirs.

We break cycles of resentment,

Manipulation,

And dishonesty.

Because the truth is,

Is that I have not met a boundaryless person,

Somebody who just lets people do whatever they want,

That does not experience resentment and pain.

I was in a relationship where I became completely boundaryless,

And I was angry and resentful and hurt,

And I was really angry at myself.

And this is where a complete deterioration of self-love happened for me.

Because I was watching myself acquiesce.

I was watching myself get hurt by someone.

I was watching myself be belittled.

I was watching myself be controlled and manipulated.

And for some reason,

Even though my mind was seeing that,

My nervous system didn't trust that I didn't deserve that.

There was this part of me that didn't actually know if that was going on or not.

I was so confused,

Because the other person was really,

Really good at making me question my truth.

They were really good at it,

Because they were living in that more grandiose place.

Because they were afraid of not being enough too.

This is why I say healing our relationships,

We're healing the most important relationship is to ourselves.

Because when we live boundaryless,

There's a good chance we're being really hard on ourselves about it.

And we don't love ourselves,

And we're in pain.

Why do we keep doing this?

Why do I keep going back to this person time and time again,

When they just keep hurting me,

When they can't show up for me,

When they can't hold space for me,

When they don't see me,

When they keep verbally or emotionally abusing me.

Why do you go back to that person time and time again,

Thinking it's going to be different this time?

Maybe they'll be able to hear my feelings without jumping on me.

Sometimes we're so hopeful,

So desperate to make the relationship in front of us work,

Because we're so afraid of the loss,

The time put in.

But a lot of times it's because we don't trust our experience.

And then for the ones who deep down want to be loved and connected in relationship,

But are so frightened that they keep a person in their field,

They want to be in the relationship,

But at the same time they give breadcrumbs and very little of who they really are,

Because they're afraid to be seen.

If you are a boundaryless person,

In terms of allowing other people to have say over your life and your reality,

Then it's time to build a gate,

It's time to build a fence,

And it's time to practice opening and closing,

Saying yes and saying no,

Choosing from your heart and your nervous system when you're ready to walk out to the other side,

Choosing from the heart where you feel comfortable enough to keep the gate closed without guilt and shame.

And at first you're going to feel that it's going to be scary,

It takes so much time and practice.

So yes,

You're going to close your gate and it's going to be awkward and it's going to be really uncomfortable.

You might even sound funny or your tone of voice is weird.

And when you start setting those boundaries,

The people in your life that aren't used to it,

They're going to get upset,

They're going to get frustrated,

And then it's going to feel like a double down.

Then you're going to be like,

Oh my gosh,

Now what am I going to do?

This is making it 10 times worse.

Just know that that is normal.

That is part of how you're going to build your resiliency back and how you're going to rebuild self-trust.

And if you're listening to this and you're like,

I am more walled off,

Then part of your work is going to be coming into awareness around when you are jumping people's fences.

Not only when you are walling off from them,

But where are you crossing their boundaries?

Where do you feel entitled to their space,

To the answers for your questions that you might have,

To control the environment that you're in,

And coming into a place of radical self-honesty of how this hurts the other person.

I don't want to say somebody who has a wall is causing more pain,

But those control patterns are very,

Very painful.

Control manipulation using anger and fear and disappointment and guilt and shame because you feel that way about yourself,

So you project that onto someone else.

From a place of compassionate love,

I'm asking you to really look at that.

My guess is,

Especially if you're listening to this,

Is you have a big heart and that is not coming from a place where you're trying to hurt someone.

It's coming from a place where you're trying to protect yourself.

Intent and impact is something that my therapist talks about all the time.

You can have all the best intentions in the world,

But how are you impacting someone else?

How are you impacting the relationship?

When you start setting boundaries in your life,

Your relationships will change.

They will change or they will go away.

People are going to resist your boundaries,

Especially the ones that were comfortable with you having no boundaries.

And then other people might surprise you.

They might actually really respect your clarity,

Respect you showing up and being more authentic because they maybe didn't want you to be inauthentic to begin with.

Part of that is you just make an assumption that it's not safe to self-see or not,

Where other people might really love to be in a place where they're hearing and seeing you more.

So over time,

Your boundaries are going to change the relationships,

They're going to filter out these dynamics that were based on control and fear,

And they'll make space for relationships that are rooted in truth and authenticity and respect and mutual love.

Not everyone is capable of living in relationships like that,

But when you start living in a place of love for yourself and deep reverence,

And your relationship to yourself becomes more important to the relationship with your partner or the person in the outside world that you're desperately getting to see and love you,

Then you're calling in people that you don't have to convince or shapeshift to love you,

To support you,

To see you,

Or to be a safe person in your life.

I think when boundaries are talked about,

They can be very vague,

And when I first came into this work,

I really didn't understand what it meant to set a boundary aside from yes or no.

It was too confusing for me because my codependency ran so,

So deep.

So I'm actually going to give you an episode right after this one where I talk about codependency behavior versus the recovery boundary behavior,

And I'm going to give you a list of like 20 very specific things for you to look out for and to practice.

This is how I really started setting boundaries.

I needed to deeply understand and feel in my body what constituted a boundary because it just felt too vague for me in the moment,

And even in this episode,

I'm speaking to boundaries in a very general way.

So I want to make sure that you have very specific tools for this so you can actually go out into the world knowing and getting like a red flag around,

Okay,

This is an opportunity for me to set a boundary,

And this is what it looks like when I set one.

So I really want to encourage you to listen to that episode because it's going to be the one where things can deeply start to change for you.

So as you move through the week,

Thinking about your fence,

Your gate,

Your brick wall,

Or if you're completely wide open,

Noticing where you're betraying yourself when you're not speaking your truth.

And this can all be boiled down very simply,

At least for this episode,

Into honoring your yes and your no.

And you might not really know the authenticity of your yes and your no,

But you know who does is your body and your nervous system.

So I'm going to ask you to practice a sacred pause.

When somebody asks you for something,

Or when you see yourself showing up in a space where you're about to self-abandon,

I want you to check in with your body and see how it feels.

I want you to be in a place of awareness.

And if you've listened to this,

Chances are you already will be because that's how powerful it is when we just shift our perception or see things from a different way.

And you can start practicing very small yeses and nos.

If you're boundaryless in terms of jumping other people's walls all the time,

You can practice saying no to moving from fear.

I really want to check my partner's computer.

I really want to make them tell me how they're feeling today.

I really want to control this situation so I feel safe.

I want you to be in awareness of where you're moving from fear and see if you can pull yourself back and say no to control and say yes to giving space to someone else.

Small nos,

Declining an invitation,

You don't have energy for something,

Telling someone you'd prefer another option.

You have to start practicing no in small ways that teach your nervous system that you can survive it.

The sacred pause before you answer gives you time to connect with yourself.

Your answer becomes about your relationship to yourself,

Not about what the other person needs.

When you get a request,

Does your body expand?

Does it contract?

Does your gut feel tight?

When someone's going to make a decision,

When someone else is going to lead the show or guide the way,

Does it make you feel uncomfortable?

Does it make you feel unsafe?

Do you feel the need to be boundary-less and jump the wall and control?

Are you over-explaining yourself,

Trying to justify your decision so nobody feels upset?

Are you saying you're fine when you're not?

Are you feeling drained after conversations because you spent the whole time managing somebody else's emotions?

Are you pushing people away because you're not giving them room?

Do you find that people are not drawn to you because you're living in this grandiose way to keep yourself safe,

So you're pushing people away and then you're wondering why you're alone?

Are you using your voice so much where you're not hearing other peoples?

Are you constantly living in a place of defensiveness?

You jump into the world,

You make a lot of noise,

And then you run back behind your wall.

All of this is about fear and discomfort.

All of you,

Regardless where you fall on the scale,

Deserve love and connection,

Deserve to be heard,

And deserve to be seen.

When you start practicing new tools,

It's going to be uncomfortable and messy and you need to give yourself permission to disappoint people.

Disappointment is not rejection,

It's simply just a sign that you're choosing honesty over wearing a mask and being a performer.

And for those of you who perform because you're afraid of people to see the real you,

Then I really want to invite you to drop the mask.

Let someone see the real you,

Even if it's the person at the checkout.

Allow yourself to soften.

You're also worthy of being seen and loved and I know that can be scary because most likely somewhere along the way you were abandoned or you weren't loved for who you were.

These changes are not easy but they are so sacred and they're the ways that you are going to step into living a life that feels more full and more connective.

And this is part of how you're going to break the cycle,

How you're going to create relationships where love is not earned but given freely.

Fear is normal,

Guilt is normal,

Shame is normal,

But it's what we do from that place.

Do we continue to live in the cycle and spiral or do we choose to do the very uncomfortable thing?

Do we choose radical sudden change?

So please pick one boundary,

One place where you can honor your truth this week or pick one person,

One relationship,

One moment where you can soften,

Where you can let go on the need to control.

You are worthy of loosening the grip.

Please listen to the episode on very specific boundary setting tools so you can get started in a way that feels really grounding for you.

I love you,

I'm proud of you,

And I'll see you on the other side.

Reviews

I identified so deeply with this… with you. I lost count of the number of times you explained something I could not put into words. I felt so seen and understood… and validated. I will be listening to your other recordings. I am grateful I found you. 💕

I’m going to come back for this— such important work! Thank you ✨🙏🏼✨