Why your struggles with personal boundaries is affecting your physical and mental wellbeing

By Nicole Drummond, Intuitive Therapist

“Personal boundaries are the limits and rules we set for ourselves within relationships. A person with healthy boundaries can say “no” to others when they want to, but they are also comfortable opening themselves up to intimacy and close relationships”.  Psych Central, Berkeley 
Learning to set healthy boundaries can be a lifelong journey and practise for many, especially if you are a highly sensitive person.  However you may not be aware how much the struggle may be impacting your mental and physical wellbeing, but why would that be the case?  Well, it comes back to the symbiotic relationship between our subconscious beliefs and our body. ​

From our experiences in childhood, our belief systems are formed and the emotional charge of these experiences can stay alive in the subconscious mind and body from the moment it was created until it's processed.  Now, from our life experiences, our subconscious mind creates a belief system in order to keep us safe, and understand the world. 

The Subconscious mind
The subconscious mind is at the helm for 95% of our decision-making and responses compared to the 5% of our conscious mind, expressing its responses through the body and our belief systems.  The problem is that a belief or habit that kept us safe when we were 5 may no longer apply when we are 45 as our circumstances have changed and may actually become prohibitive and may not be serving us. 

What the subconscious mind does is it gathers together our experiences, where for example, we felt rejected and creates a short hand summary for us in the form of a belief.  For example:

1. Tim ignored me at the swings
2. Janet didn’t want to be my friend in reception class
3. John called me a loser

So these experiences then create an internal belief that ‘No one likes me. No one wants to be my friend’. We then see the world through this lens, albeit unconsciously.

The problem is our perception of the situation may actually not be true and the situation also may no longer exist.  We are a different person, but we are in effect living in the past, as we are still living by the belief born out of those moments, reinforcing them over time - reacting physically when they are challenged. 

Our relationship with boundaries is a perfect example of this.  Our childhood experiences for our sense of reality, of who we are and how to be in the world to stay safe.  Now if as a child, our home environment didn't feel very safe, be that emotionally or physically then we are likely to have developed some hypervigilant behaviours, perhaps even experiencing unresolved trauma symptoms which are surprisingly common. 

The type of everyday, experiences which might cause trauma symptoms include:

• Living with a volatile or unpredictable caregiver, ie alcoholic 
• Parents, arguing and getting divorced
• Living with an emotionally abusive caregiver, ie narcissistic
• Experiencing death trauma 
• Bullying at school and so on

However the memories of these experiences can remain active in the subconscious and create corresponding physical response in the body (until processed) forming our beliefs, such as:

• I’m not safe 
• It’s not safe to open up 
• It’s not safe to be visible
• It’s not safe to have a voice and so on

Physical and mental tension 
We can then experience correlating physical tension and stress, alongside these beliefs when they are activated.  It need only take a seemingly minor event in the present moment such as a look or tone of someone's voice or the sound of a door slamming that the subconscious associates with these more intense past experiences, telling us ‘I’m not safe’ to trigger the fight, flight or freeze response.

The problem is that these unconscious triggers can be seemingly disproportionate to current events or circumstances.  Our bodies react, getting ready eliciting a strong response, such as a panic attack, or intense physical tension, or feeling woozy and sick, going blank, or numb and freezing for example, whilst we are talking to our boss and we are mentally trying to talk ourselves down saying for example ‘I mustn't get angry’ as we are feeling emotionally under threat.

The physical tension or reaction may have occurred before we have managed to catch up mentally or emotionally with what is alive in us!  Our subconscious is running the show, ringing all the alarm bells, even when it is not necessarily needed.  In the words of Gabor Mate, trauma specialist ‘Emotional stress is a major cause of physical illness, from cancer to autoimmune conditions and many other chronic diseases’. 

If our subconscious mind says, for example ‘No! I’m not safe’ and reacts, but we don’t listen, this tension can present as rising symptoms in the body.  Whether that is gripping in our shoulders, spasming in our lower back or a tension migraine suddenly kicking off and so on.  We all have our physical weak spots when it comes to stress.  This can lead to chronic intense physical tension, you can feel lethargic, anxious and depressed, burn out, chronic anxiety or panic attacks, as well as chronic health problems caused by the increased inflammation in the body and so on.  

So what's the Solution?
So our subconscious may become seemingly unhelpfully and overactive when it comes to assessing threats to our safety and our personal boundaries.  I know this from personal experience!  This is where we really need to resolve the past in a meaningful way to be able to move forward - to be able to open up to connection and feel:

• grounded and at ease
• comfortable articulating our needs
• safe to be seen and heard - and so on. 

Therefore if you suspect you may have trauma symptoms, see a trauma specialist to support your processing of events - EMDR, Somatic Experiencing are some examples, techniques that address the mind and body, helping to relieve symptoms.  Breathwork can also be a supportive practice to tone the vagal nerve to rebalance the body.  Otherwise, practices such as Shiatsu, are really great at activating the parasympathetic nervous system to put the body back into rest and rejuvenation.  I would advise, as well, as it has been life changing for me, to work with the subconscious mind to address the root cause of our triggers, the beliefs, whether that is with EFT, hypnosis, bodycode, theta healing or intuitive healing.  

Aside from this, start to listen to your body, as it is the doorway to the subconscious mind.  Become aware of the belief systems you are working with. Get to know yourself more deeply, get to know your triggers so you can begin to work with them more effectively - perhaps exploring different modalities to help on your healing journey, to give you physical support, as well as mental and emotional freedom. 
 
Further reading 
How embodied awareness enables highly sensitive people establish healthy boundaries
10 signs you struggle setting boundaries as a highly sensitive person
​Making friends with your anger, your protector

Written by Nicole Drummond, Intuitive Therapist for Highly Sensitive People with chronic anxiety, struggling to establish healthy boundaries. She is also a mentor to Souls with a Mission www.nicoledrummond.com