As yoga practitioners, yoga teachers and citizens of life, our boundaries with friends, family, co-workers, students, strangers, ourselves are constantly receding, expanding, evolving. Sometimes we feel comfortable with our boundaries sometimes we do not. Just like with happiness and anger, we are each responsible for establishing our own boundaries. And then, the harder part...communicating these boundaries to the universe (or relevant person).
In my work with yoga instructors and others who gravitate to yoga, I have seen a theme of people who are "pleasers". Sound familiar? Those of us who want the world around us to be happy and comfortable (nothing wrong with that), can easily end up feeling taken advantage of. But remember, only you can allow yourself to feel taken advantage of....no one can take advantage of you.
So, how do we prevent ourselves from feeling this way?
The Yoga Sutra's first limb, Yama (principles for living), talks about satya or "truthfulness" of words and actions. We can use this idea of right truth to support ourselves with boundary setting. A few ways to think about this:
1. If we do not express ourselves when another person is behaving in a way that is detrimental to our well being - we are NOT being "truthful" with our SELF.
2. It is NOT our responsibility to speak up for every perceived inequity or wrong that we encounter - ONLY to speak up when it is a more than a mild infringement on our own boundaries. We are ONLY responsible for and can only set our own boundaries.
3. Where do we draw the line between a "nuisance" infringement on our boundaries and a "detrimental" infringement? We don't need to expend the energy on every boundary that is bumped into (remember the story about crying wolf?). Often we are better served practicing letting go of life's little annoyances.
So when does it serve us best to (re)set and communicate boundaries? When the amount of energy that we expend on a "missing boundary" begins causing stress.
HOW do we set boundaries while being truthful to ourselves and practicing ahimsa (non-harming)? As with everything in our yoga practice: with conscious practice. This means pausing and being aware of the following before reacting:
1. Am I doing or saying this to please another person or does it serve me?
2. Stay with the discomfort that comes up when you envision setting a boundary for yourself - get comfortable with the discomfort by allowing yourself to experience it. This is different from ruminating (obsessing) about the situation - rather it is a meditation in letting go of the AVERSION to the discomfort. There will be discomfort in setting boundaries, because other people may and up disappointing by your actions (a pleaser's biggest fear). But it is essential to preserving your authenticity and self worth to serve yourself in this way. So let the discomfort sit - practice being with it along first, and then when you act on it.
3. Consciously evaluate whether something is worth an expenditure of energy or if you are better served letting it go. This will take practice, and mistakes. If you let something go, and it is still nagging at you - you may want to revisit whether you should have established a firmer boundary. If you set a strong boundary, and find that you are not even thinking about the situation a few days (or hours) later perhaps it was not necessary. This will take some experimentation, mistakes and a lot of awareness of the consequences ("positive" and "negative") of your actions.
Deborah Bernstein is a yoga teacher, owner of Florian Villa Yoga Retreats on St. John, and former corporate finance director of a Fortune 500 company. A portion of all proceeds from Deborah's yoga retreat business supports families of fallen firefighters and disabled veterans. http://www.florianvilla.com and http://florianyoga.blogspot.com.
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