Are you ever in situations during the holiday season where something feels wrong? Where you feel past your limit? Past your capacity? Well-exceeding your energy levels? Or even noticing that you’re not having a good time?
Those feelings could be indicating to you that some boundaries might be helpful this holiday season.
Noticing that you’ve been stuck in patterns, over-extending yourself, or feeling resentful during the holidays is the first step. Figuring out the language for your boundaries is the next one.
Below are some boundary examples for a range of situations that you may come across with friends, family, romantic partner(s), or co-workers. Feel free to play around with the exact language in order to be useful and natural to you.
Remember, boundaries are our own responsibility to uphold. We can make behavior requests of other people, but we must manage our boundaries ourselves (because they are our limits on what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior).
Boundary examples:
For the AI photo creators in your life - “I will no longer be sending family photo updates in the group chat because I do not want them put into AI products”
For the drinker in your life - “I will not be serving alcohol at the party, and if you show up drunk, I will not be welcoming you inside”
For the person who struggles with letting you leave the gathering - “I can only stay for three hours this year, I’ll let you know thirty minutes ahead of time before I leave so we can have enough time for a satisfying goodbye”
For the gossiper in your life - “I don’t want to connect with your over putting other people down, let’s talk about something else”
For the person who always expects you to come to them - “It is out of my budget to travel this year, but I would be happy to FaceTime you to have dessert together”
Boundaries are something that takes practice as well as developing the self-trust in order to stick to. There is nothing wrong with it feeling challenging or scary or difficult. Your energy, happiness, peaceful, and confidence is on the other side of practicing these.
Good luck!
Dr. S