Fatigue and Lack of Healthy Boundaries​

Do you feel tired most of the time, even though you get plenty of rest?

Fatigue can be really crippling. It makes it a lot more difficult to lose weight or have healthy habits as we really struggle to go through the day, let alone exercise! But not only that… it can make life a sort of nightmare as we drag ourselves around and stop enjoying the things we used to like as they now require too much energy.

Fatigue is a condition that can have so many causes like medication side effects, eating habits, allergies, but it can also have emotional roots.

Fatigue is traditionally associated with boundaries issues.

Personal boundaries are those imaginary lines we put around our personal space, allowing us to create an emotional and physical separation between us and others. They preserve our wellbeing by telling other people where our space starts and how we want to be treated.

When we have problems setting boundaries, we use up a lot of our energy as the people around us continuously "trespass" our limits. We end up doing things we don't want to do or in situations where we really would rather not be.

Setting boundaries is an important part of establishing one’s identity and is a crucial aspect of mental health and well-being.

Here 5 tips to help you set healthy boundaries:

1) Take responsibility for your own boundaries. People can't just know where your limits are, so you need to become very clear about what you want (or not want) and communicate it in a respectful yet assertive way.

2) If you feel pressured, take time. Let's say your sister in law asks you to have her kids over next Friday night as they get along well with yours, and cooking for two more kids isn't much of a big deal anyway, right? But the truth is that you really wanted a relaxed family night and really don't feel like dealing with more children than you already have to. But when she asks you, you feel that battle inside yourself between doing what feels right for you and making her happy, and you feel very pressured. Then instead of panicking and saying yes immediately to get out of the situation, say that you need to think about it and that you'll get back to her as soon as you can. With a bit more time and distance on your side, learn to say no (you can check my post on learning to speak up here).

3) Accept that it is an ongoing process. Be aware that you'll probably need to set the same boundary with the same person over and over again, and that that is ok. We are all different, with different priorities, so not everyone might "get it" the first time.

This, does not include behaviors that are clearly abusive. If you feel you are being abused you need to put yourself to safety and contact the relevant authorities.

4) Take on some practices to enhance your self-confidence. These could be, for instance, affirmations or meditation.

5) Get to the bottom of it. When trying to change your attitudes or have a deeply rooted problem, like fatigue, it is beneficial to use specific techniques to go to the root cause of that behavior and "unblock it." Techniques like BodyTalk System® and Psych-K® can help you to tap deep into those unconsciously held beliefs and emotions that make you repeat self-sabotaging behaviors so that they can, finally, be unraveled and released.

If you often feel out of energy and you know you are a bit wobbly when it comes to set limits, it's a very good idea to look into it and assess whether your lack of energy could come from there. You could be very surprised by what you discover!