Your Energetic Boundaries

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​This is an excerpt from my book, How To Set Boundaries (Without Feeling Like a D*ck)—a guide for anyone ready to speak up, honour their needs, and feel more grounded in their relationships.
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Have you ever found yourself thinking, "I can just feel that person is judging me," or "I can sense that my boss is really upset with me"?

In those moments, when you’re attempting to understand or anticipate what someone else is thinking and feeling, whose energetic space do you suppose you are in? Are you in your own, or have you drifted into theirs?

It turns out, every time you prioritize someone else's emotions or thoughts over your own, you temporarily leave your own energetic space and step into theirs. While this is a natural part of human interaction, doing it too often can mean you’re spending more time immersed in other people’s energetic space than in your own.

And that’s a problem.

What exactly do I mean by ‘energetic space’?

Imagine your energetic space as an invisible force field that completely surrounds you in a large, protective bubble. This bubble is big enough that if you were to stretch your arms out to the side, your fingertips would just brush the inside of the bubble, still safely within its protection. Imagine that this bubble extends above your head and beneath your feet, enveloping you completely. This force field, or energetic boundary, represents your sphere of influence. Within this space, you have some measure of control over your environment, while what lies outside your bubble is generally beyond your influence and, therefore, beyond your realm of control.

Do this: reach your arms out as far as they can go and try to grab something on the other side of the room. No matter how much you may want that thing, notice that because it is beyond your immediate grasp it is beyond your ability to influence and control without bringing in outside help (like asking someone to hand it to you).

The same principle applies to your personal boundaries; anything outside your immediate space is more likely to be beyond your control. Your energetic space, therefore, represents your sphere of influence in the world.

Your energetic boundary is designed to protect you from being drained by annoying coworkers, rude strangers, or what I like to call other peoples’ oogedy-boogedy bad vibes. They allow you to interact with the world without feeling overwhelmed or drained and they help you maintain your inner peace, even when you’re surrounded by chaos. As a matter of fact, if being around negative people leaves you feeling burned out and exhausted, it might be because you haven't focused enough on maintaining your energetic boundaries.

In addition to keeping other people’s ick vibes out of your space, your energetic boundaries are also designed to contain all aspects of Who You Are, across all the other layers of reality.  This includes your physical body, thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, opinions, emotions, dreams, aspirations, and everything else that contributes to the entirety of Who You Are. Which makes your energetic boundaries pretty darn important, don’t you think?

Often, in our efforts to be accommodating, considerate, or simply ‘Nice,’ we can unintentionally let other people's thoughts, opinions, judgments, criticisms, moods, and emotions seep into our personal space. But here’s the thing: if your energetic space is filled with other people’s emotions and opinions, is it really still your own space?

Hmmmm…

Imagine you share a house with a roommate, and every day they leave something small in your room: a few coins, a pair of socks, or their forgotten keys. Over time, your room will start to feel less like your own space and more like a chaotic mix of your stuff and theirs. This is basically what happens when we let other people’s judgments, opinions, and emotions into our energetic space—it stops feeling like our own.

When we are constantly tuning into other people’s emotions and trying to read their thoughts it’s like being a radio that is picking up every station at once. Sure, you’re hearing it all, but you’re not able to really understand anything. Worse, the noise can make it hard to hear your own signal.  

The good news is that creating energetic boundaries is extremely easy, and you don’t need to have any awkward conversations to do it.

This means you can start right away.
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📚 If you enjoyed this excerpt from my book and want to go deeper, How To Set Boundaries (Without Feeling Like a D*ck) is now available on Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble, and as an audiobook on all your favourite platforms 🎧