Struggling with Setting Healthy Boundaries?
Check Your Feng Shui First!
By Lia Menna Gross
Here at LMG Creative Feng Shui, I’ve upped the ante on a topnotch self-love tool that can fall by the wayside (any other reformed people pleasers in the house?!).
I get a ton of questions on how the ancient tool of Feng Shui can aid a client in mental and emotional well-being.
You see, the school of Feng Shui that I studied - more popularly known as BTB or “Western” Feng Shui - combines Feng Shui’s rich history with psychology and spiritualism - whatever that may mean for you personally.
“Well-being” isn’t a mere byproduct of this school of Feng Shui - it’s the meat and potatoes of it! Simple and effective tools implemented to enrich the lives of others is the name of the game.
And it starts with a lil’ sumpin’ called boundaries. If you’re struggling with setting healthy boundaries, check your home’s Feng Shui. You may be surprised at what you find!
Understanding Boundaries
According to mental health therapist and boundaries expert, Nedra Glover Tawwab, in her bestselling book, Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, there are six boundaries in total:
Physical, sexual, intellectual, emotional, material, and time.
Physical boundaries:
The physical space you choose to keep around you. Example, “I’m good on hugs”, communicates that you wish to protect your physical space by not engaging in hugging.
Sexual boundaries:
Your consent to intimacy and your comfort level on how or what sexual material is presented.
Intellectual boundaries:
Your beliefs, ideas and thoughts around a given topic. Can you have your own opinions and yet respect the opinions of others especially those that differ from your own? Spiritual beliefs also fall under this category.
Emotional boundaries:
This type of boundary refers to feelings: your feelings and the feelings of others. When someone invalidates how you feel or tells you their interpretation of how you should feel, you’re dealing with an emotional boundary violation.
Material boundaries:
What you’d also call “financial boundaries”. This category entails spending money as you desire and protecting your financial assets.
Time boundaries:
How many of you have gone to an appointment that was scheduled for 9 am only to find yourself waiting until 9:45 am for your appointment? Adhering to scheduled time blocks is a form of setting healthy time boundaries. How much time do you wish to spend with a client? Is there someone who’s wasting your time? You get to choose how your time is allotted.
Check out this guide from Therapist Aid for more information on types of boundaries.
There’s also a spectrum on how boundaries are maintained in all relational forms. You can veer into the realm of rigidity, setting boundaries that are iron-clad leading to inflexibility. This is when boundaries are more like walls - “You’re banging your head again, ‘cause somebody won’t let you in!”
Other times, your boundaries are too loose like a swinging door. This can result in letting others run you ragged, feel used or under appreciated - “If you wait any longer, you will surely never get away!” (yep, there may be a touch of Heart in this one!).
Boundaries are simple agreements you keep with yourself. They allow your connections with others to flourish and protect your well-being. This fosters relationships that ebb and flow with true connection, checking resentment and ill-will at the door.
By setting physical boundaries within your home, you’re creating associations within the brain around the intended boundaries you wish to uphold in everyday life.
Observe Your Physical Space
In order to set boundaries in your life, you’ll first need to accomplish this within your home.
Step #1 - Walk around your space:
Is there an area of your home where passersby can see right in? This calls for a boundary. If it’s a window, add a curtain to maintain a boundary of privacy. If it’s an open pool area, add fencing or large plants. Do what’s necessary to create the physical boundary and delineate your space from that of others’.
Step #2 - Reflect on your habits:
How many people have access to your home?
Do you eat at your desk or perhaps in the living room on the reg?
Do you fall asleep on the sofa each evening?
Or maybe your desk is in your sleeping area?
Having a dedicated intention for each space of your home (and sticking to it) coincides with healthy boundaries. When a space, and the actions within that space, are specifically separate from that of other areas of your home, this symbolically shows the upholding of boundaries from a Feng Shui perspective.
The same goes for eating. Being intentional about where you’re breaking bread says a lot about how you sustain healthy boundaries (or lack thereof) in the world of Feng Shui. This isn’t a judgment, but rather a moment for curious self-reflection.
Step #3 - Create distinct boundaries:
Start creating distinctions between where these habits are occurring within your home versus where you intend for them to happen.
Step #4 - Declutter, the Feng Shui way:
Sometimes, a client is unable to delineate a dedicated workspace from her sleeping or eating area. The majority of the time the culprit isn’t a spatial issue - it’s clutter!
Before you begin setting healthy boundaries within your home, declutter your space. Let go of anything and everything that you no longer use or desire. If it doesn’t make your heart skip a beat, it’s clutter. Because allowing that clutter to overrun your life is a boundary no-go in itself. Join my free One Week Decluttering Challenge to jumpstart decluttering, the Feng Shui way!
Step #5 - Consider spatial factors:
For those of you who do have a spatial factor that inhibits your desk from being separate from your bedroom, create that separation using a physical boundary. Opt for a decorative screen, hanging plants or a room divider. Doing so creates the association that work is unconnected to your personal life.
Set the piece with intention. Is your intention to maintain intellectual and emotional boundaries with coworkers and clients? Or is the intention to maintain boundaries around your time (that is, you’re not working until the wee hours of the morning when your body needs rest)?
Setting Boundaries with Feng Shui
From a Feng Shui perspective, it’s important to support the back of the home and protect it from peeping Toms - the Fame gua, in particular. That’s the far backhand portion of your home situated directly across the other side of the house from your front door. Ensure that this space has ample physical boundaries in place to keep others “out of your business” and maintain your privacy.
The same goes for the Relationship gua (far right-hand corner) and the Wealth gua (the far left-hand corner). Use large potted plants for the Fame and Wealth guas and flowers on trellises or heavy stone objects for the Relationship gua.
Mull over how it feels to be supported in these areas of life.
Are you truly supported? Or is something missing?
This may be the universe’s gentle nudge towards upping your own boundary setting ante.
Setting boundaries is a lifelong practice. Continue to do so with love and intention.
Remember, only you can determine where boundaries are needed in your life and do the work to set them. Take time for mindfulness and go within. The answers you seek are waiting to be uncovered.
Because YOU are your own prescription. And you have the ability to magically shift your life.
“Woah-oh-oh, Anything you want, [you] can make it happen”.