I was thinking today about boundaries and needs, and how I’m starting to work on recognizing them. I’ll add a new one to the list:

1. Honesty – truth is important
2. Empathy – emotions are important
3. Respect – it is important to be valued and value others
4. Time – control over your time and space
5. Possibility – belief anything is possible
6. Health – lifestyle is important

Needs are interesting, because I think boundaries are used to protect needs. I’m not entirely sure whether or not these are needs or boundaries. I also don’t know if they are values. In doing a little more research it seems that some people would consider these values, not needs. Maybe I should switch up my terminology.

In any case, health is a value that I recently added to incorporate my dedication to sleep, digestion, and exercise all in the service of feeling happy, strong, and energetic (for the long run).

I also recently thought about possibility. The most often neglected of all my values/needs but I feel equally important. I realized recently that possibility is what drives solutions. Boundaries are important, but communicating them, enforcing them, often requires compromise and communication. And what helps with that is the feeling of possibility.

Recently, I was feeling resentful of my parents not wanting me to go to a social gathering with friends. I felt it was violating my boundary around health (mental health), empathy (where they would value my emotions) and honesty (I did not feel like I could be honest about any of this).

However, I didn’t know what to do because I respect their boundaries around health might be a bit different from mine. Being older and frailer, they were more worried about my health and their own. I know that I cannot protect them from getting sick, but I felt increasingly stressed.

The possibility value came into play when I thought about how anything is possible. I started to think about how I could meet my need for emotional health in different ways, for example, talking more to my friends and meeting more of them (in a more one on one setting) that would potentially reduce and control the risk to my parents. At the same time I still see possibilities in meeting up with my friends working out as possibility is always there.

I’m angry. I feel trapped at home, at work, and in my relationship. I am tired and uncomfortable like I have no personal space. I am taking charge today.

I don’t know what that means, but right now it means, that for the first time since I came back to my parent’s house, I am doing my daily routine.

Nowhere To Go

My parents

Hovering

Watching

Judging

Like glue stuck to my arms

My girlfriend

A ball of frustration and negativity

That I feel anxiety in my core

Every time she pulls at me

My work a clash between

Two fighting parents

With me stuck in the middle

Where is the space for me?

I feel several realizations come to me when I write about these emotions. First, the technique of taking space. I feel all my oxygen, happiness, room, and sanity is taken away by others. I feel like I’m making myself smaller to give room to others. The first thing I want to do is to start taking up space, making demands, and making myself big.

The second thing that I feel is important (and might give me a clue as to how I can make myself big, and not huddle real small), is remembering my boundaries and needs:

1. Time – I want to be in control of my time
2. Honesty – I want to be honest with myself and others
3. Empathy – I want to empathize and others to empathize with me
4. Possibility – I want to believe anything is possible
5. Respect – I want others to show respect for me and my abilities

This already gives me a clearer idea of what is happening here.

I definitely feel a lack of honesty, time, and sometimes respect and empathy at home. In fact, maybe possibility sometimes too. In my relationship I feel lack of honesty, empathy, possibility, and time (and sometimes respect). And at work, I feel a lack of respect, honesty, empathy, and time as well.

I also feel that in every scenario, the key is wanting everyone to like me to not feel uncomfortable.

I caused most of these boundary violations to happen, and that is empowering because I have the ability to change them,

One of the things I want to do instead of wanting everyone to be happy and wanting everyone to like me, is approach people with my same values.

For example, if I want to be honest with someone, empathize with them, show respect, but let go of trying to control how they feel. If I want to be respected more, I can do that with empathy and honesty and respect as well.

This is far more empowering and less stressful because I am in control of myself. I can change how I approach situations, but I cannot control others.

I had quite a stressful workday as I expected but I wanted to jot down a couple of reflections today:

1. Reminding myself of my boundaries (time, respect, honesty, empathy, and possibility) really helped
2. It also helped to note down what I cannot control before every major meeting (usually something related to how someone felt about me)
3. I noticed that keeping pace with my todo list was helpful:
   1. Keep all tasks that come to mind in my todo list (use it as a mental trashcan to throw all my worries)
   2. Reorder todo list to whatever I am working on right now (move something to the top if I am currently working on it)
   3. Do tasks immediately if they are low-effort
   4. Do sweeps (try to do everything on the todo list)
4. Focus also helped
   1. Close as many tabs as possible
   2. Focus on one thing at a time

I was thinking about how to transition from work to Valorant more effectively since I usually start to feel dead and I end up watching youtube and ordering food and that kind of makes it hard for me to stay sharp when gaming and I end up feeling even more stressed and awful.

I think cleaning is a really good transition point. Cleaning reduces stress and is a great way to transition slowly…if I’m worried that there will still be a call coming in and I might have to go back to work, cleaning makes it easy to go back to work without feeling like I am not ready to transition to the next thing. In fact, if I clean, even if I go back to work, I will still be more ready to game after the work is done because my space is now clean.

I also like the idea of a mental dump to write down everything you are thinking about at the end of the day so that you can pick it up at any point today or tomorrow or the day after.

Finally, I like to look at the schedule for the next day and mentally prepare for it to know what you can do today to give you a lot of spaciousness tomorrow.

My peace today was disrupted by work early. It is nice to have time to talk about strategic leadership things. I usually don’t have that much time during the week.

However, it’s not the type of morning that I aim to repeat.

I intend on reclaiming as much peace as I can in this 20 minute span.

I feel that respect is a really important need for me in work, and I feel that this need was not met at my previous job, it remains to be seen whether or not it is met enough in this job. I have my doubts to be sure.

Today, I woke up feeling much better, even though I went to bed a bit late. It’s because, on top of journaling, I also did cupping on my body to unblock anything that was blocked. Turned red on my chest, I guess a lot of blockages there specifically.

I feel with the level of stress this morning with no peace and no running I’m feeling surprisingly good.

I wonder how to push back on blatant hostility and disrespect in a way that I want to. I suppose some rage journaling should help and maybe my coaching mindset.

Today I want to focus on making a video on how to handle lack of respect in the workplace.

I don’t know how that is going to go but that’s what I want to do.

Perhaps I need to meditate on it some more.

Maybe finally watching another 20 minutes of the coaching call will be nice as well.