Boundaries.
Hard, but critical to create and maintain. If you are like me, I hate disappointing people. And it can really feel like you are when you begin creating boundaries.
But here’s the deal:
Boundaries are important for your food freedom journey as an intuitive eater. We know that diet culture is LOUD. It’s everywhere you look in friends, family, medical professionals. We cannot control what happens to or is said to us but we can control how we RESPOND.
Think of boundaries as if you’re driving a car around a cliff. Can you imagine those guardrails on the very edge? Those are boundaries, and they bump us back to safety.
Boundaries support you and your journey. And I have a few tips that can help:
Tip #1
A therapist once told me “Sammy, boundaries keep YOU safe, not the people around you.” And if you’re like me… that was hard to hear. But SO important.
If you set a boundary, and someone doesn’t like it, it does NOT mean the boundary was wrong or that you shouldn’t set it. It was necessary to keep you safe.
Tip #2
Be clear on your boundaries before putting yourself in a situation, if you can.
Let’s say you are at a point in your journey where you are not able to engage in diet culture talk. It may be making you angry, anxious, or brings up a general unpleasant feeling. A boundary for you in this example would be: if you know you are going to be in a social setting where diet culture talk comes up, you excuse yourself from the room or the conversation when it happens. You do not have to even entertain the idea of diet culture talk. It doesn’t serve you, it’s not worth fighting over and it’s going to work up stress in you.
Having the boundary BEFORE is important because when triggers come up, if we have nothing planned, we react emotionally/fight back and the person might fight back too and it gets messy.
Tip #3
Have a support system. People that you can celebrate your boundaries with. This can be someone close to you, a friend, a family member, or an online community! Our Facebook group has over 2.9k amazing human beings that are working towards food freedom, and we would be happy to be that group for you. So let’s go back to that scenario, say you excuse yourself and you go on our Facebook group and share your experience: you excused yourself and had your boundary, stuck to it, and you feel so much better!
At first, it might not feel like progress because it doesn’t look like you moved a mountain but the little things you do each day matter. These steps will help reset the neural pathways in your brain, and you can shift into a positive mindset, allowing you to step away from diet culture. This is huge.
If you feel you need a little more support, we are here. Sometimes you may need some extra care from health professionals that are trained to do exactly this. And that is okay. On top of learning from our programs, we stay in constant communication with our clients. You can check-in and tell me “Sammy, I just did (XYZ) and I’m so proud!” or when you are struggling and really need some support.
Diet culture is loud. And it can be really confusing, frustrating, and straight-up HARD to begin your food freedom journey. It is so important to invest in professionals that have the tools to help you start this journey. Click here and snag a free training and dive into our beginner’s training for all you Intuitive Eating newbies!
If you enjoyed this blog, I know you will also take great pleasure in my blog titled: How to Overcome Fear of Weight Gain
