“There are just not enough hours in the day!”
“Stop the clock!”
“Wish the sun would go back a few paces.”
These are typical comments in today’s fast-paced performance driven world, where the continual demand for outcome and results can easily lead us to compromise our time and energy. Even though that stress takes a visible toll on us and our families, we often are at a loss of how to change the daily cycle of compromising our well-being. We need to own on a deep level of our psyche that it’s okay to protect our time and energy.
Owning that it’s okay to protect our time and energy requires us to own our needs. That is not done merely by setting new goals and objectives, new resolutions and determinations. When we have been used to compromising our boundaries, that work of owning our right to protect our time and energy requires a healing process.
Early on in our lives we will have begun to learn whether we are allowed to express our needs and choose to say yes or no. Did you grow up in an environment that demanded you stuff your identity and needs in a safe box while you please everyone else? Did you fight to be heard? Did you stay out as long as possible to find some time for yourself because you tend to leave yourself last? Or were you fortunate that you could express your needs safely and find validation with your parents and siblings? Such patterns set up automatic boundary patterns in our lives that get repeated hundreds and thousands of times in our adult lives.
If we were denied the right to protect our time and energy in our childhood, we may feel very guilty trying to do so in daily adult life. Now we need to bring compassionate understanding to that pain to facilitate the genuine healing of our identity and the appropriate expression of our healthy boundaries. Our sense of worth grows subconsciously each time we give ourselves even a small dose of compassion. We do not have to broadcast our boundaries loudly, but as a result of giving ourselves compassion, we naturally begin to share a new vibe to the world around us that we are worth enough to protect our time and energy.
One very simple practical tip in beginning to practice protecting our time and boundaries is the self-empathic question:
“If I saw someone else in my shoes, what would I feel for them and what would I want them to do for themselves in a way that honours them and those around them?”
If you find you would like further assistance in this process, please feel free to contact us to get the support you need. It is a journey to begin to realize and live out that “It’s okay to protect your time and energy.”
