EP 118 | WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BOUNDARIES

We need to talk about boundaries…

A year ago today, I got my very first hate mail from my podcast. It was from someone I considered a medicine brother. A friend. Someone I’ve sat in ceremony with and had real time with. And it felt like getting emotionally jumped and beaten down in an alley.

This all happened the day before Thanksgiving last year. And it was a dark feeling. It hurt a lot, this meanness and rejection. It got me questioning myself. My intentions. My integrity. Why do I share myself and my heart like this? Am I harming myself by thinking I am helping anyone else?

I asked myself the thing I ask all of you to put attention to in yourselves.

WHY AM I HERE? Why am I doing this? What is my intention?

I started looking at myself and trying to justify my opinions and beliefs and words and existence to this person.

I responded to the attack with defensiveness and self-criticism because it blew past my boundaries and triggered my massive people pleasing and perfectionism behaviors. I felt activated and raw inside my own truth, with no protection.

Today, I want to say THANK YOU to that brother who said such hateful things to me a year ago. It was the beginning of a new cycle of understanding and enforcing my own boundaries. Of confronting my people pleasing and perfectionism. An invitation to get really comfortable disappointing people, having them not like me, and deciding to lean even further into my own authenticity.

It was a cry from my deepest soul that I would no longer accept the fawning and outward focused need for validation from others.

This rupture offered a crossroads: Keep going the way that used to serve me – being small and pleasing and twisting myself into ways others want me to be… OR taking off the masks. ALL OF THEM. And being authentic AF and letting those people who don’t like it remove themselves from my life and my work.

I know WHY I’m here doing what I do.

This year, I focused on HOW. And the how is boundaries.

I came to the medicine looking for it to cure me of my brokenness. But what I got instead was the beautiful truth that I was never broken. That how I am is exactly right. No efforting required.

And that is the connection to Source that I maintain every single day. The one that reminds me that I am already perfect. That life is spectacular. What a gorgeous, delicious ride that we get to go on.

The greatest gift I have gotten from working with medicine and finding Spirit is reconnecting to my own body, heart, and mind. Befriending myself. Discarding the victim mentality and seeing everything as a gift and teacher.

Remembering that I have agency and sovereignty and I can choose what is true. Learning to tune in to the wisdom of my heart.

Because the heart always knows the answer.

I inhabit myself now. I know myself. I have my power back. And how I choose to use my force of life in the world requires strong, solid boundaries with myself and with others.

I recognize that my energy is sacred. My emotional and mental and physical temple is holy and must be protected and cared for. And I am the only one who can do this for myself.

I am fiercely protecting myself in the ways I need to so that I can keep being a spiritual warrior. The amount of power and presence needed to show up as my most exalted self requires devotion and acknowledging my own limits. Saying no.

And managing the time and energy I expend so that I am operating at full capacity instead of trying to give from an empty ass cup.

Creating strong boundaries in myself has gifted me tremendously fulfilling friendships, client relationships, ceremonial connections, and allowed this family to grow and expand. The boundaries I have grown in my life have blessed me with a love and partnership that is hard to believe is real sometimes because it feels so wonderful.

Boundaries have gifted me time with myself, and loving connections off all depths and varieties because I am able to say, gently, “I don’t have the capacity for this.” And be received by loving, conscious humans who understand.

Boundaries have allowed me to be the love of my own life. To trust myself completely. To believe fully in the benevolence of the Universe.

I make mistakes all the time. I have let go of rigidity and self-righteousness and certainty. I let things slide. I don’t sweat the small stuff because who has time for that? You can’t do it wrong, ever. And everything is here to help you.

You get to decide what works for you and what doesn’t. You teach people how to treat you. And how you do this is BOUNDARIES BABY! No matter where you are on your journey back to yourself, you can learn how to create powerful boundaries within yourself and with others, starting right now.

Come be in your power with me… (Without guilt or apology!)

Love, -Sinclair