Dealing With Energy Vampires Part 3: Setting boundaries by raising your consciousness

I read an article by Steve Pavlina on how our relationships with other people are only ever projections of our relationship with ourselves. He says that our internal and external relationships are the same and that we are only viewing our relationships through the lens of our own consciousness. It also means that we are acting in accordance to our levels of consciousness as well.

With this in mind, we can start to look at our relationships differently and see that any problems that we have in a relationship are only signals to change our consciousness and relationships we have with ourselves.

Steve Pavlina gives an example of tidiness. He is tidy. His wife is not. This could be a source of conflict between himself and his wife. But now he understands it as a projection of his internal conflict and takes it to mean that his desire for his wife to be tidier is really his desire to be more tidy himself. So he worked on improving his standards of tidiness.

As he did this his wife became more organized and tidy.

Be The Change That You Want To See

It seems that this change is due to the change in his own energy vibration and consciousness which his wife then (unconsciously it seems) responded to. This approach can best be summarised by Gandhi's phrase: "Be the change you want to see". I have heard this phrase for a long time, but only recently has it actually sunk in as to how powerful it is.

What does this have to do with setting boundaries?

Every article I read on setting boundaries talks about voicing setting external boundaries. It's about telling people what is and isn't acceptable and taking action (if necessary) to enforce your boundaries.

All well and good, but look at it through this new filter. What if people breaching your boundaries was a signal to you to stop breaching your own boundaries? As within, so without. When you stop disrespecting your own boundaries, then others will stop doing so. They will have heeded the unconscious energetic vibration that you are giving out.

It's not just a nice theory. I experience a change in in how I'm treated when I respect my own boundaries and when I don't.

Breaching my own boundaries

I've been breaching my own boundaries recently through lack of self care and because of that was asked to do something that violated my values. Feeling tired, I just gave in and thought that it would be all right to do so. Afterwards I experienced a great deal of anger - a sure sign that a boundary had been breached.

In fact, I had breached my own boundaries much much earlier over a period of time and since we are all connected what happened was merely an external manifestation of it. It was a real wake up call.

How do we breach our own boundaries?

There are numerous ways to do so because human beings are infinitely creative, however you may recognise yourself in the following:

- Lack of self care. Looking after yourself on a physical level gives you the energy to take your place fully in the world. Highly sensitive people, in particular, need to sleep well and at an appropriate time, eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly and have a regular spiritual practice. Self care is probably the most important one on this list. The rest will come easier if your physical body is well cared for. The result aren't just physical, it contributes to your emotional self management and regulation.

- Going against your values (if you know what they are) is a fundamental breach of boundaries and sense of self. Doing something to go along with the crowd when it jars with you is a popular one.

- By not doing what brings you joy and living with the heaviness of duty, obligation, anger and resentment.

- Becoming a chronic people pleaser - trying to manage others' emotions because you can't bear it if they're unhappy, angry etc. You try to manage them because you find it difficult to manage your own.

- Having negative and self limiting thoughts and beliefs about your capabilities. Thought often enough, these thoughts become part of your energy field and you begin radiating those negative beliefs, which other people pick up on and manifest for you in a more tangible form.

Honouring your boundaries energetically

Many articles will often state that you should identify what your boundaries are and make them clear to others around you. It's one way of doing it, I suppose, but what they neglect to mention is that it is your vibration which determines if your boundary is honoured or how often you have to repeat the action.

If you feel energetically shaky or ambivalent (for whatever reason) whilst attempting to strengthen your boundaries, others will not take your word seriously because they sense that you are vibrationally confused about the boundary yourself.

It is a good idea to start writing down what your boundaries are (and it helps to identify them first by noting times when you've been/felt angry or resentful and asking yourself what boundary has been transgressed).

Then use energy psychology, something simple and self applied for instance, like the Emotional Freedom Technique to start addresssing some of these issues. You can also visit an EFT practitioner to help you address issues relating to the setting of boundaries, which often masks other problems.

It may seem harder to address setting boundaries this way, but it is actually more effective and less energy consuming. If you use energy psychology on what your boundaries are, people unconsciously sense a vibrational change and won't breach them, so that you don't have to say anything - your vibration does it for you. And it is always your vibration that people are actually responding to; not your words.

This concept is a great way to start addressing problems and conflicts in your life and goes against the grain of blaming others or taking the popular victim stance.