Boundaries Are Not Walls, They’re Invitations
Okay, so. We’ve talked about the difference between rules and boundaries. We’ve started noticing the red flags in ourselves, the signs we’ve been taught to ignore. We’ve peeled back the layers of performance and shame. And we’ve seen what happens when we gaslight ourselves into thinking everything’s fine.
Now it’s time to look at what the world starts to feel like when we honor our boundaries in real time, in real relationships.
Boundaries aren’t walls, they’re invitations.
Invitations to show up fully and to allow others to do the same. They create space where I get to be my best self. They’re not about isolation, they’re about alignment. Mutual respect for boundaries creates relationships that feel authentic, deep, and uplifting.
My truest friends are those that I can say “I know that we had plans, but I can’t today,” and they need no justification, they don’t put on the guilt, they don’t tell me if I was a real friend I would pull through. They not only accept that I need space, they celebrate my honesty and encourage me to honor myself. These are the lifelong strong relationships that will carry you through anything. They are more than “help you hide the body” friends. These are the friends that you can have any conversation with and you never walk away replaying what was said or done and worrying that you overshared, didn’t share enough, dominated the conversation, or interrupted too much. You were just you.
People often wonder, if I continue to enforce boundaries and follow-through on the consequences I have identified, doesn’t my circle get smaller? And the answer is yes. But this is a quality over quantity situation. Anyone that repeatedly crosses your boundaries, or is angered that you have them, is someone that has benefited from your misalignment, from you repeatedly minimizing yourself and sacrificing your integrity. And it doesn’t have to mean total exclusion, but you get to determine the level of access to your spaces.
Boundaries = Clarity
Recently, a friend messaged me asking if I had time to talk. I didn’t feel like it. I sat with that feeling for a moment. I asked myself, “What would this conversation cost me?” I weighed the energy, and I chose to say yes.
And in the end, I was wrong, I didn’t have as much to give as I thought. I felt drained.
But that’s okay. That, too, is part of the work. Making intentional choices, noticing how they land, adjusting as you go. That’s how we learn.
Doing boundary work is going to change your life. It should.
Relationships are going to change. They should.
Boundaries are not meant to protect the status quo. They’re meant to change it.
Because the truth is, if you stop pouring your reserves into everyone else’s cup, some people will feel shorted. Some will be angry. Some will leave.
I’m not saying this to scare you. I’m saying it because I’ve lived it.
And because I need you to do this work just as much as you need to.
This is how the world changes, not all at once, but person by person, choice by choice. That ripple effect? It’s real.
I thought I was just starting a gratitude practice. But in the five years since, I’ve gotten divorced, moved four times, bought and sold a house, been promoted, demoted, and left. And through all of that, I’ve built something stronger.
I’ve created a more honest relationship with my kids. A more compassionate relationship with my body. I’m learning to rest without guilt. And The Bridgework Project was born from that same transformation.
“You’re too much.” “You’re overreacting.” “That’s dramatic.”
Many of us have been told we’re rigid, picky, dramatic, or inflexible when we’ve tried to name our needs.
We have been gaslit for having needs at all.
But your boundaries are not an offense. They are not an attack. If you have to explain your boundary over and over, it’s not a boundary issue, it’s a respect issue, and your body knows it before your mind can justify it. Boundaries are not about control, they’re about clarity. They are inviting others to meet us where we actually live and to leave their shoes outside.
Boundaries are the structures that allow us to offer our best. They’re not selfish, they’re strategic. They aren’t indulgent, they’re essential. Especially for neurodivergent people, boundaries help regulate our environments, energy, and expectations. When we’re supported to stay in alignment, we don’t just function better, we flourish.
And that has ripple effects. Because a system can’t be nurturing if the people building it are in self-erasure mode. Boundaries = energy conservation = strategic focus = system design.
Boundaries aren’t about keeping people out. They’re about calling ourselves back in.
When I say this work changes you, I mean it.
It’s like putting on glasses with a new prescription and seeing clearly again.
Let me give you an example: Loneliness
I’m single. I get lonely sometimes. But loneliness today feels different than it used to.
Loneliness used to feel like a deficit, like something to be filled at all costs. That void made it easy to invite the wrong people in just to feel something.
Years ago, I thought I’d done the “happy alone” work. Six months single, focusing on myself. But if I’m honest, I was still actively looking for a partner. Still checking the box that said “Look! I did the self-love! Now bring me the love-love.”
Looking back, I wasn’t alone. I had rich friendships, vibrant weekends, dance classes. But I often felt like an outsider, not because of them, but because I wasn’t fully showing up.
I was still iterating toward conformity. Still performing. Still looking for the partner that would finally prove I was worthy.
And when I got into that relationship? So many of those friendships faded away like they were just placeholders.
Today, I can honestly say that I don’t feel lonely most of the time. I have a truly full life.
But when I do, my loneliness is different. It doesn’t feel like a wound.
It feels like an ache. A beautiful one. It’s not desperation, it’s desire with integrity.
I still want connection. I still long for presence and intimacy. But I won’t contort myself to earn proximity.
Because the people I welcome into my life now, they stay because we meet in mutuality. Because I don’t need to explain myself to be accepted. Because I don’t have to perform.
I had plans with a friend recently and I text them, “I know we had plans, but I just can’t today.”
She replied, “I know that feeling. Rest up.”
I only loved her more after that.
There’s so much trust in that kind of friendship.
As Dr. Seuss famously said:
“The people who mind don’t matter, and the people who matter don’t mind.”
It’s one thing to understand that intellectually. It’s another thing entirely to feel it in your bones.
This is what boundary work makes possible.
Let’s keep going.
Reflective Prompts
Take a moment to think about or even jot down how you would answer these questions, then expand to see how I answered them.
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Boundaries create space to breathe.
I think of all the times I’ve sat in worry, replaying conversations, second-guessing what I said, what they said, what I should have said. Wondering what will happen next. In those moments, there’s a tightness in my chest. My breath turns shallow. My body curls inward.
Boundaries are the antidote to that spiraling. They let me decide who comes in, and how far they’re allowed past the threshold.
They return power to my hands.
No longer am I granting access simply because someone deems me worthy of their attention. I’ve learned that access to me is a privilege, and I’m the one holding the key.
Boundaries have created space for me to meet myself more fully. And the more I know myself, the more I can show up in my relationships with authenticity, not obligation.
So much of our identity has been shaped through the gaze of others.
We think they’re holding up a mirror.
But most of the time, it’s a window.
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The relationships that feel the most alive are the ones built on mutual respect and honesty. With my kids. With my truest friends. With the folks who show up with genuine interest in the work I’m doing.
But the most transformed relationship?
The one I have with myself.
I know that might sound cliche or “woo woo,” but it’s real.
I’m learning to trust myself in ways I never thought possible. And inside that trust is confidence. Inside that trust is love. Not performative love. Not conditional love. Real, rooted, steady love.
That trust is changing everything.
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This week, I’m going to honor the voice inside me that says:
“Not right now,” when a friend asks for a call and I know I need silence.
“Rest,” when I was “supposed” to go for a run.
“Sleep,” when everything in my body is asking for a steady bedtime, even when something else is pulling at my attention.
Small boundaries. Gentle choices. But they matter.
Because every time I honor a boundary, I’m building trust with myself. And every time I build that trust, I come home to myself a little more fully.