Re-establishing boundaries

with ourselves and others for fulfilling relationships

Today is all about reflection and looking within.

 My only hope is that after reading this, you go on setting the standard for what you’d like to see in your life. I hope that your actions and words coalesce so beautifully. I hope that you relieve yourself of taking all the blame. I hope that you seek to hold yourself accountable instead.

Last week I had an occurrence in my life that triggered the thought pattern:

1. I need to know what role people are playing in my life to eliminate disappointment

2. I need to reestablish the boundaries on what type of behavior I will and will not accept from myself and others

3. What are my needs when it comes to platonic friendships?

I am focusing on cultivating sustainable relationships outside of my romantic partnership.

I know that love doesn’t begin or end in that relationship. As I continue to evolve, it’s important to me that I have people in my life who resonant with the woman that I am. I want to be held and hold space for platonic friendships. I want to know how far and wide love can stretch when I extend it to another.

As we look to fill the spaces in our lives, it’s easy to get overly attached to the idea of connection. We end up exchanging our efforts for bread crumbs as we over look the signs where people show us exactly who they are ( and sometimes they are realllllly good as disguising themselves and their motives)

When this happens, we often look to place the blame solely on those who have wronged us never looking at ourselves in the mirror to reflect on the reasons we accept shitty behavior in the first place.

The relationship you have with yourself reflects the relationships you have with other people.

I don’t say that statement lightly but it is important to add that just because you attract shitty people doesn’t mean you’re a shitty person, it just means that maybe you have shitty boundaries that need to be considered.

When I first moved to Dallas at the end of 2018 I didn’t know anyone except my cousin who is a few years older than me.

In 2019-2020 I met some great women who I called friends. I know that My aura is yellow. It’s positive, fun, and loving and I believe that these are some of the qualities that pull people into my orb in the first place.

They enjoyed my company as this positive, fun and loving person until something didn’t go their way. I had one situation where I was told that “my energy was negative” when I know very well that couldn’t be. I was never the type to be negative and especially not in a group setting because

I’d stay my ass home before I show up ANYWHERE negative.

I still stand on that philosophy until this very day. I was also told that I was “ too loud”. Looking back now, I was just expressive. She wasn’t.

Patterns in my friendships slowly started to emerge. The minute that I showed other sides of my personality I was hit with projections that left me feeling confused and insecure. From the insecurity, I never challenged people in their efforts to speak down on my character. I thought that if they said it then maybe there was some truth to it. So I was always overly apologetic. From my understanding, I was just being myself. What was wrong with that?

I went to therapy so I could have a safe space to voice my frustrations, concerns, and needs for connection. I soon learned that my want for friends overshadowed the fact that

I dimmed my own light to be around people who weren’t on my level to begin with.

I had a tendency to shrink myself down a few sizes in order to be in relation with others.

I was a certified people pleaser.

*certified people pleaser - you like to make other people comfortable at the expense of making yourself uncomfortable.

One might ask “Well Tiana, what makes you certified? you have a certificate in it duhhhh, stay with me people lmao

In sharing my story, I don’t seek to glorify myself while tearing other women down. I don’t want to treat people like they are disposable when I know that we are all apart of an inseparable community called earth. I love people. I love connecting. I love picking on strangers (and sometimes the shy inner child in me tells me not to do it). I love hearing about other people’s experiences and I enjoy sharing mine. I love sending random “thinking about you” text to my people.

I just love.

*and one day i’ll share on that statement*

Right now, I only wish to speak about my experiences from a place of growth and introspection that have helped me to see the situations for what they were. I could not place blame solely on people who treated me the way I allowed them to.

The real problem back then was that did not know what I needed in friendships or the type of friendships I was looking for. I did not have firm boundaries in the relationship with myself. As a result, I was willing to accept anything that looked remotely similar to what I thought I wanted.

As humans we all have a tendency to project, deflect, and cause harm to one another through our actions or lack of.

Then we turn around and say stuff like

“I’m the gift”

“I feel sorry for those who lost me”

If we’re all walking around with that mentality then how can we dissolve the patterns that we consciously and unconsciously hold on to?

How can we truly move to a space of loving reciprocated relationships if we never stop to look at the whole picture?

How can we expect to be in relation with others when our words aren’t aligning with our actions? We say we want one thing but accept another.

We don’t like to be held accountable. We don’t like to be honest about our part in what we accept and attract. We will willingly sign up for people to fill a void in our lives without observation then get mad at the person when we find out that they aren’t who we wanted them to be.

So last week when someone who I call friend tried to project their negativities on me, as if I was the source of their relationship problems, I responded from a place of clarity knowing exactly what was happening. I did not feed into the ploy, I didn’t seek to hurt feelings, but I aligned with the truths of who I am instead of questioning the intention of my heart.

I am not the girl who people pleases, who is insecure and confused.

I am a woman who knows what she brings to every room. I am flawed. I honor my weaknesses just as much as I honor my strengths.

Yes, that situation rubbed me the wrong way so I had slight residual feelings of annoyance but most importantly, I had a moment to reflect on all of the relationships in my life currently.

So that brings me back to the reflection questions from above.

1. What roles are people playing in my life? As I allow myself to align with like minded people in 2023 it’s important that I am aware that everyone will not fill the position of “close friend”. I need to get familiar with how people present themselves through their strengths, weaknesses, actions, and capabilities and decide where they fit into my world along with my own strengths, weaknesses, actions, and capabilities.

2. What type of behavior will I tolerate/not tolerate from myself and others?

   With myself, One thing I want to do is be impeccable with my word. If I say I want to do something then I need to make sure that I take actions toward whatever that may be.

   With others, I will accept people for who they are because we all have imperfections. I will not tolerate projection from people without changed behavior. I will not tolerate someone who constantly complains, is negative, and sulks in problems.

3. What are my needs when it comes to platonic friendships?

   One of my needs is having platonic friendships with people who know how to nurture themselves and others but never at the expense of their own well being. That’s breathing ground for the “people never do what I do for them” mentality.

   I can’t say that I would have stopped to be this intentional had that situation not happened. I enjoy speaking from experience always.

   Thank you life for forever being my teacher.

xoxo tiana