I was sent a copy of this book for review purposes and all thoughts are my own.
I managed to squeeze in time to read this book when I was on leave last week. You might think that a book about boundaries and making space isn’t that relevant during a global pandemic (don’t we already have enough space during lockdown?), but there is so much here to think about, including communication, relationships, parenting, work-life balance, and behavioural change.
I reviewed a copy of Jayne’s The Self-Care Project a couple of years ago and was interested to see that she had written a new book. She’s the founder of The Blurt Foundation, a fantastic social enterprise which works to increase awareness and understanding of depression (I highly recommend giving them a follow on your preferred social platform, signing up to their newsletter, and giving their subscription box a go). As she notes in Making Space, “Self-care is a healthcare issue. It’s preventative, transformative and makes spaces for us to take what we need mentally, emotionally, physically, energetically and spiritually… Doing nothing is never doing nothing, it’s resting, recharging, recuperating, making space.” And working on your own boundaries is a big part of that.
I found Jayne’s journey so relatable. In her opening chapter, she provides a bit of a background: “Managing my mental health has been a long learning curve/crawl. A process of tweaking, pivoting and flexing. It’s mostly trial and error as I navigate new things to see if they’ll help or not help. Boundaries and self-care go hand in hand. Without boundaries, we might understand the importance of self-care but not protect the space within which to do it.”
This spoke to me so much. I’ve become a lot more self-aware in recent months and I’m always reading around to try things which could help. And I know what’s good for me, I just don’t always prioritise it. Something this book has already helped me to address.
So what are these boundaries anyway?
“Boundaries are inescapable; they’re the physical, mental, digital, emotional, environmental, spiritual and cultural constructs that create a framework which underpins and influences how we behave, our expectations on how those around us might behave, what we take responsibility for, what others take responsibility for, what we let in and what we keep out, and the relationship we have with ourselves and everything around us.”
Non-existent or compromised boundaries can make us feel manipulated, controlled, angry, disrespected or, my personal favourite, resentful. And that resentment can feed on itself if you don’t start to value yourself and communicate properly.
The chapter I found most interesting was the one on teaching children the importance of boundaries; it’s so important to me that
Jenson feels equipped to create his own – and enforce them. “How then, do we navigate parenting in a way that keeps our children safe and also empowers them to have firm, healthy personal boundaries of their own?”
The boundaries we create as adults, or neglect to create, as the case may be, is largely learned behaviour. So, surely, if we teach our children about healthy boundaries and being kind to yourself, they’ll grow up to be assertive, mindful, and well-rounded adults.
“… we’re rarely taught how to take care of our mental and emotional health, or that it’s something to be prioritised… And we’re not taught that being kind to ourselves isn’t always the same as being kind to others… If we’re not given the opportunity to practise this stuff as young people, then as adults we find ourselves on wobbly waters.”
Some of the content reminded me of areas I’ve already started to work on, thanks to Sarah Knight’s books. When reading Fuck No, I realised that I’m a People-Pleasing Pushover. Making Space reiterated the fact with a bit of a ‘woah’ moment:
“When we hold steady in quietening and dampening our inner compass and end up doing things which feel uncomfortable, laden with resentment and inauthenticity, it’s damaging to our self-esteem and self-confidence… In being what we deem to be selfless, we often become self-less.”
I know I need to prioritise myself more. Until recently, I thought I didn’t have time for myself, but reading How Time is On Your Side showed me that it’s not about how many hours I have in the day, it’s about my priorities, and I should be a priority. The sad fact is, I often feel that I need permission to prioritise myself, and Making Space gave me that in spades:
“When we have children… It can feel nigh-on impossible to reclaim any chunk of time… and asking for help can feel dogged by those self-shaming thoughts of ‘I should be able to cope’… Your feelings matter, whatever they are – they’re valid, even when you’re a parent. Your sense of identity isn’t usually lost; it’s buried beneath the demands on and of you… don’t forget to take care of yourself and to do the things (whatever they are) that comfort, reassure and nurture you, too.”
I’m going to remind myself of that whenever I feel like I don’t have time to sit down and letter or journal. Especially as one of my key takeaways from the book was to ‘express the stress’. My journal is an important outlet for me in more ways than one.
The People-Pleasing problem is a tough one to overcome, especially at work:
“… we can throw ourselves into our work to try and ascertain enough-ness from our output and usefulness and indispensability. But in doing so, we tend to head towards burn-out because we move the yardstick of that enough-ness for ourselves – it’ll feel further and further away the more we do, and all the while, those around us grow used to a level of output and usefulness from us… Creating space doesn’t mean that we’re not longer passionate, dedicated or motivated, it increases our capacity to harness more of that passion, dedication and motivation.”
Those few lines brought a lot of things to a head for me. When I’ve reached burn-out in the past, it’s been because I keep increasing my workload (rather than enforcing my boundaries) and neglecting my self-care (trouble prioritising). And by being seen to be productive and efficient, I’m actually making things harder for myself as it’s impossible to maintain, thus continuing the ever-present stress cycle. But that’s going to change.
I’m also going to reprioritise my time to allow for research and idea generation. So much of my work is reactive and I’m constantly moving from one project to the next with no breathing time. Shock horror, our worth is not determined by our productivity (I loved this recent article) and we don’t need to be constantly creating to be productive.
Who’s ready for a lifestyle change?