Category: Misc.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, my 2020 is about me making lifestyle changes and learning about forgiveness. I figured, “new decade, new me”, right? So, as a “resolution” for this new year, I’m learning how to forgive myself, my past, and the people involved in it so in honor of that here’s the first SAS of 2020 speaking about a couple of things I’ve learned during this process.

At the very beginning of the year, I went to my weekly therapy session and brought up the want to forgive and truly move on from my past and the past versions of myself. As I said in the post The Year of Forgiveness, I wanted to stop carrying the baggage I seem to never let go and was just tired of allowing it to affect my life to this day. So, with the help of therapy and talking everything out about my past to her, I’m learning just how difficult this goal of mine is going to be to achieve.

The thing is it’s so easy to “forgive and forget.” I honestly don’t know why that saying exists; do you ever find yourself forgiving something and then forgetting about it? I didn’t think so. The thing about forgiving someone, yourself, a situation, whatever; it’s that it takes a lot of pride, ego, acceptance, and moving on to truly forgive. If anything, it’s truly easier said than done; an actual saying that speaks facts! 

A couple of things I had to think about what was I really seeking for; is it strictly closure, is it acceptance of what happened, was it to undo my wrongs and let those in my past back in my life? If it was strictly closure, then I needed to go on this forgiveness journey on my own, allowing myself to accept that those involved are not involved in this process. I had to really think about what closure meant to me in the first place. Something in me thought that closure meant confronting my demons head-on, challenging myself and speaking to the ones I left without warning. After speaking to my therapist and truly understanding what I wanted versus what I needed, I realized that I wanted closure from these events and people, but I didn’t need to bring them back in my life to do it. This was a thing I needed to do on my own, not with the people who may have opinions of their own and feelings of their own. The past is the past, I don’t need their input for my own personal forgiveness and closure, and that’s just that.

So, why am I making this a big deal? Can’t I just say “hey, I forgive myself and I take responsibility for my actions” and call it a day? Sure, but it doesn’t work like that. There’s a lot of work behind truly forgiving yourself and moving forward from it. From witnessing other people and experiencing it on my own, I see that when people say they are over the past and ready to move on and whatever, there is still bitterness, a grudge even, behind that sentence. In other words, we put on this facade that we’re doing good and nothing is holding us back but behind closed doors, we still allow it to affect us. I’m yearning for the type of forgiveness that I honestly move forward from, not allowing it to affect my day-to-day life.

So, forgiveness is truly about changed behavior. How do we remove the grudge and replace it with forgiveness? How do we see ourselves in a more positive light? How do we truly take in what happened in the past and take responsibility for it? Most importantly, how do we honor the people we once were and see our past selves as a necessary step towards growth instead of “a part of our true selves”? That last one is a hard one for me. For me, I’m constantly worried that the person who I was and the decisions and things I made/did are my true colors and that it can come back at any moment. I have this fear that the things I did in the past are just some of my true colors, and I’m just truly this bad person trying to be a good one. This is one of the reasons how I let my past affect my life; I was constantly reminded of the mistakes and the decisions I made back then, and to some extent, I never forgave myself for the things I did. So, the biggest task I have on my hands is how to forgive, accept, even embrace the person I was and separate that from who I am now; I am not teenage Liz anymore and I have grown and learned from experience. Of course, even saying that is easier said than done.

It’s going to take a while to do, but it’s honestly something that everyone should do at one point in their life. Of course, some things and some people are “unforgivable”, but you don’t need to carry it around for your entire life. Let it go and forgive those things for yourself, not anyone else. You deserve a clean slate.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

How are we already ending the first month of 2020? Time truly flies by! How did everyone’s month go? Whether it was good or not, you have 11 months to make this year even bigger and better, so don’t give up!

January is always one of my favorite months, mostly because it’s my birthday month, but besides that – January always gives me hope and motivated to make moves that make my year worthwhile. So, with that being said – here are some of the things that happened and discovered during this first month of 2020!

Highlights:

1.) I turned 26!

January means that it’s my birthday, and this year I turned 26! It’s truly insane to believe that I’m closer to 30 now than 20, and I’m scared. Nevertheless, I celebrated in the calmest way possible: I worked. Last year, all I did for my birthday was go to therapy and stayed cooped up on my house, so I was happy to at least be around people that I adore and being productive at my job! It was the first time in a couple of years that I got multiple text messages from people wishing me a happy birthday, which was a surprise because I’m truly not the most social person on this planet! Even so, the people who mattered wished me a happy birthday, and I felt truly loved on my day. After my day at work, I came home to a couple of lovely balloons and a “birthday princess” pin, which honestly it’s the little things that make me feel so good. It was a great birthday, and it left me excited to see what 26 has in store for me!

2.) I went to my first ever KPop Concert!

Man, was this a night to remember! To treat myself for my birthday, I bought a ticket to go to my first ever KPop concert! Never in a million years did I think I would go to a KPop concert, let alone for in my hometown, but I’m so glad I got the opportunity to see ITZY live in concert. ITZY is a five-member girl group under JYP Entertainment; they are TWICE’S juniors and are considered monster rookies. Although they are pretty popular in South Korea, they are still new (they debuted only a new year), and their full fandom potential has not even reached its peak. This would probably be the only time I will get to see them live before they explode in popularity, so I couldn’t miss the opportunity! It’s definitely is a highlight of my 2020 already!

Favorites:

1.) VICTON

Another month, another Kpop group ya girl stans hard. So here’s some backstory: earlier this month, my literal heart broke in a million pieces when it was revealed that my ultimate favorite group, X1, officially disbanded due to their agencies being unable to compromise their activities after the whole Mnet Produce Series manipulation thing that was exposed after Produce X 101 wrapped up. While K-OneIts and International OneIts are trying to fight for the boys to get back together and given one more chance, I’ve been trying to at least stan another boy group that I was interested in while watching PDX101.

You see, Seungwoo, the leader and main vocalist of X1, already debuted prior to PDX101. Many debuted idols participate in this show because typically the groups that they are in are not doing well and want another chance at debuting while giving more exposure to their groups. Both Seungwoo and Byungchan participated in PDX101 and ultimately Seungwoo got to debut in X1. Seungwoo (before Seungyoun waltz in and took my breath away) was my bias in the group, and while trying to get to know him as an idol back in the summer, I began to watch and listen to VICTON, and slowly but surely, I became obsessed with them. It took me a while to get into their music and it wasn’t until recently since I started to stan them even harder than before. Although the future of Seungwoo is undetermined as of right now (which I hope isn’t for too long), if X1 truly stays disbanded, he is most likely to return to VICTON. As a six-member group right now, VICTON is doing extremely well and getting the recognition they deserve! They came back with “nostalgic night” back in November and got their very first win on a music show, which was bittersweet to see that the boys got that feeling of winning an award after having been a group for 3 years now.

As of right now, my favorite song of theirs was actually in their debut album, “Voice to New World“, and it’s called “The Chemistry“. It’s such an upbeat, feel-good song that has been on repeat for WEEKS. I’m excited to see the future of VICTON and where they go, as well as Seungwoo’s return.

Stan VICTON, y’all.

2.) Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow

Although I finished this book a couple of days before the new year, I wanted to include this in a favorites post because it was just so fucking good. This novel is about a 17-year-girl named Charlie, who finds her way into a psych ward after self-harming her body excessively and once she is released from the hospital’s care, she’s now on her own trying to figure out how to live her life with her demons, regrets, memories, and the pain she constantly feels. She moves to Arizona for a new start with one of her good friends, Mikey, but finds herself tangled in the web of Riley West, a musical genius but a total fuck up, and she finds herself going down a path one too familiar to the one she was on. The thing is, she wants to change her life, she cuts herself to mask the pain, not to kill herself. And that right there speaks volumes. Of course, cutting isn’t a healthy way to gain control of your life and to mask your emotional pain, but cutting doesn’t always mean someone is suicidal. I was that type of cutter when I was a teenager, and it’s so important that there is a story being told that explains that side of self-harming, but it’s not attention-seeking, it’s not a sign of wanting to die, and as the author says it, “it means you are struggling to get out of a very dangerous mess in your mind and heart and this is your coping mechanism. It means that you occupy a small space in the very real and very large canyon of people who suffer from depression or mental illness.”

And that’s pretty much it! Here’s to another month of highlights, favorites, obsessions – whatever you want to call it!

 

Dear, guys – welcome to Letters From Liz!

One thing I promised myself to do this year is to discuss some real ass shit on the blog without any boundaries, so here we are, coming back on the blog, talking about the most taboo thing no one likes to openly talk about: birth control.

So, I started to take birth control later in my twenties; it was a very stupid thing to wait so long to get on it after years of, you know, but as I was getting older, wiser, smarter, whatever – I started to take birth control. At first, I was beyond scared to miss taking pills to the point that I used to set an alarm to take it with my anxiety medication. I was funny y’all. The months passed by, the periods became something more manageable, I wasn’t too nervous about being late on my period during the stressful times in my life, and well, birth control was just something routine in my life that many people take in their everyday lives.

But, I started to realize something about my behavior and my mind when I was on birth control.

To give some background on birth control (sex education, y’all), you typically take one pill daily; 28 pills come in a pack because on average, your period cycle is approximately 28 days. The first three rows, or “weeks”, are the actual hormonal pill, the pills have estrogen in them to help do all the funky stuff in your reproduction system. It’s called birth control because it helps control the egg from dropping during ovulation, which prevents you from getting pregnant. Other uses for birth control is to regulate your period cycle for people who have irregular, heavy periods, and for people who have other reproduction system issues. Finally, the fourth row, or a week, is the placebo pill, “sugar pill”, which in certain prescriptions excludes that row, simply because it’s a pill that has nothing inside of it; it’s just a pill to keep yourself on track with and remind you to keep taking your pills.

I was on birth control for almost 2 years before I decided to stop taking it. I stopped taking it for several reasons at first; for starters, I was now not having sex anymore and decided to not want to have sex anymore for personal reasons and for the simple fact that at this time in my life, sex is just not for me. Because I mainly started to use it because I was sexually active, I felt that because I was using it for that main purpose, it felt like I was just taking the pill to take the pill despite me feeling how I felt whenever I was on the pill.

I ultimately ditched birth control after I realized that the longer I was on it, the more depressed I was feeling, to the point where suicidal thoughts come here and there on the months where I was at my lowest. Now, don’t get me wrong, my mental health goes up and down all the time; with major depression, there are parts of my life where I’m not the greatest, but the type of depression I felt when I was on birth control was some of the worst depression I’ve experienced in my life. I would be depressed for half of the month, and only feel like myself whenever I was on the placebo week of my birth control.

But Liz, how did you know it was the birth control and not just the depression? Well, at first I didn’t. It wasn’t until I did some research on birth control and depression and even some experimenting to realize that birth control was just something that contributed to my poor mental health.

I started to see the change in my behavior and my mood when I stopped taking it. I saw that my depression on my lowest days wasn’t as severe or unmanageable as it was while being on the pill. I also realized that I’ve been more of myself for more of the month rather than the opposite, sure the PMS still lives on and I sometimes just need my me time, but I haven’t been at the point where I’m unmotivated, uninspired, unable to get out of bed and be productive. Possibly other things contribute to that now, but I realize I don’t bring myself down or degrade myself as a person as much as I did while being on the pill.

I’ve been off the pill for a couple of weeks now and I can honestly say I’m so happy to be off of it.

I’m not saying birth control doesn’t have its perks;  it helps millions of people get through their cycles and their reproductive issues and I’m grateful to live in the time when resources like birth control and other forms of contraceptive prevention available although they should be more widely and universally available; that’s another argument for another day.

I’m also thankful that I’m not tied down to taking birth control. Again, preventing pregnancy was the main reason I was taking the pill, but now that I’m not sexually active, there are more cons for me to continue taking it rather than pros.

I recommend every to talk to their doctor about taking birth control and please let them know the effects that birth control causes! There are other forms that may be more suitable and right for you! Ask your doctor to discuss the pros and cons of birth control, and don’t just jump into it just because “you’re a ‘woman’ who should be on it.” If you suffer from clinical depression, ask your doctor and let them know your concerns about your mental health while being on the pill. These are literal hormones you are putting in your body, which will chemically inbalance everything else in your system!

Of course in the future, I will be back on it if I’m truly trying to live that no kids’ life, but as of right now, this is the best decision I can make for me and my mental health.

And please, let’s remove the taboo-ness of talking about birth control. It’s life, no matter what people may think.

 

Music Featured in this Episode:

• “Needy” by Ariana Grande
• “DALLA DALLA” by ITZY
• “Highlight” by IZ*ONE
• “FANCY” by TWICE
• “Sound of Music” by Dayton
• “Breakthrough” by TWICE
• U GOT IT by GOT U (Produce X 101)
• FLASH by X1

Blog Posts/Playlists Mentioned in this Episode:

• Music Isn’t The Same Anymore – August 2018
• U GOT IT by X1 (Live Performance)
• Current Favorites Spotify Playlist

Dear, guys – welcome to Letters From Liz!

Wow, 2019 is coming to an end, you guys! With the Thanksgiving weekend coming to an end, Christmas is around the corner, then New Years, and BAM, it’s 2020. And might I add, it will be my 26th birthday as well as the blog’s 3rd year anniversary in January! 

But before we get that far, we have to celebrate the holidays first, and for the past two years on the blog, we did something called Twelve Days of TNTHmas. But wait, Liz, this blog is now called Letters From Liz! Well, it doesn’t mean old traditions on the blog will die!

May I present to you this year’s Twelve Letters of Lizmas!

For new-time readers of the blog, hi, welcome to our little community, and for the twelve days leading to Christmas, we post new content daily!

Starting December 14th, 2019, we will be posting new content for the following 12 days leading to Christmas. Whether it’s holiday-related posts, voiceless rants, travel diaries, mental health talk, self-appreciation Saturdays, music podcasts, whatever it may be; we got you covered!

To prepare for the special occasion, the blog will be going on a two-week hiatus! So finish those finals exams and papers, go do your Christmas shopping, listen to all the Christmas music your heart (and mind) can take while you wait for some sweet content from us!

See you guys in two weeks!

The only way to diffuse the energy behind the negative things in your life is to talk about them.” – Dr. Cathy Burns.

To the man I’ve mourned for the last couple of years,

I miss you. You weren’t always perfect, and sometimes you didn’t know how to emotionally be there for us, but you still cared and loved us to the best of your ability. You came to shows, graduations, celebrations, and you always sang ‘happy birthday’ and made your best effort to make it seem like Santa truly came through our fire escape window on Christmas Eve.

Although the old you is the person I would forever mourn, it’s about time I let you go, for the sake of my mental health, the trauma these last couple of years have brought me, and simply because the person you now embody is toxic to my being.

I’ve tolerated the comments, the behavior, the long nights of loud yelling, simply the person that I’ve grown to hate for the last couple of years, and I simply can’t anymore.

I will not love a fragment of who you were, because you are not him anymore. I will not continue to support a person as misogynistic, hurtful, degrading, and not willing to get help for the issues you carry anymore. As an adult, I can say that I appreciated you caring and loving me as a child; the moments where we watched wrestling on Thursdays and NASCAR Racing on Sundays are some of the moments I’ll cherish forever, but I simply can’t hold onto those moments and hope that I get to experience something even similar to them now.

The reality is that I will never get you back, and the person you are today will never remember those moments, these moments of my life, and the moments and milestones I make in the future.

Quite frankly, I can’t have you so involved in my life, and I could only try to love you from afar, or not anymore.

Because I will not inhibit you calling those I care about disgusting names. I will not inhibit your drinking problem by lending you money. I will not inhibit you calling me a bitch out of anger and proceeding to laugh and say, “that’s why your ex dumped your ass.”

And even if you will never remember the hurtful things you say and apologize for saying them, I will always remember them, and they will leave even deeper cuts than before.

Because of that, I will not allow you to be a part of my life anymore.

I will not allow you to verbally and emotionally abuse me & my family and expect me to respect you just because you are blood.

A daughter should never have to hear the things you say about her, her sister, and her mother; mentally ill or not.

So, this is my farewell to you. This is my letter to the person I do not know anymore. This is my letter to the person I will always hold close to my heart, and a reminder to the old you that you will never be forgotten. This is my farewell letter because I’m tired of being hurt by your actions, and I’m tired of proving myself every time when I say this new version of yourself does not see me as your daughter, but your illness sees me as one of your enemies.

This is my farewell letter to you, because it’s about time I start to heal from this. This is my farewell letter to you, in hopes that the old you, if even still inside you, realizes that you need to seek help to repair the relationships in your life.

As for now, this is goodbye.

Music Featured in this Episode:

1. “Do It” by the Spice Girls
2. “You Gotta Be” by Des’ree
3. “CRZY” by Kehlani
4. My “Feeling Good!” Spotify Playlist!

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

Kylie Jenner said it best a couple of years ago when this year was the year of like, realizing stuff. 2019 has been a year of a lot of wake-up calls, heartbreak, new beginnings and tons of self-growth. Like, who is she?

Anyway, it wasn’t easy even to remotely be where I am today. It’s taken a lot of trial and error, and it still does. I haven’t perfected the art of listening to my soul, but I’m learning that the mind doesn’t want what it wants, the heart doesn’t want what it wants, it’s truly the soul wants what it wants. Figuratively, your soul runs your mind and heart.

Confused? Lemme explain. 

I always believed to some extent that the soul plays a major part in your life decisions, but I never realized how much of an impact it makes in your life until my therapist, Cathy, spoke to me about it. For a while now, she’s spoken to me about how truly connected the mind and heart are, and it’s usually not just one part that knows better than the other. She says this because I have a habit of blaming my bad self-judgment on “the voice in my mind”. No, I don’t hear voices, but it feels like my mind is always the one part of my body that disapproves of a lot of my decisions and life choices. What I’ve been learning from my therapist (and just finally admitting to myself) that once your soul feels something different or contrasting to what you’re doing, you fucking feel it immediately. 

You honestly don’t know how important it is to listen to your soul until you’re face-to-face with all of the events leading up and connecting to it. It’s not that easy to escape what your soul is trying to tell you, no matter how many times you try to tell yourself that you’re overthinking things or you’re just going through a funk. Once your soul feels something different than what you want it to feel, it’s hard to tell it otherwise.

At the end of the day, your soul knows what’s best for you; it knows when it’s time to let go of something, it knows when to say no to things you aren’t okay with, and it tells you situations and scenarios that you should avoid and go for. Your soul speaks because it wants something to change, typically for the better. It’s difficult, it’s unsettling, and it could be absolutely life-changing. But, the soul speaks for a reason.

2019 has been a year of my soul not wanting to shut up. It’s spoken some uncomfortable truths that I was too afraid to let out, and when they engulfed me as time passed, all I could do was listen to it and admit to what my soul was telling me. Because of that, I’ve made some drastic changes in my life this past year, which led me to be in the space I am currently in, sort of grateful that I finally listened to my soul.

It’s so important to listen to your soul because she (or he, whichever it is for you) is a powerful force that knows what she’s talking about. She knows you best, and she is probably the first part of you that knows when you’re growing up and maturing. She only speaks to you when she believes you are able to make such big decisions, and when she believes you are strong enough to come out of the hard times. She only tells you things when she feels like you’re ready, and most of the time, you are ready.

So, why not listen to it? You never know where life will take you when you do!

 

25 had taught me that you truly only live once and if you really want to do something, go and fucking do it.

On a Thursday afternoon on the bus on my way home from work, I decided that I wanted to get my fourth tattoo.

Whenever I decide that I want to get a new tattoo, it typically means that something in my life has saved me in a sense, and I decide to document (or honor) that thing through a tattoo idea. My first tattoo honored my favorite TV show of all time, The Killing, the second one honors my passion for writing, the third one represents Kelly Clarkson’s My December album, and this fourth one needed to represent the new thing that has saved me a couple of times: KPop.

KPop was introduced into my life about a year and a half ago during one of my laundry days with my mother. I live in a predominantly Asian neighborhood in NYC, so the laundromat we go to is owned by an Asian family. One day during our laundry days, they played TWICE’s “Knock Knock” on the TV, and the rest is history. It was catchy, it was cute, and I had to go home afterward and find the song on Spotify and listen to it. It then led me down a rabbit hole of everything KPop related. Since then, it’s become pretty much the only genre of music I listen to, and I know a lot more than I should about Kpop, in all honesty. At the end of the day, KPop music makes me extremely happy, and it has saved me through a lot of dark moments of my life within the last year and a half. It was only right that sooner or later, I’d get something that symbolized KPop tattooed on my body.

It’s not common for KPop idols to have tattoos; in fact, most idols with tattoos have to wear a skin-colored patch over their tattoos on music shows just so that they look more “clean” and “natural”. Tattoos in South Korea aren’t as widely accepted as they are in westernized countries, but people do have them and some of them happen to be KPop idols. Particularly TWICE’s Chaeyoung has gotten a couple of tattoos in the last few months which I’m all for, but also two members of X1 have multiple tattoos of their own: Seungwoo and Seungyoun.

Whenever they are allowed to show their tattoos at events and whatnot, one tattoo of Seungyoun’s always caught my eye. I mean sure, Seungwoo’s “Don’t rock me up” tattoo was the true star of the “U GOT IT” performance back in PDX101…

Ugh, take me back. 

Anyway, I didn’t realize Seungyoun has this tattoo on his wrist until I began to see it in promotional pictures for their album as well as fancam pictures at their fan-signs. On Seungyoun’s wrist, he has a read sad, crying face next to a plus sign and then a yellow smiley face. In an article, it states it represents both of his sides (duh), but also that he got them when his former group, UNIQ, was in an indefinite hiatus.

I really liked the overall tattoo, although personally for me, I’m not a fan of colored tattoos. I can only imagine how many Seungyoun fans now have this tattooed on their bodies as well, and I guess I’m one of them now, but I truly wanted to get it a little different than his. Atlas, my tattoo came to life.

Not only does this tattoo represent my love for KPop, but it also has another true meaning behind it. Where there is sadness, there is happiness. Where there’s bad, there’s good. Where there are downs, there’re ups. You can’t have one without the other, and together, they make up life.

I didn’t know if I was really ready to get this tattooed on my body, but something told me that this was the perfect multi-meaning tattoo I could possibly get for myself. So, I said “fuck it”, and stopped at the tattoo parlor I usually go to and got this walk-in by one of the guys there named Alex. It took 15 minutes tops; 10 minutes to set up his station, 5 minutes to tattoo it for me. I absolutely love it. 

I don’t know if this will be the last tattoo (probably not, my sibling and I need to get our matching ones still), but I know that whatever I decide to get in the future, it would mean something to me and represent that part of my life.

I’m glad that this impulse decision was a good one! 😉

 

 

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

Okay, so confession time: I sometimes don’t trust myself. Lemme rephrase that: I sometimes don’t trust my own judgment. I constantly think that the decisions I make are not the right ones, or I think that the decisions I make are selfish. It’s taking me a while to finally be okay with saying no, and even then I sometimes feel bad for doing it. I’m learning how to be in tune with my body, its signs, and learning what my personal boundaries may be.

Which brings me to my next point: having boundaries is an act of self-care; it does not make you selfish.

Boundaries are your limits, and you honestly may not know what your boundaries are at first. Your body just knows what your boundaries are; they are influenced by your tolerance, your self-image, your values, and your growth as a person. They also change with time; what your boundaries were when you were a teenager may not be the same as they were being an adult. Lemme rephrase that: they aren’t the same. So when you find yourself not being okay with something you once were alright with or find your breaking points in some areas a bit more sensitive than before, it’s totally normal. Your mindset changes, your goals change, your judgments change, and your boundaries are just as interchangeable.

With that being said, don’t allow anyone to tell you that your boundaries are selfish and they make you self-centered. Boundaries are supposed to be about putting yourself first and what you feel is the right thing. It’s not selfish to have boundaries.

In fact, it’s an act of self-care. It’s knowing that the behavior, energies, and patterns you attracted before are not some you want to have in your life, and so you create a boundary so it won’t happen again. It’s being self-aware to the point that you know the things that may set you off, make you feel uncomfortable, or that you simply don’t agree with. Your boundaries are simply created because you are protecting yourself from things that may affect you.

It’s completely okay to want to protect yourself. For me, that’s what my boundaries are all about: to not only protect myself from bad surroundings but to even protect myself from my own toxic traits. For me, I have to set boundaries with my own self so that I don’t let my thoughts bring me down a rabbit hole. It’s me telling myself “no, Liz. You will not do that today” that helps me get through some of my more stressful days.

So, make those boundaries. Ask yourself:

1. Do I need to put a boundary on family & friends? If so, what type of boundary?
2. Do I need a boundary for my personal schedule? What days would I like to have “me time”?
3. Are there any toxic traits I have that I need to set a boundary for my healing self? Is it a certain thought that needs a boundary? Behavior? The energy I attract?
4. What are some things I’m absolutely not okay engaging in anymore?
5. How do I respectively discuss my boundaries with those around me?

It’s not easy to be okay having boundaries. For me, I sometimes do feel selfish and not willing to put my differences aside for other people. But, there’s typically a reason why I’m not able to, and your soul will be the first to let your body know that there needs to be a boundary for those people in your life. 

It takes time to enforce the boundaries you have and be okay with it. It’s a part of becoming assertive, it’s a part of the process of respecting yourself, and honestly, once you have that embedded in you, your surroundings will be able to respect the rules you have with yourself.

I’m still learning to be okay with it! I’m still trying to not overthink the worst-case scenarios if I set up boundaries with other people. I still worry that my boundaries could potentially make people not want to be in my life anymore, and I worry about that fine-line between boundaries and selfishness because there is one. I wonder how I would personally feel saying no to something or someone in my life; it’s definitely a journey.

And while all these worries may circulate in your head, you have to remind yourself that your boundaries are your boundaries, and people who understand them will understand and respect yours. Also, you have to remind yourself that your boundaries are a result of self-awareness turned into self-care; at the end of the day, you are only doing what’s best for you, which you should always be putting first in your life.

It’s okay to have boundaries and still be a sympathetic/empathetic person. You don’t have to have one or the other. Having boundaries, in a way, is a human quality to have. It’s normal, and it’s needed for your everyday function.

Set them boundaries up, boo.