5 Boundary-Setting Shifts to Protect Your Peace

I have gone through a major internal shift in the last 18 months. It all began with an ego death experience at Burning Man during a full moon, while I was wearing the greatest outfit I’ve ever owned (but that’s a story for another time). Since then, nothing in my life has been the same. My values, perspectives, and desires have taken a sharp turn, and I’ve spent the time since getting to know this new iteration of myself.

As someone who has always thrived in energy and chaos, able to dance my way through any and every situation, one of the most significant shifts I’ve experienced is learning to protect my peace. I used to revel in the ups and downs of life, embracing the twists and turns, always managing to come out the other side—perhaps not unscathed, but alive and kicking. While I regret nothing, I’m now in a phase of life where my peace holds more value than the thrill of living on the edge. And while I still love a wild weekend with the right friends, I’ve learned that stepping into chaos with the mental energy and bandwidth to truly enjoy it makes the experience that much more meaningful.

These five boundary shifts have brought me peace. They haven’t dulled my magic or stolen my zest for life. If anything, they’ve refined it—allowing me to embrace chaos on my own terms, when the time is right.

Down for Whatever to Intentional with My Yes

A wild night always starts with, ‘I’m down for whatever.’ That mindset led me to unforgettable adventures—exploring mysterious caves with underground waterfalls, belting ‘Faded’ by Zhu while standing out of a sunroof at 4 a.m., or getting matching tattoos in a basement with girls I never saw again.

While “whatever” once led to unforgettable stories and a life full of experiences, I began to notice something shifting inside me. The thrill wasn’t the same anymore. I’d say “yes” in hopes of recapturing that wild energy, but it never quite hit the same. My priorities have shifted to having a good nights sleep, making progress towards my goals and living an intentional life.

I started to realize that my time, energy, and attention are too precious to spend on things that no longer align with the person I’m becoming. And that means saying no to opportunities I might have once jumped at. It’s a shift in understanding that it’s okay to let go of the things that no longer serve me, even if they once felt exhilarating.

Needing People Around to Being My Own Best Friend

Everything is better with friends, this is universally true and a fact of life. But there is a danger that creeps in when you sacrifice your authenticity because your friends don't approve of it. When I was externalizing my energy and pouring it into others, I wasn’t really showing up for myself. I was looking for support and connection from friends, so I would follow them along in their plans, abandoning my own to-do lists in the name of togetherness. If they invited me to something, I would go, often ignoring my own desires or responsibilities. My life became a series of plans I didn’t create, moments that weren’t really mine, and I didn’t stop to consider where I truly wanted to go or who I wanted to become. I had no clear path forward because I was so focused on simply being with people that I forgot to prioritize being with myself.

When I began to fill that best friend role for myself, it brought so much peace to my life. I stopped waiting for someone else to validate my choices or make me feel seen. Instead, I started pouring my energy into myself, offering myself the love, encouragement, and support I had been seeking in others. I became the person I could count on the most, always there when I needed me. I stopped looking to my friends to solve my problems or bring excitement into my life. I knew now that if I wanted to do something, I didn’t need anyone’s approval—I could show up for myself, take action, and enjoy it. I could go solo and still feel whole, because I had learned how to fill myself up rather than expecting others to do it for me. This newfound independence didn’t push people away, though. In fact, it made my relationships more authentic. I wasn’t depending on anyone to complete me anymore. Instead, I was bringing my full, authentic self to each interaction.

No longer was I distracted by other people’s needs or expectations. I was facing the parts of me I’d avoided—my habits, my limiting beliefs, the traumas I had buried deep down. I could no longer sweep them under the rug because they were too loud to ignore. So, I began unraveling them, slowly loosening the knot of things I’d hidden away. I stopped making excuses and began keeping promises to myself, committing to personal growth in a way I hadn’t before. I made small shifts in my day-to-day actions, focused on the things that mattered to me, and consistently worked toward becoming the person I knew I was capable of being. And with each step, I grew more grounded in who I am, more aligned with my truth, and more capable of forging the life I truly wanted.

From Reacting to Being Present

This is something I had been told many times,  but it only truly clicked for me recently: not everything deserves my reaction, and often, not everything demands a response.

In my younger years, I would hear something and instantly speak my mind—whether it was necessary, kind, or true didn’t matter. If a friend shared something with me, I’d take on their problems as my own, getting overly invested in the outcome. I’d share my life story with strangers at a bar, offer unsolicited advice from a limited perspective, and involve myself in situations simply because they were brought to my attention.

Being at peace means I am fully living in my own life, and not in the world of others. When a friend confides in me, they don’t need me to fix their problems. They need someone who listens, someone who makes them feel seen and heard. I’ve learned that often, the best support I can offer is simply to listen, without relating their issues to my own experiences or trying to offer solutions.

I’ve become more intentional in how I listen. Now, I focus on truly understanding the underlying need being expressed. Often, all someone really needs is a compassionate ear and gentle support. And that, I’ve found, is enough.

From Suppressing my Feelings to Prioritizing Clarity

For most of my life, I never told people how I was feeling. Not really. Not the hard things. Not the things that mattered.

This was something I learned from my mom. She learned it from her family, and my dad learned it from his. Feelings were inconvenient, something to be dismissed rather than understood. If you spoke up, you weren’t met with curiosity or care—you were met with justification. Here’s why you’re wrong. Here’s why you shouldn't feel that way. I don't have the space or capacity to deal with your problems, don’t bring them to me again.

So I learned not to bring it up at all.

I never learned to understand how I felt about things, because when I tried to bring it up I was quickly shushed or invalidated. I absorbed the message that my feelings weren’t valid, that my experiences were negotiable, that keeping the peace was more important than being heard. Because of this, I believed that if I brought up what was bothering me, it would cost me something—connection, peace, a place in someone’s life.

So I numbed out. I gaslit myself into believing I was always okay, and when my emotions became too much for me to handle, I exploded—with anger, with hurt. And it cost me relationships that really mattered to me, validating my deepest fear: that if I shared how I was truly feeling, I would be rejected.

By adulthood, I had convinced myself that things didn’t really bother me. I had trained myself so well to shove down my feelings, to accept whatever was given to me, to survive in ambiguity. I told myself I was adaptable. Easygoing. That I didn’t need things from other people. I learned to deal with my anger alone to avoid risking friendships. But I never learned how to express what I needed in a way that could actually be heard.

So I ignored my own needs. I tiptoed around difficult conversations. I let things slide that shouldn’t have. When someone hurt me, I rationalized it away. They didn’t mean it like that. It’s not worth bringing up. If I say something, it’ll just make things worse. I avoided asking hard questions because I wasn’t sure I wanted the answers. And slowly, all of that unspoken hurt built into something heavier—resentment. Confusion. A lingering sense that I wasn’t being fully considered or respected.

And yet, how could I expect others to honor my feelings when I wasn’t even acknowledging them myself?

At some point, I realized that prioritizing other people’s comfort at the expense of my own was self-abandonment. I was so afraid of losing people that I had been losing myself. That realization sat in my chest like a weight, and I knew—if I wanted something different, I had to be different. I had to start speaking.

It terrified me. The first time I said, "Hey, that hurt my feelings," my hands trembled. My voice wavered. My nervous system screamed at me to take it back, to smooth it over, to pretend it didn’t matter. But I didn’t. I let the words stand. And then I did it again. And again. Each time, it got a little easier.

Now, I tell people how I feel—not from a place of blame or accusation, but from a place of honesty and self-respect. If something is unclear, I ask. If something doesn’t sit right with me, I address it. I no longer let fear dictate whether or not my truth deserves to be spoken.

And what I’ve learned is this—clarity is a gift. It allows people to truly know me, and it allows me to truly know them. It weeds out relationships that rely on assumption and unspoken expectations, and it strengthens the ones built on real understanding.

Most of all, it gives me peace—not the fragile kind that comes from avoidance, but the kind that comes from knowing I’ve honored myself.

From Pining for the Future to Living Fully in the Present

We all fall for the trap of thinking that true happiness lies in a future moment.  When I graduate, when I get this promotion, when I take this trip, when I meet my partner. 

We convince ourselves that joy is always one milestone away, that peace will come once we reach the next phase, that life will finally begin once the missing piece falls into place.

And then, we get there. And instead of sinking into the moment we longed for, we immediately start reaching for the next one. What’s next? What’s missing? What needs to happen now?

We put all of our hope and faith in the future, and when we get there, we are so unable to enjoy what we have been looking forward to for so long, that we start dreaming of the next future. 

We’ve all heard the saying, It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But knowing it and living it are two very different things.

We wish away the present, romanticizing a nearby future where we imagine we’ll be happier. We start sentences with Once I… as if our joy is being held hostage by some future event.

The fallacy lies in this:  if you don't practice being present, you don't know how to be present. 

If you're too shy to go out and meet people in your town now, you'll be too shy to go out and meet people when you move.  If you don't eat healthy and exercise now, the discipline and motivation won't magically appear. If you spend your nights doomscrolling at home, you'll spend your nights doomscrolling on vacation.  If you don't live a happy and fulfilling life when you're single, you wont magically become fulfilled when you meet a partner.

At some point, I realized: if I wanted to be present, fulfilled, disciplined, adventurous—whatever I envisioned for myself—I had to become that person now. Not later. Not once things looked different. But now.

There is no future moment where I am going to spontaneously burst into the person of my dreams. 

No magical day where I suddenly become more disciplined, more present, more fulfilled. No version of the future where circumstances alone transform me.

But what I can do is I can begin to embodying that person right now.  I can start acting like the dream version of myself right now, and then, when I get to where I am going, I will be the person of my dreams in the place of my dreams living the life of my dreams.

And like the expression tells us, the happiness really is in the journey. The moments of learning, of stretching, of striving—the days where I face challenges and overcome them, the nights where I wrestle with doubt and choose to move forward anyway—this is what I will one day look back on with a full heart.

What I feel as struggle in the moment IS the work of life. It is the expansion, it is the growth, it is the thing that makes us human stretching towards divinity, stretching to become a higher version of ourselves.

If I can’t find fulfillment here, in this moment, I won’t find it anywhere. Because joy isn’t waiting for me in the distance—it’s only ever been here, in the now, waiting for me to choose it.

Because happiness is not waiting for me in some distant future. It’s woven into the process itself—the learning, the stretching, the striving. The struggle I want to rush through is the part that shapes me. The obstacles I curse today will be the victories I cherish tomorrow.

This is my life. Not some dress rehearsal. Not the prelude to something better. This is it. There is no redos.

The message that has haunted me for months now whispers, Your new life will cost you your old one. I was ready for a change; I knew it was coming, and in truth, I couldn’t stop it. But instead of stepping gracefully into it, I held onto my old life for dear life. Eventually it hurt too much to to keep holding on. I had to change, even though it was terrifying. I had no choice. The best I could do was simply observe the lessons being brought to me over and over again, and learn what they were trying to show me. It was time to let go.

Like always, the universe gently nudged me, guiding me exactly where I needed to be. In the midst of the painful quantum crumble, I trusted that my old life had to be dismantled in order to be rebuilt into something bigger than I can yet understand. As I embody these shifts, I trust that being intentional with my time, providing containment for myself, becoming a better friend, prioritizing truth and clarity, and being fully present in the moment are changes that will serve me well for the rest of my life.

It is only through change that we evolve—and I am ready to evolve.