Why You Can Understand Boundaries Intellectually… But Still Find It Hard to Hold Them
- Hannah Parkinson
- May 11
- 10 min read
Updated: May 13
A grounded exploration of nervous system conditioning, emotional patterns, and the slow process of rebuilding self-trust.
For a lot of women, boundaries are spoken about as though they should feel immediately empowering the moment you start setting them. Like there should be this instant internal shift where everything clicks into place, you suddenly feel confident, clear, and fully anchored in your worth, and you just glide through life saying no with ease and zero emotional residue.
But in reality, boundaries usually don’t feel like that at all in the beginning.
More often than not, they feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and sometimes even emotionally loaded in a way that can be quite confusing. Especially if you’re someone who has spent years being highly available to others, over-explaining yourself, or keeping things smooth and emotionally manageable for everyone else around you.
What I’ve noticed, both in my own experience and in the work I do with clients, is that this discomfort doesn’t mean you’re doing or setting boundaries wrong; it actually means that you’re just in the process of unlearning a pattern that once felt like safety.
Why your nervous system resists boundaries
When you start setting boundaries after a long period of over-giving, over-functioning, or self-abandoning in subtle ways, instead of feeling peace, initially it can bring up guilt, anxiety, or a sense of internal conflict that’s hard to fully articulate. Almost like your system is reacting before your mind has fully caught up, but, like I said, that's often just because your nervous system is responding to unfamiliar patterns of safety and connection.
If you’ve spent years being the one who adapts, who understands, who absorbs tension in a room, or who keeps things emotionally stable for other people, then of course, creating a boundary can initially feel like you’re doing something “wrong,” even when logically you know that you’re just doing something different.
So, I want to be very clear here when I talk about that feeling, and how it isn’t proof that something is wrong, and it’s often just the sensation of an old pattern loosening its grip.
When a boundary isn’t actually a boundary
For me personally, I understood boundaries long before I ever embodied them, and on an intellectual level, they made complete sense.
I could explain why they were healthy, why they were necessary, and why they were such an important part of self-worth and emotional well-being. I could even support other people in setting them, but in practice, what I called a boundary was often just me white-knuckling my way through resentment while still being completely emotionally available underneath it.
I was often just trying to hold a line externally while still being emotionally entangled internally.
I could say the right words, I could step back physically, I could delay replies or create distance, but underneath all of that, there was still a part of me that was very much in it.
I would just say, “I’m fine,” while my stomach was in a knot. I would create space and distance myself while still rehearsing the conversation in my head 12 times before bed. I would pull back and not reply for three hours, even though my whole nervous system was still waiting at the door, still feeling emotionally responsible for how that distance was received.
And over time, I realised that wasn’t actually being good at setting boundaries... it was more like delayed self-abandonment, just with better language around it.
How early conditioning shapes the way you hold boundaries
What I’ve come to understand more deeply is that boundaries are rarely just about behaviour, and they are predominantly shaped by the emotional and relational patterns we learned much earlier in life.
For a lot of people, especially women, there’s often an unconscious association between being available and being valued, because somewhere along the way, access to you becomes linked with your worth. So, in theory, this looks like - if someone can reach you, if they need you, if you can understand them or hold emotional space for them, then that can start to feel like proof that you actually matter in some way.
Because I learned growing up that if someone had access to me, it meant I was good. If they needed me, it meant I mattered. If I could anticipate their moods, absorb the tension, explain myself clearly enough, or stay calm enough, then maybe I could keep the relationship intact.
And when that becomes your internal operating system, it makes sense that you would carry it into adulthood and mistake it for connection, chemistry, or even love. Because, sadly, the nervous system doesn’t just respond to what is healthy; it only responds to what is familiar.
Why compassion alone can quietly turn into self-abandonment
One of the patterns I had to become really honest with myself about was how often I would allow people full emotional access to me, even if they weren't always treating me with kindness, but purely because I could understand them.
I let people have access to me when they had not earned intimacy. I let people have access to me when they were vague or confusing. I also let people have access to me when I was already dysregulated, which is a particularly unwell time to be making relational decisions tbh.
And because I had been conditioned to believe that empathy was love, I mistook my ability to understand someone for a reason to stay open to them. And this is one of the least useful things that women are praised for.
Being able to understand someone’s behaviour does not automatically make that behaviour safe for you to stay in, and being able to feel compassion for someone does not necessarily mean your nervous system is saying yes to continued access.
This was a really important distinction for me to learn, because I genuinely did value empathy, and I genuinely could see people clearly. I could see their patterns and where they were coming from; I could see the fear, the inconsistency, the emotional immaturity, the shutdown, or the ways that they were protecting themselves.
And because I could see it for what it actually was, I would often soften my boundaries or override my own internal truth in order to hold space for what I understood were just the parts of them that weren't yet processed, and not who they actually were at their core.
This is why it's so important to distinguish that having compassion without self-inclusion can quietly turn into self-abandonment if you’re not careful, and that’s not something most women are taught to question.
Boundaries are not the opposite of compassion; they are compassion with self-respect, and that is the part that people often leave out.
What a real boundary actually looks like
For a long time, I thought boundaries were supposed to feel quite firm, maybe even a little harsh or emotionally cold, because I associated them with separation or rejection, but over time, I realised that a real boundary is often much quieter than that.
It’s less about confrontation and more about honesty with yourself in real time.
It’s the moment where you stop overriding your own internal signal just to maintain comfort or connection, and it might not come with a big explanation or a perfectly structured conversation. It often just feels like a simple internal clarity that says, "this doesn’t feel right for me anymore, and I don’t want to keep participating in it in the same way."
And then you act from there, even if it feels unfamiliar.
Why guilt shows up when you start choosing yourself
One of the most confusing parts of learning boundaries is that guilt often shows up very strongly in the beginning, and for a long time, I interpreted that guilt as proof that I was doing something wrong, being selfish, or somehow failing to be a “good” person. But what I’ve come to understand is that sometimes, guilt is simply what your body produces when you stop performing a role that other people had become comfortable with you playing.
Such as the role of the person who explains everything, the role of the one who smooths things over and absorbs the tension, or the one who remains emotionally available no matter the personal cost, or the role of the person who stays quiet to preserve harmony, even when they feel unseen, unheard, or deeply unappreciated.
And when you stop performing those roles, even in very small ways at first, it can feel incredibly uncomfortable. Because those roles often created a sense of stability, familiarity, and emotional predictability within the relationships and systems around you. So when you begin changing the pattern, the discomfort can feel immediate, even when the change itself is healthy.
I think this is also why lasting change can feel so difficult for many people, because the period between becoming a new version of yourself and the people around you adjusting to that version can feel deeply uncomfortable.
So often, before the new dynamic has even had a chance to settle, we revert back to old behaviours simply because they feel familiar. Not necessarily because they were healthy, but because they once helped us maintain connection, approval, or peace.
But familiarity and alignment are not always the same thing, and sometimes growth requires being willing to tolerate temporary discomfort long enough for your nervous system, your relationships, and your sense of self to catch up to the truth of who you are becoming.
What shifts when you stop absorbing everyone else’s impact
One of the things that isn’t spoken about enough is how invisible your role can become when you are the person constantly holding emotional space or absorbing impact for everyone else.
People often don’t consciously notice it while it’s happening, because they simply experience you as “there". They experience you as "stable", "available", "reliable", or as the person quietly holding things together in the background. But the moment you stop doing that, even subtly, it becomes noticeable very quickly, because you are no longer compensating in the same way.
You are no longer cushioning discomfort, managing emotional tension, over-explaining, smoothing things over, or absorbing the emotional weight of the dynamic for everyone else. And when that changes, people can sometimes respond with confusion, discomfort, distance, or labels like:
“You’ve changed.” “You’re being difficult.” “You seem cold lately.”
And honestly, they are right about one part: you have changed, and that is the point. But more often than not, what they are actually reacting to is not your cruelty, selfishness, or lack of care; they are just reacting to the shift in the dynamic itself.
This is because when someone has become accustomed to you carrying emotional weight quietly in the background, your absence from that role becomes immediately noticeable, as the system can no longer function in the same way it did beforehand, and that can feel uncomfortable for everyone involved, especially in the beginning.
And it's important to sit steady in this discomfort, because, for you, it simply means that the pattern is no longer being protected in the same way.
Boundaries as self-trust in action
What I’ve come to understand most deeply about boundaries is that they are really just self-trust in motion.
They are the moment you stop overriding your own body in order to maintain harmony elsewhere, where you stop saying yes when something inside you is clearly saying no, and where they interrupt the lifelong habit of self-silencing just in order to preserve a connection.
A boundary is essentially where your internal truth becomes more important than maintaining an external agreement, and for me, that has been one of the biggest shifts of my entire life.
Setting a boundary is often the first honest thing in the room, as it's how you tell the truth without needing someone else to approve of it, understand it, or agree with it first, and for a long time, I thought truth only counted if it was received well. Like if I could just explain myself clearly enough, phrase it softly enough, or deliver it in a way that didn’t upset anyone, then maybe my boundary would become acceptable.
So as a result, I wrapped my needs in empathy, humour, over-explaining, strategy, timing, softness, because I tried to make my truth easier for other people to digest, and what I eventually realised is that something can still be true even when another person dislikes it.
A boundary is still valid when it disappoints someone. It is still valid when it is misunderstood. It is still valid when it changes the dynamic.
And love - real love - does not require your nervous system to abandon itself in order to keep someone else comfortable.
That was the real shift for me, because I stopped seeing boundaries as rejection, and I started to experience them more as a return to myself.
I stopped seeing them as something that pushed people away, and instead, as something that brought me back into alignment with what actually felt honest, clear, and sustainable for me.
And because of this, over time, I noticed that I became much less available to dynamics that required me to abandon myself, and more available to relationships and experiences that felt grounded and reciprocal.
And honestly, that feels like the most honest and mature version of love that I have ever known.
Because a boundary does not need permission to exist, it doesn't need someone else’s approval to be valid; it simply asks to be honoured by you.
And that is the most important part.
If boundaries feel hard for you right now
If boundaries feel uncomfortable or emotionally charged for you right now, it may simply mean that you are in the process of unlearning patterns around safety, connection, and self-worth that have existed for a very long time, and while that process can feel unfamiliar at first, it's often where real self-trust begins to rebuild.
If this resonates, this is the kind of work I support women with inside my coaching sessions - helping you understand the deeper patterns beneath your responses, rebuild trust in your own knowing, and move forward in a way that feels clearer, safer, and more aligned with who you actually are now.
Want extra support?
If you're looking for deeper support, I offer 2-hour Pattern Intensive Sessions that are designed to help you identify the emotional, behavioural, and relational patterns that may be keeping you stuck in cycles of burnout, over-functioning, people-pleasing, self-abandonment, or emotional exhaustion.
These sessions are less about surface-level advice and more about helping you understand why certain dynamics keep repeating, what your nervous system has learned to associate with safety, and what needs to shift in order for change to actually feel sustainable.
If you’re interested in working together, schedule a Pattern Intensive below:
Hello,
I’m Hannah - a burnout & self-trust specialist focused on structural pattern recognition.
I help high-achieving women identify the emotional and behavioural “leaks” behind overthinking, people-pleasing, and performing success, then shift them at the root using strategy, human behaviour insight, neurodiversity-informed coaching, and energy work.
If you’d like support, you can explore my sessions and offerings below.
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