🎄 Setting Boundaries This Christmas: A Gentle Guide to Honouring Your Limits

The holiday season often arrives wrapped in glitter, warmth, and expectation. Yet for many people, this time of year can feel overwhelming — a swirl of obligations, family dynamics, and emotional pressure. In the midst of it all, boundaries can become blurred or forgotten entirely.

I want to share how understanding and honouring your boundaries can bring more ease, clarity, and self‑connection during this busy season — and how person‑centred therapy, strengthened with ACT principles, can support you in doing just that.

🌿 What Are Boundaries?

Boundaries are the invisible lines that protect your emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing. They help you define what feels comfortable, what feels too much, and what you need to feel safe and respected.

Think of boundaries as the gentle fences around your inner garden. They don’t shut people out — they simply help you tend to what matters most without being trampled by expectations or demands.

✨ Why We Need Boundaries — Especially at Christmas

The festive period can amplify pressures we normally manage with ease. More social events, more family interactions, more spending, more emotional labour. Without boundaries, it’s easy to slip into:

• Saying “yes” when your body is whispering “please slow down”

  
  

• Taking responsibility for other people’s feelings

  
  

• Feeling guilty for needing rest or space

  
  

• Overcommitting until you’re stretched thin

  
  

• Losing touch with your own needs in the rush to meet everyone else’s

  
  

Boundaries aren’t barriers to connection — they’re bridges to healthier, more authentic relationships. They allow you to show up with presence rather than resentment, and with intention rather than obligation.

💭 The Impact of Being Boundaryless

When boundaries are unclear or absent, the effects can be subtle at first — a tight chest, a drained body, a sense of being “on edge.” Over time, the impact can deepen:

• Emotional exhaustion

  
  

• Heightened anxiety

  
  

• Irritability or overwhelm

  
  

• Feeling unseen or taken for granted

  
  

• Disconnecting from your own values and needs

  
  

Many people describe it as “losing themselves” in the season. The holidays become something to endure rather than something to experience with meaning.

You deserve more than survival mode.

🤝 How Therapy with Lisa Wastney can help

In our counselling sessions, the focus is on you — your feelings, your pace, your lived experience. There is no judgement, no pressure, and no expectation to be anything other than who you are in this moment.

Together, we explore:

• What boundaries feel like in your body

  
  

• Where they become difficult to hold

  
  

• The stories or fears that arise when you try to set them

  
  

• The relationships or situations that feel particularly challenging

  
  

This gentle, collaborative approach helps you reconnect with your inner authority — the part of you that knows what you need, even if it’s been quiet for a long time.

🌱 Strengthening Boundaries with ACT Principles

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) offers powerful tools for navigating the emotional complexity of boundary‑setting.

Acceptance

Instead of fighting uncomfortable feelings — guilt, fear, worry — ACT helps you make space for them. You learn to notice them without letting them dictate your choices.

Values

ACT invites you to reconnect with what truly matters to you. Boundaries become less about saying “no” and more about saying “yes” to your wellbeing, your peace, and your relationships.

Committed Action

This is where small, meaningful steps come in. Practising a script. Pausing before responding. Choosing rest over obligation. Each step reinforces your right to honour yourself.

ACT doesn’t promise a holiday season free of discomfort — but it does offer a way to move through it with more clarity, compassion, and self‑trust.

📅 If You’re Ready to Strengthen Your Boundaries in the New Year

I’ve now opened bookings for January, a natural time for reflection, recalibration, and gentle change. If you’d like support in building healthier boundaries — not just for the holidays, but for the year ahead — I’d love to walk alongside you.

📞 Book a free introductory call

This is a relaxed, no‑pressure space to meet, ask questions, and see if we’re a good fit.

You deserve support that feels safe, warm, and genuinely attuned to you.