Protect Your Energy: 8 Simple Boundaries That Immediately Stop You From Absorbing Other People’s Stress

In our increasingly challenging environment, the ability to defend oneself against other people’s stress is one of the most important skills a person can acquire to maintain good mental and emotional health. By creating simple yet effective boundaries for blocking the absorption of stress, people can preserve their emotional energy and enhance the overall day-to-day experience.

Millions of people each year unknowingly absorb the stress, anxiety, and negative experiences of those around them, resulting in a lack of energy and a feeling of being overwhelmed. Research has shown that emotional contagion is real; however, when people put up appropriate boundaries, they protect themselves and continue to have an authentic connection with other people.

How energy absorption occurs

Energy absorption happens when someone unconsciously absorbs the emotional feelings of those surrounding them, such as stress and/or anxiety. The absorption occurs through mirror neurons that fire automatically in the brain when someone sees another person exhibiting an emotional state.

New psychology recognizes that some people are more at risk of absorbing other people’s stress due to their heightened levels of empathy, lack of boundaries, or childhood conditioning. By recognizing that vulnerability, one can take steps to create protection for oneself.

Boundary 1: Maintaining a Physical Distance

Providing yourself with a literally “distanced” approach ensures immediate protection against energy transfer by engaging or being with any stressed-out person(s). As soon as a stressed-out person(s) starts venting stress, take a step backward so that there is added physical distance between the two of you.

Boundary 2: Setting Time Limits

Setting a time limit on the conversations you have with someone who is stressed out prevents excessive energy absorption over long periods of time. It allows you to set a clear time frame to let the person know how long you can talk to them.

By maintaining a time limit for discussing stressful topics, you are allowing for limited energy loss while supporting the individual. Conversations that have a defined time limit tend to be more valuable to both parties than conversations without a clear time frame defined.

 

Boundary 3: The Emotional Firewall Technique

In order to keep your balance during required engagements with others, it is critical for you to have a mental shield that allows compassion for others, but that does not take in other people’s stressful feelings.

To implement: Picture a large shield made of light surrounding your body just prior to an unpleasant encounter. Visualize how this shield will let love and compassion through to you, but at the same time reflect any negative energy away from you.

This boundary is based on the link between body and mind, and research indicates that visualisation influences physiological changes in one’s body that increase the productivity of your emotional wellbeing.

Boundary 4: Redirect Conversations Away from Stress Loops

By redirecting someone you care about from repeatedly venting their frustrations to a more constructive and positive focus, you can help them to not become overwhelmed with their stress; thus, you will have helped yourself and someone else.

To implement: If you notice that someone is repeating their complaints of dissatisfaction, please direct them with a question such as, “If you could change anything about this situation, what would it be?” or, “What is one small thing you can do to move forward?”

Research evidences that an individual venting repeatedly on a problem and not working on any solutions only adds to their stress, while if there is a focus on a solution, the stress level of the individual will decline..

Boundary 5: The Energy Check-in Practice

Regularly asking yourself, “Are these feelings mine?” will help create an awareness of absorbed stress and will give you a conscious opportunity to release it.

Implementation: Schedule brief check-ins with yourself throughout the day, asking yourself, “Are these feelings mine?” and paying attention to the time and emotional shifts associated with each check-in.

This boundary helps create emotional intelligence through the meta-awareness of one’s emotional state as research shows that an increase in the level of meta-awareness of a person’s emotional state will lead to improved regulation of their emotional experience.

Boundary 6: Selective Availability and Emotional Rationing

By not allowing yourself to be available to individuals with chronic stress, you’re preserving your energy while at the same time encouraging those individuals to seek other support systems.

Implementation: Create specific days and times in your work week (e.g., Monday morning or weekly) to allow for emotional availability to people who are in distress. Turn off or ignore electronic devices (e.g., smartphones and computers) while working on work tasks. This will help prevent you from becoming exhausted or burned out as a caregiver, and it will actually increase the level of quality of your relationship. Studies show that by limiting one’s availability to individuals with chronic and ongoing stress, the quality of each relationship actually improves when individuals are available for interactions and connections, and when they have sufficient emotional energy to have them.

Boundary 7: Grounding As a Reset Ritual

Grounding rituals practiced immediately after stressful encounters enable individuals to release the energy they have absorbed from these experiences before it has a chance to settle into their systems.

The step: After each encounter, take 60 seconds to perform a Grounding Ritual. Feel your feet against the ground, inhale deep into your abdomen 3 times, and finally shake your body to let go of any tension you have absorbed through your stress response.

Physical Grounding techniques provide a means for interrupting stress responses and removing any emotional energy that has been absorbed.

Boundary 8: Compassionate Refusal of Responsibility

Perhaps the most crucial boundary is one that explicitly states, “I will not be responsible for managing another’s emotional state.” Caring for someone does not mean you take on responsibility for their stress.

The step: When someone is trying to place responsibility for his/her emotional state onto you, respond with Compassionate Clarity: “I am concerned about you, but I WILL NOT manage your emotional state for you.”

By establishing this boundary, a person liberates himself by sharing control of his feelings with the affected party. Research has shown that Codependency in an Emotional sense will stifle Growth and Development, whereas Healthy Boundaries will promote both Individual and Collective Responsibility.

Ways to use the above-mentioned Boundaries

All eight of these Boundaries will work together in conjunction with one another when used concurrently. You may want to begin by using two or three of the Boundaries that feel more “natural” for you and continue using them while developing confidence in all of the Boundaries.

Using this approach allows you to slowly develop the processes required to create automaticity of the new behaviour patterns, as well as avoid becoming overwhelmed. Additionally, a particular situation may require the use of one or more different Boundaries, such as a professional relationship may require different Boundaries than Family Relationships would require.

Enforcement must be done consistently for the use of any of the above-mentioned Boundaries to be effective.


Additional Strategies for Energy Protection

There are additional ways to protect your energy from others. In addition to the eight main boundaries, you may wish to add additional methods to protect yourself from the stress and chaos of individuals around you.

To protect yourself from other people’s negative energies before you encounter them, try shield manoeuvring. Take two minutes before you meet someone whom you know is under stress, and before entering the place where they will be, sit in your car or bathroom (any private space) and set your protective energy shield. Close your eyes and visualize a solid white light surrounding you, like a bubble, and this will filter the negative energy coming to you from that person.

This method protects you from absorbing negative energy by stopping the influx of negative energy prior to entering a place where you are exposed to symptomatically stressed or overwhelmed individuals. As a visual aide to assist you in creating your protective shield before entering a high-energy location, think of the energy bubble as having two sides; the semi-permeable membrane on the outside allows only the energy emitted by you to go through, while everything else, such as stresses, negativity, drama, and any other energy that does not belong to you, will bounce back off your protective shield. Do this procedure every morning as part of your morning ritual, before going to work or being around your family, to maintain an authentic state of mind.

Another way of grounding yourself is to carry something that reminds you of your boundaries. It’s important that the item also helps you feel stable and integrated into your environment when you start to experience energy drain. An item can be small enough to easily fit in your pocket, such as a smooth stone, a piece of jewellery or even a small piece of writing.

What To Do: When You See Stress Absorption Beginning, Touch Your Anchor Object, Inhale Three Times Deeply (or Slowly). This Physical Action Disrupts The Flow Of Emotional Contagion (The Transfer Of One’s Own Stress Into Others), Redirecting The Mind’s Focus On The Body And Here And What Is Being Experienced Right Here At This Moment As Opposed To Where Emotion Has Mentally Transported You Into Another’s Mind.

Most People Have Found that This Technique Provides Immediate Relief In Overwhelming Situations, As It Gives Them Something Solid To Focus On When Their Emotions Feel Out Of Control.

The 24-Hour Response Rule

After Establishing A Personal Policy To Never React Immediately To A Message, Email Or Phone Call From Someone Who Is Emotionally Volatile. Establishing This Boundary Will Prevent You From Reacting By Absorbing Another’s Energy And Allows You To Process Their Information From A More Centered Perspective.

How To Implement: After You Receive An Emotional Communication, Acknowledge The Receipt If Appropriate, But Also State That You Will Reply Thoughtfully Within 24 Hours. By Putting Space Between Your Reaction To Their Emotional Charge And Your Response, You Have Reduced The Intensity Of The Emotional Charge. By Putting Space Between Your Billable Hours (The Time You Will Spend Responding) And Their Emotional Charge, You Have Protected Your Energy From Being Absorbed By Their Crisis.

Research From Several Studies Shows That Delayed Responses To Emotionally Charge Communications Are Clearer And Create More Favourable Outcomes For Both Parties. The Urgency Felt By Another Regarded As Stress Does Not Make It An Emergency Requiring You To Sacrifice Your Energy Immediately.

 

When To Seek Professional Help

In some cases, difficulties with boundaries arise from more serious circumstances where individuals require professional assistance. If you find that you are unable to establish healthy boundaries after trying all of the above strategies, that childhood trauma prevents your ability to develop appropriate boundaries, or that developing empathy for others creates constant problems in your daily life, it may be time to seek therapy.

Therapists who specialize in helping Highly Sensitive People can provide you with insight into your unique nervous system and help you develop tailored techniques to deal with your specific sensitivity. Professional assistance has the potential to produce new and transformative ways of thinking that you may never find through self-help.

Conclusion

Creating boundaries that help you to stop yourself from getting stressed out by everybody else’s stress is one form of self-care in tough emotional times. These eight boundaries help you draw upon yourself to feel relief from stress immediately, today!

There is scientific proof that emotional contagion can happen to us all, but we can control our involvement with it by consciously creating and following the boundaries we set for ourselves. The important idea here is to remember that establishing boundaries to help protect your energy does not mean to become cold, but to allow for keeping the resources necessary to connect with others authentically.

Your energy is limited and important. By creating these boundaries, you can regain control of your energy for establishing and sustaining healthy, mutual respect- and ultimately, long-lasting relationships!