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Compassionate boundaries

boundary fence
Doctor, yoga and meditation teacher, and the force behind Whole Hearted Medicine.

We talk about this ๐—ฎ ๐—น๐—ผ๐˜ on our retreats.

Compassionate boundaries are as much about being compassionate with yourself and your own discomfort as you have to hold a boundary as they are with the person who you holding that boundary for.

We get it, we’re doctors too. We know how hard it can be to say no to a patient request and end up still being at work late into the night as you finish notes, write scripts and other tasks.
Few people go into the health and healing professions without a desire to help others.

The issue is that if you run yourself into the ground, you actually end up not being able to help anyone. Compassionate boundaries are an acknowledgement of the fact that you are human- with basic human needs and the same 24 hours in the day every other human has.

You simply ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ป’๐˜ ๐—ฏ๐—ฒ ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜†๐˜๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜๐—ผ ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜†๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ฒ ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ฒ. It doesn’t matter how much you wish you could be.

Try to remember, that ๐˜ธ๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฆ๐˜ท๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ ๐˜บ๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ ๐˜ด๐˜ข๐˜บ ๐˜บ๐˜ฆ๐˜ด ๐˜ต๐˜ฐ ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ- ๐˜บ๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ ๐˜ข๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ฃ๐˜บ ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ง๐˜ข๐˜ถ๐˜ญ๐˜ต ๐˜ด๐˜ข๐˜บ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฐ ๐˜ต๐˜ฐ ๐˜ฆ๐˜ท๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ๐˜บ ๐˜ด๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ๐˜ญ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ฐ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ข๐˜ต ๐˜บ๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ ๐˜ค๐˜ฐ๐˜ถ๐˜ญ๐˜ฅ ๐˜ฑ๐˜ฆ๐˜ณ๐˜ฉ๐˜ข๐˜ฑ๐˜ด ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฐ ๐˜ธ๐˜ช๐˜ต๐˜ฉ ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ข๐˜ต ๐˜ต๐˜ช๐˜ฎ๐˜ฆ. You don’t get extra time in the day because you pile more on.
Yes, this means making hard decisions sometimes and yes this means letting patients down sometimes. Obviously you need to be mindful of triaging what tasks and requests can wait until the next day, which ones you need to action immediately- but perhaps also, which ones you could safely delegate to someone else?

How could you integrate compassionate boundaries into your own life?