Self-Preservation – The Art of Healing and Setting Boundaries
Introduction
Self-preservation is the intentional practice of protecting your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. It’s a journey of understanding yourself deeply, healing past traumas, and safeguarding your energy through healthy boundaries. Let’s explore this journey, incorporating the principles of trauma healing, energy preservation, boundary setting, and overcoming people-pleasing tendencies.
As I continue my journey, I realize now how much I poured into others without filling my cup first. It’s essential, especially for those in coaching and serving, to fill our cup multiple times throughout the day.
I now understand why I hit rock bottom so often and became overwhelmed and exhausted. If this sounds like you, I urge you to keep reading with an open mind and heart. Examine where you are in life and where you desire to be. What are you allowing? What can you step away from to step INTO your greatness?
Trauma Healing and Energy Preservation
What is trauma? According to the American Psychological Association (2024), trauma is “an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, crime, natural disaster, physical or emotional abuse, neglect, experiencing or witnessing violence, death of a loved one, war, and more.”
Everyone processes trauma differently. For some situations and people, the trauma brings a sudden response that may carry a temporary effect. However, in some cases, there is prolonged trauma or long-term effects. This is where we must be careful. When there is prolonged trauma or multiple traumatic events over time, the term is “complex” post-traumatic stress response. This means various events lead to the person operating in survival mode - a common trauma response. When there are numerous situations, it can be even more difficult for the person to heal through the trauma. This has been my experience. There were so many mental “wounds” that needed to heal. This has made it very important for me to pull away from things and people not serving me to protect my energy and ensure I was pouring into myself more.
Healing from trauma is not just about moving on—it’s about facing the pain, learning from it, and releasing it. Trauma can lock your energy in the past, making it difficult to move forward. As Steven A. Furtick shares in his book Do the New You, “God doesn’t just want to heal your history; He wants to give you hope for your future.” True healing isn’t passive; it’s active. By engaging in practices that restore your energy, such as mindfulness, prayer, and therapy, you free yourself from the chains of the past. A big part of this, and one that outsiders may not understand when we begin doing it, is pulling back from people who are also pulling us down. You see, people also chain us down. I am not talking about physically chaining us down. We allow them to mentally place a ball and chain on our ankles to slow us down. These are people we must separate ourselves from if we desire to heal. Otherwise, we will stay stuck.
The Bible teaches us to rely on God’s strength to guide us through our healing. Isaiah 40:29-31 says, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak... those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.” Leaning into your faith can be a powerful way to replenish your soul and energy reserves. Faith does not have to be you believing what I believe. My only duty is to share my journey, not make you believe in one thing or the other. That, in itself, would pull too much energy from me. I am aware of that and choose not to spend my energy there. My energy is better spent sharing my journey and allowing others to make informed decisions based on the information provided.
In my coaching sessions, I often ask clients the same three questions I have asked myself over the years:
What am I allowing?
Why am I allowing it?
What am I going to DO about it?
It is one thing to analyze what we allow, but if we don’t act, we will not progress. We will still stay “stuck.” According to the Cambridge Dictionary (2024), the word " stuck " is “unable to move, or set in a particular position, place, or way of thinking.” Take a moment to think about the different areas of your life and the roles you play. What areas are you “stuck” in? Once you write that down, I want you to respond to the three questions above for each area. Make sure to join this discussion inside the Step Into Your Greatness Community Discussion Board. The community is a safe space to be seen, heard, and validated. You will see the discussion at the top of the page. You may respond anonymously, but let’s interact and support each other.
Where are you stuck?
I constantly have to examine this. I write down columns for each role I play—mom, speaker, author, entrepreneur, business owner, veteran, nutrition coach, writer, etc. It may seem like I could group some of these together. However, I like to dig a bit deeper and examine each area. Where am I stuck?
Once I have identified some things, I then ask the questions. As I said, the most critical part of this is what I “do.” Knowing and doing are two different things. Even the Word says, “…But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in the mirror; for once he has looked at himself and walked away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was” (James 1:23-24, NASB2020). It is saying that reading is great, but if we are not doing it, we are not carrying out anything we read. We are simply reading for the sake of reading. It’s the same when people buy Reclaim Your Life directly from me. I ask them if they are going to “read and do.” I usually get a complex look, but I ask for a reason. I appreciate the support, but I would rather have people have the book and use the content rather than just read it. The information in books does us no good if they sit on the shelf or if we forget what we read shortly after. This is why I tend to read, highlight, re-read, and take notes. I must do this to carry out the information later and keep the tools in my tool belt. Does this make sense to you?
Healthy Boundaries
Healthy boundaries are vital to self-preservation. Boundaries help you define what is acceptable and what is not, allowing you to maintain control over your life. When you lack boundaries, you risk burnout, exhaustion, and resentment. In the second version of my book, Reclaim Your Life (Coming Soon!), I emphasize that “Setting boundaries is not about keeping people out, but about keeping yourself in—honoring your limits and respecting your worth.” Most of us are so focused on pleasing others and being “liked” that we are not paying attention to our needs. We are not setting healthy boundaries WE need to set. This can cause turmoil and depression. People-pleasing is an addiction. We must treat it as such. We have to set boundaries and make our own decisions. Otherwise, we find ourselves right back where we started, and all the hard work was for nothing. We are essentially starting over because we allowed ourselves to be removed so others could like us and feel better about themselves. What we have to ask is: are we willing to keep suffering? Are other people worth our self-worth and self-preservation?
Biblical guidance on boundaries can be found in Proverbs 4:23: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Guarding your heart means knowing when to say no, when to rest, and when to let go.
Overcoming People-Pleasing
People-pleasing often comes from a fear of rejection or a desire to be loved, but it can leave you drained and disconnected from your true self. Overcoming this tendency is essential for self-preservation. Furtick notes, “Your value isn’t tied to other people’s opinions of you, but to God’s purpose for you.” What he is saying here is what I tell my clients all the time based on the revelation I finally had - my validation comes from within. I can’t seek to be validated by the outside world. This is a trap we find ourselves in. What happens if our significant other or best friend is having a bad day? Now, they don’t have the energy to validate us. We then allow that to affect us, and we turn downward. That all happened because we sought validation through that person. This begins a downward spiral that can send us into a deep depression. Is it worth it to give others the power to control our emotions and how we feel about ourselves? Has that served us in the past? This is where we have to begin analyzing and reflecting. What are we allowing? Why are we allowing it? What are we going to do about it? It all boils down to those three questions.
You can find strength in Ephesians 6:10, “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” True strength comes from knowing you are enough, regardless of external validation.
To learn more about people-pleasing and my take on it, please visit my other blog, https://www.jodiwatkins.com/blog/sayyestohappiness.
Faith and Mental Health
Incorporating faith into mental health practices can be transformative. Knowing God cares about your well-being allows you to surrender your worries and anxieties. Philippians 4:6-7 reminds us, “Do not be anxious about anything... but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God... will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Faith and mental health often go hand in hand. Research shows that people who believe in a higher power have better mental health outcomes. Faith gives a sense of purpose and community, key factors in maintaining good mental health. It also helps people focus on the bigger picture, fostering hope and reducing isolation.
When it comes to depression, studies like Koenig’s (2012) show that spirituality often leads to lower rates of depression or faster recovery. Without faith, some people feel lost and turn to harmful coping mechanisms, including considering suicide. On the other hand, reading uplifting Bible verses can help shift negative thinking and offer strength in times of crisis.
Faith leaders also play a vital role in communities. They can be bridges between their congregations and mental health professionals, providing support in spiritual and emotional ways. However, challenges arise, such as mental health stigma and the lack of formal mental health training among faith leaders. Fitzgerald and Vaidyanathan (2023) point out that better collaboration between faith leaders and mental health professionals could benefit those in need, offering more holistic care that addresses spiritual and psychological concerns.
The Bible itself reinforces the importance of faith in mental health. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” This verse reminds us that faith often involves trusting in things we can’t fully understand, which can be difficult, especially for those who have experienced betrayal or trauma. Overcoming these internal struggles requires self-awareness and often professional help, but faith can be a powerful tool for healing, offering comfort when life feels overwhelming.
Faith is not a quick fix, but when combined with mental health support and a willingness to face past pain, it can help people heal and reclaim their lives.
For me, strengthening my faith over time has been vital to the success of my healing journey. I can’t honestly say I would have made it this far without the effort I put into this area of life. I tend to see that, as humans, we only have so much inside of us to rely on ourselves 100% of the time. I needed to rely on something outside of myself. I knew I could not rely on people fully. It is not that people desire to let others down. However, we are all going through things. We are all on different parts of our healing journeys. I can not expect people to always show up for me. I needed something that could be here 24/7, all year round, any day, any time. I decided to rely on what I couldn’t see but what I knew to be stronger than me - God.
Conclusion
Self-preservation is an act of love towards yourself. It involves healing from trauma, setting boundaries, and overcoming unhealthy patterns like people-pleasing. Integrating faith into this journey brings an extra layer of strength and peace, reminding us that we are not alone in our healing process. It is the crucial practice of protecting one's mental, emotional, and physical well-being through understanding oneself, healing from traumas, and maintaining energy by setting healthy boundaries. It's a proactive journey that involves rejecting people-pleasing behaviors and focusing on personal growth and self-care. Relying on faith can strengthen this process, providing hope and a more profound sense of purpose, greatly enhancing one's healing journey. Paired with practical self-care strategies, faith enables us to overcome life's challenges and embrace a healthier, more fulfilled life.
Take inspiration from these words:
“Your transformation is not just possible. It’s essential” (Furtick, 2024)
References:
Fitzgerald, C. A., & Vaidyanathan, B. (2023). Faith leaders' views on collaboration with mental health professionals. Community Mental Health Journal, 59(3), 477-485. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-022-01031-8.
Furtick, Steven A. Do the New You. (2024).
Koenig, H. G. (2012). Religion, spirituality, and health: The research and clinical implications. ISRN Psychiatry, 2012, 278730. https://doi.org/10.5402/2012/278730.
Watkins, Jodi. Reclaim Your Life. (2020).