#boundaries Archives - Four Columns of a Balanced Life

How to Create Margin in Your Life as a Woman

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 13:24:58 +0000

Create margin in your life. Margin is not a luxury. It is a necessity for empowered women.

In the 21st century, I find many women living on the margins. The result is that they are emotionally stretched, mentally overloaded, spiritually drained, and physically exhausted. This leads to increased stress, burnout, loss of empowerment, and identity. Women are applauded for doing it all, holding it all together, and pushing through without complaint.

True women’s empowerment is not about adding more responsibilities or proving strength through exhaustion. It is about creating margin in your life. The intentional space that allows you to breathe, reflect, grow, and lead from a place of wholeness.

What Does It Mean to Have Margin in Life?

Margin is the space between what you are responsible for and what you are capable of sustaining. It is the buffer that prevents burnout and creates room for clarity, creativity, and peace.

When women lack margin, life feels reactive. Everything becomes urgent. Decisions are rushed, emotions spill over, and joy slowly disappears. When margin exists, life becomes intentional.

Why Women Struggle With Work-Life Balance and Margin?

Women are conditioned to equate worth with productivity and self-sacrifice. Women are praised for over-giving, over-functioning, being endlessly available and putting their needs last.

Over time, this creates lives with no work-life balance, no emotional buffer, and no personal margin.

Your empowerment begins when you decide that constant depletion is not in your destiny.

Creating Margin Starts With Boundaries

One of the most powerful tools you have as an empowered woman is the ability to set boundaries.

Boundaries are not selfish, they are strategic. They define what you will give your time, energy, and emotional capacity to.

For a woman boundaries mean saying no without guilt or over-explanation. You need to release responsibility for things that are not yours to carry.

In coaching terms, boundaries are acts of self-respect. In leadership terms, they are essential for sustainability. In faith terms, they reflect stewardship of the life you’ve been given.

Emotional Margin: Stop Carrying What Isn’t Yours

I see many women live emotionally overextended lives. They absorb stress, disappointment, conflict, and expectations that do not belong to them.

Emotional margin is created when you allow others to manage their emotions, stop fixing, rescuing, or mediating everything and be in touch with your own feelings instead of suppressing them.

Empowered women understand that emotional health is not about being endlessly accommodating. It’s about being emotionally intelligent and self-aware.

When you stop carrying everyone else’s emotional weight, you regain your own strength.

Mental Margin: Decluttering the Mind for Personal Growth

Mental overload is one of the biggest threats to personal growth for women. Endless mental to-do lists, digital noise, lack of focus and internal pressure leave little room for vision or creativity. I recommend that you limit information and social media consumption, write things down, schedule down time, stop comparing and let go of perfectionism and unrealistic standards.

From a professional perspective, mental margin increases decision-making capacity. From a coaching perspective, it restores clarity. From a personal perspective, it reconnects you to your intuition.

Time Margin: Taking Back Control of Your Schedule

Time is one of the most valuable resources and the most commonly surrendered by women. You can create time margin by leaving space between appointment, saying no to activities that no longer align with your values, scheduling rest and reflection as non-negotiables

In leadership, time margin allows strategic thinking. In family life, it allows presence. In personal growth, it allows reflection.

Empowered women choose rest intentionally.

Physical Margin: Self-Care Is a Leadership Skill

Self-care for women is often misunderstood as indulgence. In reality, it is foundational to empowerment.

Get adequate sleep, eat nourishing food, exercise and get rest. These are examples of physical margin. If you ignore your body, you disconnect from your resilience and intuition.

From a professional standpoint, physical margin improves performance. From a coaching standpoint, it builds confidence. From a faith standpoint, it honors the body as a gift.

Spiritual Margin: Creating Space for Inner Alignment

It is easy to sacrifice spiritual growth when life becomes busy. It is in the deep confines of spirituality where clarity, peace, and identity are restored.

Silence, solitude, stillness, journaling, reflection, prayer and meditation are examples of spiritual margin.

Spiritually grounded women lead differently. They are less reactive, more discerning, and deeply anchored in purpose.

Releasing Guilt: The Hidden Barrier to Empowerment

Do not feel guilty about resting, saying no or choosing personal growth. Guilt is one of the greatest obstacles preventing you from creating margin.

Guilt is not a sign of selfishness. It is often a sign of conditioning.

When you live with margin, you model healthy empowerment for your daughters, colleagues, and community. You demonstrate that strength includes wisdom, rest, and self-respect.

How Margin Transforms Women Leadership and Confidence

Women with margin lead with calm authority, make confident decisions, experience emotional resilience, communicate clearly and compassionately. Women with margin do not abandon themselves to meet expectations. They operate from alignment, not exhaustion.

Margin allows women to step fully into leadership, at work, at home, and in their communities, without losing themselves in the process.

Final Thoughts: Empowerment Begins With Space

Creating margin in your life as a woman is a courageous, countercultural act. It requires honesty about your limits, discipline in protecting your energy, and faith that you are worthy of a full life, not just a busy one.

When you create margin, you reclaim your peace, clarity, energy and power. From this base empowerment becomes sustainable. And that sustainability leads you to be grounded, intentional and whole.

The post How to Create Margin in Your Life as a Woman appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

People Pleaser

admin — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 16:55:29 +0000

A people pleaser goes out of their way to make others happy to gain approval and acceptance. People pleasers often prioritize the needs and desires of others over their own, sometimes to the detriment of their well-being. They may strongly desire to be liked, accepted, or validated by those around them and go to great lengths to avoid conflict or disagreement. People pleasers take being considerate and accommodating to an extreme at the expense of their own needs and boundaries and find it difficult to say no.

Lunch With a Friend

Recently, I had lunch with a friend whom I have known for a long time. His marriage had failed, his career was going nowhere, and he was renting a basement apartment. He thought he should have been further ahead in life, considering he was attending church.

I told him that the church he was attending had a culture of control and manipulation that fostered people-pleasing behaviors. Members were pressured to conform to strict expectations or behave in ways that reflected the leader’s authority or the group’s dogma, which can stifle individuality. This environment can lead to people-pleasing tendencies, where members feel compelled to seek approval or avoid disapproval from leaders and fellow members to maintain their standing within the group.

My friend was anxious and resentful of the past. His low self-esteem, fear of hurting others, pretending to agree with everything at the church, wanting everyone to like him, difficulty saying no, and craving praise led him to this path. He felt taken advantage of and did not know boundaries.

I had to remind my friend that, in all the time I’ve known him, he was a people pleaser. A healthy religious community typically encourages members to grow in their faith and make personal choices based on individual conviction, with leaders supporting rather than controlling them. His church overtly pushed for uniformity and obedience over personal growth, making people-pleasing a survival mechanism in that setting.

the key dangers associated with people-pleasing

Loss of Identity: Over lunch, we talked about how he was aligning with others’ wishes which led to him losing touch with his opinions, desires, and values. Over time, it became difficult to identify what he genuinely wanted, weakening his sense of self.

Burnout and Resentment: My friend often took on more than he could handle, leading to physical and emotional exhaustion.

Poor Boundaries: People-pleasers often struggle with setting boundaries, making it difficult to say ‘no.’ My friend became susceptible to others taking advantage, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

Increased Stress and Anxiety: My insecure friend worried about others’ opinions or fear of conflict, creating a constant background of stress.

Sacrificed Goals and Dreams: People-pleasers may sideline their ambitions and dreams, deferring what truly matters to them when focusing on others. My friend never completed his education. It led to feelings of regret and unfulfillment over time.

Damaged Relationships: Ironically, people-pleasing can harm relationships. When people suppress their own needs and feelings to avoid conflict, they might build up resentment or frustration that later comes out unexpectedly, potentially damaging their relationships.

Declining Mental Health: The emotional toll of people-pleasing can increase feelings of low self-worth, depression, and chronic dissatisfaction. Self-neglect leads to a lack of personal fulfillment, which can worsen mental well-being over time.

If the church, which is supposed to be a safe place, without judgment or accusation can lead to people pleasing, what about our families, workplaces, and marriages?

Common Characteristics of Family People-Pleasers

People-pleasing tendencies in families stem from a desire for acceptance, conflict avoidance, or early family dynamics where children learn to prioritize others’ needs over their own. While trying to keep peace and harmony, these individuals might take on excessive responsibilities, and suppress their opinions, and needs. This tendency often stems from feeling that their worth is tied to how much they can give or support others.

People-pleasers avoid family conflicts, believing that voicing their needs or opinions might lead to discord. They’re quick to anticipate and fulfill others’ needs, often placing others’ comfort and happiness above their own. Many family people-pleasers find it difficult to say no to their loved ones, leading to an overwhelming schedule and stress. They often seek validation through acts of service or sacrifice, as this may be the only way they believe they’ll be accepted or loved.

In the long term, people-pleasers may feel resentment, burnout, or emotional exhaustion. They might feel that their needs are invisible, or that they’re only valued for what they can do for others.

Origins of People-Pleasing in Families

Parental Expectations: If parents are demanding or conditional with love and approval, a child feels that they must “earn” love by pleasing others.

Conflict-Prone Environments: Children from high-conflict or emotionally turbulent households might develop people-pleasing to avoid triggering conflicts.

Family Role Assignments: Certain members are expected to play specific roles such as being responsible or the peacemaker, and think they must continue in that role to feel accepted.

Cultural or Social Conditioning: Some cultures emphasize family loyalty and harmony, which can reinforce people-pleasing behaviors.

Significant impact on marriage

People-pleasing can have a significant impact on marriages, often introducing stress, imbalance, and resentment.

Loss of Authenticity: When one partner constantly aims to please, they suppress their needs, preferences, and true opinions. This can lead to a loss of authenticity and prevent genuine emotional intimacy.

Resentment and Frustration: The people-pleasing partner often feels unappreciated or even taken for granted.

Imbalance in Responsibility: People-pleasers take on too many responsibilities, often to maintain harmony or avoid conflict.

Avoidance of Conflict: Avoiding discussions on finances, boundaries, or personal needs only postpones the inevitable and can result in misunderstandings or blowups.

Neglect of Personal Growth: When someone is focused on meeting another’s needs, they often neglect their personal growth and goals. This can hinder their development and lead to a sense of unfulfillment, which can affect how they feel about the marriage overall.

Erosion of Trust: Authenticity and transparency are key to trust. If a people-pleaser says things to keep the peace rather than being honest, it can erode trust. The other partner may sense that they’re not being fully transparent, leading to doubts about their commitment or sincerity.

Healthy marriages require clear boundaries, honest communication, and a balance of giving and receiving. Addressing people-pleasing tendencies can improve marital dynamics, allowing both partners to feel seen, heard, and valued.

People pleasing at work

People-pleasers prioritize pleasing others and seek approval, and can display certain strengths and weaknesses in the business world.

Strengths:

Good interpersonal skills: People-pleasers are often skilled at building relationships, maintaining a positive atmosphere, and creating a harmonious work environment.

Team collaboration: They are usually team players who strive to create a cooperative and supportive atmosphere.

Customer relations: In client-facing roles, people-pleasers may excel in customer service and relationship-building due to their desire to meet others’ needs and expectations.

Weaknesses:

Difficulty saying no: One of the main challenges for people-pleasers is the tendency to struggle with saying no, which can lead to overcommitment and burnout.

Conflict avoidance: People-pleasers may avoid conflict to maintain harmony, however, constructive conflict can be necessary for innovation and problem-solving.

Decision-making challenges: The fear of disappointing others might hinder their ability to make tough decisions.

Overcoming people-pleasing behavior

I had to remind my friend that he could build healthier boundaries and a stronger sense of self.

Recognize Your Triggers: Is it a particular situation, person, or environment? Being mindful of these triggers helps you understand the root cause of your people-pleasing habits.

Challenge Negative Beliefs: People-pleasing often stems from a need for validation or a fear of rejection. Identify negative beliefs, such as “If I don’t help, they won’t like me,” and question their accuracy.

Practice Saying “No”: Start small by saying “no” to requests or invitations that aren’t important to you.

Set Clear Boundaries: Define and communicate what behaviors are acceptable.

Focus on Self-Worth: Remember that your worth doesn’t depend on others’ opinions.

Surround Yourself with Supportive People: Build relationships with people who respect your boundaries and encourage you to be authentic.

Seek Professional Help if Needed: Talking with a therapist or counselor can provide deeper insights and strategies for overcoming the issue.

Remember, being kind and helping others is a strength, but not when it consistently undermines your needs. Building a balanced approach to helping others while caring for yourself will ultimately make you more effective and fulfilled.

The post People Pleaser appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.

Healthy Anger, Boundaries & Eating

admin — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 16:05:32 +0000

Healthy anger, healthy boundaries, and healthy eating are a holistic approach to life. I interviewed Dr. Valerie Fitzpatrick in February 2019. This interview is a favorite among my readers. Valerie is a chiropractor, a great listener, and helps patients deal with the effects of life-long stressors and traumas like abandonment, financial stress, bullying, divorce, immigration, and codependence. These can have a negative impact on a patient’s current health issues.

In this interview, we go into detail on expressing healthy anger, the importance of healthy boundaries, attachment to safe people, eating healthy, and pursuing a passion. Dr. Fitzpatrick gets real, vulnerable, and honest about her own challenges in understanding some of these issues. Relax, have your favorite drink, and read this interview a couple of times. Please comment on what made sense to you in this interview, and if there is anything else you want Valerie to cover in our next interview.

Valerie, in our last interview together, you mentioned the importance of expressing healthy anger. Please explain?

Yes, expressing anger can be so healthy for the mind and the body. Anger is often maligned, regarded as a bad or negative emotion. People often repress it, deny that it is even there, or hold it in for so long that they become sick. I have learned that expressing anger and getting it out can be healthy. I am not talking about acting out your anger, which is not healthy. Acting out hurts others and does nothing to actually discharge or reduce your stress. Repression of anger hurts your body and has actually been linked to some cancers and some autoimmune diseases. A great book on this topic is “When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress” by Dr. Gabor Maté.

When I was going through a very challenging time in my life, it was a huge breakthrough for me to recognize the anger that I had, and to start expressing it in a healthy way. Discovering my anger really put a fire back in my soul. There were obviously some things that I couldn’t change for myself and my daughter, but there were some things that I still had control over. Anger helped me take my power back. I didn’t want to live in quiet resignation or as a victim.

Really there are no bad emotions, just badly expressed emotions. The therapist Dr. Joann Peterson said that anger is the energy Mother Nature gives us as little kids to stand forward on our own behalf and say I matter. She said that the difference between the healthy energy of anger and the hurtful energy of emotional and physical violence is that anger respects boundaries. Standing forward on your own behalf does not invade anyone else’s boundaries. She wrote a great little book called, “A Book about Anger, Boundaries and Safety”.

I liked that you mentioned the importance of healthy boundaries and attachment to safe people. What did you mean by those comments?

These were important lessons for me, and I think for a lot of people. Especially if you have lived with manipulative, abusive or unpredictable people. To stay healthy emotionally and physically we need healthy boundaries and a sense of autonomy. Dr. Gabor Maté also talks about this in his book. It can be very helpful to ask yourself if you are doing unnecessary things for others? Are you feeling resentful as you help others? Do you know where your responsibilities end, and where the other person’s responsibilities begin? Basically, do you know where your boundaries lie?

It is a wonderful thing to help someone else when they are burdened, but we don’t need to take on their loads or responsibilities. Now I let God be God for me, and I let God be God for others. I am learning to live and let live. I am learning to let others have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. It is not my responsibility to protect and shield everyone from discomfort or consequences. Protecting them may be preventing them from a valuable learning experience. I found the “Boundaries” series of books, by Dr.’s Henry Cloud and John Townsend to be very helpful.

To stay healthy, we also need a connection with safe people. “What is a safe person?”, you may ask. A safe person will not jump to conclusions about you, they will not be quick to judge, they will give you permission to be human and still feel lovable, they will speak the truth, and they will allow you to speak your truth as well, and they will want more and better things for your life. If you start to realize that someone is manipulative or unsafe, you can lovingly detach.

As a healthcare professional give me some advice on how to eat healthily?

Eating healthy is a contentious topic! I have my academic studies in nutrition, my ongoing reading of the research, and my personal experience. I have followed so many eating programs myself, and I have seen the results of different eating plans with my patients. I have come to realize that diet is very personal. There is no one plan that is going to work for everyone. There is a lot of dogma out there, and there are a lot of extreme diet systems that are just not sustainable or are just not suitable for everyone or at every stage of life. Sure, a certain diet may cause your complexion to be radiant or your clothes to fit better – but if you can’t form a coherent sentence, or your hair is suddenly falling out, you are not getting enough nutrients. There are so many different diet guidelines out there: eating for your blood type, veganism, vegetarianism, the Paleolithic diet, the raw food diet, the ketogenic diet, low FODMAP diet, low lectin diet, whole food plant-based diet, anti-inflammatory diet, etc. etc. Each diet guideline may have its merits, but each of us is a product of our genetics, our environment, the eating patterns of our ancestors, and our own past or current illnesses. It can take a lot of trial and error to find out what works for you and your health goals eg. gaining muscle mass, losing fat, regulating blood sugars, reducing seizure frequency, reducing joint inflammation and pain. In a sense, a choice of diet should be mindful, intuitive, and flexible. If you get bloated or exhausted after certain foods or your joints are stiff and painful you may want to make some changes to your diet. Certain food may be regarded as ‘healthy’, but it may not be healthy for you and your constitution, it may trigger some sensitivities for you. You may want to generally follow a diet plan but modify it for yourself, depending on how you feel. We don’t need rigidity or judgment about diet.

In our home we eat a pesco-vegetarian diet; we eat a lot of plant-based whole foods and have ocean fish about twice per week. I originally switched to a vegetarian diet 28 years ago, but after a few months found it difficult to concentrate, so I added fish back into my diet. In the past 28 years, there have been two times where I added a little meat back into my diet for a few weeks because I was really feeling depleted and even having dreams about bacon! So weird!

As a chiropractor, I don’t talk about meal plans very much but mostly give advice about increasing the good fats and oils which have an anti-inflammatory effect and reducing the bad fats which can increase inflammation and pain.

Please talk about the importance of pursuing your passions?

I think it is so important to ask yourself “What did I love doing when I was 10 years old?’”

What was your first passion, before the world got its hands on you? Did you love reading, drumming, writing poetry, gardening, scrapbooking, songwriting, playing guitar, dancing, acting, photography, makeup, making model trains, drawing action heroes, pottery, crochet? As humans, it is in our nature to create; it doesn’t matter if we can make a career of it. We can find affirmation of our sense of Self and we can boost our health through creativity and pursuing a passion. This is especially important for most women, a way of staying connected with the female soul. A long but worthwhile read is “Women Who Run with the Wolves”, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Creativity in any form can be therapeutic. It does not have to be pretty, impressive, appreciated, or understood by others. An inspiring read is “Art is a Way of Knowing; A guide to self-knowledge and spiritual fulfillment through creativity”, by Pat B. Allen.

I had loved art from childhood into my twenties, taking art and pottery courses, and painting for many hours at a time. When I was going through a challenging time in my life a few years ago, I thought about art again, but I thought it was too late to start back, too much time had passed, and I probably didn’t have the ability anymore. I didn’t have time, and I was too busy already. I checked my art supplies and found that most of my old brushes were brittle and wrecked, and my paints had dried up. It would cost hundreds of dollars to re-stock everything. But then that new fire in me, told me “It’s now or never!”.

Obstacles will present themselves. I have learned to expect them, then find a way to deal with then. It can be difficult to start; I totally get it. I went to the art store to buy supplies. Insecurity set in. I felt ridiculous: a middle-aged suburban mom, at the art store where all the staff were in their early twenties with facial piercings and edgy outfits. There were new art products and mediums I had never seen before, and I didn’t know how to use them. But the staff were great and encouraging. I bought new supplies and slowly started painting for a friend. My art skills were so rusty, but I persevered. I felt that I needed even more motivation, so I submitted some of my old art pieces for a local juried art show and got accepted! It was the push I needed to get over my creative hurdle.

So, I made some new paintings, I participated in the art show, I made new friends, I sold three paintings, and I made enough money to cover the cost of the art supplies I had just purchased. Since that time, I have taken three college courses at the Haliburton School of Art and Design and two courses with a local artist whom I admire very much. I have learned spiritual and life lessons through my art instructors. My daughter and I have held two art shows in our home, inviting many friends and neighbors. Regardless of whether a painting sells or not, it is wonderful to see a person connect with the art. I am happier and feeling more whole. I have made art on days that I felt completely frustrated, days I felt hurt, and days when I felt overflowing joy. Art has been my therapy and my means of self-expression. Spending time or money on your passion is never wasteful or silly. Amazing things can happen to your mood and your health when you let go of the need for results, or perfection, or payment in an area of your life – when you do something just for the sake of following your passion.

The post Healthy Anger, Boundaries & Eating appeared first on Four Columns of a Balanced Life.