The holiday season is officially here. For some the season brings in beautiful anticipation of time with family, great food and pure joy. Others may be bracing themselves for a little bit of drama as they endure close proximity to family for an extended period of time, some for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. Here are eight personal boundaries you can set to keep you balanced this holiday season.

If you’re new to boundary-setting, you’ll probably spend a lot of time thinking about boundaries before you speak them. And your boundary work may be accompanied by other deep changes in your life. You may truly feel different. More invigorated. More empowered. More peaceful. You may have great clarity on how you want to engage with others. But how do you share these changes, your boundaries, with others?

Friendships, like any other relationship, need healthy boundaries. Boundaries help us explore and navigate our relationships safely. They define our limits, and can keep us out of resentment and into healthy balance in our friendships.

2020 introduced much of the world to a new noun: BOUNDARIES. And the pandemic provided many with a crash course in it. The problem is it skipped over the introduction and dropped us off over at the “challenges in boundary setting” chapter.