By: Naazi Morad
Reclaiming space, rewriting love, and healing the wounds we were taught to ignore.
There’s a quiet kind of heartbreak that comes when you realize the people closest to you, family, blood, don’t always know how to love you in ways that nourish. Sometimes they take. Sometimes they stay too long. Sometimes they leave when you need them most. And sometimes, the deepest healing begins not with forgiveness, but with a boundary.
🏡 The Move That Saved Me
I recently made the decision to leave the home I had built with so much care. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed to. My body was still recovering from illness, lungs heavy, energy low, and yet the emotional weight of hosting someone who couldn’t offer reciprocity was heavier still.
Family, enjoying their own interest under my roof. I was ill, depleted, and still, the caretaking fell to me. The silence around my pain was louder than any cough. And so, I chose to move. Not out of anger, but out of self-preservation. I chose a smaller space, one that could hold me gently. One where I could breathe again.
💔 The Myth of Rejection
We’re taught that boundaries are walls. That saying “no” is unkind. That choosing ourselves is selfish. Especially in cultures where family is sacred, and women are expected to give endlessly.
But here’s what I’ve learned:
A boundary is not a punishment.
It’s a prescription.
It’s medicine for the parts of us that have been overextended, undernourished, and quietly aching.
To say, “I need space” is to say, “I matter.”
To say, “not this time” is to say, “I’m healing.”
To say, “no more” is to say, “I’m ready to live.”
🎀Boundaries as Love in Action
I didn’t stop loving any family member. I stopped abandoning myself.
And that shift, subtle, seismic, has rippled into my practice, my garden, my relationships. I now teach my clients, especially children and parents, that boundaries are not barriers to love. They are the scaffolding that allows love to grow safely.
We build fences around gardens not to keep beauty out, but to protect it.
🎭An Invitation to You
If you’re reading this and feeling the sting of over giving, the ache of being unseen, the guilt of wanting space, you’re not alone. Ask yourself:
- Where have I been saying “yes” when my body whispers “no”?
- What relationships feel heavy, not holy?
- What would it mean to choose myself, even if it disappoints someone else?
Then, gently, begin. One boundary at a time. One breath at a time. One act of radical self-love at a time.
Because boundaries, when rooted in truth and tenderness, don’t break relationships.
They reveal which ones were never built to hold you.
