Boundaries Vs. Walls The Difference that Changes Relationships

In this episode of the Path to Wholeness Podcast, Angelica, Reiki Master and meditation teacher and author Thaisa explore the deeper meaning of self-love and how it shows up in everyday life through boundaries, awareness, and relationships.

Together, they discuss the difference between healthy boundaries and emotional walls, the impact of people-pleasing and overgiving, and how saying yes to others can sometimes mean saying no to ourselves.

This episode also explores how meditation and awareness help us reconnect with our inner voice so we can respond from alignment instead of fear, guilt, or validation.

Topics covered include:

•  Self-love as a daily practice 
•  Boundaries vs emotional walls 
•  Overgiving and relationship imbalance 
•  People-pleasing patterns 
•  Awareness and inner alignment 
•  Meditation and conscious decision-making 
•  Honoring yourself in relationships 

A grounded and spiritual conversation about returning to your truth and creating relationships that support your well-being.

Disclaimer: The conversations shared on this podcast are intended for educational and reflective purposes only. We encourage everyone to follow their own inner guidance, use personal discernment, and seek support from qualified medical or mental health professionals for any health-related concerns. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Five to Holess, your journey back to your true self. Here we explore meditation, energy, and awareness to help you live with more clarity, alignment, and well-being. In today's episode, we continue our chakra series and go even deeper into the relationship between our emotions, thoughts, energy, and consciousness. One of the biggest questions people often have is do our thoughts and emotions affect our chakras? And the answer is absolutely. In this conversation, Thaisa and I explore how emotions like anger, fear, resentment, anxiety, overthinking, compassion, forgiveness, and love can influence the energetic balance within the body. And how many of the emotional reactions we experience today are often connected to unresolved wounds and memories from the past. We also talk about how awareness becomes one of the most important parts of healing, because healing is not about suppressing emotions or pretending we are always calm and balanced. It's about learning how to pause, observe ourselves, understand what is happening internally, and begin responding to life with more present consciousness instead of automatic reaction. We discuss practical tools for self-awareness, emotional regulation, Reiki, Chakra work, meditation, visualization, crystals, and inner inquiry, while also grounding these spiritual concepts into daily life in a realistic and understandable way. One of my favorite parts of this episode is the conversation about how chakras are not simply energy centers, but portals of awareness and self-knowledge. From survival to creativity to empowerment to love, to communication, to intuition, and ultimately unity consciousness. This episode also touches deeply on emotional triggers, nervous system reactions, repeating life patterns, the wisdom of the heart, and how transformation often begins the moment we stop running from ourselves and start listening inward. And as always, I'm joining by Taita, meditation teacher and author whose wisdom and deep beautiful grounding perspective into this teaching she's bringing today. If you've been trying to better understand your emotions, your reactions, your healing journey, or your spiritual path, this conversation is for you. Let's get into it. Namaste. The topic today is a topic that it's something that I've worked on for a long time. And I think that it's a journey that everyone is looking for the enlightenment in that moment, and it's self-love. Self-love for me is daily practice. It's something that it's not just getting to a point where everything in life is peaceful, and then you get to love yourself. It's working on yourself every day, peeling the layers of the onions, as we always say, but like loving yourself and putting these boundaries. So I have a question, and I think that there is a difference between boundaries and walls. And a lot of people put walls so they protect themselves. So in order for us to love ourselves, how can we differentiate between boundaries and walls?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Okay. First of all, I think boundaries is part of healthy boundaries, actually. First of all, I think healthy boundaries is part of loving yourself. And it's different for me because you come from a place of whole, being whole, being complete. And then you ask, you go into the self-inquire question, you ask the question, what do I want? Do I truly want to commit myself? For example, if somebody's asking you to commit to a task and you take one more task into your busy day, but that might not translate into self-love because you're overloading yourself. Why do you do it? So ask yourself: what is the intention of me accepting this task? Do I want to help this person? But do I want to overwhelm me by doing that? So you have to ask questions. What is the intention behind your actions, behind accepting an offer to take up on a task? So I would, of course, we are talking about personal relationships. We are not talking about sometimes work relationship, because of course, sometimes in work you're gonna accept tasks that belong to your role. But sometimes you overload yourself, you take tasks that don't belong to you, but you want to help everybody, but you're not helping yourself. So establishing healthy boundaries, in my opinion, comes from a place of being whole. What is my intention of for accepting this task? What is my intention for what is my intention for accepting this task? It comes from fear or it comes from whole, being whole? Because sometimes we have fears of that person might not like me, fear of rejection. It comes from guilt. So do I feel guilty by not accepting that task in my life? So that is not the real boundary when you accept something or when you don't accept something from fear or lacking. So when you're whole, you can easily say to somebody, and it's the practice, sometimes you might feel guilty some, you know, when you say no, no, I cannot do this, I cannot commit to this. You might feel guilty, but you do anyhow, because that's come from a place of self-love, respecting your time, respect your whole being by doing yes or by saying, not doing delete, by saying yes or by saying no. I I have an opinion who I have an opinion. A person that does not know to say no, they don't know how to say yes. So you have to say no from a place of feeling whole. I'm not guilty by saying no to you, because you cannot say yes to somebody, no to you. Because, ah, yes, I'll take your task of, for example, cleaning your house, but I'm saying no to myself, to my own time, to my leisure time, for example, my time with my family. So I'm saying yes to you, but no to me. So it has to be a complete yes. Yes, this is an alignment to who what I want to do, my intention behind comes from a place of being whole in this moment, then is a full yes. It's yes to you and a yes to me. It's a win-win. But when I'm saying yes to you, but I'm I'm feeling lack, I'm feeling fearful, guilt, rejection, then as I'm it's not a win-win. That's how I see it. How is that experience for you?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, I think that um that I practiced it a lot in my relationships initially when I first understood the guilt part of it of always saying yes and trying to please everybody around, and you become what they want you to be. So you really forget about who you are because then you are whatever role they wanna tell you that you are with all the people around. So it's like going back into really understanding who you are and then putting those boundaries. And yes, initially you feel the guilt, but as you understand that it's not selfishness, because I think a lot of people feel that they're being selfish. Self-love.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Well, self-love comes with saying no to some something or a situation or a person, but it's saying yes to you as well. So uh yeah, there's nothing wrong with being, it's not, I don't understand as being selfish. I understand by I understand by being like self-love, it's preserving myself, it's respecting myself, it's honoring who I am, to see if what you're asking me is in alignment to what I believe and want to do and what am I available to do it. So that that has to be in integration, in harmony. I cannot say yes to you and be completely in disalignment with myself because that is gonna create in me like maybe resentment. Then like next time I ask something for you, next time I ask you to do something for me, I'm gonna expect you to say yes because I said yes when I want to say no. So I truly feel like it creates it opens the space to create resentment. Not necessarily it's gonna create resentment, but when you give with one hand and expect with another, is that truly giving? Is that truly saying yes? So I believe you in karma yoga. Kama yoga means action without expecting anything in return. So you do because it's in alignment with your awareness, higher consciousness, and you. And that's a path that meditation might help you because it peels the layers of truly who you are not. So we have a practice in yoga that we call this practice, it's an ancient practice, nadi nati, not this, not that, not this, not that. So always go within, always ask why I'm accepting this task that Angelica is asking me to do. What is the reason behind? What is my intention? I want to please Angelica, I want to be in good terms with Angelica, or because I'm like, I have fear of feeling rejected. So I accept everything because I don't want to be rejected by you.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

A validation. A lot of words for validation.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, so your true action is when you establish in your being, in your grounding yourself in your being, and then you perform action. So you give from a place of wholeness, of feeling whole. So I say yes because I'm not lacking anything. I'm not lacking, I'm not fearing anything. So I'm saying yes because this is the right action for me to perform.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

And what are exercises that people can do, like that say that they're in that situation and they're feeling like they want to say no and they're about to say yes and they're not feeling well. What can they do at that moment? Like take a moment, and what would be a good practice for them to like center themselves so they know exactly how to respond?

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yes, good, good question. Center yourself in the present moment. So bring your awareness to back to yourself. Because sometimes you're like in the future fearing that the person is not gonna fear of missing out, right? Not gonna invite you for the next event, the next vacation, because you said no to the person. So center yourself in the present moment. If you want, you can close your eyes, bring your awareness within, because uh our sight distracts us. So bring your awareness within. That's a practice in yoga that is called prachahara. So we withdraw from the sense, for example, seeing. So I close my eyes, bring my awareness inward, take a long deep breath, connect myself to my body. So be aware. So the path is always know thyself. Always. There's no escape. So know yourself. So know your personality, know your triggers, know your reasons, know your intentions. So practice prachahara, withdraw from the sense, for example, seeing. Just close your eyes, take a long deep breath, and just silently ask yourself: is what Angelica is asking me in alignment to what I truly want to do? What I feel that's the right action at this moment. And then just release, and then release the expectation and observe how your body feels. We talked about that before. If your body feels tightness, contraction, try to identify what I'm feeling. I'm feeling tightness and contraction because my mind is racing, agitated, turbulent, saying this person might not like you. You might be excluded from your book club, for example, because you didn't accept the task of reading the next book, or whatever that is. Try to understand yourself within yourself. Like what is going on within me? What are the sensations my body's feeling? Do I feel expanded? Do I feel contracted? What are the thoughts that might arise? Observe then. Detach and observe, observe and detach. Just go within. Self-inquire is always a good path to know thyself and detachment. So if I want to give with one hand and expect with another, so detach yourself from the results. Do from a place, I want to do this from Jalika because I feel it's the right movement at this time. So I'm not expecting something back. Because if you sacrifice so much yourself by saying yes when you want to say no, next time I ask something for you to do for me, and you say no with no guilt and no fear, nothing, I'm gonna resent you. I'm gonna be probably angry. And then angry with me for doing something I didn't want to do, but I did it because of you, because I was expecting the same return in the future. Like I mentioned to you, that's investing in your own self. It's not like selfless action. I'm investing in saying yes to Angelica because actually, my true interest is for her to say yes to me. So it's that's a game of manipulation. That's not true giving. So for me, it's always true giving, be in alignment of truly who you are, your values or your virtues, and then you perform action.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

And I think that that is also applied a lot into relationships, especially at the beginning of a relationship, when we see all these red flags in the relationship, and we continue to overgive because we want to make it work and we want things to, we always have this thought of like it will get better, but we'll get there. And then we we stop loving ourselves because we love so much the other person and we want things to work out, and then we continue in this relationship for you know who knows how long, always with the hope. And then as we continue, we love ourselves less and less and less. So, in terms of those situations, what is a good way of establishing these boundaries in the relationships when we first start, or even for the people that are already in a relationship that they feel that there is not working out, to establish these relationships and understand, like, okay, if they don't work in the way that I can love myself, then this is not working out for me. What would be a good exercise for someone?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

The same that I just told you about what applies to an individual practice applies to a person that is engaged in a relationship. And because the work is you and you, the path is always you through you. And of course, you're gonna have external circumstances and external relationships that is gonna mirror back to you what we need to unveil within you. So if somebody, like for example, we talk about emotional triggers, if somebody actually presses your buttons and you are emotional uh triggered by a situation, that's an external event giving an opportunity for you to heal yourself. So the path is always from within you. The path is always in you and through you. So I'll I'll apply the same thing to a personal relationship with somebody else that is engaged and to you when you with general situations in life.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah, that's that's really interesting because I think, especially with relationships, it's like the biggest thing that sometimes we fail at in loving ourselves, and then finding someone that reflects what's inside, then outside.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Yeah, but I feel like that's like kind of like the law of attraction would apply. If you don't love yourself, how can you expect somebody to do it? So if you don't honor your boundaries, you don't honor who you are, how do you expect somebody to do it for you? So it's the the journey is always starts, the journey always starts with us. So I need to and I need to love myself, to honor myself, and for that, I need to know myself. So that's how I see it.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

And a lot of people look for that relationship so that they can feel whole and then they can be happy. But I think that is important also for you to explain that part that we have to be happy with ourselves to then and be whole, to then find that relationship that is gonna bring, you know, what we need into our life, but not the happiness that in you need two people to be happy. Like it has to be within.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

I have, I believe the the path is within. You find that place within you that you were in alignment, that you are in harmony, and somebody else that you're gonna meet is gonna mirror that alignment and harmony. So if you're not internal in alignment, how you expect somebody else to bring that to your life? So it's not gonna work. Uh, we have a law that is called the law of correspondence, correspondence. Correspondence. The law of correspondence, as above, as below, so as within, as without. So do the inner work and you're gonna mirror that back, and it's gonna come back to you. That's the perfect application of the law of attraction.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, and I think that's the biggest takeaway that we wanna give everybody today that is looking to find their love partner, the perfect partner for you. Do the inner work, love yourself first.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Did it perfect for you for yourself, be be comfortable with your own company. So just be in harmony of who you are, and then you're gonna mirror that back, and it's gonna come back to you.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

So thank you, and Namaste. Namaste. And that's today's episode. We hope this conversation helped bring more clarity, understanding to the chakra system, consciousness, Reiki, and the connection between energy, healing, and self-awareness. As we explore today, chakras are not simply abstract spiritual concepts. They are part of the way we experience life emotionally, mentally, physically, and energetically. They reflect how we process emotions, how we relate to ourselves and others, how to express our truth, how we hold fear, love, confidence, resentment, compassion, or connection within the body and the mind. And one of the most important parts of healing is understanding that true transformation is not only about receiving energy work or spiritual practices, it's also about becoming aware of what we continue carrying inside ourselves, the emotions we have in release, the stories we continue repeating, the fears, hurts, and loot that keep us disconnected from peace and alignment. Because awareness is what begins by opening the space for healing. And when we combine awareness with practices like meditation, reiki, grounding, emotional release, self-inquiry, compassion, and presence, we begin reconnecting to ourselves in a much deeper way. This episode is also the beginning of a larger chakra series, so in future episodes, we will continue exploring each chakra individually and how these energy centers influence our lives, emotions, relationships, behaviors, and spiritual growth. If this episode resonated with you, feel free to share with someone who may benefit from this conversation. And if there are specific chakra topics or questions you would like us to explore in future episodes, leave them in the comments. We will love to hear from you. Thank you for being here with us on Path to Holeness. Remember, this journey is not about becoming someone new, it's about returning to who you truly are. Take what resonated, integrate it into your life, and trust your own process. We will see you in the next episode.