The rebellion in your ribcage

It was Friday - as I sat at my desk with a knot in my stomach, irritability crawling up my spine, and an almost overwhelming urge to bolt from my chair and run straight out the front door.

I release articles every Friday. But that morning, I had made a different choice: I decided to take the day off to spend with my kids. A rare weekday adventure, just the three of us (you know, still summer holidays… click here to read more).

So why was I forcing myself to sit there, trying to force my brain into productivity mode while my entire body screamed "NOPE"?

Because somewhere between making that beautiful boundary decision and actually living it, my mind stepped in with all its helpful suggestions: "You could just write something quick." "Your readers are expecting it." "It won't take long."

What I was experiencing then - the physical revolt against my own mental override - is one of the clearest examples of how internal boundaries work. Not the boundaries we think we should set, or the ones we announce to other people, but the ones our body holds as sacred.

Unspoken boundaries

When most of us think about boundaries, we picture difficult conversations with demanding relatives, learning to say "no" to extra work projects, or finally telling your friend we can't be their unpaid therapist anymore.

But there's another layer of boundary work that rarely gets discussed: the boundaries we set with ourselves, and what happens when we violate them.

On Friday my body was giving me information that was crystal clear. My plans and boundary I set for that morning - "Today is for my children, not for work" - wasn't just a scheduling decision. It was an alignment with something deeper. A recognition that presence with my kids feeds something essential in me that constant productivity depletes.

When I try to break that boundary, even for "good reasons," my nervous system responds exactly the same way it would if someone else was pushing past my limits.

Boundary violations and how they feel

In my practice, I've noticed that people can often describe what it feels like when others cross their boundaries, but they're completely disconnected from recognising when they're crossing their own.

Jo came to see me because she was "burned out from saying yes to everything." But as we worked together, what emerged wasn't that she couldn't say no to others - it's that she couldn't honour the boundaries she set with herself.

"I'll tell myself I'm only checking emails for ten minutes" she shared, "and then three hours later I'm still there, and I feel this... rage. But I can't figure out who I'm angry at."

She was angry at herself. Not in a self-critical way, but in the way that happens when someone you trust keeps breaking promises to you. Her body held the memory of every boundary she'd set with herself and then abandoned.

The exhaustion after "helpful" conversations. The dread before opening your laptop on weekends. The way your shoulders tense when you agree to something that doesn't align with what you truly want. These aren't character flaws or signs of weakness; they're your body's boundary detection system working perfectly.

The intelligence of your internal resistance

I’ve come to realise, both in my own life and working with clients, that our body often sets boundaries before our mind even realises they're needed.

Mathias was a marketing executive who prided himself on being the "go-to guy" for every crisis. But he started having what he called "weird physical reactions" to certain types of requests.

"When my boss asks me to take on another rush project, I get this instant heaviness in my chest" he told me. "Like I can't breathe properly. But logically, I know I can handle it. I always do."

We spent time exploring what that chest heaviness might be trying to communicate. What we discovered was fascinating: his body was responding to the pattern, not just the individual request.

The heaviness appeared specifically when he was asked to sacrifice something he valued - time with his family, his morning routine, his weekend plans - for what felt like artificial urgency. His nervous system had learned to recognise this pattern and was trying to protect him from it.

"So what you're saying" Mathias said during one session, "is that my body is better at setting boundaries than me?"

Exactly.

When self-care becomes self-abandonment

Internal boundary violations can be particularly sneaky, especially when they masquerade as virtue.

Taking on extra work becomes "being reliable". Staying up late to finish tasks becomes "dedication". Ignoring your body's signals becomes "pushing through".

But your nervous system doesn't care about your noble reasons. It only knows whether you're honouring or abandoning the agreements you make with yourself.

Liz discovered this when she realised her elaborate self-care routines were, in fact, making her feel worse, not better.

"I have this perfect evening routine," she explained. "Meditation, journaling, tea, reading. But by the time I actually do it all, I'm resentful and exhausted. I'm doing self-care, but it doesn't feel caring".

What we uncovered was that Liz's real boundary was needing unstructured time to decompress. After an entire day of planned structure and execution, what she really needed to reset was some flexibility; it was to deal with the unpredictability of her ever-changing needs, by learning to tune in and flow with them. Whilst the evening routine felt like something she should want, internally it felt like an extension of her workday. Her system craved something else entirely, so she was violating her own boundary in the name of “wellness”.

The three languages of boundary information

Your body communicates boundary information in three distinct ways, and learning to recognise them can transform your relationship with yourself (more on this here: The Anxiety Language Decoder):

Physical signals: the knot in your stomach, tension in your jaw, changes in breathing, sudden fatigue, or that urge to flee. These show up first and fastest.

Emotional responses: irritability without clear cause, resentment toward activities you "chose", feeling trapped or claustrophobic, unexpected sadness. These often follow the physical signals.

Energy shifts: feeling drained after activities that should energise you, procrastination around things you "want" to do, or that flat, disconnected feeling that nothing seems appealing.

On Friday I could feel all three starting to emerge. The physical revolt was obvious. The emotional resentment toward my own expectations was building. And energetically, I felt like I was swimming through mud.

What happens when you listen

Here's what happened next in my story: I listened.

I closed my laptop. I put on my shoes. I walked out the door to spend the day exactly as I'd planned - with my children.

We went to visit a community support project and their farm. I met and connected with people. The children made friends. We spent some time at an arcade - they love swapping their tokens for those silly toys. We joined Parkrun in the morning, played in the sand afterwards. We spent time together, talked about everything and nothing. Throughout the weekend (and mainly that first day), the knot in my stomach dissolved completely. The irritability vanished. I felt like myself again.

To me this wasn't just a nice weekend off. It was direct evidence of what happens when you honour what your body is telling you, even when it's inconvenient.

I see it happen over and over again. When James started paying attention to his body's boundary information, he made a similar discovery. "I realised I was saying yes to other people because I was so used to overriding my own no's" he shared. "Learning to listen to myself first made it so much easier to be honest with everyone else."

This makes perfect sense. If you're constantly betraying your own boundaries, your nervous system stays in a state of alert. It's harder to think clearly, to feel your authentic responses, or to communicate them effectively when you're already dysregulated from self-abandonment.

But when you start honouring your internal boundaries - even the inconvenient ones, even the ones that don't make logical sense - something shifts. You develop trust with yourself. Your nervous system relaxes. Suddenly, external boundary conversations become clearer, because you're not fighting an internal war at the same time.

The permission you've been waiting for

Here's what I wish someone had told me years ago: you don't need a good enough reason to honour what your body is telling you.

My urge to run from my desk and spend the day with my kids didn't need to be justified by productivity metrics or wellness research. The boundary wasn't reasonable or unreasonable - it just was.

Your body's boundary signals aren't suggestions to be evaluated by your mind. They're information to be honoured, even when - especially when - they're inconvenient.

This doesn't mean becoming impulsive or irresponsible. It means developing a different relationship with the part of you that knows what you need, before you think you should need it.

Writing this article today (Monday) instead of forcing it on Friday taught me something profound about the difference between flexibility and self-abandonment. My Friday Self needed presence with my children more than productivity. My Monday Self feels energised and clear, ready to share this experience with you.

A different kind of integrity

We talk a lot about integrity as keeping our word to others. But there's another kind of integrity that rarely gets discussed: keeping our word to ourselves.

Every time you honour a boundary your body has set, you're building trust with your own nervous system. Every time you abandon it, you're confirming that you can't be relied upon to protect your own wellbeing.

There’s something extremely empowering in developing the capacity to hear your internal boundaries and take them seriously, even when they're inconvenient.

Especially when they're inconvenient.

What this means for you

The next time you notice physical discomfort around a decision you've made, or emotional resistance to something you think you "should" do, consider this: What if that's not dysfunction? What if that's information?

What if your body is already setting boundaries perfectly, and you just need to learn its language?

The beautiful irony is that by honouring my boundary on Friday, I'm able to write about it with authenticity and presence today. Sometimes the best way to serve others is to first honour what your own system needs.