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Hey friend,

I once found myself sitting on the bathroom floor with the shower running, crying so hard I couldn’t catch my breath.

And in the middle of it, a thought crossed my mind that surprised me by how real it felt:

Can you die from crying?

Not as a metaphor.
I genuinely wondered if my body could hold that much emotion.

But here’s what I didn’t understand at the time.

It doesn’t usually start with a breakdown like that.

It starts quietly.

You begin adjusting without realizing it.
Softening your needs.
Staying connected by staying agreeable.

You don’t think of it as losing yourself.
You think of it as being loving. Being flexible. Being understanding.

Have you ever noticed that?

That moment when you know what you want to say —
but something in your body hesitates?

Not because you’re unclear.
But because holding the line suddenly feels heavier than it should.

And when that happens, the message is almost always the same.

Your boundaries aren’t clear enough.
You need to be firmer.
You’re not holding them well enough.

So you turn your attention there.

But that night on the bathroom floor showed me something different.

I didn’t lack strength or clarity.
I had lost trust in myself.

And without self-trust, boundaries don’t hold.

The part most people miss about boundaries

We tend to blame boundaries when they don’t work.

We think:

• I didn’t say it clearly enough
• I wasn’t firm enough
• I caved too fast

But boundaries don’t fail because they’re wrong.

They fail when your nervous system no longer believes it’s safe to stand behind them.

When trust in yourself erodes, your body hesitates — even when your mind knows exactly what you want.

A simple way to tell if this is happening to you

Here are three signs boundaries feel hard because of trust, not skill:

1. You know what you want to say, but your body tightens or freezes
2. You replay the interaction afterward and second-guess yourself
3. You feel calm imagining the boundary, but panicked holding it

That’s not weakness.
That’s a system that needs safety restored before strength is possible.

Where to start rebuilding self-trust

Focus on one moment of internal agreement:

• noticing when something feels like a no
• honoring that signal privately
• letting your body register “I listened”

Trust is built quietly before it’s expressed out loud.

Watch this

I shared a short video this week explaining why boundaries fail — and why rebuilding self-trust has to come first.

If this email resonated, that video will help connect the dots.

👉 Watch the video here:

You weren’t weak.
Your body was trying to survive something it couldn’t sustain.

And learning to trust yourself again is not a mindset shift.
It’s a nervous system one.

I’m really glad you’re here.

Kimberlie