having trouble with boundaries?
You know the feeling. You sit down, filled with determination, and craft the perfect plan. Your recovery plan, your boundaries, your rules for a healthier life are brilliant. They are structured, compassionate, and full of hope. For a week or two, you follow them, feeling the steady promise of change.
Then, life happens. A wave of exhaustion, a spike of stress, a moment of loneliness—and just like that, the rules you set for yourself seem to vanish from your mind. The relapse happens, followed by the familiar, crushing wave of shame and self-blame: "Why can't I just stick to my own plans?"
If this cycle sounds agonizingly familiar, please hear this: The problem is not a lack of willpower. The problem is that you are in a battle with a part of your own brain you didn't know was an enemy.
The real reason you keep breaking your own rules isn't a moral failing. It’s a neurological and psychological reality for those healing from complex trauma. Understanding this internal battle is the first step toward winning it.
The Internal Civil War: Your Cortex vs. Your Limbic Brain
To understand why your healthy boundaries crumble, we need to look at the two key parts of your brain involved in this struggle.
The Cortex: This is the "adult" part of your brain. It's where you, in a calm and rational state, set those brilliant, healthy boundaries. It thinks about long-term consequences, logic, and your genuine well-being. Your recovery plan is born here.
The Limbic Brain: This is the emotional, survival-centric part of your brain. It's designed for one thing: to avoid pain and seek immediate relief. For survivors of complex trauma, the limbic brain is often overactive, hyper-vigilant, and easily triggered. It thinks like a frightened or demanding child, screaming for instant gratification to soothe any discomfort.
The moment you feel tired, stressed, lonely, hurt, or angry, your limbic brain gets triggered. It doesn't care about the elegant rules your cortex created. It only cares about one thing: "Make this bad feeling stop NOW."
As the teaching explains, "Sticking to healthy boundaries... is a battle that you have to wage against your limbic brain." When your limbic system "trumps" your cortex, your well-intentioned rules are the first casualty. This is not you being weak; this is your nervous system, shaped by past trauma, following its old, desperate playbook for survival.
The Silent Saboteurs: The Demotivators That Hijack Your Resolve
So, what specifically triggers this limbic takeover? These are the "negative demotivators" that quietly drain your motivation and pull you away from your healthy path. When you're aware of them, you can see the enemy approaching.
Common demotivators for those with complex trauma include:
Exhaustion & Stress: When you're tired or overwhelmed, the limbic brain seeks the path of least resistance. The snooze button wins over meditation. Isolating feels safer than going to a meeting.
Loneliness & Emotional Pain: The deep-seated fear of abandonment, common in complex trauma, can make loneliness feel unbearable. This unmet need for connection can pull you to break your own rules about relationships or substances, seeking relief in unhealthy attachments.
Anger & Frustration: When cortisol (the stress hormone) floods your system, it can feel empowering to "not care" about the rules. You might think, "Screw this, I'm going to get drunk at you!" as a way to express anger, even though it's self-sabotaging.
Feeling "Too Good": Ironically, feeling good can be a major trigger. Your brain might whisper, "You don't deserve this," leading to subconscious self-sabotage. Or, you might impulsively celebrate the good feeling by breaking your budget or your routine, thinking you can handle it now.
Each of these states triggers the emotional, limbic part of your brain, launching an internal campaign to dismantle the very boundaries that are meant to protect you.
How to Fortify Your Boundaries and Reclaim Your Self-Trust
Awareness is the first and most crucial step. But what comes next? How do you strengthen your cortex and calm your limbic brain?
1. Anticipate the Demotivators. Now that you know them, you can plan for them. If you know loneliness is a trigger, your boundary isn't just "don't call an ex," it's "when I feel lonely, I will call my sponsor, attend an online support group, or visit a friend before the feeling becomes overwhelming."
2. Find a "More Beautiful Song." The sailors in the myth survived the sirens not by tying themselves tighter to the mast, but by finding a more beautiful song to play. Your recovery needs this. What is more beautiful to you now than the siren song of your old life? Is it the peace of a sober morning? The trust in your child's eyes? A connection with a supportive community? Nurture that song. Play it loudly in your mind.
3. Understand That Recovery is About Doing It Anyway. Ultimately, your success will hinge on a simple, difficult truth: "Doing what you don't want to do on days you don't feel like doing it." Getting up for your quiet time when you're tired. Going to a meeting when you're sad. This isn't about punishment; it's about the profound act of keeping a promise to yourself. Each time you do what you said you would do, even when you don't feel like it, you are building self-trust and proving to your limbic brain that the adult is finally in charge.
Healing from complex PTSD is a journey of moving from being at war with yourself to becoming the compassionate commander of your own inner world. The rules you set are not the enemy, and neither are you. The enemy is a dysregulated nervous system and unhealed trauma wounds. By understanding this, you can replace shame with strategy, and self-blame with empowered self-awareness.
4. GIVE EVERYTHING TO JESUS. Pray, fast, read your word everyday. know that you can do this alone. only god can heal every crevice and every soul wound lingering inside of you. allow god to take full control of your life and watch him do his best work - restoration!