My Personal Story: Navigating Empathy and Boundaries in Work and Life

It’s been a bit of a challenging week for me as I’ve been pondering on how much I am not only willing to give away for free, but also am able to in terms of energy. Partly this has come to light through focusing on my wellbeing, aka health recovery journey.

Part of me wants to really support and inspire others as much as possible another one is very exhausted. And also really doesn’t wanna be taken advantage of.

When boundaries don’t come naturally to you, it can be a struggle, e very uncomfortable but necessary one as well.

While I was pondering on all those things, I slowly started to realise that I have been overextending myself in many ways and that I have been giving away a lot for free. Many of those things have been so natural to me, that I even wasn’t aware of it.

Partly I believe this is because we also live in a culture of freebies, free seminars to hook people, free this, free that. Basically you’re being told, that you should be giving a lot for free, artists even more so. The reason is always the same.

‘It’ll help you to make a name of yourself and to gain new followers, bla, bla, bla…’

Then I started to wonder, have we already all become so used of getting so many things for free, that we even don’t bother anymore to give back in terms of value? It’s easy to just enjoy someone’s paintings on Instagram, but to buy a print and actually support the artist, sharing so generously is another thing.

Sorry, I digress. Basically, I basically became aware for myself, that I am the one deciding how much I am able and willing to offer for free. What is sustainable for me, also on an energy level. Independent of what I should be doing… marketing wise and so on and so forth.

I started to take stock of the things I am offering for free. I created a beautiful podcast with my stories and the beautiful music by Chelsea Edwardson. I write blog posts and I have the Youtube channel. On top of that I offer free online gatherings once a month.

In future I want to be more intentional with what I am able to give away freely and where I don’t. I love my YouTube channel and I think it’s a great way of finding out more about me and what I am all about. Bingo! The podcast, I would like to record future stories without music for free and put the old episodes behind a paywall. The blog I am writing is for free, but I am thinking of creating one only for my stories, musings and memoirs. This will also go behind a paywall.

The most important revelation for me was, that I am not able to continue with the free online gatherings (the next one on Nov.3 will be the last free one) and that I will in future charge for them, not much 15 €, but still. It was good for me to offer it for free first to find out how beneficial it is and how it can work. Personally I don’t know many spaces for introverted artists, that offer small gatherings of only six people, where important subjects can be shown and art is discussed very encouragingly. While by charging I want to ensure, that I can keep on bringing the attention to it the gathering deserves, I also want the people, who come be more intentional. Putting a value to it hopefully will encourage them to show up prepared with the artwork they wanna share as well as links, if they have any.

My energy is very finite and if I keep on overextending myself, I am not of value to anyone. Of course I do want to help, support and inspire others. But it needs to be sustainable for me personally and as a business.

In conclusion I would say, the more empathic we are, the more important it is also to have good boundaries in place, so that we don’t over give and exhaust ourselves. The more we respect ourselves, value the work we do, and are clear on what’s okay and what isn’t, the more not only the right people will find us, but they will also value what we have to offer.

On another note, I just created my first premiere on Youtube, fitting to the subject. It’s called ‘Not Too Nice’, subscribe to my channel and don’t miss to hit the notify button on the video, I can’t wait for this one to drop!