Joy Is a Boundary Too

✦ [SurvivorAffirmations.com] ✦

Dear Survivor,

Some people won’t try to argue with your words.
They’ll try to disturb your joy.

They’ll show up with confusion.
They’ll press the bruise.
They’ll remind you of who you used to be or what you once allowed—
not to connect, but to re-enter.

But your healing has created something sacred now.

Joy is a boundary too.
A gate.
A signal.
A spiritual “Do Not Disturb” sign for the ones who only came to pull you back into survival mode.

When you laugh freely, they feel it.
When you dance without asking permission, they see it.
When you move through the world with peace in your shoulders and light in your voice—
they know they’ve lost access.

And some won’t like that.

Some will try to make you feel guilty for your joy.
They’ll say you’ve changed.
That you’re distant.
That you’re “too happy,” “too sensitive,” or “too full of yourself.”

But joy is not arrogance.
Joy is protection.
It’s evidence that you made it through.
It’s a fence around your hard-earned peace.

So let your laughter be your no.
Let your joy be your line in the sand.
Let your wholeness be the invitation only space that not everyone gets to enter.

You don’t have to perform pain to prove that you’re real.
You don’t have to relive harm to be understood.
You don’t have to open the door to people who only knock when they sense your shine.

Your joy is sacred.
Your peace is non-negotiable.
And your boundaries—seen and unseen—are divine.

Protect your joy like your soul depends on it.

Because sometimes, it does.

With luminous love,
✦ Survivor Affirmations ✦