boundaries

The Discipline of an Open Heart

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

I have come to believe that two complex and opposing truths can almost always coexist.

In my relationships, I live with low expectations and yet I move through life held by hope. This balance keeps my thoughts grounded in context and my heart deliberately soft. I chose long ago to keep my heart open—not out of naïveté, but because it is how I wish to live.

I love the sensation of my heart expanding and leaning outward. The quiet intimacy of falling in love with life itself, with strangers, with fleeting moments. Love, in its purest form, centres my soul and grants me the freedom to breathe deeply and without restraint.

I understand, perhaps too well, the fragility of being human—our limitations, our fear, and the courage it takes simply to remain present.

To reflect honestly, to grow, to heal, and to walk this life with groundedness, insight, and discernment requires a devotion that unfolds over a lifetime. These qualities are not acquired quickly or easily. They are refined through lived experience, through humility, through loss. To be human in this way is, in itself, an act of courage.

This understanding has shaped my commitment to myself and to how I choose to experience life.

Within that space, I have learned to hold strict boundaries alongside a wide and generous concept of love. I no longer confuse openness with self-abandonment, nor closeness with obligation. Love does not always disappear; sometimes it simply changes shape.

And when it does leave, I trust that it has fulfilled its purpose in my life. It was contextualised love—true for a season, meaningful in its time—and now it asks to be released.

I have also committed to no longer chasing closeness, nor over-explaining myself in the hope of being understood. I will never again abandon myself in order to be chosen.

I sit firmly in my own sense of self-worth, self-respect, and dignity. From that place, I am acutely aware of when these values are honoured and when they are not.

I do not confront what diminishes them with drama or force. I allow silence to speak. I allow attitudes to fill the space between us. And only when they have settled fully do I step away—quietly, with my head held high.

Living from this place of low expectations and hope has given me both emotional lightness and depth. It has released me from the weight of frustration, from the impulse to grieve endlessly or to fix others simply because I can see their potential, or the imagined potential of what we might become.

I no longer live in possibility.
I live in presence.
In the clarity of what is, rather than what could be.

This way of being took time to embrace. Yet once I understood the emotional state from which I wished to experience life, the path revealed itself—its skills, its limitations, its clear choices.

What emerged was a way forward that honoured this singular and precious life.

We are all layered beings, revealing only fragments of ourselves at any given moment—the parts that feel safe enough to share. And in that space, for me, low expectations held alongside hope become an act of respect.

For the other.
And for myself.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Living in Truth After a Childhood of Illusions

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

The sadness of being emotionally neglected as a child is that I learned never to neglect the people I love. So, when no one turned up for me, I accepted it. At my lowest and darkest, when I lay in a hospital bed, only my husband came. The truth is painful: expecting no one to show up for me is still my reality, although now it is no longer my truth.

Healing is slow and steady. The past, however, has a loud voice, and each day I work to challenge it into the lie that it is.

The fact is, I was my mother’s personal cleaner from the age of three. I scrubbed her house, vacuumed, washed floors, cleaned the bathroom, washed my own clothes, hung them on the line while standing on a ladder, and changed everyone’s sheets. I believed that if I made myself useful enough – good enough – she would finally see my worth.

She never did. And when I confronted her about my childhood, she denied all of it. That was the moment I understood our family was built on illusions. When I stopped protecting those illusions and chose instead to live in truth, I became a threat.

I learned that when people live in illusions, they must defend them. Having those illusions challenged triggers shame. The trouble with shame is that it cannot move; it ferments in the soul. And when shame is triggered, the ego becomes fiercely invested in defending the illusion, not in seeking accountability, growth, or gratitude.

Eventually, every person must choose: uphold the illusion, or live in truth. One path preserves belonging; the other preserves the soul. I chose freedom. And freedom meant exile from the clan.

The grief was profound. I had to face that the worth I believed I had earned—by being useful, patient, responsible – would never be acknowledged or loved. But refusing to live in someone else’s illusion also forced me to confront the illusions I had created for myself.

Freedom is found in truth, but only after grieving the years spent living a lie for the comfort of others. Once the grief dissolves, the path that had always been waiting reveals itself.

In that clearing, a doorway stands open – quiet, steady, and entirely yours.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Roots of Self-Respect

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

I remember being a child and wanting whatever fad swept through school. My father would always ask, “If everyone jumped into the fire, would you?”
Of course I wouldn’t – logic told me fire burns.
But as I grew older, the simplicity of that logic met reality.

Do people deserve respect when they do not respect me?

Intangible matters have a way of blurring what once felt obvious. Being disrespected hurt – it embarrassed me, made me feel small, insignificant, even ashamed. Like everyone else, I thrived when I was treated with dignity.

But I also noticed something unexpected: I did not feel stronger, safer, or better about myself when I disrespected those who had disrespected me. It felt hollow. It felt beneath me.

Somewhere along the way I learned that a strong sense of self is the shield against disrespect. It allowed me to remain respectful regardless of the other person, regardless of the room I stood in, regardless of how sharp or gifted I was with words.

There is enormous power in simply looking at someone with quiet, candid pity – not hostility –  and staying grounded in myself. Sometimes the most dignified act is to walk away without letting their chaos infiltrate my inner world.

When I mastered this, I realised how deeply empowering it was. It affected others more than any noise, rage, or rudeness could. More importantly, it freed me. I was no longer at the mercy of other people’s emotional storms. I became separate from their flaws, their turmoil, their behaviour – and that separateness became my truest form of self-respect.

And in that space, I discovered a powerful truth:
When you no longer need to react to disrespect, you naturally begin to respect everyone – not because they deserve it, but because you do.
Your calm becomes a mirror. Their behaviour no longer belongs to you.

Disrespecting others, to me, is a sign that somewhere inside, I have forgotten how to respect myself.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

Learning To Love From a Place of Power

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

Love is one of the most difficult and complex states to master because it is an emotion, an action, and a choice.

For me, it was especially challenging to learn how to operate from a position of love. I did not grow up in a loving environment, and the only “template” I had was fawning – the behaviour that once kept me safe because it earned attention. My now-husband was the first to show me that this was not love. It was a defence response. When he gently asked me to stop, I felt exposed and even defensive. Yet he preferred that real version of me – the version I was not acquainted with yet.

His manner of relating forced me to dig deep, to develop the skills I had never been taught, to make conscious choices that built trust and intimacy rather than fear and appeasement.

It took me a very long time – decades – to learn how to come from love when interacting, how to stay in love in daily life, and how to return to love regardless of my moods or the chaos within me. Through that process, I met all the parts of myself: my insecurities, my false beliefs, my internal map, my fragile sense of self, my lack of boundaries, and my fear of stepping into my own power.

I kept myself small. I was nice to everyone, even when they treated me poorly. I feared the word “no,” both saying it and hearing it. And deep inside, I wanted my husband to be my knight in shining armour.

But my husband – a strong, grounded alpha male – believed that my life was mine to lead. He saw no point in managing my daily choices or defending me at every turn. That, he believed, was my job. And so, he loved me steadfastly while I learned to build a life where I was in charge: my boundaries, my decisions, my voice, my self-respect.

This was his love in action – quiet, constant, unwavering. He made sure I was never in need and that I felt protected as the woman he honoured and built a life with.

Meanwhile, I was on a long learning curve: how to return to love again and again, how to reveal myself slowly, how to let others reveal themselves in turn, how to give love without emptying myself, and how to receive it without shrinking.

And then, one day, something in me went AHA. A whole new world opened. Suddenly I was the main actor in my own life, surrounded by people who aligned with who I was becoming. I saw how bountiful life truly is – and I was overwhelmed that I had lived so long without seeing it.

I now know that coming from a position of love makes me feel rich, powerful, and grounded – because love has always been the foundation of life.

Now, I return to love as my home base. It is a daily discipline, yes, but also a choice — because, in truth, it is where I feel safest and most alive.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Peace that Belongs to You

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

Forgiving isn’t excusing.

It is uncoupling yourself from the person or event that keeps pulling you backward.
You don’t forgive because they deserve peace.
You forgive because you do.

You can still have boundaries.
You can still remember what happened.
But you stop offering your inner life as a battleground for someone else’s choices.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

When My Guard Finally Rested

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

Hate used to visit my heart, but at some point, I realized it was not meant to live there.

It came came as my defender when I was hurt – when betrayal cut too deep, when I felt unseen in my pain. Butor a time, hate felt powerful and purposeful. But what began as armour soon hardened into eternal rage and isolation.

One day I woke up and realized I didn’t need to fight.

There was no war, even if my body hadn’t realised it yet.

Those who wronged me had faded into their own stories, but my heart still kept guard at a door no one was trying to enter.

It was time to let that guard rest.
And allow the tears to come instead of the rage.
Grieve the dream that died, the love that never came, the apology that never arrived.
Letting grief in, did hurt, – yes – but it flowed finally through me when I allowed it.

Hatred on the other hand had stayed far too long, like an unwanted guest, until I showed it the door.

Forgiveness I learned is not forgetting.

I will never forget.

Forgiveness was uncoupling myself from the weight that no longer belonged to my present.

So, I learned boundaries instead.

I learned self-respect.

Self-honour.

Self-integrity.

I learned to surround myself with people who built me up.

I let others reveal themselves first.

I let them earn my trust slowly.

Above all, I learned to always have my own back – unapologetically.

I learned to protect my peace, but with an open hand, not a closed fist.

I carried this burden long enough. In hindsight, far too long.
I lay it down purposely and deliberately, everyday,
because there is more ahead of me – a life waiting to be lived – than the life that no longer exists.

And I refuse to waste anymore of my precious time what was never mine to hold.

~ Evgenia Pimżin

The Gold Beneath the Mud

/ evgeniapimzin / Leave a comment

I have never been uncomfortable with difficult feelings – sadness, grief, shame, guilt.
It’s not that I embrace them or draw some unhealthy satisfaction from their presence.
It’s simply that I find profound truths inside them, a clarity like still water that settles my mind, my thoughts, my heart, and ultimately guides me toward my soul.

On the other side of difficult feelings, I always find release – from people, situations, or choices that were never meant for me.
So I invite these feelings in, like a loyal friend who refuses to be “nice” at all costs, who will not smooth over truth or hide discomfort under polite veneers.
They reveal the absence of genuine care in places where care should have been.

The truest friends are the ones who sit in the mud with you, who remain quiet witnesses to your hard passages, and say, “You can walk this path. I know you will. And I’ll be here when you reach the other side.”
Their faith becomes a kind of shelter.

I have no need for those who flinch at my difficult feelings.
They are bright trinkets – costume jewellery at best.
A shine that was never earned.

This too is a difficult truth to speak into being:
deciding who to let in, who to keep at a distance, and who to greet gently but never invite beyond the frivolities of passing time.

These truths are guides to a richer life.
So I embrace them.
They are the most excellent companions –worth the finest gold.

~ Evgenia Pimżin