“NO”. Practice it again: no, no, no…
Boundaries, please!
We all need them, and we could all benefit from having healthier ones. Let’s look at what boundaries look like, why they’re important, and how we can better recognize them. So you’re not suddenly fuming with resentment, snapping at your kids, or emotionally shutting down—whatever your preferred Boundary Being Violated reaction is.
To begin, what exactly are boundaries?
Boundaries in a relationship are your limits and rules. They may be emotional, physical, or mental in nature. They can be hard, soft, or healthy. Consider boundaries to be the lines in the sand that separate what you consider acceptable and unacceptable behavior.
Rigid boundaries:
– Keep others at a distance in fear of being hurt or rejected
– Avoid intimacy and close relationships
– Protective, detached, and unlikely to ask for help
Porous boundaries:
– Overshare and are overinvolved in others’ problems
– Fear if they don’t comply with others they’ll be rejected
– Has a difficult time saying “no”
Healthy boundaries:
– Understand your personal wants and needs and are able to communicate them
– Share just enough personal information appropriately—right time, right place, right audience
– Can accept hearing “no” from others
– Don’t compromise your own values and opinions for others
While we’d all like to have healthy boundaries with everyone in our lives at all times, most people are a mix of all three, depending on the situation. Perhaps you’re porous when you’re half-way through a bottle of wine, rigid in romantic relationships, healthy at work, and a mix of all three with your picky family.
Another factor is how adaptable your boundaries are. Doughty considers boundaries to be of various qualities, ranging from a ten-foot-tall stone wall to a picket fence. Value systems, priorities, and motivations all influence the quality of the boundary. That is, I can have a hard and fast rule that I will not ‘take’ anything from anyone (steel), and my boundary will not move even if someone bribes me (the ten-foot brick wall). Other boundaries may exist as a guideline, but I’m willing to adjust as needed—more flimsy than a picket fence.
Consider this: what are your stone walls and picket fences like?
What happens if we don’t have boundaries?
Boundaries provide a sense of safety and expectation into which we can lean.” It’s critical to understand your limits in order to determine who you are, what you’re capable of, and what is simply too much.
No, your employee should not be texting you a trivial work question after hours. No, your sister should not dismiss your difficult relationship with your mother. You are not permitted to touch me there. No, no, and no more.
The trick and the most difficult part? You must communicate your limitations. Be straightforward, firm, and courteous.
How do you know when you need to set boundaries?
If you’re experiencing an increased and sustained level of an unpleasant emotion, such as resentment or anxiety, you’ve probably identified a clue indicating a lack of emotional, mental, or physical boundaries in your life. Be wary of internalizing other people’s moods and emotions, which may appear empathetic at first but may actually indicate a lack of emotional boundary setting.
How can you practice identifying boundaries?
As is customary, your body knows best. What do you think it feels like when someone is physically too close to you? The instinct is to get further away from the person, hoping they’ll notice and back off. This is a ‘felt sense’ that arises in us when someone crosses a line.
We’ve all had the experience of having our physical boundaries violated by close talkers or shoulder grabbers. Determine the emotional equivalent of someone trampling over your emotional space bubble. When someone pokes your emotional boundary bubble, do you feel resentful, uncomfortable, or deflated? Take note of this so you can identify it more quickly the next time it occurs, and set and enforce those boundaries.
Is it possible to have too many boundaries?
Healthy boundaries are beneficial. Too many rigid boundaries = disaster. We can certainly be overly restricted in a variety of ways, which may manifest as being ‘unfeeling’ and ‘unavailable’ to others. This can also be expressed in the attitude that if I don’t want to do something, I shouldn’t have to. The reality is that there are obligations in life that must be met.
There’s also the risk of being too flexible in some areas of our lives and too rigid in others. Say you’re working overtime at work, no problem, only to be irritable with your patient coworker. Or if you let your in-laws tramp all over your parenting style but refuse to listen to even the gentlest advice from a well-meaning friend. When those closest to us begin to express feelings of being overlooked, it may be time to examine our boundaries and determine if we are overextending ourselves in one area at the expense of another.
Are boundaries human nature?
We were designed to connect. This is a basic human need that is innate rather than conscious. Though some may argue this now, history has shown that we require one another for basic survival. When our sense of belonging and connection is threatened, especially over time, we become obsessed with staying connected at all costs.
Unfortunately, the cost is the self-sensing system that helps us detect when something is off, excessive, or dangerous. We wouldn’t know what our boundaries are or how to set them if we didn’t have the ability to sense them.
That’s enough of that. Here’s to discovering your healthy boundaries. And to the occasional breach of boundaries when we pour too much wine and inevitably overshare, because that’s okay too.
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