Let’s Talk Boundaries
‘Boundaries’ has become a buzzword on social media. As humans, many emotions can be triggered within us when the subject of boundaries comes up.
Often, this is due to negative experiences we have had setting boundaries with people in our lives or having boundaries set with us.
It doesn’t always feel good to be on the receiving end of a boundary and unfortunately, many people will feel like a boundary is an attack against them and respond with anger, manipulation, abuse, stonewalling or other hurtful emotional and relational patterns.
For this reason, it can be really disorienting and painful to set boundaries with people in our lives and to stick to them. We often feel we have the energy to communicate and hold the boundary, or worse, we start to question if we deserve for the boundary to be respected in the first place. But that is far from true. Boundaries are necessary in relationships and learning to set them and respect them are very important skills.
What is a Boundary?
A boundary is a statement that is set and kept to keep people safe and healthy.
It is often structured like this:
If you do X → Y will be the result.
Examples:
If you continue to yell at me → I will hang up the phone.
If when we visit, you undermine my parenting → We will not come to visit next month.
If you make fun of me in front of our friends → I will leave the event and go home.
4 Truths About Boundaries :
Boundaries are not selfish.
Everyone is allowed to set boundaries for their own emotional and physical safety and wellbeing. You don’t owe people access to you in all shapes and forms at all times. Other people’s comfort is not more important than your safety and you do not always have to explain your boundaries in detail in every situation. Some people will choose to be offended and not try to understand and that is on them.
Boundaries are healthy for the relationship.
Some people may feel that your boundary with them is selfish or an attack on them with the intent to hurt them. However, boundaries are set with the purpose of keeping you safe and keeping the relationship functional at some level. If they are able to respect the boundary, then it should benefit people on both sides of the boundary by allowing everyone to function in a more healthy way.
You can not control how someone else responds to your boundary.
This is a hard one. If someone in your life has a big emotional reaction to your boundary and chooses to respond to you with anger, manipulation, or other hurtful patterns, it is going to hurt. However, their response is not your responsibility. Reactions like this often show us that we need to now implement an even stronger boundary than we did originally.
The more you set boundaries, the easier it becomes.
The first time you set a boundary with someone is often very hard. They are not used to this dynamic in your relationship and may be very reactive. It may take them a long time to come around to your boundary, but they can learn to adjust. If you stick to your boundary their only choice is to respect it and learn to live with it, or to experience the consequence of it in the relationship. Over time, most people will learn that you are serious about your boundaries and although they may not always like them, will learn to adapt.
Even though setting boundaries with people in our lives is rarely comfortable, it is such an important skill to have to protect ourselves and maintain healthy relationships. You deserve to have your boundaries respected and just like any skill, the more you practice, the easier it will become.
