I first mentioned boundaries in part 2 of my post on
Forgiveness (here’s The Transformative Power of Forgiveness, Part 1 and The Transformative Power of Forgiveness, Part 2 if you want to read about forgiveness and
ways to do it).
Boundaries are a tricky, tricky thing. Hard to figure out
exactly what they are, hard to figure out how to have healthy ones, and hard to
figure out what to do when yours have been crossed. I also have a different
spin on what boundaries are in a person’s life and how healthy boundaries are
actually maps that define your personal responsibilities to yourself. If you read something that sounds
suspiciously like your own behavior here, don’t immediately try to defend
against, or justify why you don’t have a problem. Be open to learning, be open
to trying a new way, you may be surprised at the results.
What are boundaries?
First things first. “What are boundaries?”, you might be
thinking. Boundaries describe the
place where you end and another person begins. Physically, mentally,
emotionally, in terms of responsibilities, and so on and so forth. Boundaries define how you act and how you treat others. Boundaries also define how you permit people to act around you and how you permit/allow people to treat you.
How do I know when a boundary has been violated?
When you are doing something that someone should be doing
for themselves, or when someone is doing for you what you should be doing for
yourself, that is a boundary violation.
A boundary violation can occur when:
- Someone talks to/touches you in a way you don’t want them
to, or they ask inappropriate questions about things that are not their business (probably to embarrass you or get a rise out of you).
- Someone makes you feel guilty and you agree to do something
you’d rather not.
- Someone neglects to do something on time and then begs you
to drop everything you’re doing to help them (and it happens a lot).
- In a romantic relationship, someone constantly drinks/does
drugs/cheats/gambles/spends too much and despite repeatedly saying you’re not
going to put up with it, you do.
- You feel badly because someone is being mean to you/you’re
being treated unfairly/your work environment is hostile/you always seem to be
the butt of the jokes with your family or the group you spend time with and you
don’t feel like you have ability to speak up for yourself.
- You’re the one who does everything for everybody, makes sure
everyone is where they are supposed to be, lunch in hand, clean clothes on
back, and homework done.
- You cook, clean, manage the household, and go to work while
your partner goes to work then comes home and watches TV.
- When you feel that the only way for you to be in a romantic
relationship with someone is if you are completely enmeshed (meaning, you do
every single thing together).
By now you get the idea. There are a million more examples,
but these are some pretty common things.
In my life, one of the (many) ways I had boundary problems
was that I was always the kind of person who was never getting things done. My life
was a perpetual emergency. If something was due Tuesday, on Thursday, two days
later, I’m making excuses about why it wasn’t done. If I needed to get a visa
to go to India, I‘m the one paying stupid late fees because I waited ‘til the
last minute. No matter what, I was late or I had a problem. I always had some excuse to justify my
behavior, and I wanted everyone around me to jump through hoops so I wouldn’t
be negatively impacted. That is a boundary issue because I did not have a clue
as to where OTHER’S responsibility lay in relationship to me. I had the mistaken
belief that people should take care of my messes. This is NOT true. After
getting burned a few times by people who had strong personal responsibility
boundaries (people who said to me, you knew when the deadline was, you missed
it, you’re out of luck), I learned that I had to learn to take
care of things in a timely manner. Others respected me more and I respected
myself more. And in fact, the more
people save you from yourself, the bigger and uglier your messes will be. By
the way, those people are called enablers and all they’re doing is allowing you
to be a royal disaster. Take it from one who knows.
How do I set appropriate boundaries?
1. Learn to Say No
First of all, setting boundaries for what is okay for you
(saying no when you don’t want to do something, asserting that you need time
for yourself, etc.) can feel mean
in the beginning. The truth is, it’s really kind and caring. By taking care of
yourself (as only you can), you clear up your mind and heart for being there
for people in the ways that are most appropriate for you and in ways that allow
you to be fully present, free from resentments and fatigue.
It will be really hard the to stand up for what you want and
need the first few times. Someone asks to handle a problem you know isn’t yours
and you say, “No.” After you begin
to stand up for yourself and your time, you’ll find it gets easier, and people
will actually begin to be more thoughtful before they just start dumping things
on you. It’s pretty amazing how it works.
2. Get Your Act Together
If you’re the kind of person who tends to be the one dumping
on others, it’s really past time you got your act together. Really. You might
think you’re endearing and charming and people understand that you’re going through tough
things, but TRUST me when I say they don’t respect you much. I’ll be talking
about developing personal discipline in a future post. Stay tuned.
3. Look for Ways to Take Care of Yourself
If you’re constantly looking for others to be your emotional
anchor, you’ve got work to do. One day, the anchors will likely fail and you’ll
be adrift with no sense of how to take care of yourself. Work with a therapist,
talk about your feelings (or lack thereof), do some inner-child work and get to
the bottom of why you can’t rely on yourself for emotional support. Look, I’m
not suggesting people never need others. We very often need others to be
supportive to us; it’s what makes us human. But you can’t always be farming out
your needs to everyone else. When times are tough, you have to also have a
personal reserve of strength to get you through.
I’ve also got another perspective for you. I was talking to
a friend about boundaries and she stated that she came to realize, late in her
life, that the reason she has never been able to stand up for herself, or to feel
like she can tell others when she’s been hurt or when she wants or needs
something is that when she was growing up, it was not permissible for anyone in
her household to say anything negative. Everyone had to be happy, there were
never any tears allowed, and she was constantly told, “You’re okay, there’s
nothing wrong, that didn’t hurt, etc.” After years and years of that kind of
conditioning and never being taught how to appropriately express feelings,
wants, and needs, she never knew how. As an adult, she found she never expressed differing opinions, tended to go along with the crowd (i.e., doing what everyone else wanted just to get along), and generally accepted any kind of behavior she got from relationships because she didn't think she had a voice in the matter.
Now,
after years and years, she realizes her experiences growing up led to have
serious boundary issues as an adult. She’s now trying to work all of that out.
It’s a long and arduous process, but she’s already much more confident, much
more assertive, and much more FUN than she was when I met her several months
ago.
Final Thoughts and a Preview of Part 2
Very often, you will set boundaries and they will get crossed.
Again and again. This is where the ability to set and follow through on consequences comes in. We’ll talk about these Thursday in part 2.
Just to give you a hint of where I’m going with this, here’s
an example:
You’re in a relationship with someone and you decide you
have a boundary that you aren’t comfortable with your partner spending more
than $100 without talking it over first. Yet, your partner continues to do
this. You keep talking about it, arguing about it, threatening to leave; yet
nothing changes. You’ve established a boundary, it’s been broken, and you don’t
know how to enforce it. This is a challenging thing. See me again tomorrow.
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