Boundaries Are Foundational to Life, Work, and Relationships

Learning how to develop and set healthy boundaries protects our sense of identity and allows us to be genuine. Having healthy boundaries frees us from dramatic and manipulative relationships, over-working or extending ourselves, negative work environments, and other toxic habits and relationships. Learn the definition of boundaries, components of boundaries, and how to recognize our own boundaries in relationships.

Boundaries are like the backbone of our relationships. They are a system of limit setting which enhances our sense of self and protect our reality. When boundaries are either too rigid or maybe nonexistent, we are likely to suffer. They help us decide and uphold what we are ok with and what we are not ok with in a given situation or relationship. Boundaries are important in all domains of our life! We have physical, intellectual, emotional, sexual, material, and time boundaries in our personal and professional lives.

 

Healthy Boundaries Are Basic Human Rights

 

Setting boundaries with others is a fundamental, basic right. Sadly, a right we often forget about. This also means that respecting the boundaries of others is highly important. When we have a poor understanding of boundaries and thus have unhealthy boundaries, we mistake healthy assertions of boundaries with negative intentions and outcomes.

 

Poor boundaries hinder our ability to be genuine in our identity, show up to life with integrity, establish healthy relationships, and even play a role in our career success. Learning and practicing healthy boundaries is the first step in showing up and staying true to yourself. Benefits of healthy boundaries include:

 

• Developing and staying true to your own identity
• Being more connected with friends, family, and a healthy romantic partner
• Effectively managing your work and personal relationships
• Knowing and communicating your needs
• Reduced anxiety, stress, and depression
• Reduced burnout and fatigue on the job
• Reduced frustration and irritability

 

Establishing healthier boundaries does come with side effects. This may include, but is not limited to:

 

• Change or loss in relationships (yep- the ones with unhealthy, porous or rigid boundaries- yuck!)

 

If someone is not able to respect our boundaries, it’s because they lack healthy boundaries themselves. If someone is not able to respect our healthy boundaries, it is their responsibility, not yours, to own the feelings this evokes in themselves.

 

Types of Boundaries

 

We have different boundaries in different situations based on our own individual values and social norms. Our boundaries may be rigid, porous, or healthy and we can think of these existing on a spectrum. On one side, our boundaries can be too rigid or closed and on the other end of the spectrum, they may be too open and porous. In the middle, is a balance of remaining open enough while consciously choosing limits that are appropriate to the situation or relationship- healthy boundaries. When we set healthy boundaries we are able to protect ourselves while remaining connected to others.

 

Rigid Boundaries: Not accepting responsibility for how your behavior affects other people. Avoiding intimacy and close relationships, resulting in few close friends or romantic partners. Often results in intimacy issues and detachment in personal relationships. Holding rigid boundaries set from strict assumptions or rules about how you make plans, engage, or relate with others to avoid becoming vulnerable, becoming hurt, or any other avoidance of “negative”, feared outcomes. Almost always fear-based.

 

Healthy Boundaries: Accept responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors while respecting others’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Staying true to your own values and opinions while respecting other’s values or opinions. Continuously evaluates appropriateness for sharing degrees of information with others, often waiting to get to know someone before divulging too much personal information but sharing enough to establish relationships with healthy people. Beware aware of personal needs and assertively communicates these with others. Respect other people’s boundaries and do not pressure for more information once they are known.

 

Porous Boundaries: Taking too much responsibility for others’ emotions or behaviors. Oversharing personal information or over-involving yourself in other people’s business. Difficulty saying no or disagreeing with someone. Avoidance of upholding boundaries or saying no due to fear or abandonment or rejection. Overly relying on others to make decisions, state preferences, or influence your opinion in order to be accepted, liked, or avoid negative perception.

 

If you repeatedly find yourself in situations with people who make you feel uncomfortable, stressed, anxious, depressed, mad, or frustrated you need, this may be a sign you need to develop better boundaries. Setting healthy boundaries can be tough, but they are key to managing healthy relationships in our personal, romantic, and work lives.

 

Have you ever been asked to do something and felt pressure to say yes, when honestly you felt a nervous knot in your stomach and a strong desire to scream “no”? Yeah, we’ve all been there. However, we can make another choice- a choice that sets us free from feeling obligated to be and do things that are not aligned with our truth. When we violate our own boundaries, we are doing ourselves a disservice, we’re not being genuine, and we’re not being honest with the other person. If you relate to the following questions, you may have poor boundaries in one or more areas of your life:

 

• Do you avoid or fail to charge your clients or employer for your accurate hours worked?
• Do you find yourself often telling people how much you hate drama, then are always battling with that “crazy” friend of yours again?
• Do you spend a lot of time defending yourself for the choices or decisions you make (including saying no)?
• Do you frequently feel like people take advantage of you or invade your privacy?
• Have you ever felt intense feelings and investment towards someone that you hardly know?

 

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, you likely struggle with establishing healthy boundaries.

 

Why do we do this? Well, it requires a certain degree of vulnerability, which I will address at a later time. For now, let’s stick to learning about boundaries. Without boundaries, it’s hard to practice healthy vulnerability. To get started with developing healthy boundaries, we must first understand what boundaries are and how they function.

 

What are the Components of a Boundary?

 

When working with clients, I often teach boundaries as a system comprised of three basic components:

 

1. External System: What we verbally and behaviorally express and reflect. Think of this as what we show and say to other people.
   
   1. Examples:
      
      1. The physical distance you sit or stand next to an acquaintance.
      2. Agreeing or disagreeing to make a plan with a friend.
2. Internal System: Acts as a “filter” used to determine the degree of influence we allow others to have on our thinking, emotions, and behavior.
   
   1. Examples:
      
      1.  Allowing your friend to convince you into staying at the bar and having another drink because you don’t want to feel guilty for leaving. Doing this even though you want to go home and sleep because you’re tired.

 

1. Innermost Core System: The level of intimacy we are actually comfortable with or our true feelings and values.

 

Let’s use the example of allowing your friend to convince you into staying at the bar, despite being very tired and not interested in drinking. So, what is happening here? Why did you stay even though you really wanted to be at home, sober, and in bed?

 

Your core system is tugging at you, “Go to home!”, your external system reflects verbal agreement and you physically stay, and your internal system feels a little guilt, which you’re uncomfortable with, so you engage your external system to contradict your core system’s preference. Phew! What a doozy and all in 1 second. 

 

In this situation, what would you have preferred to say? Thinking about your core system, what would you have behaviorally and verbally done to act in alignment with what you actually wanted to do? What emotions were involved in your internal system, your filter? Fear, anxiety, frustration even? These emotions are signs that you are in dissonance with your boundary systems. You’re not listening to yourself.

 

Let’s explore how to do this in a healthy way. The first step, recognizing your boundaries.

Learning to Recognize Your Own Boundaries

When we feel uncomfortable, it is often a signal a boundary has been crossed. Think about a recent time when you felt uncomfortable or even defensive in a situation with another person. What were they saying or doing and how did you respond? Did you tell them how you really felt or did you hold back? As you reflect on the situation you are labeling a boundary. Just before you felt uncomfortable or defensive is likely when the boundary began to be crossed.

To practice identifying your boundaries, you’ll want to pay close attention to the situations where you feel emotionally or energetically drained, feel uneasiness in your stomach, maybe even want to cry, or experience other uneasy feelings that leave you wanting to give in, avoid, or react negatively to the situation. If you catch yourself feeling this way, take a time out from the situation, let the other person know you need some time or space to gather your thoughts, then come back when you feel ready to honestly express yourself.

Taking Ownership: Who Owns the Responsibility if a Boundary is Violated?

Instead of saying someone cross our boundaries, it’s important to learn how we have ownership of these boundaries. We are completely responsible for determining and upholding our boundaries with others (and ourselves). Therefore, I like to ask more about <em>how someone influenced their boundaries instead of whether someone else violated their boundaries

Your boundary is the point of the situation right before you feel uncomfortable.&nbsp; In the future, you will want to set boundaries with friends, family members, co-workers, and partners in order to prevent the interactions from becoming uncomfortable.&nbsp; Keep in mind that you may not always notice an intense emotional reaction; sometimes the emotions are more subtle. Therefore, to identify your boundaries, you’ll want to pay close attention to the situations where you feel zapped of energy, get a knot in your stomach, or want to cry.

 

It should be noted that sometimes people cross our boundaries accidentally, often because we failed to effectively communicate. Other times, we may find that people attempt to influence our boundaries or outright attempt to violate them. (Yes, there are times people outright violate our boundaries, and for that we are not at fault- such as sexual assault, robbery, or other acts of violence or crime. For the sake of this article, we’re addressing generalized boundary setting.)

 

Identifying where you need more space, self-respect, energy, or personal power is the first step to setting and maintaining appropriate boundaries. When working with clients, we start by exploring areas where you may have rigid, healthy, and porous boundaries. From there we explore underlying beliefs and emotions that motivate us to act against our core boundary system. This often includes keeping a diary or engaging in activities to identify thoughts, emotions, and behaviors the perpetuate and maintain unhealthy boundaries. Once you have a good understanding of when, how, and why unhealthy boundaries are trigged and enacted, you can make conscious effort and choices in applying new, assertive skills in establishing healthier boundaries.

 

Contact me to learn more about boundary work in coaching and counseling.

 

Additional Reading on Boundaries

 

https://markmanson.net/boundaries