(5) BOUNDARIES 101: Your Ultimate Guide to Self-Respect Empowerment
What types of boundaries do we have to have? How does our brain rewire to say "thank you" for your healthy boundaries?
We are halfway there. This marks the fifth edition out of the ten HEALING 101 newsletters and I want to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU.
Thank you for being here.
I can’t imagine reaching a better topic for the middle of this journey.
It is a stop: metaphoric and not-so-metaphoric.
The stop is called ‘BOUNDARIES’ - your new best friend because, as Lorraine Nilon says, the more you value yourself, the healthier your boundaries are!
Before we dive in, you need to acknowledge that it will be hard, really damn hard - to identify the boundaries, to communicate them, and to uphold them.
It is a repetitive act that is incredibly tough, especially in the beginning. If this is not bad enough, boundaries change as we do - they are not static, making them a nice neat package of organized chaos.
I want to offer you my words from a moment when my clearly defined boundaries were breached:
My boundaries are a circle around me and just because you violated them, it does not mean that the circle shrinks. It means that I have to push you outside of this circle.
This has become a staple in my affirmations.
Now, I want you to imagine yourself as a house - your mind, your body, your essence forming its very foundation.
How will it look? How will you decorate it?
Build this house in your mind. Draw it if you want.
What are those? Boundaries?
As you visualize, consider the concept of boundaries.
Now, do you want everyone to have unlimited access to your mind, body and essence?
Will you leave a key out for everyone and anyone in your life?
I pray the answer is “no”, so I can tell you that boundaries are an invisible yet powerful circle, that delineates the edges of your emotional, physical and spiritual realm.
They define where we end and others begin.
They are guardians of our self-respect and well-being.
They are the clarity we need in our interpersonal dynamics.
They are the protection from undue harm and exploitation.
Consider the analogy of a fortress in a war movie: to maintain inner peace, we must fortify ourselves against intrusions that threaten our integrity, authenticity and choice.
If you are wondering why something so cool is so hard to reach, weeeeell, I am so sorry to say that you have been taught to mould yourself since you were a kid in order to make others happy.
“You cannot NOT allow your aunt to kiss you, this is rude!”
Funny but familiar?
The Door: The Emotional
Step away from the aunt and go back to the house, and build its door.
The door represents the boundaries that are about your innermost thoughts, feelings and vulnerabilities with others.
It keeps your emotions in, and others’ - out.
It is your house, so you can move around it. You can go to the window and witness others’ emotions without opening the door and taking these emotions in.
Without making these emotions your responsibility to react to or solve.
With the door constantly open, you become highly reactive to others’ emotions, you put the emotions on your shoulders and think you need to carry them, you allow another person to enter - mostly uninvited - and you start tiptoeing around their anger, frustrations and anxiety.
Worst of it all, by not honouring your emotional limits and autonomy, you allow someone to come in, drop their luggage, and make a mess. This mess separates you from your emotional reality - “no, no, but how are you *really*?”
You are highly reactive, emotionally burnt out and…. god forbid, codependent.
Instead, if you build that door, you know what comes in and what goes out.
You regain the deserved sense of inner stability.
This inner stability manifests in the space outside of you, too - you are no longer at the edge, waiting for a little drop to trip you over and explode.
You begin to experience more spaciousness, and in that spaciousness, you begin to prioritize your own emotions—many of us for the first time ever.
The Window: Intellectual Boundaries
Next to the door, there is a window.
This window is the way you see the world, this window represents your thoughts, ideas, interests and curiosities.
If someone breaks your window because they violently express what your ideas *should* be, they disrespect your space.
When someone pulls the curtains of this window, they shut down and dismiss your self-expression.
When someone shuts the window in your face, they belittle your expression.
When someone does that they violate your intellectual boundaries.
When someone does that, please, do yourself the favour and say:
“I can respect that we have different ideas, can you?”
There will be people who will respectfully listen to you as you open this beautiful window.
There will be healthy and unhealthy discourse - protect yourself from the latter. Respectfully. (Be prepared to do so, more on that a little later).
The Garden: The Physical
By the way, the situation of your aunt’s wet kiss on your cheek violates your physical boundaries.
It may be the first time you hear this but: You can choose and change the tangible aspects of your personal physical space and others’ proximity to it.
No, not only you can but you MUST.
You *must* know your preference for physical contact, personal privacy and the limits of encroachment into your physical space.
It is your damn garden!
The best part of it all, apart from the whole ‘I respect your physical boundaries’ thing, is that the more you practice physical boundaries, the better your brain knows your garden. Outside of the metaphor, it means that your neural networks associated with body awareness are so. much. better!
YOU KNOW YOUR BODY BETTER and over time, you are the rightful owner of bodily autonomy.
This garden is yours - it is your personal space!
Saying yes to happiness means learning to say no to the people and things that stress you out.
Physical boundaries extend to:
Sexual boundaries:
When we talk about healthy sexual boundaries, we talk about:
consent
contraception of any kind
respect
understanding of preferences and desires
privacy.
We literally “talk about it”. We communicate ours, we listen to others’.
Let’s remind ourselves that there are moments when “no” is a complete sentence. (Don’t let anyone tell you that this is a rigid boundary.)
The Clock and the Calendar: The Time
Oh, lord, the most precious resource - your time - is yours to protect.
In your house, there is a clock (mine is an old-school antique clock!) and a little calendar next to it where you scratch out the days.
You choose your availability, commitments and priorities.
Your need for balance, rest and self-care should be top priorities that are not altered by/based on someone on the outside.
You are protected from overextension, you are more resilient to stress because you have a choice now.
Your brain shows you its gratitude for not overcommitting by becoming better and better and making decisions.
Your time is yours to make decisions about.
The Fence: The Material
The last bit of your house is the circle around our possessions, resources and finances.
You assess the value. You manage the resource.
If someone destroys or steals your belongings, that is a violation.
If someone borrows waaaaay too frequently, that is a violation.
If someone uses material aspects to manipulate you, that is a violation.
If someone uses material aspects to control your relationship, that is a violation.
The better your boundaries are, the better you can recognize what is okay and what is not okay (and what is really not okay!).
The better your boundaries are, the better you show up for people, the better they can show up for you, and in the end, the better you show up for yourself.
THE WHY: 7 reasons why you need boundaries
For the sake of your mental health and well-being: steering clear from burnout, exhaustion, stress, and anxiety.
For the sake of clear communication: clear limits, clear expectations, clear needs, and the value of your time and resources.
For the sake of the healthy relationships you want, where you can openly communicate your needs and limits to others.
For the sake of your priorities, for the sake of no distractions and knowing what you want away from unnecessary commitments.
For the sake of your house: it won’t build itself, you need time for reflection, control over your house and autonomy.
For the sake of your needs - which you have the time to get to know, work on, understand their starting point, and meet (finally!!!).
For your sake: your energy, your self-preservation, your self-esteem, your self-respect, your self-care, your Self.
THE HOW: Boundaries 101
I don’t like sugarcoating so let’s make something really clear:
It is not someone’s job to guess your boundaries.
It is up to YOU to set them up and hold them right there.
Create.
You need to know what is acceptable and what is not.
You are the homeowner!
Your body already knows and sends you signals. Your body will respond before your mind does: the Fs we give prove that.
The “uncomfortable” emotions - stress, anger, frustration, powerlessness, anxiety, shame, guilt - are there for you to guide into the building process.
One of the quickest ways to determine if a boundary has been crossed or if you need a boundary to be set is to ask yourself how you feel about a particular situation.
Clear.
Note the unease, and the discomfort and start from there.
Your boundaries will not show up in one sitting, but when they do - pay attention to them.
(I did write in one sitting what I already knew put me at unease and started from there).
Boundaries are cool but they aren’t fun and games, so we need to start small.
Step by step, boundary by boundary.
You need to put all the details of the door, the window, the garden, the house in front of you first so they hold still.
If you don’t, you risk putting them down, altering them on the spot, or tearing them apart altogether.
And we can’t afford that.
Define and re-define
To reach complete clarity, you need to play around with the house.
“Does the clock look good here or there?” kind of a scenario.
The answer is “whichever works best for you”.
Prepare your brain
To stick to the boundaries, you need to prepare:
Gratitude:
The person who respects your boundaries deserves an acknowledgement of that respect.
You are heard.
Reinforcement
The person who doesn’t, needs to hear it again. (You determine how many “again”-s you will tolerate.)
While you should empathize if the boundary is brand new and has never been communicated before, you do need to understand that someone’s violation of the boundary should not be tolerated.
Prepare a phrase that clearly reinforces the same boundary in different words.
Then prepare a response if the boundary is violated again.
Hold the person accountable. Don’t just “let it be”.
In the Self-Sabotage Man, I asked you a pivotal question:
If you have a person in your life who treats you the way you treat yourself, would you want that person to remain in your life?
Gratitude for yourself
Treat yourself after you hold a boundary.
You are epic!
Hold the boundary right there.
The boundary is there to stay.
The way you stated once, reinforced it and held it there, you can do it again, I am sure.
One more resource in the beginner’s guide to boundaries:
and remember:
“Those who get angry when you set a boundary are the ones you need to set boundaries for.”
– J.S. Wolfe, The Pathology of Innocence
It is not too late.
Creatively yours,
Katrin