Building & Setting Healthy Boundaries
When we hear the word “boundaries”, many of us find ourselves getting tense and feeling uneasy. The word ‘boundaries’ tends to make people uneasy as they think of it as putting up a wall and shutting someone out. However, in the therapeutic sense, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
What are Healthy Boundaries?
Boundaries are crucial in nearly every aspect of our lives. They are the basis of a healthy relationship. When we set healthy parameters for how we interact with others, it not only protects us from unnecessary hurt, but also protects the other person in that relationship. How? If we don’t have appropriate boundaries with others, we can find ourselves drained when interacting with the other person, and we can resent the time we spend with them, even anticipating the struggle we will experience when we interact with them.
We’ve all had that person in our lives that we dread seeing. Whether it’s because the person criticizes you, asks for too many favors, takes up too much time, provides unsolicited advice, or just otherwise pushes your buttons, you come to dread your interaction with this person. This is often an example of needing to set boundaries to maintain a healthier relationship.
Do you have a coworker who asks much too personal questions about your relationship with your partner? Do you have a neighbor who borrows your lawnmower without asking? Do you have a parent or in-law who offers regular criticisms on how you are parenting your children? These are all instances where boundaries can be beneficial in protecting your feelings and teaching the other person how they can interact with you in a healthier way.
How to Set Healthy Boundaries
Follow these simple guidelines to start setting healthy boundaries within your relationships.
1) Decide what your core values are.
The easiest way to figure this out is to pay attention to when certain things get under your skin. Are there certain things you are just plain uncomfortable with when interacting with others? Perhaps you really can’t stand when others comment on your physical appearance. Maybe you struggle to say no to the coworker who regularly pushes some of their work off to you. Or you regularly find your neighbor criticizing the condition of your house or maintenance of your yard. There’s a reason these things bother you. Because in your heart you know that they are crossing values that are important to you.
2) Tune into your feelings.
When you trust your inner reactions when you interact with someone, you will learn a great deal. When you interact with a certain person, do you leave feeling uplifted or depleted? This will tell you a lot about whether stronger boundaries are needed in future interactions with that person.
3) Be assertive.
Being assertive does not mean getting into someone’s face and yelling at them, or starting a fight in any way. Instead, think of it as stating in kind, clear language what you need. What kind of tone do you use when you’re ordering something from a menu at a restaurant? You can use that same tone- your are asking for what you want, and it doesn’t have to be an emotionally charged event. If you’ve never set boundaries before or have suffered in silence for a long time, this will be understandably uncomfortable- but it goes a long way toward protecting you from boundary infringements.
4) Communicate your boundaries.
Learning how to tell someone that you need limits in your relationship can be really hard. Embrace this difficulty. A few moments of uncomfortable conversation will be worth a long future of more healthy interactions. It can help to use the “sandwich method” where you sandwich your request for boundaries amidst two complements. You can practice by writing out a script for how you will communicate boundaries if you’re nervous. Here are a few ideas:
–To the person who asks too many personal questions, “I love chatting with you, but I’d rather not talk about that subject, though I would love to talk with you about x, y, z.”
–To the person who offers unsolicited advice, “Your friendship means a lot to me but I’m going to stop you there. I feel uncomfortable when you offer suggestions like this to me. I’d really appreciate it if you were instead able to just listen to my concerns openly without trying to fix my problems.”
5) Say what you mean, mean what you say.
If you are asking someone to respect boundaries in the relationship and they continue to cross those boundaries, you need to be prepared to remind them of those boundaries and hold strong to the limits you have set.
6) Say no simply but firmly. Practice saying no.
Habits are hard to break and people who cross boundaries are often not used to having limits set. The more you hold strong to your boundary and say no when others try pushing you past where you are comfortable, the quicker the other person will learn to uphold those boundaries.
7) Strategize how you’ll respond to boundary violations and realize it’s impossible to set boundaries without setting consequences.
If the person you are trying to set limits and boundaries with continues to not respect them, you will need to make a plan for how to handle this. If we don’t have a consequence for boundary violations, there is nothing preventing the other person from ignoring our requests. The best way to address this issue is to tell the person “if, then”. For instance, “If you continue to criticize my parenting when you call me, then I will hang up the phone.” Or, “If you continue to take things off my desk without asking, I will no longer lend things to you.” Being direct and clear with what will happen helps the other person realize that there are limits to what you will accept.
There are times where despite your best efforts, certain people will continue to cross or violate the boundaries you have set up. In these cases, you may need more support to figure out how to handle this situation. Talking with a therapist can help you dissect the complexities of the relationship and figure out how to handle the situation in a way where you don’t continue to feel hurt. In the end, the better we build healthy boundaries with others, the better we will feel in our day-to-day interactions with others.