Defining and Describing Boundaries
Boundaries are psychological and emotional lines we draw with ourselves and others in service of our well-being. Healthy boundaries make it possible to have relationships free of the inevitable consequences of poor boundaries.
Poor boundaries can leave us feeling drained. It’s exhausting to do things we don’t want to do just to protect the feelings of others. It’s exhausting to let ourselves constantly get sucked into other people’s drama. It’s exhausting to constantly tend other people’s demands for attention, soothing, and validation.
Poor boundaries repel others. It’s repelling to others to have to constantly validate and soothe us. It’s repelling to them when we suck them into our drama. It’s repelling to them to when we constantly emotionally react to them when they don’t meet our expectations.
Boundaries helps us develop healthier relationships with ourselves and with others. They help us set limits with ourselves and others. Healthy boundaries help us optimize our time and energy. They help us take responsibility for our own emotions and to not take responsibility for the emotions of others. They help us create relationships based on authentic adult connection instead of attachments that fulfill dependency needs.
Poor boundaries leave us feeling anxious, drained, and needy of others. Healthy boundaries, on the other hand, help create psychological and emotional health and help us to show up as our best selves in our lives.
The 5-Step Process of Healthy Boundaries
1. Get Clear On Your ‘Why’
Staying tethered to the reasons you are working on boundaries is important because the journey will get hard. Boundaries are simple, but not easy, and you will likely lose your way at times. Remind yourself regularly of the higher purpose of setting boundaries.
Your higher purpose might include:
Having greater mental health and well-being.
Protecting yourself from abuse and mistreatment.
Having more mature and gratifying adult relationships.
Setting a good example for your children and future generations.
Allowing others to learn how to take care of themselves and grow.
Having greater choice in how you spend your own time and energy.
Continuing your own lifelong process of growth and personal evolution.
Maintaining your best self in the world for yourself and others.
The list goes on, so keep adding onto it for yourself based on your values!
2. Define Your Boundaries
Boundaries are unique to each individual person, so only you can define what your boundaries will be. You will need to decide what your personal wants, needs, and limits. When you are defining your boundaries, remember that having them with yourself is just as important as having them with others.
Defining your boundaries might include:
How you will and won’t spend your time and energy.
Who you will or won’t engage with and when.
What your thresholds for your well-being and self-preservation are.
What types of communication and behaviors you will or won’t tolerate.
What types of interactions you will or won’t engage in.
What activities and projects you will or won’t participate in.
Whose emotions you will or won’t take on and when.
What sacrifices you will or won’t make for your relationships.
What thoughts and opinions you will or won’t allow to influence you.
How you will or won’t communicate and behave toward others.
The list goes on, so keep adding onto it for yourself based on your needs…
3. Practice Setting Your Boundaries
Once you’ve defined your values, the hardest part comes next: Setting them with yourself and out in the world. Setting our boundaries means having hard conversations with others and holding ourselves accountable to ourselves. Although this part is simple, it’s often not easy.
It sometimes means disappointing those we love. It sometimes means we will have to tolerate our own discomfort. It’s one thing to create something up in our minds. It’s another entirely to do the hard work of putting those things into action.
Taking action on our boundaries requires energy, effort, and intention. It takes being firm. It takes discipline. It takes risk. It takes courage. Do it anyway and use your ‘why’ to keep you grounded in a higher purpose.
4. Practice Reinforcing Your Boundaries
Boundaries — or a lack of them — are ultimately learned behaviors. Like with learning anything new, boundaries take repetition and practice to sink in. Setting boundaries once will likely not be enough. You will probably need to reinforce them with yourself and with others over and over again.
If you’re setting new boundaries in a relationship, you will also likely receive pushback and emotional reactions from others. Relationship systems resist change. They get comfortable with how things are, especially if the current status quo is convenient for them.
When you set a boundary in a relationship, realize you’re ultimately changing the dynamic of the relationship, and the people on the other side of the relationship will have to adjust to your change. Realize that they might not want to change, so be prepared to face this resistance.
Practice remaining calm and grounded in the face of other people’s reactions to your boundaries. It will be uncomfortable in the short-term, but there is a long-term payoff, I promise. It will be important to stay connected to your higher purpose in these times as well.
Boundaries are a skillset. They take deliberate practice to get good at like any other skillset. Forgive yourself when you fail at maintaining your boundaries, learn from it, and continue on. Keep practicing. Keep learning. Keep evolving.
5. Practice Reshaping Your Boundaries
Over time and with practice, you might get pretty good at setting and reinforcing your boundaries. They might even become second nature. The next step will be to begin to develop flexibility in your boundaries while not losing their solidness.
As we grow and strengthen ourselves from within, we might not need such rigid boundaries or we might simply need different ones. We might be able to tolerate more than we used to. We might have greater resilience. Our needs, wants, and limits might shift and change.
As a metaphor: A baby incubates in the safety of its mother’s womb. There are boundaries between the baby and the world as its inner systems evolve and strengthen. At some point, the baby develops enough resilience to face the external world, so the baby leaves the comfort and safety of the womb.
The next boundaries for the baby will be its mother’s arms, its crib, and its stroller. It will eventually outgrow these boundaries, too, and go on to find a new set of them. This process continues until the young adult leaves home and even beyond it.
We are always evolving out of old boundaries. It’s the natural process of growth throughout human life. We should make space for that to be the case.
With practice, boundaries can become an energetic art form. We can learn to open, close, and adjust them fluidly and creatively. As we become a skilled boundaries artist, people might not even notice that we are setting and reinforcing them. They become a natural part of the flux and flow of life.
But, stay patient and deliberate. This comes a little later in the process. Honor where you are and practice steps 1–4 religiously first. Eventually, it will all start to feel more organic. Like learning to play an instrument or speak a new language, start with the foundations first.
A Final Note
The above process is not necessarily linear. At any moment in time, you might be practicing all of the above in different interactions in your life. In one moment, you might be reinforcing an old boundary with your partner, in the next you might be setting a new one at work, and in the very next you may be reshaping one with your child.
Boundaries are a lifelong practice. They require our ongoing and active engagement. We get better at them over time, but they always require our intention and effort, like any art form. As we practice, our life benefits greatly.
Boundaries help create people with a strong sense of self-respect and self-worth. They help create people who are in control of their own emotional and psychological lives. They help create people who magnetize and attract others to them, instead of people who chase others for attention and validation.
Boundaries are intended to help us show up as our best selves in all areas of our lives, so they lead to greater overall well-being in the long run.
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