By: Brady Tobin
“The first step to setting effective boundaries is to understand the boundaries that we want to have.”
I invite you to take a moment and reflect on where boundaries appeared for you throughout your childhood. Feel free to think about the rules that were set within your household, classrooms, and social circles. Maybe your mind goes directly to times when you broke these rules, or maybe when others broke them. If possible, can you remember any explanations that were provided on why the rules existed? Did you feel they were fair and consistent?
If you were raised in a way in which you learned to stay within certain boundaries and why those boundaries mattered, and if every influential adult or mentor was consistent in reinforcing them, congratulations, you probably learned how to set and enforce boundaries on your own (feel free to keep reading, anyway).
Considering all of the qualifiers included in the above scenario and the sheer amount of influential adults in our lives growing up, it’s safe to say most of us don’t fall into that camp. If you found yourself to be unfairly disciplined in your home or in school and/or it was not clearly marked what the rules were or why they mattered, it may be a little more challenging to identify, state, and enforce your boundaries with others or to honor and respect others’ boundaries. Setting boundaries may never have been modeled for us. Let’s be real, for many of us the opposite was modeled. So it follows that we are most likely not going to be the best at interacting with boundaries.
“So what is a boundary anyway?”
Let’s define what a boundary is. I like to think of a boundary as being a set of preferences a human being has surrounding any particular emotional, physical, mental, spiritual, or social concept. When we think about boundaries, it can be helpful to divide them into six different types of boundaries.
Material: Treatment of possessions or property and how they are shared. Preferences and needs regarding possessions and property.
Emotional: What, where, and how much a person shares their emotional life.
Sexual: How sexual matters are discussed. When, where, and how sexual material is presented. Consent related to sexual or sexually suggestive words, jokes, images, gestures, or touch.
Time: How you relate to others’ and your own time. How time-related needs and preferences are handled.
Intellectual: Preferences related to how opinions, thoughts, and conversational topics are shared and handled.
Physical: Preferences surrounding your physical body. Personal space as experienced through your senses. Preferences for respect, privacy, closeness, and touch.The aim of Family Therapy
In addition to these six types of boundaries above, there are also three different styles of boundaries we can have. Most likely, our boundary styles will differ depending on the type of boundary we are setting as well as the situation.
Rigid: The castle wall. Rigid boundaries are strong and impenetrable and, even when you want to cross them, you would be unable to. Enforced heavily.
Porous: A line in the sand. Sure, the boundary is there, but anyone can cross it. It may even be washed away. Often, it’s difficult to define what the boundary is. Not enforced at all.
Flexible: A fence with a gate. The middle ground between porous and rigid. Having flexible boundaries allows for us to cross them when it feels safe to do so and maintain them when we want to. Enforced effectively.
Just like the words “self-care” and “trauma”, “boundary” has seemed to find its way into the mental health vernacular. Some might say terms like these are now overused, and as a mental health professional I promote we be really cautious with what we are talking about when using these terms, but there’s a reason they are popular: they are important!
Our emotional health is related to the health of our boundaries. If our boundaries are not respected, then our needs may not be met. If we let our boundaries be crossed, we are showing others it is okay to cross them. It’s stressful to have our boundaries crossed, and if it keeps happening we run the risk of experiencing chronic stress. This can lead to burnout at work, relationship problems, and developing or worsening mental health challenges.
In addition, if we don’t know how to interact with our own boundaries, we probably don’t know how to interact with others’. This can potentially lead to unknowingly causing others stress and harm and can make connection with others more difficult.
How to turn boundaries into effective boundaries
I left something out of the three boundary styles discussed above. In the counseling world, “flexible” boundaries are also known as “healthy” boundaries. This is the style of boundary we strive to have for the majority of our boundaries because it provides a route for us to build trusting relationships with others while not sacrificing our own values and preferences. So why did I avoid this label? Well, in Dialectical Behavior Theory, we like shy away from qualifying anything as “healthy”/“unhealthy”, “good”/”evil”, or “right”/”wrong” as they are all defined in different ways by different people and, more often than not, carry harmful judgements along with them. Instead, we like to talk about what is effective versus what is ineffective. In saying something is effective, we are saying that it will have positive consequences for us down the road. While an ineffective action might make us feel good in the moment, it will have long-term negative consequences for us.
So what does this mean in regards to boundaries? Well, it’s up to us to decide whether the boundaries we have and how we enforce them are effective or not. It’s okay to have rigid and porous boundaries. What will not be effective for us is if we reinforce our rigid boundaries in a way that will negatively impact ourselves long-term. So how do we ensure we set effective boundaries?
The first step to setting effective boundaries is to understand the boundaries that we want to have. I invite you to reflect on the six types of boundaries and make a list of beliefs, preferences, and needs you have considering the various relationships and settings that are present in your life. This can be done on your own or with the support of a therapist. After you identify them, I invite you to notice when they arise in your daily life.
Once you are familiar with your own boundaries, feel free to use the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association’s Four Skills for Setting Boundaries (2014).
1: Name the behavior
Simply naming when a boundary is being crossed can help you in a variety of ways. It is relatively non-confrontational, can help make the person aware of their own actions, and alert others to the situation. It can also help you gain more clarity on how you feel about the boundary being crossed.
2: Give a directive
Be as clear and concise when telling the other person what you want them to do. People listen to directives! This also helps you assert the situation, helps others become aware of the situation, and shows you are clear about what you want.
3: Repeat directive, add a consequence
If these first two steps don’t work, let the other person know what you are going to do if they continue to not respect your boundaries. This is a skill of persistence and will prevent you from being diverted or manipulated as well as demonstrating your intentions.
4: Follow through with the consequence and end it
If the person is still not respecting your boundaries, follow through with the consequence. Even after following the above steps, it just doesn’t always work out. We can only control ourselves and can’t make anyone else respect us. In this case, we can end the discussion. We can leave the room, ask for help from someone else, or end a relationship if our boundaries are repeatedly not being respected.
Effective boundary setting is not something that happens overnight. We will make mistakes, and that’s okay. Also, setting larger boundaries can be daunting. Feel free to start with smaller boundaries that feel accessible, explore boundaries within relationships that are less significant to you. Once you feel comfortable, you will have the tools and experience to effectively address your larger boundaries.
While reflecting on your childhood experiences, the question may have arisen for you: "Why didn’t anyone teach this to me when I was younger? If I learned this earlier, it could have helped me in so many different areas of my life. Things could have been different!” The trick is, if we don’t have these past experiences, then we can’t learn from them and we can’t appreciate the importance and gravity of setting boundaries. I invite you to offer some compassion to yourself, and bring some gentle understanding to the fact that, while these past experiences with boundaries may have hurt or harmed you and others, you can learn from them and grow.
OTHER COUNSELING SERVICES WE OFFER IN DENVER, CO
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