Protecting Personal Boundaries

How to Recognize Collapsed, Inflexible and Unhealthy Boundaries © Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen

A personal boundary is a space around yourself that gives you a clear sense of who you are and where you’re going. When you choose who you allow into your physical, emotional and mental space you’re activating your personal boundaries. For example, if your mother or child asks for a ride to the mall and you can’t say no without guilt, then you’re not protecting your personal boundaries. If your colleague consistently sloughs off her work for you to do and you haven’t figured out how to stop, then you’re not protecting your personal boundaries.

The key to healthy relationships is a strong sense of personal boundaries. If your boundaries are collapsed or inflexible, your relationships will suffer.

Inflexible Boundaries

Personal boundaries can become rigid and unyielding – like “walls” between you and others. If you have inflexible boundaries, you may:

• Fear being hurt, vulnerable, or taken advantage of.

• Have difficulty identifying your wants, needs and feelings.

• Say no if requests involve close interaction with others.

• Avoid intimacy by staying freakishly busy, picking fights, or avoiding people.

• Refuse to share personal information.

• Fear abandonment or suffocation, and avoid close relationships.

• Struggles with loneliness, low self-esteem, distrust, anger, and control.

Collapsed Boundaries

Personal boundaries can become weak or even nonexistent. The proverbial “doormat” has collapsed boundaries. If you have collapsed boundaries, you may:

• Say yes to all requests because you fear rejection and abandonment.

• Tolerate abuse or disrespectful treatment.

• Feel you deserve to be treated poorly.

• Avoid conflict.

• Have no sense of who you are or what you feel, need, want and think.

• Not seeing flaws or weaknesses in others.

• Focus on pleasing those around you.

• Take on the feelings of others.

Healthy Boundaries

Personal boundaries are evident and effective when you know who you are, and treat yourself and others with respect. If you have healthy boundaries, you may:

• Feel free to say yes or no without guilt, anger or fear.

• Refuse to tolerate abuse or disrespect.

• Know when a problem is yours or another person’s – and refuse to take on others’ problems.

• Have a strong sense of identity.

• Respect yourself.

• Share responsibility with others, and expect reciprocity in relationships.

• Feel freedom, security, peace, joy and confidence.

How do you set healthy boundaries?

Setting healthy boundaries involves taking care of yourself and knowing what you like, need, want, and don’t want. The best time to set personal boundaries is before they’re being encroached upon.

Two steps to healthy personal boundaries: 1. Be honest with yourself with your true feelings and opinions. 2. Share your feelings and opinions with others.

It’s easy on paper, but actually admitting how you feel to yourself and others may be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. An excellent way to help yourself is take time to think about the situation. Regarding family boundaries, for instance: if your mom asks you to take her to the mall for the 29th time this week and you can’t say no without guilt, tell her you need 15 minutes to think about her request. Use the time to figure out how you really feel and how to express it to her. Marriage boundaries can work the same way.

Then do it. It won’t be easy, but you’ll feel happy, liberated, and strong (and a little guilty at first) – and it will get easier and easier as everyone adjusts to your personal boundaries.

Setting Healthy Boundaries

How to Say No, Yes, and Never – And Not Feel Bad © Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen

She – let’s call her Mary – met a guy over the Internet in August and lent him $4,000 in September. He lived three hours away; Mary drove to see him most weekends, stayed in a hotel, paid for dinners, and slept with him.

He didn’t pay her money back, so she sued him on The People’s Court. Judge Milian ruled in her favor, and declared Mary had no self-respect – and said she could write this script because it happens over and over again.

Women are taken advantage of because they don’t have healthy boundaries (men, too). They don’t have a sense of their own personal rights and freedoms. They don’t listen to their gut or their friends and family; they let people hit, intimidate, and demean them.

Are you one of those women? Have you checked your boundaries lately?

When you have healthy boundaries, you know who you are, what you want, and where you want to go. Setting healthy boundaries means you know how to say no without guilt, fear or anger. Setting healthy boundaries gives you a sense of control and power in your life.

What is a boundary?

A healthy boundary is a space around yourself that gives you a sense of security and safety. Physical boundaries exist: you won’t let someone push, punch, kick or hit you (unless you have unhealthy boundaries). Emotional boundaries are important, too. For example, you won’t let people insult you, call you names, or tell you to where to go if you have healthy boundaries. Mental boundaries also exist; mentally healthy boundaries involve knowing that you have the freedom to express your opinions and thoughts without being ridiculed or judged.

Why are healthy boundaries important?

Healthy boundaries let you choose who you allow into your space and how they treat you. Healthy boundaries help you figure out who you are – an individual separate from everyone else – and what treatment you’ll accept.

Healthy boundaries are important because they give you a clear sense of who you are. You know which emotions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings are yours when you have healthy boundaries. You can differentiate between yours and someone else’s feelings and opinions with a clear sense of yourself.

Healthy boundaries help you determine what you will and will not do.

When should you set your boundaries?

The best time to set healthy boundaries is before they’re actually needed. It’s difficult to know and apply boundaries when someone is insulting or criticizing you.

How do you set healthy boundaries?

Be honest with yourself. Figure out what you really, truly think and feel. Before you can express your true thoughts to others, you need to admit them to yourself. Figure out the difference between wanting love because you’re insecure and lonely, or wanting love because it’s a healthy expression of maturity and self.

You may need help with this, whether it's from a friend, mentor, or counselor. Expressing your true self may be one of the hardest things you'll ever do.

Part Two: Respecting Others Boundaries

If we are clear in our intent to honor our own boundaries, we must also recognize that others have the same right to expect that their personal boundaries will be both respected and honored. But let's suppose one does not have clearly defined personal boundaries. Is it still possible to have an awareness of crossing other's boundaries? When do we cross another person’s boundaries? We may know instinctually when our boundaries have been crossed, but we may not recognize when we have infringed on the rights or boundaries of others. Many of these rights are now entrenched in law, especially when in regards to privacy, physical safety, libel or slander, etc. So, infringing on another person’s boundaries – physical or emotional – may not just be immoral and unethical, it may be illegal!

Some signs that an external (physical) boundary has been crossed

• Entering a person’s personal space without permission (office, bedroom, email, mail, briefcase, etc)

• Touching, or getting close to, a person or their property without permission

• Following or stalking someone

• Demanding others respect your time and energy, while not having the same respect for theirs

• Eavesdropping on private conversations

• Exposing others to a contagious disease

• Withholding important information such as rules, regulations, health care conditions, etc

• Sharing personal or private information about another person (their beliefs, their actions, their financial status, etc)

• Refusing to participate in safe sex practices

• Harassment of any kind based on sex, race, religion, culture, gender, age, ability, etc

• Abuse of any kind (physical, sexual, etc)

• What are some other examples you have encountered or experienced?

Some signs that an internal (emotional, ideological) boundary has been crossed

• Denying or challenging someone’s right to choice or feeling, e.g. telling someone what they should do or not do, should be or not be

• Verbal abuse in its many forms: yelling, ridicule, sarcasm, labeling, threatening looks, threatening language, intimidation, insults, impatience, false allegations

• Snobbery or patronizing behavior

• Using peer pressure or covert behavior to get one's way

• Refusing to accept responsibility for one’s own errors, lies or behaviors through lack of acknowledgment or apology

• Lying, dishonesty, telling partial truths, “spinning” facts to create a false impression

• Negative control techniques such as sarcasm, shaming, name calling, retaliation, chronic lateness, jealousy, self-victimization

• Reinforcing or supporting another’s self-limiting beliefs and behaviors for power or control

• Denying an individual’s right to voice or choice

• Enabling rather than empowering

• Expecting or demanding differing levels of accountability based on sex, race, religion, culture, nationality, gender, etc

• What are some other examples you have encountered or experienced?

Please note that all of the above behaviors, and signs of crossing boundaries, are not weighted equally. Some infractions may be recognized quickly, by your self or the other person. If you are the transgressor, immediately apologize, remedy the situation and commit to honoring that boundary in the future. Continue to maintain a high degree of self-awareness of your behavior:

• How easy or difficult is it to honor the commitment made?

• Have you crossed those same boundaries with others?

• Do you defend those actions or accept your responsibility?

• Would your behavior be considered abusive?

Remember that you always have a choice and that your behavior is your responsibility. You can choose to act with respect. You can choose non-violent behaviors.

More serious infractions may be signs of pathology, or the beginnings of a co-dependent Cycle of Abuse (Tension ? Incident ? Reconciliation ? Calm ? Tension, etc). In these cases, individual requires support such as counseling, therapy, etc, to enable them to return to healthy living.

Whose Business Are You Minding?

Notice when you are hurt that you are mentally out of your business. If you're not sure, stop and ask, "Mentally, whose business am I in?" There are only three kinds of business in the universe: mine, yours and God's. 1. Whose business is it if an earthquake happens? God's business. 2. Whose business is it if your neighbor down the street has an ugly lawn? Your neighbor's business. 3. Whose business is it if you are angry at your neighbor down the street because he has an ugly lawn? Your business.

Life is simple — it is internal. Count, in five-minute intervals, how many times you are in someone else's business mentally. Notice when you give uninvited advice or offer your opinion about something (aloud or silently).

Ask yourself, "Am I in their business? Did they ask me for my advice?" And, more importantly, "Can I take the advice I am offering and apply it to my life?"