Boundaries can be a really complex topic for a lot of us.
Not because we don’t have enough people on social media telling us that we ‘should’ have boundaries.
Not because there aren’t a lot of mental health professionals out there telling us that we deserve to take space for ourselves, that we need to have a clear sense of *I* and a clear sense of *You*, and not because we aren’t being flooded with instructions on exactly HOW to set those ‘healthy boundaries.
For many of us, the concept of boundaries in relationships make intellectual sense.
We can mentally understand the value in being able to say no to others. We can see how being able to own our own perspectives and not conform to what those around us think and believe just to fit in is a healthy thing to do. We can fully conceptualize that it’s better to be honest with people when we have reached our capacity or when we don’t feel comfortable doing certain things in order to avoid resentment building in the relationship.
We are able to grasp the idea that we don’t owe anyone our time and energy and we can see that leaning into ‘people-pleasing’ behavior isn’t good.
But the reality is, for a lot of us the mental understanding and the actual acting out of those understandings are two very different worlds.
For many of us, we are also being inundated with ideas from the spiritual world that tell us that we are all ‘one’ and that we should be in a place of constant giving, sharing and offering what we have in order to be considered a ‘good person'.’
Many of us have grown up in a world that told us that to sacrifice what we want for others is the best way to avoid conflict.
Many of us are getting messages from ‘conscious relationship’ coaches that tell us that we are meant to be in Divine union/service to our partners and other relationships and thus that we should be in a perpetual state of giving and perceiving.
We’re being told that we should be willing to help anyone who asks for our help.
That we should be willing to bend over backwards for others if we are really ‘enlightened.’
We are being told by culture that to fit in is to be safe, worthy and valuable - and thus many us feel like the only way to live is to live in a way where we are actively working to figure out what those around us approve of, want and expect, and to be conforming to those wants and expectations.
Many of us grew up in households where boundaries weren’t something we were taught to have, and in fact many of us were modeled relationships where boundaries were often crossed and where the expectation of boundaries being respected was seen as ‘too much’ and even selfish.
In other words, many of us struggle with boundaries because at our core, we don’t really believe it’s safe for us to have them.
At our core we have been shown over and over again what it looks like to have our boundaries crossed - and rather than being offered apologies and changed behavior we’ve been told that WE are wrong for having the boundaries we do and that we should change.
At our core, many of us believe that the only way to be loved, the only way to be safe and the only way to have connection is to have loose boundaries.
At our core, many of us believe that boundaries are antithetical to real love, real spirituality and enlightenment.
So even though we are getting messages about boundaries and how important they are in our adulthoods, the actual PRACTICE of living out healthy boundaries feels really challenging - because those messages go against so much of what we have grown up in and around.
So how do we navigate this?
How do we take the intellectual understanding we may have around boundaries and healthy relationships and turn that into an actual LIVABLE practice that doesn’t just feel like we are being selfish and shutting everyone out?
How do we practice healthy boundaries when those around us refuse to respect us and our boundaries?
How do we practice healthy boundaries when we feel like we’re going to lose love and connection if we do?
That’s what we’re going to explore today.
Past Experiences Making Current Boundaries HARD
One of the most challenging things about learning to set healthy boundaries in relationships is learning how to validate our need for boundaries, our need for personal space and our need to say no and not be in a state of ‘pleasing’ everyone all the time, is learning to value ourselves enough to do this.
What’s more, most of us are going to have to go on a journey of learning to make ourselves feel SAFE enough to set these boundaries and not feel like we’re going to be abandoned when we do.
Again, many of us have experienced a life where setting boundaries, not ‘pleasing people’, not doing what those around us want us to do, saying no and trying to own our own lives and space has meant rejection. It has meant being told that we’re being selfish, difficult, unpleasant or otherwise ‘bad’.
We’ve experienced very real moments of being told that our boundaries are making others upset and we’ve been told that what we are asking for is too much/unreasonable.
We’ve been told that we ‘should’ be willing to be and do what others want OR we’ve been in situations where when we don’t conform to what others want and expect from us, we are outcasted, left out, abandoned mentally and emotionally or otherwise shown in some way that we won’t be loved and included if we set boundaries.
You see, we live in a very codependent world right now.
We live in a world where most people are not able to healthfully allow those they relate to to have boundaries - because we are not aware of how to function in truly interdependent ways.
Many of us feel like we need other people to be and do certain things in order for us to be ok, and many of us feel responsible for the feelings and experiences of others - because again we learned that when we DIDN’T take responsibility for the feelings of others, we suffered in some way.
Thus, many of us are going to have a hard time with boundary setting simply because it’s going to feel unsafe. It’s going to feel like we are going to lose love. It’s going to feel like others are going to be upset with us. We’re going to feel like we’re being ‘selfish’ or otherwise ‘bad’ in some way.
We may even feel like we’re not entirely sure what having strong or healthy boundaries would mean for us because we’ve never REALLY taken the time to slow down and truly consider what we need, what would feel supportive and what makes us feel safe and secure.
We’ve never been given the space to figure out what we need and thus we are in our adulthoods navigating totally uncharted territory - trying to follow the advice of others while having little internal guidance or external experience around what is a healthy boundary for US.
Finally, it can be really confusing to understand what healthy boundaries look like in different contexts. What are healthy boundaries in the context of a romantic relationship vs. a friendship? A relationship with a co-worker and a relationship with a family member? Where is too much boundary in intimate relationships but just enough boundary in more formal ones?
These conditioned ways that we have been trained to abandon our boundaries for the comfort of others are difficult to work through, but there is a way.
Starting With Compassion And Curiosity
As with everything we work through on the self love path - when we notice that we have trouble settling and maintaining boundaries, we want to START with having compassion for ourselves.
We want to begin with realizing that we aren’t simply ‘not loving ourselves enough’ to have strong boundaries.
We aren’t abandoning ourselves for no reason.
We aren’t people-pleasing for no reason.
We aren’t in a place of not even KNOWING what we need in terms of boundaries or feeling totally confused about what’s a healthy boundary and what’s being ‘selfish’ for no reason.
Rather, we are doing what we were taught to do, what was modeled to us and what we felt we HAD to do in order to keep ourselves safe, to keep ourselves connected to the people around us and to win the approval of those we relied upon for love and provision.
We are likely doing what we are because it’s what we learned to do in our early childhood.
We’re treating ourselves and others the way we were taught to treat ourselves and others.
So we must never blame, shame or abandon ourselves for where we are and how we are expressing our relationship with boundaries right now.
Thus, if we want to move forward with making changes, we must start with that deep sense of giving ourselves that love and approval for who and what we are right now in order to give ourselves enough safety to actually change.
When we give ourselves this compassion rather than looking for what’s ‘wrong’ with us, we are going to find that we’re then able to move into true curiosity around how we built our current relationship habits, and we’re going to be able to find what we need to SUPPORT ourselves in changing - vs. trying to force ourselves to change in ways that will likely just lead to us returning to what we’ve always done.
Remember, what we are doing now, no matter how dysfunctional it may be, is what our nervous systems are adapted to, and it’s what makes us feel SAFE in this moment.
So as you look at your own relationship with boundaries and your own belief systems around what you ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ be doing for others - I invite you to start with looking for where you LEARNED the patterns that you have.
I invite you to inquire into how your current patterns were modeled to you. I invite you to look at where your current patterns were taught to you via how others treated you especially when you were younger. I invite you to look at the ways your caregivers practiced or didn’t practice boundaries in their relationships and how you may have picked up on that. I invite you to consider the messages you got from other authority figures and how you perceived and interpreted those messages.
I invite you to look at how you were treated growing up - was it safe for you to say no? Did people pull away from you when you didn’t do things for them? Were you taught that you were bad, wrong or selfish when you tried to advocate for yourself? What was the outcome when you DID advocate for yourself - were you respected or not? How did your friends and peers treat you? Were you safe in your relationships generally speaking, or was there a lot of jumping through hoops and figuring out what others wanted or how they were feeling and adjusting yourself to that?
I invite you to take a good look at WHY you operate how you currently operate.
Then I invite you to have deep compassion for yourself. To hold yourself close and remind yourself that you are not just ‘lacking self love’ or ‘weak’ or ‘a people pleaser’ because you have just decided to make life harder for yourself as an adult - that you have these patterns again because they were the patterns you HAD to develop in your childhood in order to keep yourself SAFE in the context of the relationships you had that you couldn’t change or escape from.
What if there’s nothing wrong with you, and you’re just doing what you felt you had to do in order to stay safe?
Can you allow yourself to grieve and be upset about all the ways that you weren’t supported in having healthy boundaries? All the ways your boundaries were crossed? All the ways you were shamed or guilted into not having boundaries? All the ways that you had to figure out how others were feeling and tip-toe around their lack of emotional maturity? Can you be upset for yourself that you weren’t taught that you are allowed to say no or that your needs are just as important as others?
If you notice that you have overly strong boundaries, can you again look for all the ways you were taught that you couldn’t trust others? All the ways that you were shown that letting your guard down or being open to others just led to pain? Can you allow yourself to grieve the lack of safety you had in your relationships that have made it difficult for you to now open up and be soft with others and yourself?
Can you let yourself be upset about what you went through that TAUGHT you that healthy boundaries weren’t safe or weren’t available?
Allow yourself to move out of that shame and blame so you can step into reality where you are actually capable of making healthy changes - by first grieving the past and letting yourself be upset about what happened to you.
This grieving phase is key to getting out of the ‘what’s wrong with me that I am this way’ thinking, and it’s going to help you figure out what you need in terms of SUPPORT in your adulthood as you work to change your patterns to something healthier.
Moving Into Healthy Boundaries
From here, when you have given yourself adequate time to grieve and be upset about your past and all the ways you were taught that healthy boundaries were safe or available - THEN you can start moving towards changing your patterns in a SUPPORTIVE way.
To start with this, I invite you to look at your current relationship patterns and to really get honest with yourself about what dynamics feel GOOD for you and which dynamics feel stressful/hard/painful for you.
I invite you to start to look at where you feel like you HAVE to sacrifice yourself for others - and to ask yourself WHY you feel like you need to do this.
What are you afraid will happen if you DON’T sacrifice yourself for others?
What are you pretty sure will happen if you set a boundary or say no?
What are you afraid will happen to the relationship if you were to set a boundary?
What are you afraid will happen if you don’t live from a place of people-pleasing?
What are you afraid will happen if you were to start practicing opening up a little more to others and trusting them?
What is the worst thing you feel will happen if you were to start to ask for what you really want and what you really need?
From here, can you start to allow yourself to step into your adult perspective? Most of the time when we are afraid to set boundaries, we are working from a childhood problem solving place that says that when others don’t like/reject/are upset with us that this means we aren’t going to be able to be safe or get our needs met. We are working from a place that tells us that if we don’t armor up, that we will have no choice but to be harmed and will have no course of action to change or fix or escape that harm.
What we will realize as we look at our adult situation, is that now in our adulthood we ARE able to be not liked or disapproved of by others while still being able to be safe and get our needs met.
We will realize that perhaps setting boundaries will lead to some uncomfortable conversations, some changes in our relationship dynamics that will be difficult to adjust to or perhaps it will mean losing some people - but that we can be OK with all of this.
We will realize that we have so much more power now in our adulthood than we did as children to stand up for ourselves, to be ok even if others disapprove and to work through uncomfortable conversations than we had as children.
Can you step into your adult perspective and see that you are now able to advocate for yourself, support yourself, get your needs met and protect yourself even if it upsets others?
What would it feel like to start to test out this theory - see that others may get upset with you or be disappointed that you aren’t doing for them what you used to do - and to see that you are still able to be ok?
What would it feel like to start setting some boundaries and learning to love and support yourself even if that means losing some love and support from others that was based on you having to sacrifice yourself?
Just get curious about this and don’t expect yourself to be able to set a million healthy boundaries all at once. Just start to get curious. Just start to explore. Take small steps and see that things are different now in your adulthood than they were in your childhood.
For most of us, we are going to have to take small steps and PROVE to our bodies and brains that setting boundaries doesn’t equal the end of the world.
We will have to practice being uncomfortable and doing things that our insides SCREAM at us NOT to do - and showing ourselves that even when we do these new things we can still survive.
We are going to have to experience standing up for ourselves and holding our ground even when others tell us that we are doing something bad or wrong - and seeing that the ultimate outcome is actually better for all involved - even those that we are ‘letting down’ by setting our healthy boundaries.
It’s not going to feel safe or easy - which is why we must have that solid foundation of being on our own side and coming into our adult perspective when we upset others and when others want to push back against our boundaries.
It will be a PRACTICE.
Finally, I want you to consider that there are no golden standards for what healthy boundaries look like.
Rather you are going to have to figure out FOR YOU what feels right, what feels comfortable, what your capacity is and what your capacity isn’t through trial and error.
You’re going to come to see that healthy boundaries are not something we ‘set’ one time and then never adjust - but rather that they are dynamic and fluid and change as our relationships change and as we discover more about ourselves and build our capacity to support and be there for ourselves.
What feels good to you today may feel like too much or too little tomorrow - and that’s ok.
This is a process of feeling, learning, exploring and testing boundaries - and figuring out what feels right for YOU.
So allow this to be a jumping off point, rather than the ultimate be-all-end-all.
Explore what people are offering, try it on and see how it works for you.
Keep working those nervous system muscles of safety within yourself and exploring what feels right from that place.
One step at a time, you will figure it out.
<3
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