Healthy boundaries are a challenging concept. Some people struggle to set boundaries, particularly with loved ones. If you’ve ever experienced trauma, you were taught by that trauma that you don’t have a right to set healthy boundaries, or it isn’t safe to set them. Even in families where there isn’t physical trauma, but there is yelling or criticism, it will be difficult for people to be clear about what is a healthy boundary.
Figuring out a healthy boundary involves listening to your gut. When we need to set a boundary, we will feel discomfort if we don’t set one. It may trigger anxiety, depression, or a physical sort of distress. We may feel scared or angry that this person dared to ask for something that crossed our boundaries. These thoughts and feelings are a good way of knowing a boundary needs to be set.
Sometimes, people may not initially realize that they need to set limits. Figuring out if you need to set boundaries may require tracking or journaling to become clearer. I would encourage journaling anytime you feel upset or have any negative emotion or physical response to an interaction. In the process of journaling, you will recognize if you need to set boundaries. You can explore when you would have ideally set the boundary and what the boundary would have been. Eventually, you’ll recognize the need earlier and be able to set the boundary in the moment.
We need to set limits when someone makes us uncomfortable or unsafe. You can set a boundary because you don’t want to be intimate or you don’t want to stay for dinner. Some more subtle times when we might need to set a boundary would be when someone is sucking away our energy, criticizing us, being persistently negative, interrupting a lot, lying or gaslighting, or anything that feels wrong.
When we’re setting healthy limitations, we can do it in many ways. If it is someone we want to maintain a relationship with, it is best to use non-violent communication.
Non-violent communication involves three steps.
1. Express something you appreciate about the person, preferably related to the issue at hand.
2. Express your feelings and connect them to one thing the other person did or said that triggered the feeling. Make sure you express a feeling because many people say, “I feel that…” which is both poor grammar and not an expression of an emotion. The phrase needs to be clear, “I feel hurt that you did X” or “I feel scared that you did Y”.
3. Share a way that you may have contributed to the problem. This might look like this: “I realize I haven’t told you this before so maybe you didn’t realize it had that effect on me.”
When you don’t want to maintain a relationship, your boundaries will look different. You might just say, “I need to go home now.” Once you’ve left, you can decide how to handle them in the future. If it’s a boss, you might look for another job and then quit. If they want you to do something you don’t want to do, you can just say, “No.” or “I’m not okay with that.” If they push, it’s time to leave. Even with family, if you leave every time they behave in a way that you don’t like, they will either quit behaving that way or at least you won’t tolerate it.
Sometimes boundaries might be needed so that you do your self-care. “I’d love to get together with you tomorrow morning if you’d like to go for a walk. Otherwise, I’d be free in the afternoon.” Or just excuse yourself from any activity to go home and meditate. It’s also okay to refuse to go to a restaurant where you know the food will make you feel sick.
Taken together, the key to managing boundaries is to tune in to your body’s reaction so you know you aren’t comfortable with someone’s behavior. Once you have done that, you can figure out how to set a boundary to keep yourself safe.