Part One: What do Boundaries Require?
By Crystal King
Ever look across an ocean and feel awe? The sound of power in the booming waves, the blue reaching expanse that stretches for seemingly endless miles. Yet the ocean is not limitless. It has boundaries. Like all of nature, it was given a limit. These boundaries adjust with the tides and are flexible. They are not rigid, but they are predictable and consistent. We can go to a beach and anticipate how far the water will reach and when it will recede. This predictable boundary allows us to enjoy the ocean more fully. We can plan to search for sea life when the tides are low, make spectacular sand castles with a moat that fills with water, and jump in the waves—all because we have the security of a boundary.
A boundary’s primary purpose is not just to keep something out. While boundaries can function in this way, they often serve to protect and guard something valuable. The ocean needs to keep its perimeter intact to preserve the magnificent creatures of the sea. In fact, the purpose of a boundary is mainly to preserve something: preserve our sense of self, preserve a relationship, preserve a soft heart toward someone, preserve our dignity, preserve our truth, etc.
WHAT ARE BOUNDARIES
Fences are a physical example of the efficiency and necessity of boundaries. On long road trips, I used to look at all the cows and horses behind the miles of fence that stretched alongside the road. These fences preserve the wildlife, ensuring their safety and keeping them from running straight into oncoming traffic. In addition to roadside fences, many of us have a fence around our backyard. The fence takes the physical stance saying that this is our uninterrupted space--to play in, to relax in, to grow flowers in, to just be in….
Relational boundaries are similar in that they ensure safety and reveal the area that creates a space we can flourish in. Fences often have doors or gates because it is not just about keeping everything out; rather, it is about revealing where the place to enter is. The gate gives the ability to enter and exit without damage. The gate matters as much as the fence.
A relational boundary is about taking a stance that aids in our personal vitality as well as in the health of the relationship. A boundary preserves the strength of the individual and therefore the strength of the relationship. It shows the border we can operate effectively in. It creates a personal health perimeter that ensures we are thriving. It is not something we force on someone else; rather, like the ocean, we create a predictable and consistent perimeter around ourselves to preserve our life, energy, vigor. We can invite others into our perimeter, but it is their choice whether or not to join us there. We dare not change the perimeter just because they don’t have the capacity to reach it. Changing the perimeter would cost us something valuable we are preserving. If the perimeter is about our health and vitality, changing it for someone inevitably invites destruction.
We cannot force someone else to change to meet our needs, but we can show them our perimeter for a thriving relationship, and show them how the actions that fall outside that perimeter directly impact our ability to connect. As adults, it is our responsibility to build our own fence. We cannot control another person or expect them to build the fence for us. A boundary is something we create to make sure our vitality, creativity, joy, life, and energy are preserved.
THE PURPOSE OF BOUNDARIES
Look at nature and how many boundaries it contains. At one point the ocean stops and dry land emerges. Everything takes up its space in a relatively consistent way. When nature overrides its expected boundaries, disaster usually follows. A tsunami can cause massive damage because the water goes far beyond its predicted borders. Similarly, when we exceed our personal boundaries or overstep in others’ lives, it can have the devastating effects of a tsunami.
Boundaries are not for our selfish desires or manipulation. They are based on what is needed for each person in the relationship to thrive. Sometimes these needs are specific and individual and grounded in how our personality operates, and other times the needs are more generic and apply to all. For example we all have a biological need to attach, connect, and feel secure in relationship. According to Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson, feeling seen, safe, and soothed by another is the formula we need to feel a secure attachment with someone. We can do great damage when we ignore this basic human need. If a partner or friend deceives us and violates our trust, this severs our secure attachment, and we start to lose the liveliness and vivacity the relationship once held.
Boundaries help us to maintain optimal function and retain high levels of compassion. Brene Brown centered much of her research on how humans can grow their compassion, and I will never forget what she said of her findings: “The most compassionate people have boundaries of steel.” When we maintain clear boundaries, we do not find ourselves growing resentful because we are not living in the “overs”: over working, over giving, over providing, over performing, over managing, or over functioning. We understand our own limits and respect those. Our limits may be flexible like the tides of the ocean, and they may take some time to track and learn, but once we learn them, we can keep high levels of compassion for others, because we are not depleting our batteries or draining our vitality.
WHY WE STRUGGLE WITH BOUNDARIES
There are times when we know we should put up a boundary, but it feels harsh, rude and conflictual. If the boundary is appropriate, then these resistant feelings are not always about the boundary, but rather our inability to face the initial discomfort the boundary may bring. Let’s say the boundary is reasonable and prudent according to our logical self, but our emotional self is blocking us from enforcing it. There are many possible reasons for this, but it often boils down to the level of tolerance we have for unfamiliar discomfort or distress. A boundary requires that we tolerate causing a feeling of unfamiliar, temporary discomfort or distress. I say causing because we are the ones generating or creating this distress in ourselves when we set a new boundary. For example, taking a stance could mean someone will get angry and not like us—hello distress. Taking a stance could mean the start of a conflict—hello distress. Taking a stance could mean a relationship ends—hello distress. Taking a stance could mean I lose the things I hold so dear—hello distress.
BOUNDARIES REQUIRE FACING THE UNKNOWN
It is not always distress itself that bothers us though; ironically, we usually realize we need a new boundary when we have already been sitting in distress for a long time and our energy and joy is draining. We have been living with a distress we are used to. It is a familiar distress, so we can anticipate what it will bring. It is a predictable distress. We have learned to accept it. For example, we may have already adapted to the distress of forgetting ourselves, shutting down our needs, walking on eggshells, and even taking abuse. This is tolerable precisely because it is familiar, but the distress of taking a stance is entirely unfamiliar and worse: unpredictable. We can relate to the old proverb “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”
In reality, the momentary pain of facing this unfamiliar distress will often open us up to a world of inner resources that will bring us back to thriving. But staying in the familiar distress will continue to suck the life out of us and cause twice the pain down the road. Pain and distress are unavoidable either way. We will start thriving when we choose the distress that comes with long term benefits, even if it is uncomfortable short term. I heard someone say once that “healing isn’t when the pain stops, it’s when the patterns do.” How true. Any number of addictions or coping defenses can stop the pain temporarily without stopping the pattern. And when the pattern remains, the pain, whether numbed in the moment or not, is just building under the surface.
BOUNDARIES REQUIRE SELF-RESPECT
Trusting that there are people who will still love us if we have boundaries is necessary if we are going to respect our limits. I do not want to downplay the intensity of the distress of taking a stance and potentially losing someone dear or losing the lifestyle we know. This is a huge loss and one we may need to face and grieve if it comes to losing that, but mature adults will respect healthy boundaries and appreciate us all the more for being strong enough to know them and honor them. If we want to be respected, then we start by respecting ourselves.
People pleasing kindness is very different from true kindness. People pleasing kindness is concerned with someone’s reaction and how it will make us feel. It changes the boundary based on someone’s reaction, and when we do this, resentment ignites a fire in us. True kindness is concerned with honoring values and recognizing the worth of every individual, including our own worth. Diminishing who we are to keep someone else happy is not respecting ourselves. If we need to diminish who we are in order to keep someone else close to us, then we are creating dysfunction and long-term suffering. We are living a half-starved life where we have cut off the ability for the truest forms of intimacy and connection. Life-giving connection happens when we are able to be our authentic self. Lysa TerKeurst says it beautifully in her mantra, “I will no longer diminish the best of who I am to cover up for the worst of who someone else is.”
BOUNDARIES REQUIRE GRIEVING THE PAST, PRESENT, AND POSSIBLE FUTURE
Maybe we grew up in an environment where having personal needs, autonomy, values, and desires cost us greatly. By making sure we pleased everyone and stifled our own needs, we maintained a sense of security and connection. Granted it was an unhealthy connection because it required we lose our sense of self, but it was a form of closeness nonetheless, and in the complete absence of real connection, we will grasp at any form of closeness—even if that means we have to compromise who we are and pretend we do not have desires. As children, we don’t choose this. We adapt to it. It would psychically kill us not to adapt to this.
But as an adult, we can choose who we make connections with. We can choose to do the inner work of trusting that the people we share life with, can and will love us with our boundaries intact. If they cannot, we must learn to grieve the past, present, and possible future losses. While fresh loss may come with boundary setting, it is the initial losses that we must face first. There is usually a plethora of loss that has occurred before we found the capacity to set the boundary.
So boundary work is first grief work. If we cannot learn grief, boundaries will be very difficult to impart in a loving manner. Having to set a boundary often means that something has already been lost, taken. Our hearts are in a long-term ache over a denied desire. We keep subjecting ourselves to this same pain again and again because we have not been able to face what was already lost. To set a boundary, we must look our loss squarely in the face and stop denying it.
We have to see that while we may have influence over others, we have no control over the outcome. We may not get what we hope for in this situation. We can only protect and preserve our values and our health by setting a boundary, but that does not mean that we will suddenly be seen in our needs. While the boundary can protect from further harm, it does not mean we immediately get the closeness we desire. This is why grief work must be done alongside boundary work. The boundary was put in place because the initial closeness has already been lost and must be grieved. Boundaries open the gate to closeness again, but they do not guarantee it. The other person still has a choice to walk through the gate toward connection. The potential for closeness is now exists because of the boundary, but this does not mean the other person will choose to walk through the gate.
Additional Resources:
The loss of self can predate our current life situation by miles. Maybe something cherished was taken in our childhood. When emotional, spiritual, or physical boundaries are crossed at a young, vulnerable stage in life, we may not realize that someone is violating our boundaries. We do not even know what those are. All we know is we feel depressed or uncomfortable or anxious or addicted or resentful. Maybe we never knew what it felt like to be free, safe, and completely comforted in the presence of someone else. Can we recall an experience of laughter, play, sorrow, and shame that we shared with another person with complete and utter abandon? Without fear of letting ourselves feel truly vulnerable with someone else? If this was a foreign or rare experience in childhood, we indeed have grief work to do. We may have been in an environment with certain covert rules that are anti-authenticity: don’t talk about real things, don’t have real emotions, don’t trust. This environment would create significant loss. We lost out on learning who we really are.
BOUNDARIES REQUIRE KNOWING OURSELVES
We can struggle with boundaries if we do not really know ourselves. Knowing oneself is where having healthy boundaries starts. If I do not know my needs, my limits, what brings me to life, what depletes me, what shuts me down, what revitalizes me, then how do I create a border to preserve what I need and keep out what brings me down? Creating our fence requires knowing ourselves, what we want to preserve, protect, and keep intact. We can start by making a list of healthy standards: listing values, listing what charges our battery, listing what makes us feel connected, secure, valued, and cherished. Conversely, we can make a list of unhealthy standards: what deadens us, what makes us shrink inside, what dampens our creativity, what signals to our nervous system signs of unsafety. Disclaimer: In answering these questions, notice that addictions may pop up. For example: “shopping all day makes me feel more alive” or “people pleasing signals calm to my nervous system.” While both those statements may be true, they are not long term solutions because they perpetuate the problem by using a false substitute to regulate our mood state. In the moment, yes, harmful behaviors can bring calm or make us feel alive. They also add to the chronicity of our pain. We must make sure our list focuses on long term benefit, not momentary relief.
Some of us find it helpful to draw a box. Inside of this box, we can list life-giving behaviors and exchanges. Outside the box, we can list behaviors that stifle and deaden us over time. Stepping outside our health box to be with someone will deaden us over time. Inviting someone into our health box will create a thriving relationship. If someone will only co-exist with us if we are outside our health box, then we guarantee a dampening of both their spirit and ours. Bending over backwards to be outside our box and near them only guarantees our own light dimming. Creating a health box is not giving up on a relationship. It is giving up on dysfunction. It provides an opportunity for a healthy relationship.
BOUNDARIES REQUIRE TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR BOTH OUR DESIRES AND OUR LIMITS
Another reason we may struggle with boundaries is we because we feel pulled in two different directions, so we do not know how to administer the boundary in a clear, direct, and kind way. Lysa TerKeurst has found that the phrase, “My heart wants to say yes, but the reality of my time, makes this a no” helps her honor both the desire she wants to express as well as her limits.
Sometimes expressing a boundary feels bigger than intended. But it does not always have to be a big, awkward moment of declaration. Often boundaries just reveal themselves by what we will or will not do. Sometimes they come with a clear statement about what we value. When we express what we value to people, boundaries are much more easily received, but if we declare with aggression and force that we “will never _______ ever again!!”, then we enter into a war.
If we get to the point of anger and force with our boundaries, then we have likely been ignoring our needs for a while. That is on us. Not on someone else. We have not been tuning in to ourselves. If we have let it build to this, our boundaries often come across as control because they are laced with resentment or anger, OR we find our bodies getting sick and taking the toll. We might be tempted to say, “but they hurt me over and over.” However, it is on us to keep our own boundaries. As adults, we cannot advocate this responsibility and blame another. When we see a pattern in a relationship that is taking a toll and hurting us, we are not powerless to stay and endure it. It is on us to take a stand. We are not victims. We can tune in to our own internal worlds and find out what we need. Inner landscape work is not something we can neglect when setting boundaries.
If there is a part of you that feels victimized over and over, and your boundaries keep getting violated, it may be that some implicit memory work (inner child work) is necessary to find the capacity to enforce the boundaries that you set. Remember boundaries are what we will do different, not what we are asking someone else to do. Requests of others are important and a good part of a relationship, but a request we make of someone else is not a boundary. A boundary is in our control. For example: “When blank happens, I will do blank.” It is about what we will do. Not about requesting something of another. “I will get off the phone and say goodbye if I am being ridiculed/cussed at.” If we continue to stay on the phone after we have decided on this boundary, our actions are communicating something very different than our words. We need to do some inner work at this point to see where we are divided.
BOUNDARIES REQUIRE SITTING WITH OUR EMOTIONS
Finally, struggling with boundaries can happen when we have been in a hypervigilant state of high stress for a long season. It is our responsibility to sit with our anger or depression and find out what boundary is needed and then make it known in a kind and clear manner. If we have endured traumatic relational stress for a while, we will understandably vacillate between statements that are extremes of too big or too small, but this is something we must work on in ourselves. We do not need to get hostile and aggressive nor do we need to placate, beat around the bush, or try to deliver the boundary so softly that no one even knows it is there. I once heard someone say, “clarity is kindness.” The vague ambiguity of not taking a stance often does far more damage long term. Living on a fence is uncomfortable and frustrating for all; conversely, putting up a fence with force, hostility, and no gate does not actually achieve the purpose of the boundary—which is to preserve and restore, not to annihilate. It is crucial to find the golden mean when expressing boundaries. This can only be done after turning inward and tending to the emotions that are there within.
If we struggle tending to our own emotions because we have such an external focus, then we may be losing our identity in someone else, looking to them to be okay, hypervigilant about all their emotions while neglecting our own, or taking responsibility for them when they need to be in that role themselves. Internal focus and internal attunement is vital for boundary work and for balance.
At the beginning of this article, I talked about the ocean and tides having flexible boundaries. In part two of this article, I will expand on the difference between rigid and flexible boundaries.
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