How to Figure Out What Your Boundaries Are
As a psychotherapist, one topic that continues to come up in my work with clients is boundaries. How do we set them, maintain them and work through the guilt we experience when it feels like we are hurting others.
Let’s be honest, people are really good about telling us we “should” have better boundaries and while to some extent we know this, however the hang up with boundaries has more to do with our fear around hurting someone else’s feelings, making them feel bad, being perceived as unkind, harmful or like a bitch/asshole, or our underlying fears of rejection and abandonment, then it does from the knowledge we need them. Meaning that we’re more afraid to tell people “no that’s not okay with me,” then we are of accepting poor treatment and making excuses for poor behavior. Why is this? Well to be frank, some of it has to do with the fear they might leave us or maybe even harm and our of being alone rather than to be in a shitty, unhealthy relationship.
The struggle with setting boundaries often starts with how they were modeled for us by our parents and families. You can start to look at this by reflecting on how your parents treated each other, what their relationship was like with us and other family members. We can begin to identify if someone was always compromising or sacrificing their needs (often we see this with moms) and whether or not your family had an underlying ideology of “this is what families do for each other.”
While yes it’s important to be supportive to the people we love, the belief of prioritizing other people's feelings over our own is damaging. It lays the foundation that others and their comfort is more important than we are and is often how we learned to cope with the discomfort of other people, through appeasement. Which by all accounts can even be considered a trauma response. When pleasing people under the guise of “being a nice person has been” rewarded throughout all levels of our society and we aren’t taught that our feelings/needs are as important as others, we struggle to tell people no and set boundaries. Especially when we are told we aren’t being nice. However being a nice person and having consideration for others, does not mean one doesn’t have boundaries. In fact, I’d argue that having boundaries with others is not only an act of kindness for ourselves but also for others.
So what happens when we disregard our boundaries in order to make other people happy or appease them? Well it’s simple, we fall into self sacrificing behavior and it’s often done at the cost of our needs. When we don’t want to “rock the boat” so we accommodate other people, we are choosing to disappoint ourselves whether we know or see it, that's what’s happening. This is not healthy for us, in fact it’s quite damaging to our self esteem and our ability to have self trust, and it also isn’t healthy for our relationships. When we prioritize other people's feelings, it feeds underlying narratives like we aren’t as worthy as others, we don’t deserve the same level of respect and consideration, and it continues to perpetuate the self-sabotage cycle. These underlying narratives are responsible for a lot of the behavior we take and also can be why it feels so hard to change a behavior even though we can see the benefit of it. And because we often learn these beliefs from our families at a young age, whether taught explicitly or implicitly, it sets a foundation where we inadvertently dishonor ourselves, disown our needs, and end up in unhealthy relationship dynamics.
Alright now that you have an understanding of what not having boundaries is doing to you, let’s talk about figuring out what your boundaries even are. Truth be told, in order to set boundaries in your relationships, you need to know what your core values are, including what your expectations are for your relationships. You need to understand where you’ve said yes out of obligation, guilt and your better judgment and how it felt when you went against what felt okay with you. Whether it’s loaning someone money when you have limited finances, saying yes to having sex with your partner even when you don’t want to or even not sharing your feelings about something out of fear of the other person’s reactions.
A good place to start is through exploring these 12 questions:
What is important for me to experience in my relationships? What do I value? What’s important to me? What do I feel good about?
Where have I felt violated in relationships or had my boundaries violated?
What has overstretched me or just didn’t feel good to say yes to?
How did I feel about myself, the relationship or the person after saying yes to something I didn’t want to do either during or after it?
Where have I said yes to something I didn’t want to do in order to avoid conflict?
Where have I compromised parts of myself in order to make someone else happy or to do the things they wanted me to do even though it didn’t feel good or right to me?
What’s my earliest experience of my boundaries being violated?
Have I had my boundaries respected in the past? If so, what was that experience like and who was it with?
What is my biggest fear around setting boundaries? (What do I dread will happen to me if I set boundaries with this person?)
Who is the most difficult person for me to set boundaries with? What are the reasons for this?
Who has been the easiest person for me to set boundaries with? What are the reasons for this
What do I believe when it comes to setting boundaries? (Be honest about what you really think about people who set boundaries)
Now answering these questions isn’t about self judgment or criticizing yourself for not being able to say no or set boundaries. This is simply about identifying and cultivating a deeper understanding of your relationship with setting boundaries. The more you understand about yourself and figure out what boundaries are important to you, the easier it will not only be to set them confidently but to also remind yourself you are worthy of the same respect and consideration of others and that your needs matter.
Let’s be honest, you’re going to experience discomfort regardless of whether you're setting boundaries or not. You may want to say yes or please someone in the moment to avoid the discomfort of conflict, however you risk feeling a large amount of internal conflict, guilt, and/or shame about being out of integrity with yourself and your needs, which leads to you not only feeling bad about yourself, but also contributes to a decrease in self worth and an increase in negative self-talk. Setting boundaries aligned with how you want to be treated in relationships will begin to shift in your relationships, which yes could mean some relationships end. And while this will be sad and disappointing, it will also open up space for new healthier relationships to be cultivated where you are able to set boundaries from the beginning and experience them being respected. Because healthy relationships not only have open and honest communication, they have clear boundaries.
If you want more content like this, follow me on Instagram, and subscribe to my newsletter. No spam, only great content to help you on your journey.