The sheer term boundaries can cause an allergic reaction in some of my clients. There are almost always more crucial, more urgent, more pertinent issues to deal with. Nonetheless, if you do not have boundaries or/and do not respect the boundaries of other people then therapeutic recovery will be rather superficial. It is not something you probably want to hear, maybe you would rather be showered with the ideas of magic pills that you can buy online to do the work for you, but if you the honesty is something you are seeking then you are in the right place.
1/ By placing a boundary you are not depriving anyone.
Please stop thinking that if you do not look after someone, that person won’t know what to do with themselves. Unless we are talking about highly vulnerable people (read: kids), then you can safely assume you are surrounding yourself with adults. Adult is a being who should be able to independently take care of themselves. The capacity to look after self by the adult can be somewhat diminished by, for example, mental health issues, but then that person still have choices – they can seek professional help, educate themselves around their issues and start paying attention to their needs.
Therefore, you are not depriving anyone when you place the boundary with them – you are simply exercising your right to look after yourself. Remember – these people are adults and although they might act like children, they are still in the grown-up category, hence you need to treat them accordingly.
2/ Boundaries mean spending more time with those whom you love and care about and vice versa.
By asserting yourself, for example at work, might allow you to spend more quality time with your beloved ones. Think about it, sometimes it is not only you who suffers from your poor boundaries – the people you love may have ‘less of you’ if you are investing your time and energy in the ‘wrong’ places. Analyse where your efforts go and how does that impact you? Is it worth it? Boundaries are an honest conversation with yourself that sometimes you have been postponing for far too long. Now is the time, today is the day, it is not tomorrow or next week, time to change is here and now.
3/ Respect the boundaries of others.
It is not ok to emotionally dump on others. When you have a bad day and feel like you need venting, please do not assume your partner or friend will have space for you. Maybe their day was equally bad. Ask, be transparent where you are, communicate and be kind to yourself, but also to the people you love.
I noticed that nowadays it is all about respecting the boundaries of self, but not a lot of people write about placing an equal value on the limits of others. It is crucial to notice when it is you who disregard the boundaries of another human, when you are putting unnecessary pressure, when you are offloading without doing much active listening. Pause, think and be honest with yourself. Boundaries go in three different directions – you vs you (sticking to the promises you make to yourself), you vs others (making sure people stick to the promises they made towards you you), others vs you (realising how good are you with fulfilling the promises you made to others).
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