Get Better Boundaries

26 Sept

Better Boundaries to Protect your Energy

This blog post is written in regards to thinking about boundaries in relation to adults. Boundaries are naturally blurred with children as children start off life inside their mother i.e. they are completely inside the parents boundary. As the child ages and individuates more from the parent they will become more aware of their own boundary and the parent will become more aware of theirs. See the paragraph on Boundaries with children.

What is a Boundary?

Energetic Boundaries- What you are willing to spend your energy on

Emotional Boundaries- What you are willing to splurge your emotions out onto
What you are willing to do and not do
What you have capacity to do
A conscious barrier between you and what will not serve you
Self worth in action

3 Great Boundary Questions

What am I willing to do?

What do I have capacity to do?
““If I loved myself deeply, would I allow this into my life? Would I let myself experience this?”” Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It Kamal Ravikant

A person with weak boundaries might:

Feel depleted

Over work
Not know when to stop
Feel anxious
Be prone to burnout
Care more about others than themselves
Find it hard to say no
Worry a lot about what others think
Be anxious a lot
Struggle with self worth and limiting beliefs
Be in martyrdom always giving and feeling bitter and frustrated about lack of appreciation
Might take everything their children/ others do extremely personally
Might be seeking validation and ego boosts from others

A Person With Very weak Boundaries might:

Have narcissistic traits- and have low emotional energy of their own so need to constantly seek validation and energy from others
Violate other people's boundaries
Might struggle to see where they end and others begin.

A Boundaried Person Will:

Prioritise what serves them/ their goals/ their values

Accept that we cannot change other adults behaviour we can only take responsibility for our own
Understand their priorities
Respect other people’s boundaries
De- prioritise/ Not do things that don’t serve them unless they serve a higher service. For example you might not want to put your kid to bed but you do it because it serves you and your child in the long term. Or for example you might spend time doing boring work. In the short term it might not serve you but it might serve you financially.
Respect their body and their nervous system and not do things that they know drain and deplete them unless that thing serves a higher purpose. I.e. you might host a party for your child and that might be very wiring for your nervous system but your higher purpose might be you want your child to have a nice time and you want to meet other parents because community is important to you.
Respect their sleep
Respect their health- and limit doing things that damage their health such as drinking lots if you know you suffer terribly with hangovers/
Someone with strong boundaries knows that other people's judgements and emotions belong to those other people.

Of course this doesn’t mean we treat others badly or violate other people's boundaries it just means that we don't splurge all our energy out worrying about other people’s feelings especially in situations where we have limited control to do anything. This is a little bit different in relation to children as they are still learning to emotionally regulate and until their brain is fully formed and as a parent it is your responsibility to help them with their emotions.

Example 1- You take a friend to a restaurant with other people. They don't like the food but everyone else does. Someone with poor emotional boundaries might spend the whole night feeling responsible for their friend and have a terrible evening constantly apologising. Someone with strong emotional boundaries might have empathy for their friend but still enjoy their night because they see that it is the friend’s responsibility to transform their situation, you can offer help but you don’t need to take on board their emotion.

Example 2- A Grandparent is feeling worried that you are being “too soft in disciplining your kids”. A person with weak boundaries might go down a shame hole and start shouting at their kids to try to “Regain control” in order to appease the grandparents' worry even if this doesn't align with what they believe about parenting/ children. A person with strong boundaries might say “Thanks for your concern I hear that you are worried but please allow me to do things in my way” and treat the grandparent’s worry as the grandparent’s responsibility not yours.

Healthy Beliefs that Boundaries are Rooted in

I am deserving of boundaries
I am a good person
I am worthy of having my needs met
I am worthy of health and rest
Other people's expectations and judgements are theirs
Other people’s feelings are their responsibility
I am enough

The good thing is it goes two ways i.e. if you set boundaries then by default you automatically start developing better beliefs here are some examples:

I’m going to set a boundary on going to someone's house that I really don’t like. Because I deserve to be treated well and I am worthy of looking after myself and spending time with people who resource me rather than deplete me.
I’m not going to read another article about toxins/ air pollution/ food/ climate change because I have read enough to be informed and reading more makes me feel like me and my children are never safe. I deserve to be informed but I also deserve to feel safe.
I’m going to set a boundary on not saying yes to everything the School Parent Teacher Association asks me to do in planning for the Christmas fair. I will say yes to things that serve my nervous system and no to things that I know will stress me. I deserve to have a regulated nervous system because I am a good person who is enough and is doing enough.

7 Questions to ask Yourself to Start having Better Boundaries

Will this serve me? If it doesn’t serve me in the short term might it serve me in the long term? If the answer is no then follow through and don’t do it.
How can I ruthlessly prioritise my own wellbeing today? (doesn’t have to be all day can be a couple of pockets of time just for you)
Will this deplete me? Fry my nervous system?
Is my body screaming no but my head saying yes?
Is this my responsibility or is it theirs? (in relation to other adults)
Does this align with my values?
Am I trying to seek validation/ ego boost from this person? I wonder why I’m doing that? What would it be like to not do that?

Boundaries with Tricky People

Here I would define tricky people as those with Narcissistic traits or Narcissistic personality disorder/ people with extremely low emotional intelligence/ people who you feel shitty and depleted around/ people who your body feels awful around/ people with no empathy/ people with no introspection/ people who are displaying red flag behaviour (things that don’t sit right)/ People who gaslight you (deny your version of reality)

Grey Rocking https://www.betterup.com/blog/grey-rocking
Setting the boundary you will not try to get validation from this person by not talking about anything personal just talking about light and breezy things like the weather, funny TV shows, pets, cute things the kids have done.
Cutting off contact/ limited contact

Boundaries with Children

This is legitimately harder as especially between 0-13 (ish) boundaries between children and adults are blurred. Children are are naturally don’t have their own strong boundaries yet. Your children want to be near you and need your help regulating so it’s natural and normal to have much looser boundaries with your kids than you would have with another adult. The thing is children are going to violate your boundaries and the key thing here is they are not doing it on purpose they are just trying to get their needs met. So when children violate your boundaries viewing that with a lot more compassion and grace than if an adult with a fully formed brain were to violate your boundaries

Some things to be aware of:

Your personal space boundaries and being touched out i.e. if your kids are on you all the time and you are feeling hot rage around that. Being mindful of how much touch you can take before going to fight/flight.
The practical boundaries you set on rules/ codes of conduct around the house and what values these are rooted in
Talking about your boundaries and how certain behaviours such as hitting/ violence/ insults are in violation of your boundaries.

Podcasts on boundaries

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1f9r6tSas8Ix8NFzokAr3F?si=97e7cd68142148ad

https://www.motherkind.co/listen-1/ep-243-your-essential-guide-to-boundaries-with-terri-cole

Brene Brown on Boundaries https://www.oprah.com/spirit/how-to-set-boundaries-brene-browns-advice#:~:text=Daring%20to%20set%20boundaries%20is,can%20we%20say%20%22Enough!%22