Drawing The Red Tape: Setting Personal Boundaries
Making use of the number one way to show yourself some respect
Happy Monday! I’m back again with the fortnightly update, and today’s theme is all about boundaries. Or rather, your potential lack thereof.
Many of us are slipping up in some way when it comes to boundaries. Either we are slacking in a specific area to articulate our own boundaries, or, we are actively violating the boundaries of other people in our lives. Bottom line? You and I need personal boundaries…and we need to respect them.
One of the greatest way we receive self respect, is through the articulation and enforcement of personal boundaries.
Boundaries are basic, simple principles and/or guidelines which establish how you, or other people, should engage with you. They often dictate what is appropriate or inappropriate to do when around you, and form a means by which you can achieve healthy, fulfilling and mutually-beneficial relationships.
Having our boundaries violated can leave us feeling sad, rejected, disrespected and violated. It is therefore both necessary to create, but also enforce, the boundaries that we choose to prop up the intricate fragments of our lives, dreams and experiences.
Summary of Key Points:
The Characteristics of Boundaries
Why are Boundaries Important?
How to Reset Your Boundaries
The Characteristics of Boundaries
Boundaries can be physical, emotional, time-bound, sexual, intellectual, or material.
Physical boundaries: Physical boundaries concern your personal space, privacy, and basic needs.
Emotional boundaries: These concern your feelings, emotions, and your capacity/ desire to be vulnerable when sharing personal information.
Time boundaries: Although pretty self-explanatory, these concern the way you manage your time according to your priorities.
Sexual boundaries: These include your sexuality, desires, and what you are willing to do as it pertains to your sexual behaviour.
Intellectual boundaries: These involve your thoughts, ideas, and what you believe is appropriate to discuss at a given time or context.
Material boundaries: These often concern your possessions, your money, and material goods.
When we think of boundaries, we often think of very stringent limitations or guidelines that may never be broken under any circumstance. In fact, boundaries can have multiple characteristics which are very telling of the kind of person we are.
Rigid boundaries: People who have rigid boundaries are highly defensive, constantly have a wall or fortress up, and shy away from being vulnerable. They find it difficult to ask for help, and don’t have many close relationships.
Porous boundaries: People who have porous boundaries overshare, and tend to be people-pleasers to the detriment of their welfare. They are generally quite passive, and are always in the business of others.
Healthy boundaries: People with healthy boundaries are able to communicate their desires, know how to say no, stand up for themselves when necessary, but also know when to negotiate when necessary.
Ideally, many of us need to move towards the ‘healthy boundaries’ as characteristic of the boundaries we employ in our life - especially if we seek to make the most out of our relationships.
Why are Boundaries Important?
Now that we’ve gotten the big picture, intellectual boundaries bits out of the way, let’s be frank around the necessity of implementing personal boundaries.
Boundaries are a measure of self-esteem. They enable you to be clear and definitive, in accordance to how much you respect yourself, on what acceptable behaviour is around you.
Not only do you teach other people how to treat you, but you also start internalising your self-respect. You help yourself understand what respect looks like to you.
How to reset your boundaries
If you’ve been finding it difficult to erect boundaries in your life, or perhaps find yourself feeling violated again and again, it may be time for a boundary reset. This involves taking some time and space to create new boundaries, fortify existing ones, and examine how effective they may be at helping you become the type of person you’d life to be. If you’re interested in resetting your boundaries, here’s how you can achieve it.
Schedule personal downtime
In order to set effective boundaries, it is necessary for you to schedule in some personal downtime, at the very minimum, once a week. I personally find daily downtime a practice that has been essential to helping me create and enforce personal boundaries.
Set your intentions and personal principles
Journalling can be extremely helpful in achieving this. Setting your intentions and personal principles can help flesh out why your boundaries are important, and how they are linked to the articulation of yourself that you’d like to see happen.
I personally like to have a personal mission statement. It has the characteristics of the woman I’d like to be, and an associated boundary which is directly linked to this.
For example, I’d like to be an early riser. My intention is to be a self-motivated person who prioritises their wellbeing and self-care during this time. One of my boundaries is to block out the first half of my morning for my morning routine - I take no calls (unless they are emergency calls from a loved one) and certainly no emails are opened before 10am.
Structure it like this: characteristic/ vision - intention - boundary.
It makes it a lot easier to articulate a boundary, when it flows from an intention, which stems from the future vision of you.
Get comfortable saying no
Saying no can be difficult - whether it’s saying no to other people, or saying no to yourself. It means you are capable of being open and honest with yourself, as well as assertive and protective over your value. It means you prioritise yourself and other forms of gratification, which are in line with who you want to be.
This week, practice saying ‘no’ to something or someone that is in conflict with your vision of yourself. It might be saying no to an invitation to an unnecessarily long meeting, saying no to satisfying your sweets craving, or even saying no to sexual pressure from your partner. Whatever the context or severity, see ‘no’ as tool of choice in your self-respect arsenal.
Focus on tracking consistency
It’s easy to ascertain some pretty arbitrary boundaries, but what good are they if you aren’t tracking how well you enforce them? Now, this is not an encouragement to wait anxiously for the moments your boundaries are tested. Far from it - try to do the reverse instead.
For example, if one of the boundaries you have for yourself is to set aside 10 minutes every morning to meditate without distraction, try to log the amount of days a week you managed to respect this boundary. Studies show that positive reinforcement is often much more compelling and effective, than punishment.
Dish out the consequences
What are consequences of violating your boundaries? This is especially important in relationships. Many of us constantly have our boundaries violated as we never enforce or ascertain consequences. When there is no threat, there is no respect.
Articulating consequences for violated boundaries does not mean you be primed and prepped, waiting to discipline people who try to get close to you. It simply is a way to ensure that those who are dedicated to respecting you, and living in a world with you in theirs, do not take this for granted. For example, in a romantic relationship, a boundary you may have could be poor communication.
If you find that the person you are dating is constantly ‘ghosting’ you, or taking days to respond or communicate, a drastic consequence may be to cool things off for a few weeks or a month.
In friendships, if you find that your friend is constantly calling you way past your bed time, despite knowing that you are prioritising your sleep, a consequence might be to silence their calls between specific hours.
For every boundary, respected or violated, there needs to be a proportionate consequence which links back to your personal vision of yourself.
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Finding the right boundaries and the right balance can be difficult, and often takes several iterations. Don’t be too hard on yourself if things don’t immediately click into place. Be patient, and focus on stacking up your boundaries rather than attempting to radically overhaul your life.
Be patient with those around you as you implement your boundaries. Prioritise communicating your new boundaries, or reiterating your existing ones, to those that love you.
Chances are, whilst they may slip up here and there, the people that truly love you will go the distance to respect you.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s Optimise Me. I’ll see you again soon. Don’t forget to like or comment if anything here resonated with you - share with a friend too!
Let’s start building healthy boundaries.
With love,
-RK
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