Setting Healthy Boundaries

BOUNDARIES

• Definition: Something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent (Miriam Webster Dictionary).
• Knowing Boundaries helps us to know where we end and where others start.
• Spatial Boundaries: The boundary line between two properties.
• Time Boundaries: Setting what we do with our time according to our priorities. There are only 24 hours in each day, how do we want to allocate our priorities/efforts/energy during this time limit?
• Physical Boundaries: Our body parts being separate from others’ body parts. Our body belongs to us and others’ bodies belong to them.
• Emotional Boundaries: Being able to separate our emotions from those of others ~ How we feel is how we feel; others are not responsible for our feelings just as we are not responsible for other’s feelings. Although how one interacts with another can “trigger”/contribute to other’s feelings.
• Interpersonal Boundaries: How we show up in our interactions with others. Do we respect others as separate entities with their own agency (ability to decide and do for oneself)?

SIGNS OF UNHEALTHY BOUNDARIES

• Enmeshment: Two people aren’t able to separate one from the other ~ Each person’s mental and emotional health are dependent on the other’s. Each one feels they have “control”/“power” over how the other one feels. It’s as if two people’s emotions/identities are “fused together;" however one feels, the other feels as well.
• Codependency: One person’s sense of well-being is dependent on how the other is functioning. This requires the “consent” (albeit unspoken) of both parties. Some examples:
• One complains that the other doesn’t clean up after them, and the complainer continues to clean after the messy person: The key here is one complains and puts the other person down, while not giving the other person the opportunity to show up/behave differently, such that the messy person would always stay messy and continue to live out their label as the “messy one,” and the complainer feels “needed”/shows up as the “Savior”/“Better” person.
• A person complains that someone they care for is controlling of them, and yet this person continues to do whatever that person tells them to do.
• A student doesn’t finish their school assignment on time and the parents swoop in to help them to complete the work. The student knows that the buck stops with their parents, so they don’t have a sense of ownership for their work: Their parents will do it for them. 
• Over-Functioning: A person does the work/puts in the effort “on behalf” of another. Usually this is because the over-functioner is more invested in getting the thing done than the other person. This takes away from the other’s agency to take ownership of their responsibilities. Over-functioning usually shows up in codependent relationships.

The principle of “Interpersonal Equilibrium” ~ There’s usually an “average” in a dyad or system. When one is more excited about something, the other person’s enthusiasm then wanes. For example: Two people watch the same movie on their own. They both like it at a “7” on a scale of 1-10. When they get together and talk about it, the first person talks excitedly: At a scale of “9.” The other person’s excitement then goes down to a “5;” this dyad’s average is still a “7.”

SETTING HEALTHY INTERPERSONAL BOUNDARIES

• Understanding the principle of “Interpersonal Equilibrium,” be mindful how we show up in interpersonal relationships: 
• Acknowledge our own feelings: Including feelings of disappointment when the other person isn’t as excited about something as much as we feel.
• Be curious to find out the other’s feelings and what motivate/fuel their feelings/behaviors/how they show up in relationship with us.
• Don’t judge the other’s waning enthusiasm.
• Give grace: Toward ourselves and toward others.
• Curtail our own enthusiasm and prevent ourselves from over-functioning.
• Respect the other’s agency to make choices and to set their own priorities.
• Be “Student” of others: 
• Get to know them: Everyone wants to be seen, heard, understood, accepted and loved unconditionally.
• Respect others as separate beings: Each person has their own feelings, interests, opinions, ideas, preferences, values and priorities. 
• Accept others for who they are, and not try to “convince”/coerce/control others to become what we want them to be: Just because they are our priority, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are their priority!
• “Exploit” (utilize and "lean on") each other’s strengths and embrace each other’s weaknesses.
• Set Healthy Expectations we have toward others. This entails: 
1. Us knowing/acknowledging our expectations.
2. They are to be realistic and practical.
3. Clearly communicated with the other.
4. Verbally agreed upon.
5. Held accountable.

• Assess whether a relationship is worth investing in: If the relationship is worth investing in, we'd put in the energy and effort to work out our differences and expectations. If the relationship isn't that important to us, we can save our time, energy, and heartache by keeping it at a distance.

“The Serenity Prayer” ~ “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference...”