Learning Healthy Boundaries and How to Communicate Them
Learning healthy boundaries and how to communicate them is an essential step in self care.
Having healthy boundaries is all about being able to set your limits and communicate your needs to others. There’s lots of ways we allow our boundaries to be compromised and even break them ourselves. Learning how to communicate them fairly and honestly is key. Boundaries are how we define what we say yes to and no to.
A year after losing my mother the grief I was bottling up and trying to handle with logic began to spill out of me. After stubbornly resisting the idea of grief counseling, a friend recommended her counselor to me.
Taking this step for myself was one of the most important things I’ve ever done. To say getting help was life changing is an understatement.
My counselor helped me face my grief and loss. She also helped me see the unhealthy boundaries I had in my life and gave me tools to put healthy boundaries in place. One of those tools was the book Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life
Related: 8 Ways to Support Others in a Difficult Time
It’s quite possible my friends have long since grown tired of listening to me sing the praises of having boundaries, but learning what to say yes to and what to say no to was life changing for me.
Many of our boundaries have nothing to do with right or wrong. They have to do with our limits.
We all have time limits.
There are only so many time commitments we can make, because we only have 24 hours in a day. How we allocate our time is up to us.
Here’s an example of a time boundary I have. Saturdays and Mondays are my days off. In general I don’t respond to work on Saturdays or Mondays either and if I do it’s my choice. I do not feel obligated to respond to texts or answer my phone and I definitely don’t check my work email.
Are you wondering, what’s the big deal about answering a little text or spending a few minutes on email? Nothing really, except that it’s a boundary for me. It’s very simple. I’m not working. When I’m at work, working and getting paid for my work, then I’m working.
Therefore the time I have off from work is time set aside for non-work related tasks, activities and renewal. I do not believe that I should allow one to infringe on the other.
It is important for me to unwind, recharge and get (and keep) my mind off of work matters. For me that is a healthy boundary because it plays into a healthy mental state for me.
Passive aggressive behavior and lack of communication is more damaging to you than to your intended target. Avoidance solves nothing. This kind of mentality allows your feelings and frustrations to fester without true resolve of the issue.
Before you go to communicate your boundaries, let’s keep a few things in mind.
Your boundaries are yours. They are the line between what makes you feel safe, secure, healthy and understood.
You are the one responsible for maintaining them. People may not know where your boundaries are or even be aware of what those boundaries are.
While it may be difficult at first setting and taking responsibility of your boundaries is incredibly freeing.
“Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where i end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom. Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. Boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with. We must own our own thoughts and clarify distorted thinking.”
― Henry Cloud, Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, to Take Control of Your Life
Learning Healthy Boundaries and How to Communicate Them
How to effectively communicate your boundaries:
- Create a safe space. Be mindful of the environment and atmosphere you create to establish your boundaries. You are not accusing someone of breaking your boundaries, but rather helping them understand what they are and why they are important to you.
- Be open about how you feel. People are not mind readers. They can guess how you feel, they can sense emotions and they can pick up on body language, but that doesn’t mean they know how you feel.
And even if they do manage to know how you feel they still might miss the depth of your feelings. The best way for someone to know how you are feeling is for you to honestly tell them. - Provide alternatives. If a boundary is crossed suggest an alternative that doesn’t cross your line.
Affirm your care for people while clearly stating what you do and do not feel comfortable with. - Be firm but be gentle. You need these boundaries to be healthy. You’ve established them for a reason.
- Stand by your boundaries. It’s a rare case that people don’t respect your boundaries once they are communicated. If someone simply will not respect your no that is on them and not you.
If you have communicated your boundaries and someone is still not respecting them that is a huge red flag. You may have to distance yourself from them to preserve healthy boundaries for yourself.
The responsibility of communicating your boundaries lies with you and no one else.
I recently set boundaries with someone who was breaking one of my boundaries. It was not their fault.
Do you know why? I hadn’t communicated the boundary. I asked for a conversation and explained why the topic was a hardship for me.
What seemed harmless and even communicative on their end had become a growing infringement on my end. They weren’t doing anything wrong. I just hadn’t defined where my personal boundary was.
By explaining why this was a boundary for me and giving an alternative action both our needs were met.
If you are looking for a great book on Boundaries, I highly recommend the book Boundaries Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life
xoxo Naomi
* I am not a counselor, therapist, or psychologist nor am I licensed in anyway. These are tips I have found helpful in my life and should not be considered as professional advice.
