"PersonalBoundaries, the ability to say Yes or No, and really mean it , Guilt free..."
Simply put PersonalBoundaries define where I end and where YOU begin. Does it sound simple and do you think you've got this concept covered? Think again because learning about this topic really made me see what motivated me, and where I was giving away my power.
We all want to do the right thing but sometimes it's rather odvious that something isn't right. When dealing with others in our relationships be it in intimate, with family, or with our co-workers, we and they, need to set limits to keep each party honest and keep the relationship out of a battle zone.
Feeling OUT OF CONTROL and STRESSED OUT is the surest sign that the individual needs to set some limits. These limits can even be with their own selves as well as others. These feelings are a sign we are suffering from severe difficulties in taking ownership of our lives.
Part of taking ownership of our lives is knowing what is our responsibility and what isn't our responsibility. In our desire to do the right thing, or to avoid conflict we can end up taking on problems that were not meant for us.
Homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional and spiritual limits for our lives to distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn't.
What are PersonalBoundaries?
• Simply put personalboundaries they define where I end and you begin.
• As in the boundary line around a property, they define where I stop mowing the grass and where I expect my neighbour to start mowing the grass.
When we try to live the right way we try to:
• do a good job with our marriage
• with our children
• with our jobs
• with our relationships
• with any other organisations we are committed to (church, rotary, sportsclubs, schools and other educational establishments, work etc)
Sometimes it’s rather obvious that something isn’t right.
• Our life isn’t working
• Our life feels like its out of control and unmanageable
• We are stressed out
If we do have these feelings we are suffering from severe difficulties in taking ownership of our lives.
• Part of taking responsibility or ownership is knowing what’s our responsibility and what isn’t our responsibility.
• Workers who continually take on duties that aren’t theirs will eventually burn out.
• In our desire to do the right thing, or to avoid conflict we can end up taking on problems that were not meant for us.
Any confusion of responsibility and ownership in our lives is a problem of personalboundaries>
• Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t.
Many clinical psychological symptoms such as:
• Depression
• Anxiety disorders
• Eating disorders
• Addictions
• Impulsive disorders
• Guilt problems
• Shame issues
• Panic disorders
• Marital and relational struggles
These all find their root in conflicts with personalboundaries as well as criminal activity.
So what does a PersonalBoundary look like?
In the physical world, personalboundaries are easy to see.
• Fences
• Signs
• Walls
• Moats with alligators
• Manicured lawns
• Hedges
These are all physical boundaries which give the same message: this is where my property begins.
When it comes to personal spiritual boundaries they are often harder to see.
What’s me and What’s not me?
• PersonalBoundaries define us, they define what is me and what is not me.
• A personalboundary shows me where I end and someone else begins.
• PersonalBoundaries lead me to a sense of ownership.
• Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom.
• If I do not “own” my life, my choices and options become very limited.
We are not responsible for:
• Other people and their lack of carrying their own load.
To and for
• We are responsible TO others and FOR ourselves.
• Others sometimes have burdens that are to big to bear. They do not have enough strength, resources, or knowledge to carry the “load”, and they need our help. Or we need others help if we have these burdens. We can help these people with burdens because they cannot do it for themselves.
• However everyone has responsibilities that only he or she can carry and these things are their own particular “load” that need to be taken responsibility for daily, by only them. We have to take ownership of certain aspects of life that are our own “load”.
The Greek word for burden means excess burdens.
• These are burdens that are so heavy that they weigh us down.
• These burdens are like boulders that can crush us.
• We shouldn’t be expected to carry a boulder by ourselves we need help, a boulder can break our backs.
• A burden or boulder are those times of crisis or tragedy in our lives.
The Greek word for load means cargo or the burden of daily toil.
• These loads are like knapsacks which are possible to carry.
• PersonalBoundary problems arise when we, or others, don’t want to carry their knapsacks, they want someone else to carry theirs.
• We are expected to carry and deal with our own feelings, attitudes, and behaviours as well as the responsibilities we have on a daily basis
Problems arise when people act as if their burdens are daily loads and refuse help. Or if their daily loads are boulders that they shouldn’t have to carry. PersonalBoundaries help to distinguish our property so that we can take good care of it.
Keeping the good in, and the bad out.
• We need to keep things that will nurture us inside our fences and keep things that will harm us out.
• Sometimes we have bad on the inside and good on the outside and in these instances we need to OPEN up our boundaries to receive help and let the good in.
• In other words our personalboundaries, our fences, need gates on them, so if I have pain on the inside or I’m hurting I need to open up and get help, so I feel better.
• Sometimes we can close our boundaries to good things from others and therefore we stay in a state of deprivation.
PersonalBoundaries are not walls.
• When people are abused while growing up they reverse the function of personalboundaries and keep the bad in and the good out.
What are some examples of PersonalBoundaries?
Skin
• The most basic personalboundary that defines us is our physical skin.
• The skin boundary keeps the good in and the bad out.
• Victims of physical or sexual abuse often have a poor sense of personalboundaries. Because their most basic boundary was defiled (their skin) they were taught that their property did not begin at their skin. They were taught that others could invade their property and do whatever they wanted. As a result they have difficulty establishing personalboundaries later in life.
Words
• The most basic personalboundary setting word is NO because it lets others know you exist apart from them and that YOU are in control of you.
• NO is a confrontational word.
• People with poor boundaries struggle with saying NO to the control, pressure, demands and sometimes the real needs of others.
• They feel that if they say NO they will endanger their relationship with that person, so they passively comply but inwardly resent it.
• Sometimes someone pressures you and sometimes we pressure ourselves from our own sense of what we “should do”.
• If we cannot say NO to this external or internal pressure we have lost control of our property.
• Our words also define our property for others as we communicate our feelings, intentions or dislikes, it gives others a sense of the edges that identify us.
• It’s difficult for others to know where we stand when we don’t use words to define our property. “I like this and I hate that” or “I will do this, and I won’t do that”. “I don’t like it when you speak to me that way”, gives people a clear message how you conduct relationships and lets them know the rules of your yard.
Truth
• There is always safety in knowing the truth about yourself.
• Many people live scattered and tumultuous lives trying to live outside of their own personalboundaries, they dont accept and express the truth of who they are.
• Honesty about who we are gives us a value of integrity.
Geographical Distance
• Sometimes physically removing ourselves from a situation will help us maintain our boundaries by replenishing ourselves physically, emotionally and spiritually.
• Removing ourselves also causes the person left behind to experience a loss of fellowship with us that may lead them to change their behaviour.
• Especially in abusive situations the only way to finally show the other person that our boundaries are real is to create space until the abuser is ready to deal with their problem.
Time
• Taking time off from a person, or a project, can be a way of regaining ownership over some 'out-of-control' aspect of your life where boundaries need to be set.
>b>Emotional Distance
• Emotional distance is a temporary boundary to give you the space to feel safe, it is never a permanent way of living.
• We should not continue to set ourselves up for hurt and disappointment.
• If someone has hurt us or has abused us we should wait until real pattens of change are demonstrated before we give our trust to them again. Many people in the name of forgiveness give their heart too quickly after their boundaries have been violated.
• To continue to open up emotionally to an abusive or addicted person without seeing true change is foolish.
• Forgive but guard your heart until you see sustained change.
Other People
• We need to depend others to help us set and keep our boundaries.
• People who have been subject to years and years of another persons addictions, control or abuse, are finding the ability to create boundaries only through a support group.
• There are two reasons why we need others to help with boundaries.
1. Our most basic need in life is for relationship. Many people suffer much in life and put up with a lot because they fear their partners will leave them. Fear of being alone keeps them in hurtful patterns. When they open themselves up to support from others they find the abuser is not the only source of love in the world and they can find the strength to set limits.
2. We need new input and teaching.
Many people have been taught that personalboundaries are mean, or selfish. These people need good support systems to stand against the guilt that comes from the old “tapes” inside that tell us boundaries are wrong. PersonalBoundaries are not built in a vacuum; creating boundaries always involves a support network.
Consequences
• Trespassing on other peoples property always carries consequences.
• If we walk one way this will happen if we walk another way something else will happen.
• We need to back up our boundaries with consequences.
• How many marriages could have been saved if one person followed through on their threats, giving the partner reason to change. Or how many young adults lives would have been turned around had their parents followed through with
their threats of “no more money if you quit another job without having further employment” or “no bed if you continue to smoke pot in my house”.
• Hunger is a consequence of laziness.
• Consequences let people know the seriousness of the trespass and the seriousness of our respect for ourselves.
What’s within my PersonalBoundaries?
We may be moved by compassion to give to someone in need, but the person manipulates us into giving more than we want to give. We end up resentful and angry, having missed something we needed in our own life. Or, we may want more from someone else, and we pressure them until they give in. They don’t give from their heart and free will, but out of compliance, and they resent us for what they give. Neither one of us comes out ahead. To avoid these scenarios, we need to look at what falls within our boundaries, what we are responsible for.
Feelings
• How often have we seen people do nasty things to others because of hurt feelings?
• Or how often has some someone had to be hospitalised from depression after years and years of trying to ignore the way they felt until they became suicidal?
• Feelings shouldn’t be ignored or placed in charge.
• We need to own our own feelings because they can motivate us to do good
• Feelings come from the heart and tell us the state of our relationships whether things are going well or if there is a problem.
• If we feel close and loving things are probably going well, If we feel angry we have a problem that needs to be addressed.
• The point is our feelings are our responsibility and we must own them and see them as our problem so we can begin to find the answer to whatever issue they are pointing to.
Attitudes and Beliefs
• Attitudes have to do with our orientation towards something, the stance we take toward others, life, work and relationships.
• Beliefs are anything that we accept as true.
• Often we don’t see an attitude or belief as a source of discomfort in our life. We blame other people.
• We need to own our attitudes and convictions because they fall within our property line as we are the ones who feel their affects, and the only ones who can change them.
• The tough thing about attitudes is that we learn them early in life and they play a big part in the map of who we are and how we operate.
• People who have never questioned their attitudes and beliefs can often fall prey to the dynamic of holding onto the traditions of others.
• People who have boundary problems usually have distorted attitudes about responsibility. They feel that to hold people responsible for their feelings, choices, and behaviours is mean.
• Setting limits and accepting responsibility will save lives.
Behaviours
Behaviours have consequences:
• If we study we will get good grades.
• If we go to work we will get a payed.
• If we exercise we will be in better health.
• If we act lovingly toward others we will have closer relationships.
On the negative side:
• If we’re lazy or irresponsible or have out-of-control behaviour we can expect poverty
• The effects of loose living
These are the natural consequences of our behaviour.
The problem comes when someone interrupts the law of cause and effect or sowing and reaping in another’s life.
• The person behaving badly should suffer the consequences of there behaviour.
• To rescue people from the natural consequences of their behaviour is to render them powerless.
• This happens a lot with parents and children. Parents often yell and nag instead of allowing their children to reap the natural consequences of their behaviour.
Choices
• We need to take responsibility for our choices.
• A common personalboundary problem is disowning our choices and trying to lay the responsibility for them on someone else.
• Think for a moment how often we have used the phrases “I had to” or “She or He made me” when we explain why we did or did not do something. We think someone else is in control thus relieving us of our basic responsibility.
• We need to realize we are in control of our choices, no matter how we feel.
• Making decisions based on others approval or on guilt breeds resentment, we have been so trained by others on what we should do that we think we are being loving when we do things out of compulsion.
Values
• What we value is what we love and assign importance to.
• Often we don’t take responsibility for what we value because we are caught up in valuing the approval of other people.
• When we take responsibility for our 'out-of-control' behaviour caused by loving the wrong things, or valuing things that have no lasting value we can then change.
Limits
Two aspects stand out when it comes to creating better personalboundaries:
1. Setting limits on others.
• This isn’t possible we can’t do it. What we can do is set limits on our own exposure to people who are behaving poorly.
• We can’t change them or make them behave right. An example is “you can be that way if you choose but you cannot come into my house”.
• We are not being unloving because separating ourselves protects love, we are taking a stand against things that destroy love.
2. Setting our own internal limits.
• We need to be able to say NO to ourselves.
• We need to be able to have self control without repression.
• Internal structure is a very important component of boundaries and identity.
Talents
• Our talents are clearly within our personalboundaries and are our responsibility.
• Taking ownership of them is often frightening and risky.
• We are accountable and much happier when we are exercising our gifts and being productive.
• It takes work, practice, learning and resources to overcome the fear of failure which we are all prone to when trying something new.
Thoughts
Establishing personalboundaries in thinking involves three things:
1. We must own our own thoughts.
• Many people have not taken ownership of their own thinking processes, they are mechanically thinking the thoughts of others without examining them.
• They swallow others opinions and reasoning’s never questing and thinking about their thinking.
2. We must grow in knowledge and expand our minds.
• Whether we are balancing our check book or raising children we are to use our brains to have better lives.
3. We must clarify distorted thinking.
• We all have a tendency to not see thing clearly, to think and perceive in distorted ways. Probably the easiest distortions are our personal relationships.
• We rarely see people as they really are.
• Our perceptions are distorted by our past relationships and our own preconceptions of who we think they are, even the people we know the best.
• We also need to make sure we are communicating our thoughts to others.
• Many people think that others should be able to read their minds and know what we want which leads to frustration.
• We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them.
Desires
• We need to own our desires and pursue them to find fulfilment in life.
Love
• Our ability to give and respond to love is our greatest gift.
• Many people have difficulty giving and receiving love because of hurt and fear.
• Our loving heart is like our physical one as it needs an inflow as well as an outflow of lifeblood.
• Like its physical counterpart our heart is a muscle, a trust muscle and this trust muscle needs to be used and exercised because if its injured it will slow down or weaken.
• We need to take responsibility for this loving function of ourselves and use it.
• Love concealed or love rejected can both kill us.
• Many people do not take ownership for how they resist love. They have a lot of love around them but do not realise that their loneliness is a result of their own lack of responsiveness.
We need to take responsibility for all of the above areas as these lay within our personalboundaries..
Setting boundaries and maintaining them is hard work….
Boundary Problems
It’s easy to misunderstand personalboundaries.
At first glance, it seems as if the individual who has difficulty setting limits is the one who has the boundary problem: however, people who don’t respect others limits also have boundary problems.
People who can’t say NO are called Compliant.
• They feel guilty and/or controlled by others.
• They cant set boundaries.
• They really are saying yes to the bad.
• Parents who teach children that setting personalboundaries or saying no is bad are teaching them that others can do with them as they wish which handicaps the child for life.
• Compliant people have fuzzy and indistinct personalboundaries and they melt to the demands and needs of others.
• They cant stand alone.
• They pretend to like the same restaurants and movies as their friends do just to get along.
• They minimise their differences with others so as not to rock the boat.
• Compliants are chameleons, after a while its hard to distinguish them from the environment.
• This type of personalboundary problem minimises peoples NO muscle.
• All of the reasons are fear based.
• Compliants take on too many responsibilities and see too few boundaries, not by choice, but because they are afraid.
People who can’t hear NO are called Controllers.
• These people aggressively or manipulatively violate the personalboundaries of others.
• An others No means simply a challenge to change that persons mind.
• Controllers can't respect others limits.
• They resist taking responsibility for their own lives, so they need to control others.
• Controllers look for someone else to carry their knapsacks, their loads in addition to their boulders, their burdens.
Controllers come in two types:
1. Aggressive Controllers
• These people clearly don’t listen to others personalboundaries, they are verbally abusive, sometimes physically.
• Most of the time they simply are unaware others even have boundaries.
• It's as if they live in a world of yes where there’s no place for another’s NO.
• They neglect their own.
responsibility to accept others as they are.
2. Manipulative Controllers
• These are less honest than aggressive controllers.
• Manipulators try to persuade people out of their boundaries.
• They talk others into Yes.
• They indirectly manipulate circumstances to get their own way.
• They seduce others into carrying their burdens, they use guilt messages.
People who can’t say YES are called Nonresponsive.
• These people set boundaries against responsibility to love.
• We do have certain responsibilities to each other and the nonresponsive has an inability to respond to the healthy needs of others.
Nonresponsives fall into two groups:
1. Those who are critical of others needs, which is a projection of their own hatred of their own needs onto others. As a result they ignore the needs of others.
2. Those who are so absorbed in their own desires and needs they exclude others which is a form of narcissism.
People who can’t hear YES are the Avoidants.
• They set personalboundaries against receiving care of others.
• Say NO to the good.
• It is the inability to ask for help, to recognise ones own needs, to let others in.
• They withdraw when in need.
• At the heart of the problem is a confusion of personalboundaries as walls.
• They experience their legitimate wants and problems as something bad, destructive, or shameful.
Functional and Relational PersonalBoundaries
• Functional refers to a persons inability to complete a task, project or job.
• Relational boundaries refers to the inability to speak the truth to another.
Ten Laws of PersonalBoundaries
The law of sowing and reaping
• Cause and affect is a basic law of the universe.
• Boundaries cause the person doing the sowing to also do the reaping
The law of Responsibility
• We are to love one another not be one another.
• You are responsible for you and I’m responsible for me.
The Law of Power
The Law of Respect
• We need to respect the boundaries of others.
• We need to love the boundaries of others in order to command respect for our own boundaries.
• We need to treat others boundaries the way we want them to treat ours.
The Law of Motivation
• False motives and fear of others keep us from setting boundaries.
The Law of Evaluation
• Will my personalboundary hurt him or her or will it harm them?
• Hurt and harm are different.
• We need to evaluate the effects of setting personalboundaries and be responsible to the the other person.
The Law of Proactivity
• For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
• Reaction phases are necessary but not sufficient for the establishment of boundaries.
• Proactive people show you what they love, what they want, what they purpose, and what they stand for.
• These proactive people are very different from those who are known by what they hate, what they don’t like, what they stand against, and what they will not do.
The Law of Envy
• Envy defines “good’ as “what I do not possess”, and hates the good that it has.
• Envy is a self perpetuating cycle.
Boundaryless people feel empty and unfulfilled. They look at another’s sense of fullness and feel envious.
• This time and energy needs to be spent on taking responsibility for their lack of doing something about it.
The Law of Activity
• Human beings are responders and initiators. Many times we have personalboundary problems because we lack initiative – the ability to propel ourselves into life. We need to respond to invitations and push ourselves into life.
• We must not shrink back passively, our boundaries can only be created by our being active and aggressive.
The Law of Exposure
• Our boundaries need to be made visible to others and communicated to them in relationship.
• We have many boundary problems because of relational fears. We are beset by fears of guilt, not being liked, loss of love, loss of connection, loss of approval, receiving anger, being known , and so on.
• Because of these fears, we try to have secret personalboundaries. We withdraw passively and quietly, instead of communicating an honest NO to someone we love.
• We secretly resent instead of telling someone that we are angry about how they have hurt us.
• Often we will privately endure the pain of someone’s irresponsibility instead of telling them how their behaviour affects us and other loved ones, information that would be helpful to their soul.
Common PersonalBoundary Myths
If I set PersonalBoundaries I’m being selfish.
• Appropriate boundaries actually increase our ability to care about others.
If I begin setting boundaries I will be hurt by others.
• It is possible that others will become angry at our boundaries and attack and withdraw from us, some will welcome them; some will hate them.
• Those people in our lives who can respect our boundaries will love our wills, our opinions, our separateness.
• Those who can’t respect our personalboundaries are telling us that they don’t love our NO. They only love our Yes, our compliance.
If I set PersonalBoundaries, I will hurt others.
• Appropriate boundaries don’t control, attack, or hurt anyone. They simply prevent your treasures from being taken at the wrong time.
PersonalBoundaries mean that I am angry.
• Anger tells us that our boundaries have been violated.
When others set personalboundaries it injures me.
• Having to accept the personalboundaries of others is certainly not pleasant. None of us enjoys hearing the word NO.
PersonalBoundaries cause guilt.
• This idea comes from “because we have received something we owe something”. What do we owe to those who are kind to us, those who have genuinely cared for us? We owe them thanks, that’s it.
• We need to distinguish here between those “who give to get” and those who truly give selflessly.
PersonalBoundaries are permanent, and I am afraid of burning my bridges.
• It’s important to understand that your NO is always subject to you. You own your own boundaries.
• We can change and negotiate our personalboundaries subject to the other persons response, whether they respond maturely and lovingly or not.
Resistance to PersonalBoundaries
Angry reactions
• The most common resistance one gets.
• When they hear NO they have the most common reaction a two year old has when deprived of something.
• The person who is angry is the one with the problem.
• Dont allow them to get you angry.
• Make sure you have a support system in place
• View anger realistically, it is only a feeling the other has inside them it cannot get inside you.
• Be prepared to use physical distance and other limits that enforce consequences.
• Sometimes the hard truth is that they wont talk to you anymore or they will leave the relationship because they cant control you anymore. This is a true risk.
Guilt messages
• No weapon in the arsenal of a controlling person is as strong as guilt messages.
• Guilt messages are given to manipulate and control.
• Guilt messages are really anger in disguise.
• Guilt messages hide sadness and hurt.
• Do not justify your choice.
Physical resistance
• This is common in abusive relationships.
Pain of others
• It is hard to see the growing pains of the ones we love.
• Remember your limit is helping them.
Blamers
• Blamers act as if your NO is killing them and they will react with “how could you do this to me”.
• Listen to the nature of the other ones complaints; if they are trying to blame you for something they should take responsibility for, confront them.
Real needs
• These are the instances where people are in real need and you really want to give, however, you would burn out if you did.
Forgiveness and Reconciliation
• We do not open up to the other party until we have seen that they have truly owned their part of the problem.
• We communicate that “while we have forgiven we do not trust them yet as they haven't proven theyr'e trustworthy.
How to measure success
Resentment
• One of the first signs that we are beginning to develop good personalboundaries is a sense of resentment, frustration, or anger at the subtle and not-so-subtle violations in our life. These are to alert us to violations.
Change of tastes
• Becoming drawn to people who can hear our NO.
Rejoicing in the Guilty feelings
Rejoicing in the absence of Guilty feelings.
Practicing baby NOs
Practicing grown up NOs
Loving the personalboundaries of others
• IM SAD YOUR NOT BAD
Freeing our NO and our Yes
• Yes is as easy as No and we can change our mind
Value driven goal setting
THANKYOU TO DR HENRY CLOUD AND DR JOHN TOWNSEND....
Personalboundaries build our Self-esteem
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