How to set healthy boundaries

What is a limit? In a physical sense, it’s easy to understand that a boundary marks where your property begins and your neighbor’s property ends. You are responsible for your property, but not for anything that happens on your neighbor’s.

While not as easy to mark, our emotional boundaries also mark where our responsibilities begin and end. Too many people feel out of control of their lives because they don’t have good emotional boundaries.

Boundaries are like fences in that they keep the bad things out and the good things in. This means that you protect yourself from things or people that can hurt you and take care of things or people that help you. Notice I said fences and not walls. A wall means nothing goes through either side, while a fence allows for flow.

Boundaries are boundaries or barriers that protect you, your time, and your energy. When your boundaries are well defined, they help prevent conflict in your relationships. They are like your personal rules or policies. Laura Stack says it very well, “setting limits is a way of defining who you are and what you are about, what you will and will not do, what is acceptable to you and what is not.”

Setting boundaries means owning and taking responsibility for your personal choices and their consequences. You make the decision, you take responsibility, and you can make a different decision if you don’t like the consequences. You can’t control other people’s behavior, but you can control the extent to which it affects you. In other words, control your exposure to people.

For example, I don’t allow people to make racist comments around me. Now I can’t control what they say, but I can control whether I keep listening. Another example is that I don’t allow anyone to talk to me in an abusive way. Again, I can’t control what they say, but I’ll warn them before I hang up the phone. It’s their right to say what they want, but it’s also my right not to sit there and be a doormat.

Here are some physiological signs that your limits are weak:

Knots in the stomach when you agree to do some things

anger and resentment

deep feeling of dread

Being surprised or being called out for something someone said

The first step to creating stronger boundaries is learning to say no.

Remember that if the reaction to your setting limits is not good (moodiness, anger, etc.), it’s not about you, it’s about them. That feeling belongs on your side of the “fence.”

Write these 3 sentences on a piece of paper and write as many statements under each one as you can think of:

1. People can’t…

2. I have the right to ask…

3. To protect my time and energy…

Here’s to setting healthy limits!