What does it mean to have or set up healthy boundaries to you?  This topic used to confuse me a bit.  I felt I needed to shut out people that I genuinely cared about to keep from depleting my energy. Or, cut them out of my life completely for this to work. After I understood self-love and self-care, it was important to learn the real meaning behind healthy boundaries. Maybe these tips can help you.

Boundaries serve you in these ways:

They help you to show others how you expect to be treated. They show what you will tolerate and what you will not.

They also help you define your personal space. This happens for your physical and your mental space alike. From this space, you get to be the most authentic version of yourself.  You will not need to operate under the influence of others’ expectations.

Boundaries allow us to feel safe and respected both physically and emotionally. Honoring our limits helps us to take better care of ourselves, builds trust, prevents burnout, and infuses more meaning and authenticity into our relationships. Healthy relationships are key to successful boundaries.

Here are a my favorite tips for helping you to establish setting healthy boundaries.

1. Listen to what your body is telling you.

Your body will always give you signals when you are near a personal limit. Notice if you feel your jaw tighten, you cross your arms or clinch a fist. Maybe you start to squirm, or you break into a sweat. Perhaps you feel it in your throat or stomach? Whatever the clue, honor what your body tells you and take some time to explore.

If you were not raised with clear and consistent expectations, boundaries may be a new concept for you. I often find those that have been raised in homes with alcoholics, drug users and domestic violence occurred or was the norm often feel guilty about fulfilling their own wants and needs.

2. Be clear about what you desire.

Take some time to write a list of priorities and compare it to where you spend your time and energy to assess if you need to make any adjustments. This will make it easier to communicate your needs to others.  It helps you also to understand your values. It helps you to determine your Yes and No’s for you, and not for someone else. This is where I use “Why” a lot when getting to the root of issues with clients.  You may need to look at your why’s after listing your priorities of what is important to you.

3. Communication is key.

When you set a boundary and in communicating your boundaries, it is important to make your message clear. If you muddy the waters, it isn’t clear to others. Let me give you a couple of examples:

Let’s say someone asks you to give them a hand in something this coming weekend. Maybe this is not something you do not like to do or maybe it’s something you are not comfortable with.  Read each example which is a NO and which one sets up a boundary and which one muddies the water.

“I’m sorry, I am not able to help you this weekend.”

“Oh my gosh! I forgot this weekend was my friends daughter’s wedding! I really want to help, but I totally spaced it. I need to be better at jotting things down for me to remember them. I have been so forgetful lately. Please don’t be upset or mad at me! I feel terrible about not being able to help.”

Pretty obvious, huh??? We all have found ourselves doing the second, correct?  Remember it is ok to say “I can’t”, “No, but thanks”,“No thank you”.  You do not need to explain yourself or offer excuses.

4. Expect resistance

When you have allowed people to not respect your boundaries, and you start setting them, you may get pushback. Most people don’t want to enforce boundaries in fear of confrontation or conflict. You will have some that will not want to adhere to your newfound ways of protecting yourself. I have found that if someone is truly not respecting your boundaries, they were much needed! When manipulative people get angry at your set of rules, stay the course and be firm. Being uncomfortable is normal when dealing with others that disrespect your boundaries.

5. Some good tips.

You need to make sure that you are not setting boundaries to hurt, control or punish others. Boundaries are actually a great form of self-care and self-love. They are established for your well being and often others find it is for their benefit too. But it is not why we establish them.

Boundaries are set up to help protect you from a multitude of things. They are to remind you that your health, ideas, emotions, dreams, needs, etc matter and you have self-worth. It is about what is best for you and not about enforcement of others.

6. Be flexible and know that things change

Once you have a boundary in place, know that it may change. People change, grow and learn. As you evolve and others adapt you might need to adjust or change your boundary. If your boundary is no longer serving you and it doesn’t feel right to you, it is time to tweak or change or maybe even delete. Setting boundaries is an ongoing process. I often help people to understand where their rules are concerning different beliefs. This is helpful in understanding when they are being set for you and they are healthy boundaries.

7. Respect others’ boundaries and create consequences for yours.

Often, we cross boundaries without knowing. If you feel like you have encroached someone’s mental or physical space, ask them. Hopefully, they will be honest and not use language to confuse you. Look for physical clues….they won’t look you in the eye, the fold their arms, they back up while speaking to them or they just seem uncomfortable. As you set your own and are firm with them, you will notice others too.

If you are firm about a boundary and someone simply will not abide by it, you will need to ask yourself if this person is someone you have to be around. If you work with them you may need to be creative. If this is someone in your life by choice, you may have some difficult decisions to make.

The bottom line is boundaries are tools used to be the best version of you.  It is also a way to form healthy relationships with others.

If you need more clarity, I am happy to help! Thanks for reading.

Sending light, love and hugs,

Penny