5 Boundaries for Regaining Lost Power

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As kids, we hardly know what is good or bad for us and are always guarded by our parents. Once we reach adulthood, much determined to leave our nests, ready for our flight, we are introduced to the harsh realities of the world and bogged down by failed relationships, demanding jobs, identity crisis, peer pressure, and the list goes on and on.

What has changed from our peaceful childhood days to turbulent adulthood is nothing, but our guards. There is no one to protect us from the adversities of the world. We are all by ourselves, responsible for every step, decision, job, relationship, etc. We become too pervasive and do not differentiate where we begin and end. So, to protect ourselves from the world outside, start constructing walls around us. This blocks opportunity, restricts learning, thereby contributing more to our distress and sufferings. While walls are rigid and restrict growth, boundaries are like membranes that keep us intact by letting the good in and the bad out.

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What is a personal boundary?

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A solid boundary defines the vague periphery of our territory. It helps us to reclaim our lives and protect us from being manipulated, used, dominated, controlled, or violated by others. Creating a healthy personal boundary is significant for maintaining one’s integrity, energy, health, and relationships. The act of defining boundaries is very subtle as we do not want to hurt others, but we want to secure ourselves. While it may seem simple and straight-forward, the act of setting boundaries in different aspects of our life becomes very challenging in real life.

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Indicators that you lack personal boundaries

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• We face difficulty while saying ‘No’.
• People-pleasing is our second nature.
• Lack of assertiveness in our day to day dealings.
• People are all over us and often take us for granted.
• We neglect our own choices, preferences, and emotions.
• We overshare our personal life with others.
• We are always worried about what others think of us.
• Accepting advances, physical touch, and intimacy we are not comfortable with.
• Letting others define us or make decisions on our behalf.
• We explain too much while saying ‘No’.
  

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Major Types of personal boundaries

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Personal boundaries that we need in our day to day life and are must for keeping our self worth intact –

Material Boundaries

The limits and restrictions that we impose on the use of our basic resources and valuables like time, money, energy, and tangible possessions. Such boundaries protect our personal belongings and ensure that we are not over-utilizing or overspending our valuables. Material boundaries are the invisible barriers build in the context of –

• Things and possessions we do not feel comfortable lending (Eg – Comb, Towel, Toothbrush, etc.).
• The time we can spend on helping others without affecting our personal goals.
• Limits on favours, help, or services we can offer.

These boundaries are very common in nature and are mostly known and implemented by most of us in our daily lives. We all have our material boundaries in place until and unless we are a people-pleaser. 

Physical Boundaries

As the name suggests, physical boundaries are the limits that protect our personal space, privacy, and physical body. Such boundaries vary from person to person and depend on our personal preferences as we are more comfortable with some people and not at ease with others. Physical boundaries impose limits on our –

• Sexual life and intimacy with our partners;
• Personal space in the form of the house, room, etc.
• The extent of physical touch with our friends and relatives. (Example – hugging, handshakes etc.).

These barriers are also self-explanatory and general. We all have them and follow them based on our personal choice, preference, culture, and nature.

Mental Boundaries

Most of us suffer from mental boundaries. Due to their intangible form, they are hard to define. It is generally easy to protect ourselves from the world out but, what about our negative self-talk, internal conflicts, judgments, guilt, etc.? Most of our time and energy is consumed by our internal demon (the unwanted thoughts). Some of us possess amazing talent but are always in the grip of this internal demon that often stops us from realizing our true potential. As per this negative self-talk, we aren’t enough and yet ready to face the world.

We all require strong guards in place when this internal sucker knock on the door of our minds. Mental boundaries also include confinements concerning our

• Values – Core principles we believe in.
• Opinions – Our core assumptions and views on any subject matter.
• Beliefs – Our faith and trust in us or others.

Among all the types, this boundary is the hardest to keep and maintain as it requires our conscious efforts. Also, I think it’s an art and involves deeper observation of the functioning and reactions of our brain in different circumstances. 

Spiritual Boundaries

What exactly spiritual boundaries are? Well, in reality, most of us are not truly awakened. When I say awakened, I don’t mean enlightened. Awakened is a state when our awareness expands and we no longer operate from the mind and even if we use it, our soul acts as a watchdog observing the acts and functioning of our mind. But most of us do not operate from an awakened state thereby allowing our brain to continuously kill the voice of our conscience.

By spiritual boundary, I mean the boundary for our ever chatty, dominating brain. It creates a barrier between our mind and soul. We often listen to our brain ignoring our heart, soul and intuition. Sometimes, decisions are to be taken from the latter rather than the former. Like creativity often requires us to work within the circumference of our soul rather than the brain. Hence, this boundary distinguishes our mind from the soul and thereby promotes decision making based on our conscience by switching off the brain.

Emotional Boundaries

Emotional boundaries and Mental boundaries overlap each other and are interlinked. When we ponder on any negative thought for a long time our curbed emotions in the form of guilt, resentment, sufferings are triggered. Weak mental boundaries continuously feed negative emotions through negative thoughts and self-talk. This brings our deep curbed emotions to the surface thereby making us vulnerable, weak and reactive.

Also, sometimes our emotional afflictions are the result of somebody else’s feelings. This happens especially in the case of empaths and HSPs. They pick other’s emotions and process them as their own. Emotional boundaries help us to separate our feelings from other people’s feelings, maintaining our identity in codependent relationships. Also, such boundaries make us aware of our personal feelings and choices.

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Why some people suffer from weak personal boundaries?

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• Toxic and dominating parenting often raises a child with weak boundaries and low confidence.
• The joint family set up makes us accountable to too many people, thereby making us a people pleaser as an adult.
• Ambitious, overachiever siblings, act as a yardstick for parents to define our future goals, which further makes us indecisive and dependent.
• Overburdened childhood often gives us less time and room for introspection due to which we ignore our existential requirements of self-worth and self-love.
• Emotional manipulation by our near and dear ones often results in weak boundaries or no boundaries.
• Faulty moral values and teachings, like standing up for our rights or being assertive are selfish acts or disrespect to elders and parents.
• Defective schooling where a free mindset or questioning attitude is considered as rebellious nature by teachers.
• Codependent relationships.

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Codependent relationship and its impact on personal boundaries?

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Codependent relationships are the ones in which one partner derives his/her sense of self-worth from the acceptance and approval of the other. The Codependent is in a toxic one-sided relationship and lacks individual interest, opinion and life. He/She is thoroughly dependent on his/her other counterparts for survival. As a result of which the other partner takes him/her for granted and dominates him/her. 

Often these relationships are found in husband and wife and/ or between parents and their kids. It has been observed that in such relationships there are generally no boundaries. Codependents often consider their other counterpart as their extended version and take responsibility for their inappropriate behaviour.

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How to create healthy personal boundaries?

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Although, I feel that it is an art and some people are born with this life skill. But with practice, we can master this art and make our life better by taking charge of it rather than being vulnerable.

Self-love and our right to boundaries

Self-love has gained a lot of importance in the past few years. We often read and hear about it here and there. But do we know its deeper meaning? Self-Love is all about respecting our limits and core needs. It is knowing our right to have healthy personal boundaries and implementing the same as and when the need arises. So, the first step in the process of setting boundaries is knowing our right to have them and accepting the same wholeheartedly. As there will be times when we will feel bad, guilty or doubt ourselves for having these boundaries.

Defining our limits by ‘Exploring’

Till the time we completely know ourselves, we won’t be able to define our limits. We need to explore life, introspect our behaviour, revisit our past encounters and experiences for a better knowledge of ourselves. Analyze different scenarios where we had suffered or situations where someone overstepped our boundaries. In short, we need to be well aware of our emotional pain points or the triggers that impact our self worth as a person or the red flags that make us compromise our core values. These red flags will act as a benchmark in defining the territory of our boundaries.

Profound Observation and Conscious Living

As mental, spiritual and emotional boundaries are the ones that we set on ourselves; they are more internal. These boundaries are maintained by conscious living and continuously tracking and improving our behaviour in different situations and circumstances. In short, we need self obligation and a conscious effort for such boundaries. 

Defining the extent of accountability 

We generally owe some explanation to our closed circle (our friends, family and relatives). We need to have clarity regarding our accountability and the extent to which we are answerable to them. It will save people-pleaser from spending that extra time on giving explanations while denying any work or commitment. Also, this will guide us in deciding the extent of our boundaries with different people.

Look for instances of over-commitment

There are times when we for the sake of making others happy over-commit or go beyond our bandwidth. We think we are helping our loved ones but by going that extra mile, we gradually become frustrated by stretching ourselves to accommodate that extra help. If such help is a one time job then it’s fine but if this has become our life pattern this frustration will ultimately ruin our relationship with that person. We need to keep a track of such instances for preserving our time and energy.

Being assertive

Being assertive is something that comes naturally to practical people. But for a people pleaser, this virtue needs to be practised for years before it becomes their normal nature. People pleasers feel bad when they say ‘No’ to someone, it doesn’t matter whether that person is close to them or is a stranger. I remember how bad I used to feel after saying ‘No’. So, instead of saying ‘No’, I always used to take up that job in hand. I thought instead of wasting my time in guilt, it’s better to channelize the same by completing that job. I was wrong, as I was setting wrong expectations and giving wrong indications to the people around me. Indirectly, I was exploiting myself and was allowing others as well. We need to be tough and assertive while protecting and maintaining our boundaries. Otherwise, the whole purpose of setting boundaries will be defeated.

Clear communication  

I had learned in one of my Web-based Learning sessions that while working on any assignment if, at any point, our boss comes to us with some additional work, instead of over-committing, it’s better to clearly communicate our commitments to him. Also, clear the fact that we will help him after finishing our existing job. This way he’ll not feel offended and we will save ourselves from the unnecessary workload. The same can be implemented in different life scenarios.

Detaching ourselves from other’s expectations

It is the final step, once we have said ‘No’ or communicated our unwillingness to take up that extra commitment. We ought to stop thinking about what others will think of us, as a result of our denial. Initially, it will be tough for us but gradually we will master this art. Also, if we are not detaching ourselves from ‘what will people think thought’, there’s no point in saying ‘No’. As ultimately, we will waste our time by feeling bad and holding the guilt. Hence, for maintaining healthy boundaries we need to be tough-skinned.

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Final thoughts on Boundaries

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Boundaries are not an act of selfishness. They are not for hurting others but to protect ourselves from being exploited, abused and exposed. Also, we need to ensure that our boundaries are neither too rigid nor too porous. Healthy limits are always flexible and mould according to our needs and circumstances.

Never fear what others will think of us, what will be their reaction or their disliking for our boundaries. Remember, it is their false and unending expectations from us that is the prime cause of their sufferings. Any healthy and sturdy relationship will encourage our take on boundaries and will thrive in thick or thin.

Limits are not set for others but are for ourselves.

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