Last week I shared a blog that my mentor Carolyn Resnick had written on boundaries. This is a subject close to my heart and you might recall me writing about my experiences of setting boundaries with my little yearling, Bracken. Increasingly I’m finding more and more of my clients struggling with the issue of setting boundaries. A boundary is a limit or rule you set on how you allow others to treat you. Our boundaries help define who we are and how we want to be treated. They tell others what we will and won’t accept.
When you don’t set boundaries, a bunch of problems show up for you. The first is the problem of anger. If you have problems with feeling angry, resentful or irritated by others much of the time, or if the intensity of your anger is beyond what is really called for by the situation, you probably don’t set and enforce boundaries. Why? Because anger is a normal reaction when someone violates your boundaries. Whether the issue is someone walking all over you and treating badly or just cutting you off in traffic, anger is one of the ways we react when our boundaries have been violated. When you don’t set boundaries, that anger festers, and eventually explodes. (Think of the buildup of pressure in a volcano if you want to know how this works).
The second problem is another emotion–hurt. The emotion of hurt is also a response to having your boundaries violated. If you are someone who feels hurt by others, you probably are not enforcing your boundaries. Whether you are being rejected by others or just have your feelings hurt from time to time, you may not be enforcing your boundaries in a way that tells people how to treat you the way you deserve.
A boundary is like a rule. You are telling others what the rules are about how they act around you. When you tolerate bad behavior, you are allowing others to treat you badly. Usually, you are not enforcing your boundaries. In some cases this ends in physical abuse and actual physical injury. In others, the abuse is verbal and emotional, and the injury is to self-worth and self-esteem. Often it is the very people we love and who claim to love us who violate our boundaries in the worst ways. We don’t do ourselves or them any favors when we tolerate it.
Love certainly complicates boundary issues. Often people erroneously believe that if they love someone they don’t have to set boundaries. They may believe that they shouldn’t ever say “no” or that they should share everything. Wrong. It is important to set boundaries with those we love. Think for a minute about your children or your horse. Despite the fact that you love your 3 year old, you won’t allow him to have chocolate instead of meals, stay up all night or choke his baby sister. Your love for him makes you set boundaries on how he behaves. The same is true for your horse. Not setting boundaries allows your horse to walk all over you and this can become dangerous.
To tackle boundary issues, first of all, we need to be willing to set boundaries. We need to be willing to tell others how we want to be treated. But it isn’t just how we want to be treated. For us to set boundaries, we need to communicate that the boundary is about how we demand to be treated. For some people, telling them is enough. They may have violated your boundaries because they didn’t know how you wanted to be treated. They didn’t know what was important to you. Once you tell them, they do their best to comply.
But sometimes you can set boundaries, and others won’t respect them. In those cases, you have to enforce them. What that means is that you have to stand firm. Just as when your child throws a temper tantrum in the grocery store to get a candy bar, people in your life will “temper tantrum” about your boundaries. They do this by ignoring them, or by telling you how unreasonable you are to have set them in the first place. They hope that you’ll give it up and let them do what they want to do. Sometimes they use “emotional blackmail,” trying to make you think that they won’t like you if you enforce those boundaries. But you have to do it anyway.
One important thing to know is that you don’t have to get angry when you enforce your boundaries. You can simply make statements. “I don’t like it when you____________.” “I’m not going to stay here and allow you to treat me this way.” “It isn’t OK to do that.” You need to be firm, but you don’t have to shout or be angry. If you feel determined about setting your boundaries and making them stick, other people will understand that you mean it and that you will follow through.
After all, that is what setting and enforcing boundaries is all about–following through and demanding that others treat you the way you want to be treated.
Adapted from Linda Pucci – Inner Resources
Julia Felton (aka The Business Wrangler) is the founder of Business HorsePower. Business leaders, entrepreneurs and executives hire her to accelerate their business performance by harnessing the energy of their people to work more collaboratively together. By aligning purpose with actions the team achieves exponential results as everyone starts pulling in the same direction.
Julia believes that business is a force for good and through designing purpose-driven businesses that leverage the laws of nature, and the herd, you can create businesses founded on the principles of connection, collaboration and community that make a significant impact in the world.
