’ve frequently met people who believe their job is to “be nice,” and they wind up with a haunted look. They feel forced to remain, required to tolerate. Compassion is not part of the picture.
My clients frequently come to me with their own examples. They’ve had members or clients who don’t seem to “get it,” and they’re full of frustration. “They aren’t respecting my boundaries!” they fume, as if everyone on this planet has been pre-programmed with a code of acceptable behavior, and only the insane ever deviate from that.
But… we all talk like that, don’t we?
If you have a boundary-crosser in your life, I can give you a quick and easy tactical solution: Just say, “I want to talk to you and I care about you, but in the grocery store I can’t give you the kind of attention you deserve. Let’s make an appointment to talk at my office.” BOOM. Done.
Easy, isn’t it? Unfortunately there are too many factors that solution doesn’t take into account.
- Some of us honestly believe we’re just supposed to let people have their way. Some of us believe we aren’t valuable enough to have our own boundaries.
- Some folks feel obligated because of their privileges and talents, almost too valuable to say no.
- Some have no boundaries around any of their work commitments.“Get it done now” is the only survival solution at hand.
- This example assumes you have a professional reason for giving people emotional support. If you don’t, you may not want to give them any of your time at all.
- And we often are just trying to get our own ego needs met by meeting the needs of others.
All of these internal realities can keep you doing things that don’t meet anyone’s needs, including your own.. When you aren’t aware of yourself, that keeps you stuck.
You have to learn to establish and protect adequate boundaries before you can truly take care of yourself.
Find Healing and Compassion In Your Own Struggles
As tempting as it may be to try and hold the world together, know that’s a job for some other god than you. When you feel dwarfed by the enormity of the task before you, you may try to overcompensate by saving everyone, but this is poisonous to your relationships. You can’t share a common humanity with someone you see as a charity case.
“Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals.” –Pema Chodron
Theology writer Henri Nouwen wrote about “the wounded healer,” someone who accepts their mistakes and learns from them, and shares those learnings compassionately. It is in your doubts, fears, and wounds that you will find your healing power. In truly accepting and using your mistakes and pain, you give yourself grace (an odd word to non-religious folks in this modern age, Grace means something like blessings, forgiveness, and compassion all wrapped up together).
When you give yourself grace, forgiveness, and love, you inspire others around you to do the same. Isn’t that true healing?
Your boundaries give you definition
Much of who you know yourself to be is based on your boundaries. The plot of The Runaway Bride famously demonstrated this idea with the “What kind of eggs do you like?” question. When you don’t know yourself well enough, you allow others to dictate too much about who you are. Knowing that “I take lunch from 1-2 every day,” or “I leave at 3 on Thursdays so I can catch my son’s soccer game” are boundaries that help to give you definition.
Setting and protecting boundaries is important for your personal well-being. In order for you to be able to effectively help and support others, you have to take care of yourself and establish clear limits in relationships.
For instance, I had a client who knew that the best way for him to improve his team leadership would be to take an hour at the end of the day on Friday to review his week and plan the next week. However, he had a friend in the office who always dropped by and stood in the door way chatting and joking around every Friday afternoon.
Of course he could plan to do his planning at another time, but this is when it felt most right for him to do it. So, he asked his friend if they could plan to meet at a local bar at the end of the day instead of talking in the office. He clarified that this would give them plenty of time to hang out, and he wouldn’t be stuck behind his desk that whole time. And besides, it would give him a few more minutes with which he could plan out his week.
As you can see, you’ll need to communicate your boundaries to others. At the same time, be aware of and address any unhealthy dynamics in the relationships. What do I mean by that? Well, there are a couple of ways this could show up. For instance?
- That might mean that when you get yet another request for help from a family member who is quite capable of meeting their own needs, you gently remind them of their capability and tell them that you won’t be fostering their dependence on you any more.
- Or it might mean that when you sense yourself starting to accept a project only because you want to feel valuable, and not because it’s a great opportunity for you, you acknowledge to yourself that you don’t have a good reason to accept the project and instead you allow someone else to take it.
Failing to set and protect boundaries can result in enabling harmful behaviors and ultimately hindering your own growth and well-being.
Holding People Accountable is About Enforcing Boundaries
If establishing boundaries is scary, then enforcing them and holding people accountable can be terrifying. It is hard, but it is essential to get into the habit of keeping to your boundaries and holding people accountable firmly but kindly. You need to develop this habit because the pitfalls are too easy to hit.
You can fall into the habit of letting people get away with things and then feeling angry when you are being “used.” If you begin to let things slide after you’ve communicated your standards, people learn to dismiss your requests, and then it accelerates. You have to be compassionate but firm and consistent so people can rely on you and know what to expect.
You have to be mindful when practicing this because — if you aren’t careful — your discomfort over holding people accountable will morph into
- blame and guilt trips (as you seek to alleviate your own discomfort at their actions), or
- anger and resentment (because they don’t recognize your discomfort).
If this happens, you fall into the trap of attacking the person instead of simply addressing their actions.
Compassionately Request a New Behavior or Action Instead of Venting Your Frustration.
Even if the boundary you want to create has more to do with a preference than what is “right” or “wrong” behavior, you can still set a boundary. Think through your reasons for wanting the boundary. Whenever you want to say no to one circumstance it’s because you are wanting to say ‘yes’ to another. You can do that. Be clear in communicating that you are saying no to them and what they are wanting because you are saying ‘yes’ to something that is important to you.
If someone has transgressed your boundaries, you have to first make sure you’ve communicated what the boundary is. Have you articulated exactly what you expect of them, and when? Have you been clear? Clarity isn’t easy.
Have you had frustrating experiences where you’ve tried to say something and the person you were talking to seemed to hear the opposite of what you meant? (I’m sure that isn’t just me.) It’s strangely easy for communication to get all garbled up between speaker and listener. So start by finding out what they heard when you spoke. Clarify until they can tell you what they heard and it sounds to you like they really got it.
If they definitely got what you meant but still are crossing the boundary, remember that you deserve consideration and respect–and so do they. Detach the behavior from the person and address your wish that the behavior/actions change. You can still express love and compassion for the person.
A case study for communicating boundaries in professional relationships
One of my private clients (I’ll call her Monica) was a leader and teacher with a boundary crosser (I’ll call him Dan) a few months back. Dan showed up in Monica’s life as a big fan, someone who just loved what she did and everything about how she did it. Dan was on the needy side and kept turning to Monica for advice and support with his challenges. He would talk to her at meetings, attend classes with her and talk to her both before and after class, send her emails between meetings, and finally started calling her on the phone.
When Monica first told me about Dan, she described him as “my stalker.” The more she talked about him, the more the descriptions became laced with disgust and anger. I explored with her the boundaries she had in place for connecting with people, as well as her organization’s policies for relationships with members and clients. We discovered that she hadn’t communicated any boundaries, and in fact, she wasn’t sure what those boundaries really should be. And the organization had no policy in place for respectful relationships.
We talked a lot about the kind of relationship Monica wanted to have with the people she is leading, beyond just Dan. Using that vision as a blueprint, we identified the boundaries and policies she needed to communicate and protect, along with a process for communicating those decisions throughout the organization (and specifically with Dan).
After a few months of consistent communication across the organization, Dan started to own his responsibility for getting his needs met instead of relying on Monica to do it for him.
In conclusion, boundaries are essential for maintaining healthy relationships and taking care of yourself. They provide definition and help us to set clear limits with others, enabling us to effectively support and connect with those around us. Setting and enforcing boundaries can be challenging, but it is important to communicate them clearly and consistently in order to maintain respect and establish healthy dynamics in relationships. By learning to establish and protect adequate boundaries, we can better take care of ourselves and inspire others to do the same.
