Setting Healthy Boundaries

What is a boundary? A boundary is a definite place where our responsibility ends and another person’s responsibility begins. It stops us from doing things for others that they should do for themselves. Why do we need to set healthy boundaries? It is because, a) each one of us has come with our own agenda and in order to pursue our goal, we need space, b) it is important for our psychological growth and spiritual liberation, c) our introspection must be done which contributes to our personal growth, d) setting boundaries for others help us understand and respect the boundaries of others and lastly e) migration from independent to interdependent stage is easier when we have boundaries.

Our personal boundaries protect our inner core, identity, and our right to choices. The first step in setting boundaries is to know and understand ourselves. Self-care is an essential need for us to pursue happiness. It might involve physical, emotional, social, personal, financial, and spiritual independence. In every friendship/relationship, open communication plays an important role. Once this happens, we begin to have trust & support each other. It is also imperative to set boundaries if we like to have a fair and free friendship/relationship.

Every boundary has three stages. In case of physical boundary, we have comfortable, intolerable and abusive stages, in emotion boundaries, we have convenient, questionable and violative stages, in psychological boundaries, we have dignifying, dominant and fearful stages and lastly in spiritual/intellectual boundaries, we have knowledgeable, incoherent and conflicting stages. We have come across so-called saints locking up devotees crossing all the boundaries mentioned above. Even boundaries keep growing more when we move from our space to family to friends to acquaintances to community and finally strangers.

How do we find whether we have healthy or lack such boundaries? If we say “no” without guilt, ask what we want or need, take care of ourselves, saying “yes” only when we want but not out of obligation or to please someone, conduct according to our own values and beliefs, feel safe to express difficult emotions and have disagreements, feel supported to pursue our own goals, treated as equal, take responsibility for our own and not responsible for other’s happiness, in tune with our own feelings and know who we are, what we believe, and like.

On the contrary, if we lack boundaries, we fail to speak up when mistreated, give away too much of our time, we agree when we actually feel like disagreeing, feel guilty for dedicating time for ourselves, feel taken for granted by others, have toxic relationships, have chronic fear about what others think of us, share too much details about our life with others, feel like a victim constantly and attract people who try to control or dominate us.

We need to define the boundaries, communicate it clearly to everyone around us, explain it simply without any regret or over-explain your boundaries and lastly set consequences if someone violates such boundaries. Even when we are in social media, we need to be aware of the environment in which we mix, understand who we are connecting with, who we really engage in response to their posts and finally what we share with others.

Lastly, giving away the key to our happiness to someone else is a red flag. We cannot let someone else control our lives. The world is round so that friendship/relationship may encircle it. Even some part of our life is controlled by someone, it is a problem. The best friendship/relationship runs parallelly like railroads. It can run for miles without stepping on each other. That is truly a good sign of friendship/relationship where the boundaries are drawn and well understood.

 

Dear Hari Sir,

I didn’t say every boundary is good, bad and worse. I was only describing stages of boundary such as convenient, intolerable and abusive. They are not walls with iron doors with locks preventing others from establishing relationship with us. They are just fence protecting our core values and principles not letting anyone to walkover us. In my view, they are essential. I am not suggesting that we should not adjust or adapt with others. At the same time, there may be somethings we may not be able to compromise.

 

Dear Sabitha,

You said it better than what I did in my earlier response. As you said rightly, saying no is the hardest part as we are used to saying "Yes" or say "no" in a roundabout way. Anger, Fear and Guilt are the three factors that destroy our growth and development. Emotionally, we should not feel anything when we say "No" with a clean heart. If we say "Yes' to something we should have said "No", then, we spend a considerable amount of time regretting that decision and it takes away a lot of our time.

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala:

I always welcome your comments and suggestions. Boundaries are a little different from enhancing our circle and shower love to everyone. For example, showering love to the husband's family enhances a woman's relationship with that family. At the same time, it is her responsibility to maintain her self-respect so that she is not treated as a doormat as it would affect that relationship. Loving the spouse with the whole heart is strengthening the relationship but letting the spouse abuse is weakening the relationship.

Even here in IL, we write to each other respecting our boundaries when someone presents their personal problems asking opinions from other members. Many members respectfully suggest steps to solve the problem without stepping into the toes of the original poster. When a handful, begins judging the member who asked for the opinion, other members correct him/her reminding the boundaries one can't cross.

Loving a person is not the opposite of setting boundaries, in my view. In fact, it strengthens love for one another.