Boundaries: What They Are & What They Look Like in Practice
Stock image of a person’s shoes standing on a line on the ground. Symbolic of Setting and Maintaining Boundaries.
Boundaries
Broadly speaking, boundaries are limits we set with ourselves and communicate with others in order to protect our energy, time, and physical and mental wellbeing. Boundaries are recognizing that we cannot be everything for everyone, everywhere, at all times… no matter how much we may want to be all that. Instead, we must recognize that by knowing our limits and communicating boundaries with others, we are acknowledging the importance of our own wellbeing in order to be the friend, family member, and partner that we want to be while simultaneously not depleting ourselves of our own needs.
The Boundary Spectrum
I find it helpful to discuss boundaries as existing on a spectrum, ranging from porous boundaries to rigid boundaries, with “healthy” boundaries somewhere in the middle range. Often, when we are used to holding boundaries on either polar end of the spectrum, we can feel like setting a different boundary in the “healthy range” is uncomfortable. Well buckle up, because most of what we are going to talk about on this blog is learning to get a little uncomfortable so that we can feel even more comfortable in ourselves.
Porous Boundaries
Porous boundaries look like giving more of yourself that you’d actually like to be giving. Porous boundaries often lead us to getting over involved in others’ lives. Porous boundaries include oversharing in a new relationship, over-explaining yourself or your reasoning, becoming very involved in someone else’s problem-solving process, fearing rejection if you don’t do whatever it is that someone is asking of you, struggling with saying “no” to others requests, and overextending your time, energy, and physical or mental wellbeing for the sake of others. People with porous boundaries often get called “people pleasers” because they want to meet the needs of others, which typically comes at the expense of meeting their own needs.
Rigid Boundaries
Rigid boundaries are on the opposite end of the boundary spectrum from porous boundaries. Rigid boundaries look like an avoidance of intimacy (usually for fear of the possibility of rejection), difficulties being vulnerable and sharing about yourself or your needs with others, feeling very protective of your personal information, having difficulties asking for or accepting help from others, and keeping others at a distance which can include having a small circle of friends that feel more like acquaintances. People with rigid boundaries can be hard to get to know, even though they usually want close relationships with others.
Healthy Boundaries
Healthy Boundaries exist in the middle range of the boundary spectrum. Healthy boundaries look like valuing your beliefs and not disregarding your beliefs or values for others. Healthy boundaries include sharing personal information in a balanced manner (not over or under sharing), building trust gradually over time in your relationships, knowing and communicating your wants and needs with others, and both saying “no” and accepting when others say “no”. People with healthy boundaries have typically had conversations with themselves in which they explore and define their values and limits so that they can more readily communicate those boundaries and limits with others.
Boundaries in Practice
Let’s look at an example together. Setting the scene: You are planning to meet a friend for coffee this afternoon and they flake on you at the last minute. You just arrived to the coffee shop and now your friend isn’t coming. How would you respond?
Get upset, not tell your friend how you feel, and agree that you can meet them 2 hours later for coffee when they suggest it, even though that will mean you have to miss out on an exercise class at the gym you were planning to attend this evening.
Get upset, not tell your friend how you feel, and silence their texts or calls for the next few days.
Get upset and share with your friend that you are sad they cancelled on you at the last minute and that you prefer they communicate any changes in their plans with more advance notice, when possible, in the future.
Which response did you lean toward?
Option 1 suggests porous boundaries and a tendency to juggle your life events based on others’ needs or wants. This option may leave you feeling exhausted and like you have little control in your life over the events that occur and how people treat you.
Option 2 suggests rigid boundaries and a tendency to clam up or avoid communicating how you were affected by your friends’ behaviors. This option doesn’t give you or your friend the opportunity to repair the hurt that just occurred.
Option 3 suggests healthy boundaries by communicating your feelings and needs with your friend so that you can both learn how to show up for one another, within reasonable limits. Sometimes communicating assertively in our relationships can feel scary, especially when it’s a new-to-us way of communicating with others. Sharing with others how we feel and what we need can help repair the hurt that was caused and help prevent situations like that from arising in the future. Communicating our boundaries with others helps teach them how we want to be treated and how we plan to treat others as well. We can create an even stronger relationship with others when we set boundaries in consistent manners. With practice, it definitely gets easier.
Boundaries Can Look Different Across Contexts
It’s important to remember that our boundaries may look different, meaning slightly more porous or slightly more rigid, while still in the “healthy” range depending on:
the type of relationship we have the other person,
the cultural customs that are shared or different between you and the other person,
or the context/setting in which the behaviors are occurring.
We hold different boundaries with folks who are our friends versus our acquaintances, or people who are our family versus our coworkers/bosses.
We typically hold different boundaries across cultures, for example: most Americans greet each other with a handshake compared to Spaniards who greet each other with a kiss on the cheek.
We may also choose to uphold different boundaries depending on the setting, such as talking about our weekend plans with our friend when out for coffee together but choosing to keep conversation about work tasks when at a professional networking event with that same friend.
A Final Note on Boundaries
It’s important to remember that typically we learn to respond to others with porous, rigid, or healthy boundaries from past experiences of not liking how someone reacted to us or treated us when we set a boundary. Sometimes we learn certain boundaries from the behaviors that were modeled to us by people in our community or by cultural customs. No matter where you learned your tendency to respond with certain boundaries or which type of boundaries you tend to use, you can always choose to make a change. It takes conscious effort and awareness, but is absolutely possible! If you found yourself feeling uncomfortable with how you hold boundaries as you read through this post, hopefully after reading, you have a better idea of how you might want to shift your boundaries toward that “healthy” range.
Disclaimer: Please note that the information offered via the Onward & Upward Blog, written and managed by Dr. Allison Meins, is not, nor is it intended to be, therapy or psychological advice. Established therapeutic relationship communications will be managed via telephone or confidential email.
