Have you ever walked away after spending time with someone and noticed how you’re feeling? Maybe you feel grounded, clear in your emotions, and connected to the other person. Other times you may feel uneasy, unsettled, as though you’ve taken on some feelings that weren’t really “yours” to begin with. Or you may be uncomfortable after you’ve shared more of your feelings than felt appropriate, perhaps showing “too much” of your inner experience to someone you don’t feel very close with.
These kinds of experiences speak to our boundaries, the invisible lines that define the space between our thoughts, feelings, and needs, and those of another person. This post aims to clarify what we mean when we speak about boundaries, and how we assess their health.
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What Ineffective boundaries look like
You may have heard talk about boundaries as “good or bad”, “porous or rigid”. Or you may have heard reference to a “boundary violation,” which is when another person’s behavior feels intrusive or presumptuous, as if they are in our “space” or making decisions for us. We have different ways of identifying poor boundaries in a relationship, when we notice that either we or another person is “thin-skinned”, reactive, unpredictable, or easily swayed as a “people pleaser.” Some clinical diagnoses, including Borderline Personality Disorder, include instances where close others feel as though they are “walking on eggshells” so as not to upset a particular person. These are all ways of noting that a person, it could be you or someone you’re interacting with regularly, is having difficulty regulating their emotions, being reactive to others, and having feelings “spill over” into interactions with others.
Fostering healthy boundaries
To be most effective in our relationships and mental health, it’s important to be able to identify and manage our own internal experience. This starts with observing what is happening within our minds, hearts, and bodies, apart from what is going on for those around us. For example, if I identify my own experience in the moment as frustrated, tired, and irritable in the midst of a long day, I then have agency, or power, to identify what I need in order to cope and respond to my needs. That might involve:
taking a few quiet moments to rest between parts of my day
taking a few deep breaths before entering a meeting or phone call
giving myself some compassion
planning for some quiet time to rest and reflect later
If, on the other hand, I have not recognized the feelings going on within me, then I am more prone to “carry” them into my interactions with others, perhaps feeling as though those around me have made me frustrated and irritable, or have failed to recognize my needs and help me feel better. If I carry my feelings into a meeting, both I and the other person are likely to feel more frustrated and irritable in short order. In fact, there’s some really interesting research on “emotional contagion” that suggests strong feelings are transferred quickly between people. For more reading, check out this great piece on Positive Psychology.com .
An Example of Setting a healthy boundary
Suppose I’m a parent whose teen child insists on staying up late, being online with friends, or procrastinating on homework until late at night. I may then find myself staying up late, trying to get them to finish homework and get to bed, and repeatedly reminding them in the morning to get up, get moving, etc. Any teen or parent in this dynamic knows that it can result in frustrating interactions, feeling tired and rushed, and a sense that one of them has “ruined” the other’s night or morning. If I’m the parent, I have the option of either letting my teen figure out their morning, possibly encountering lateness to school or failing grades, OR of finding a calm moment to set some expectations, saying something like,
“I notice we are arguing at night, rushing in the mornings, and that you’re having trouble getting up and out the door with homework done. I don’t want to be yelling, or nagging you, or staying up so late to monitor your bedtime, because it also leaves me tired and irritable. So, going forward, I’d like you to plan for a reasonable bedtime, when we can cut off the wi-fi, and put your electronics in the kitchen overnight so you can get to sleep. How does 10:30pm sound? Then you can expect to get up on time in the morning without me having to bother you. And I hope we can enjoy a few minutes of breakfast, with a peaceful start to the day.” (Note: this example follows closely with what fans of Marsha Linehan’s DBT work know as DEAR MAN skills for effective communication).
Recently I’ve heard several people give examples of ways in which they became aware of their boundaries in specific relationships, successfully navigating the complex pathway of identifying their own thoughts, feelings, and willingness to participate in certain ways with the other, and then also naming what they understood to be the other person’s responsibility in the interaction - i.e., to identify and manage their own feelings and plans. When we manage to do this well, we generally feel an inner calm, a sense of peace, both within ourselves and in our relationships.
