Setting and Maintaining Healthy Boundaries
How developing clear boundaries is vital for your mental health
Conrad Taylor MNCPS Acc
A few questions to see how good you are at keeping boundaries
- Do you fear rejection and letting people down?
- Do you find yourself too involved in other people’s problems?
- Are you prone to oversharing?
- Do you struggle to say no?
- Do you have a need to please others and find that people sometimes take advantage of you?
If you answered yes to any of these you may struggle to put in place boundaries that protect your mental health.
These are just some of the symptoms where there might be a lack of clear and consistent boundaries.
What are boundaries? In simple terms, they are the personal limits you set for yourself in how you would like to be treated. Being able to maintain healthy boundaries is a fundamental part in any positive relationship. If they are not in place, this often leads to feelings of resentment, anger, frustration and animosity. Other signs include heightened anxiety, stress, low self-worth and lack of energy due to possible burnout. And if this situation remains in place, it can be destructive to the relationship, disempowering for the individual and result in a weakening of identity. The positives of good boundaries are being in control of one’s own well-being, creating deeper levels of connection with others, building self-autonomy and empowerment, a stronger sense of self-worth and personal identity, more resilience to stress and a better understanding of your needs along with ensuring they are consistently met. In other words, having healthy boundaries is an act of self-care.
There are several types of boundaries to keep in mind: physical (ensuring you have limits around your personal space), mental (your thoughts and opinions), conversational (what you are willing to talk about), financial and material (ensuring that you are not taken advantage of), sexual (knowing your limits in terms of intimacy), feelings (how you want to express yourself and your emotions) and time (how much you give to other people plus how much time you set aside for your own needs). All of these boundaries can be tested in both your personal life (family and friends) and your work environment. Every day, are exposed to situations and relationships that can threaten your personal limits, so it is important to build skills which can help to strengthen boundaries.
What steps can you take to build and maintain healthy boundaries? The first step is to become more aware of your own important values, needs, desires and wants. It can be helpful to ask yourself some self-reflective questions:
What things are really important to me? What do I enjoy doing? What do I not enjoy doing? How would I like to fill my time? Am I setting enough time aside for myself? How do I want other people to treat me? How do I want to interact with others? How do I want to treat myself? How do I want to be with other people? What do I value in others? What values are important to me? What am I prepared to accept / not accept?
I am sure there are other questions you can think of that are pertinent to you. These are just intended as a starting point. Some people find it helpful to regularly journal around these themes. It can also be useful to explore them with a professional counsellor or psychotherapist.
Once you have figured out your values, needs, desires and wants, the next step is to consider them in terms of your key relationships. Which ones are you being your authentic self where the relationship is healthy and which ones do you need to work on to develop more positive boundaries? Where your values, needs, desires and wants are not being met. This does not mean being overly rigid and you may need to seek out compromises that work for both sides. Healthy boundaries are meant to be safe for both parties. Which means there is a balanced approach, mutual respect and that both parties see the value in the connection. In setting boundaries, you need to be clear in your needs and this requires good communication skills. It is important that the other person understands your needs and is not left guessing. You will also need to develop good assertiveness ,which means advocating what you want firmly, respectfully and with clarity. It is important to think about what the consequences are if the boundary is not maintained, and these need to be actions that you are prepared to enforce. By having consequences in place and by being prepared to say no, it could lead to feelings of discomfort around guilt and shame. This is a natural experience for someone who is new to boundary setting and it is important to be able to sit with the discomfort without being overwhelmed. Remember, setting healthy boundaries is about you advocating your own personal limits so that you are treated respectfully and in line with your own values.
Setting and maintaining boundaries is not easy. Quite often you are seeking to replace core beliefs about yourself that you learnt during childhood. People pleasing behaviour, a difficulty in saying no and fear of rejection are all behaviours that are learnt in childhood as coping strategies. As a child, you had no choice because you needed to adapt to your environment and the demands of your caregivers. But as an adult, you have more control and can reclaim your sense of self through establishing more healthy relationships. It does require courage and I would recommend starting small, with the simple boundaries that are more easily established. You can then build up your confidence for the complex relationships that need more time. If you need help with developing healthy boundaries, communication skills and assertiveness training, there are counsellors at St Martin’s Centre for Health & Healing that can support you with this. Most importantly, be patient with yourself, remain self-aware without judgement or criticism and practice regularly.