Are Your Boundaries Too Firm?
We know boundaries are important.
They help us protect our energy, whether it’s our physical energy, our social energy, or our mental & emotional energy. They make it clear to the people we’re in relationships what our limits are (and, if you’re in a close relationship, usually why you have that limit) so that we can continue to show up fully in the areas of our lives that we really need to.
There are many different types of boundaries to explore, things like:
What limits we have on our professional availability
What makes us feel safe and comfortable in our bodies and homes
What personal details we’re willing to share in various social situations
What we need to navigate conflict
How involved we’re comfortable being in the problems/relationships of others
Etc.
Basically, when setting boundaries you need to figure out what your limits are. What can you give (whether it’s time, space, money, compassion, energy, etc.) to others without wearing yourself out, overly depleting your own energy, or taking on too much of an emotional, financial or other type of burden?
There’s a lot of conversation around setting boundaries. How do you decide what they are? How do you communicate them? How do you manage family boundaries? How can you reaffirm your boundaries?
But boundaries, like most things, require nuance. Think of them less like a fence surrounding and protecting you, and more like pillars holding up a structure.
They are crucial to the stability of your relationship, but they leave space open for others to come in. And when a boundary is violated, it is less like the fence surrounding you has been smashed, leaving you completely vulnerable, and more like one of the pillars holding up the structure of your relationship has been damaged. The entire thing doesn’t have to come crumbling down if you can work to repair what was hurt.
When we’re too firm in our boundaries, we build the fence instead of those pillars–we don’t leave space for anyone else in the relationship. Someone may be granted entry behind the gates, but there is little room to move or grow once inside.
Being too firm with our boundaries is tempting, and very easy to do.
It can help us stay somewhere we feel safe, knowing there will be no surprises, nothing uncomfortable, and nothing difficult to navigate. Unfortunately, when we live like that, we deny ourselves the opportunity to grow, and to realize we’re actually stronger than we think! If we don’t give ourselves a chance to work through something tough, we’ll never know we can, and we’ll always feel trapped by it.
Boundaries that are too firm also prevent us from being able to really exist in intimate or close relationships. It’s important that when you set boundaries you’re not actually giving someone a demand or a set of rules for how to interact with you. Boundaries don’t tell others how to behave around you, they let others know what you need to feel safe. Ultimately, it’s your responsibility to honor those boundaries. That means, if someone is doing something that you’re uncomfortable with, you can:
Have a conversation with them to explain why you’re uncomfortable, offer a solution to make you both feel better, and give them space to respond
Remove yourself from the situation
Sometimes it’s easy to say that our boundaries are “don’t do X around me” but we can’t control anyone’s behavior but our own. When we reframe our boundaries as our own responsibility, it gives space for others to show up fully and get to know us with intention.