This article covers only part of what ‘personal boundaries’ means, why they matter and how to work out where yours lie. The subject is in fact enormous — you cannot describe all of it, and everyone's reasons are their own.
Knowing about personal boundaries
A great many people suffer because they cannot say NO, STOP, ENOUGH, or simply refuse someone something.
All of this has to do with understanding, accepting and being aware of personal boundaries, and with the ability to defend them.
It is the parents' duty to teach a child to understand their own boundaries and other people's, and to defend their own while respecting those of others!
It all begins at birth. As a newborn feels their mother's hands touching their body, and feels the contact of breastfeeding, they already begin — unconsciously — to grasp that they are bounded by a body. That is why bodily contact is so important for becoming aware of yourself and of your boundaries.
I read somewhere that a monastery once set up a home for newborn babies. The nuns looked after the infants, fed them, gave them drink, changed their nappies. The children did not fall ill — and yet most of them died. Only much later, as psychology developed, did the cause of that infant mortality become clear: a lack of bodily contact!
Then, as the child grows up, they gradually separate from the mother and pass through a series of initiations: weaning, getting a cot of their own, a room, a place at the table, understanding that the other members of the family also have something of their own, and so on. All of this, to some degree, teaches them to understand themselves as a separate person and to see that ‘something’ separates us from others.
And what if this natural sequence is disrupted? I often noticed at work in the maternity hospital that babies spent most of the time in their cots, and in Soviet times infants were kept in a separate room and brought to their mothers only at feeding time — by the clock, not when the baby was hungry! What does a baby lying alone in a cot feel? They do not feel ‘dressed in a body’, because that sensation can only come with prolonged contact; they do not understand that they are no longer joined to the mother and are a separate being; but above all they feel that this world is dangerous, because their natural need for contact is going unmet! Babies, of course, neither realise nor understand this, but the feelings remain — they are kept in our unconscious for ever!
What can a violation of our boundaries look like?
- — you do not want to do something, but you cannot say no,
- — someone can ring you at one in the morning and you will not say that this is unacceptable,
- — a colleague asks you to do something and you drop your own work to help them,
- — neighbours, friends and relatives can drop in on you at any time without warning,
- — in sex, too, you cannot say no or explain what is unacceptable to you,
- — people shout at you and you stand there and listen,
- — you lend out your car and your money, even though you may need them yourself,
- — your children never hear a refusal,
- — you go on holiday wherever your husband or wife wanted to go,
- — people can make you the butt of a joke and you do not realise that this too is a violation of your boundaries,
- — your name is pronounced in a way you do not like,
- — you always give way,
- — your values can be laughed at and dismissed,
- — your opinion is of no interest to anyone,
and so on, and so forth.
In short, in time you start to feel that everyone takes advantage of you; that you are not respected; that you are being used; you often regret that you were unable to say no to something and that your own interests suffered because of it; you realise that there is no ‘place of your own’; that you are not taken seriously and not reckoned with.
In the end you feel like a victim and an inner conflict tears you apart: if you refuse, you feel like a bad person; if you do not refuse, you are angry with yourself for having poured away your own interests once again. Naturally, anger builds up — and it will find a way out and show itself anyway!
Such behaviour is justified like this: ‘I don't want to hurt the other person, I don't want conflict,’ and so on. In reality you are simply not defending your ‘I’, because you do not know where the ‘I’ is, where it begins and where it ends.
Those who learn to understand their own boundaries will automatically see other people's — and that is a guarantee of your emotional health, which is bound up with physical health too.
Very often your boundaries are violated because you violate other people's: ‘treat people the way you would want them to treat you’.
Boundaries are not created in order to make anyone do anything!
It is all but impossible to manipulate a person who knows their own boundaries!
So how do you recognise and set personal boundaries?
For that you need to know exactly who you are and what your true ‘I’ is. What are your values, your rules, your principles; what is unacceptable to you, not permissible, not to your liking?
You have to answer for yourself and for your own life, and to be aware that you are the author of everything that happens to you. The whole of psychology is aimed at prompting and teaching a person to be a conscious individual!
Once you can answer these questions — simple ones at first glance — the second step is to show your boundaries to the people around you; in doing so you are already beginning to defend them.
Kinds of boundaries:
Physical boundaries.
As has already been said above, this is the very first and most basic need. Physical boundaries are defined both by the body and by space.
Answer these questions:
- Who is allowed to touch you and who is not — and how?
- What do you consider to be your personal space alone, and how far does it extend, in centimetres?
- Is there a place in your home that counts as yours alone?
- Who may come to your home, and when?
Sexual boundaries.
These boundaries are closely bound up with physical boundaries and with bodily contact; the only difference is that this area is more intimate, more hidden from others. And only you can know whom to admit into your intimate space, and when and how. Always tell your partner about it!
Material boundaries.
These boundaries have to do with the sense of safety — the second step on Maslow's pyramid. A sense of safety is likewise instilled in us from early childhood and belongs to a child's basic needs.
Again, only you decide what is your property and how to dispose of it.
Intellectual boundaries. Your values, opinions, thoughts. They are yours alone. And every individual decides what they want to share with others and what to leave unsaid. What do you believe in? Can you listen with an open heart to those who voice a different opinion and, at the same time, do so honestly, without giving up your core beliefs?
There are other things that belong to you alone. They are your words and your time.
Emotional boundaries.
These boundaries I count as the most personal boundaries a person has; they are inseparable from the need for love and belonging. For we can only feel emotions through contact with something or someone.
Only you are responsible for your own feelings. No one can hurt you unless you want them to, whatever they say to you (negative feelings, resentment and anger provoked by other people's actions are a sign of unworked-through trauma).
You must stop the other person, and if that is not possible, get up and leave, in order to protect your emotional boundaries.
Do not let people tell you about their troubles, illnesses and dramas if you do not want to listen to it at that moment. You can say that right now you do not want to or cannot listen to this, and suggest that they talk about it another time.
In the same way, do not let anyone shout at you, take their anger out on you and so on. You are not responsible for other people's emotions, but it is your duty to protect yourself! This also covers unasked-for advice and questions.
Learn to speak only from the position of ‘I’: I feel, I am sad, I feel bad, I feel good………
Protecting your emotional boundaries also includes making requests (which may be met with a ‘no’ if they stray into someone else's boundaries — and you have to accept that answer), for example: when you say that to me, I feel like a bad person; if you can, don't speak to me like that / in that tone / about that….. The other person may say ‘no’ and carry on, and then it is up to you to decide how to protect yourself — simply walk away, hang up, change the subject….
Intellectual boundaries.
These boundaries fall under ‘respect for the person’. Only you decide what is your intellectual property (knowledge, opinions, thoughts, ideas). And only you decide how to dispose of that property, whom to grant access to it, whom to share it with, whom to open up to and let in.
The main sign that you understand this boundary is a calm reaction to other people's opinions, even when they do not match your own.
Spiritual boundaries.
These boundaries have to do with the sense of oneself, the sense of one's own being, and they usually take shape with age, as the psyche matures. They cover not just feelings and emotions but deeper spiritual experiences, spiritual values, morality, religious experience and self-expression through creative work.
What matters to you in life? Which of your creations are you ready to defend? What is sacred to you? What do you believe in?
As with everything said above, these boundaries have to be felt and recognised — and defended when someone crosses them.
Healthy boundaries:
- — are set by us, for ourselves, and not by anyone else,
- — are not a tool for manipulating others,
- — do not bring pain or other negative sensations,
- — can be flexible or firm, depending on what you want,
- — do not intrude on anyone else's boundaries,
- — serve our physical and mental health.
If you have clearly marked out your personal boundaries and someone still violates them, step away from that person, however much it hurts! But always give a second — and final — chance. That way you encourage their growth and point them towards an awareness of their own boundaries and other people's, which will naturally affect their psychological growth and do them good.
A person who knows their true boundaries will not feel envy, for they have something that belongs to them and to no one else. They are incapable of condemning others, for they see other people's boundaries and respect them.
‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’
© Natallia Nechai
