Importance of Psychological Boundaries

Psychological boundaries are imaginary self-imposed lines to protect our mental health and emotional well-being from the expectations of others and ourselves. These boundaries highlight the limit to which we can mould ourselves to the requirements of others and can say NO when it becomes overwhelming for us. Many of us feel that these are barriers to keep other people out of our ecosystem and ourselves from theirs. However, the boundaries that we are talking about are not barricades to ostracise our loved ones, these provide for a healthy way to live a happy peaceful life. When these are respected at a two-way level, the bonding not only gets deeper at an emotional level, it also becomes more dependable and more trustworthy.

Importance of these boundaries lies in the fact that –

1. They safeguard our mental health and emotional wellbeing from undue expectations of others.
2. They are helpful for our mental hygiene in general and build on our self-esteem in particular.
3. They are a litmus test for our most important bonds. At the end, we will realise which all relationships are proving toxic to our mental health, and which are the ones worth keeping.
4. They help us choose our priorities and channelise our energies better. Rather than doing a lot of things superficially, we want to engage in quality work in depth, which goes in a loop and enhance our interactions with the world in a better way. Our loved ones get feedback and they start drawing their boundaries which further help us to manage ourselves better.  

How to create psychological boundaries around ourselves?

Imagine a young girl who spends much of her energy in managing emotional reactions of her loved ones. She would often remain in hurtful interactions because she thinks it is her obligation to. She would put others first whether it is daily chores, emotional support, helping in their work or doing them favours. This stems from the fact that she feels responsible for protecting others from feeling difficult emotions and repairing them when they do feel them. She probably misunderstood love and affection, during her journey of growing up, as constantly making people feel good about themselves and giving them constant attention and validation, even when it is at the cost of her own mental and physical health. After many years of this unfortunate ordeal, she feels drained, empty, anxious, and confused about who she is, as an individual.

It is highly advisable for such people to have firm and clear boundaries to safeguard themselves from abuse as well as mistreatment. Additionally, it will mean gratifying relationships for this young girl as well as allowing others around her to take responsibility of themselves. Lastly, it means setting a role model for her children and other younger people around her who tend to pick up a lot from their elders passively.

So, the process of creating healthy boundaries goes like this –

1. Keep reminding yourself on why you need boundaries so that you can practise, set, reinforce, and reshape them from time to time.
2. Think in your mind how your boundaries look like to you. This may need some mind wrecking and brain storming such as – What all you are going to tolerate or not tolerate; What your threshold would be for saying NO; How you would and won’t engage with others; What kind of discussions you want to take up or not take up; what type of compromises you would want to make for your loved ones; How you will treat yourself when you achieve or fail at something.
3. Practise communicating your boundaries in a firm polite tone to people at the right time. You can prepare yourself by either writing your boundaries in a diary or rehearsing them in front of a mirror.
4. Set and reinforce your boundaries. This needs a lot of discipline and self control. This also means getting comfortable with unpleasant emotions. Moreover, one may get disheartened disappointing a loved one. But one must set them consistently for the boundaries to start showing their effect.
5. Remodel your boundaries on the feedback you receive from your own emotional state and your loved ones. Once you have mastered your boundaries, you may want to get flexible with different thresholds while not losing your stand on them. This will also set a loop of feedback between you and your loved ones, which ensures that boundaries are accepted, respected, and facilitated at both ends. Finally, this leads to developing secure attachments and strengthening the existing ones.

Some reasons why creating boundaries is not working out for you –

1. You don’t take your boundaries seriously (consistently and persistently) yourself.
2. You don’t hold people accountable, or worse, you may be taking the accountability of their actions on yourself.
3. You feel guilty for setting boundaries.
4. You allow too much flexibility or ambiguity.
5. You haven’t communicated them clearly, or worse, you haven’t communicated them at all (they are just in your mind).
6. You assume that stating your boundaries once is enough.
7. You haven’t dealt with the situation effectively when the boundary was violated.

Concludingly, setting boundaries may look like a simple task, but it surely is not an easy job when it comes to executing them. You will stray away, you will fail, you will be heartbroken, you will get stuck, but the idea is to keep going with your boundaries. Please remember that living with poor boundaries is much more exhausting than the effort needed to reinforce them once you have set your mind to do so. Furthermore, poor boundaries could be repelling to others. It is extremely taxing for others to continuously validate and soothe us. Moreover, our loved ones may distant themselves when we constantly emotionally react to them after they don’t meet our expectations. On the contrary, healthy meaningful boundaries attract others to us. People start appreciating our time and energy in their lives and that leads to mature affectionate relationships instead of bonds with just dependency needs.

Ending the article with some examples of healthy boundaries –

1. When a friend drops by your house without informing, repeatedly, and it upsets you.

Boundary – Hey, listen I think we can always make a quick call and check for each other’s commitments before we drop in. I totally love spending time with you, but I don’t want to be distracted by other things. So, hey, call me next time before you are coming. How about we catch up for a coffee on Sunday evening?

2. In a romantic relationship, examples of boundaries can be –

I am in love with you. And I trust you very much. But, hey, I am not comfortable in you checking my phone calls/messages every now and then.  Let us not do this please.

I am ok hugging you, but not in public places please.

I am in love with you, but I am not sure right now whether I would want to spend my entire life with you or not. I need some time to think about that. Can we talk about it after I have made my mind on this please? (a deadline can be given to make your partner more comfortable about it)

3. When a friend is smoking in front of you, and you don’t want it.

Boundary – Listen, I don’t mind you smoking, but I don’t want to inhale passive smoke. Also, it causes me cough, sneezing, allergies. I will wait for you outside until you finish. Thank you for understanding my situation here.

4. When a relative is poking you for marriage and it makes you uncomfortable.

Boundary – Hi Aunty, I think marriage is a very personal topic and I am not comfortable discussing it with you. I will come to you if I feel a need for suggestions and opinions. Till then, let us not talk about it please.

5. When someone constantly makes you conscious about your weight/looks and it bothers you.

Boundary – Hey, listen, can we please not discuss my weight/looks. I think it is very personal to me and I would like to work on this my way. It would be best if we skip this topic from our conversations from now on. I am thankful for your understanding here.

Please remember to use basic rote assertion to constantly reinforce these boundaries. Saying the same things again and again in a soft polite, yet firm tone with a smile on your face and a good eye contact makes it more effective. To learn more about assertion, please click here.

Wishing you the best of mental health today and always!

Dr Apala