Setting Boundaries to Protect Healing | How to Heal Part Seven

Most of us, in the past few years, have heard about the importance of boundaries.

In fact, I doubt anyone is surprised that I’m saying boundaries are an essential step to healing. But it’s so important that I added this seventh step to my healing series half way through because I was getting so many questions about boundaries!

We all know we need boundaries, and yet they’re incredibly hard to enforce. Why?

Most of us have been told and trained how to ignore our own needs, wants, and desires in the name of being polite and making other people comfortable.

As children, we were told to be polite to everyone. We were told to behave. We are told to treat others the way we want to be treated. We are told to share. We were told to give hugs even when we were uncomfortable, to refuse water or snacks at a friend’s house if they were offered, even if we were hungry and thirsty. Still today, a child is required to invite his or her entire class to their birthday party— it’s a freaking school policy!

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: healing is really about loving yourself.

We are taught to love others. To be selfless. To give, give, give. This is so ingrained in us that we genuinely feel guilty, we feel sick to our stomachs, we feel embarrassed, we feel wrong when we begin to take time for ourselves. This is why many people never heal.

If you’re constantly trying to obey other people’s desires for who you are to be and what you are to do, you can’t hear your own knowing. It’s back to that left brain critic I talked about earlier in the healing series.

If you’re going to heal, you’ll have to learn to be okay with disobeying and disappointing other people.

This might go against everything you were taught growing up, but while loving others is essential, and sometimes it is uncomfortable, there is a way to love without self-rejection.

When my twins were born, I didn’t take away from my love for Stella so I could reallocate it to them. My love grew. In the same way, I can love the people around me without removing any love I have for myself.

In fact, the best way to love others is out of an overflow of love for myself. The best way for me to foster that self-love? Boundaries.

So what is a boundary? Boundaries can be promises you make to yourself out of love.

We’re probably most familiar with boundaries about obligations, events, family dynamics, etc.

Let’s take my role as a mom for example.

As much as I want to be the fully present mom at all the school events (well, okay, that actually isn’t true— I want my kids to know they are important to me. I want them to feel loved and that their events in their lives matter, but honestly, I don’t want to be fully present or even a little bit present at all school events. I’m not the homeroom mom. I don’t want to be on the PTA and do the fundraising), part of self love is being really honest with myself, even if it feels ugly. Push past any self-shaming voices. That’s your inner-critic talking.

So once I realize I need to make a promise out of love regarding my relationship with my kid’s school activities, I create the boundary or my non-negotiables, and I also like to add a time frame to the boundary, because boundaries can always change. What was loving in one season can feel restrictive or harmful in another.

Here’s my example…

For this year,

• I am not saying yes to anything PTA. 

• I will not feel the need to volunteer for all the school events, but I will go on field trips.

• I am not signing up for homeroom mom.

• I do not have the time and energy to help with decorations or snacks.

• I do not have to say yes to every single birthday party invitation. I will teach my kids the difference between friends and acquaintances. I will teach them early that they don’t have to do everything they are invited to do.

• I do not have to cook dinner every single night. 

• I do not have to attend the big family Christmas on Christmas day six hours away from my home. I can choose to have Christmas at my home and allow my kids and myself a calm, cozy day in our pajamas playing with toys and watching movies. 

• I am not attending my husband’s family event where his uncle gets drunk and says inappropriate things. I will not, no matter who doesn’t like it, put my kids in that environment. I will break the cycle. I will not show my kids that yes, this is something that makes everyone uncomfortable— we can all feel it— but we are all just going to be silent and pretend it’s normal. I will not pass this self-violation onto my own children in the name of keeping peace. It’s my job to protect them and show them the best path even if that means disappointing others.

And then, there are boundaries from people.

This is hard because we love our people, but you have to learn how to prioritize YOUR needs. By limiting or ending some relationships, you increase your capacity for the people you do love and want in your life, including yourself. And just a reminder— you do not have to save others. That’s not your responsibility. It’s also not your responsibility how anyone else feels. It’s your responsibility to know how YOU feel and to honor that. People are allowed to be upset with how you carry that out, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.

For me, sometimes distance allows me the space from which I can love that person and love myself. Let’s be real— some people are too hard to love when you get close up but totally lovable from ten steps away. Sometimes, you’ve gotta allow yourself that space.

Because boundaries are YOUR responsibility. YOU teach people how to treat you. You must LOVE yourself enough to set boundaries. No one else will do it for you.

There’s also boundaries about people.

Ask yourself who is draining you?

Sometimes it’s those closest to you. Your mother? Your sibling? A friend you’ve had since childhood? One question I asked myself about childhood friendships was, “if I met this person today, would I choose to be friends with them?” If the answer is no, it doesn’t mean I don’t love them and want them in my life, it just means maybe not as frequently as I once did. There is a time and season for every friendship. Don’t hold on to winter when spring is blooming.

Another good boundary question for people: 

Ask yourself who initiates the time together?

If it’s always you, that’s not a mutual relationship. You need people in your life who are just as excited to spend time with you as you are with them. 

Ask yourself how does your body react?
If you cringe when you see their name on your phone, pretty good indicator that you need to create a boundary. 

These two groups of boundaries summarize two of the most important categories in our lives: what are my essential roles, and what are my important relationships? Basically, who am I and who do I want around me.

I often say, “I can do anything, but I can’t do everything.”

In the same way, you can be anyone, but you can’t be everything to everyone.

And just like children need you to follow through on consequences and promises in order to trust what you say, you need to follow up with your established boundaries if you’re going to trust yourself.

When this happens, guess what comes with boundaries? Respect. 

If someone doesn’t respect your boundary, if someone throws a fit or tries to make you feel bad about the boundary, that is just further proof that the boundary was needed. 

The only people who are angry about a new boundary are those who were benefitting from the lack of a boundary.

When you set boundaries, there will be people who are frustrated or disappointed. One thing that helped me be okay with other people’s disappointment when I make choices that are best for me is understanding the difference between attachment and love.

I like to explain it like this: if you love someone, your love makes them more themselves. Your love calls out more of who they were made to be and leaves room for that to flourish.

Attachment is manipulation masquerading as love.

In any relationship, there can be harmful attachment in two main ways: either you can be the one with the attachment issues, or they can. Either way, you’re going to feel the pain that comes with swapping love for attachment.

If someone has formed an attachment with you, you’ll feel dissatisfied in the relationship but paralyzed by guilt so you can’t leave. This person has convinced you they love you when really, you are just fulfilling a role for them and they love what you do for them. If someone is attached to you, you may worry about how they will make it without you, or even if you stay, how they might respond to any decision you make. Maybe you live in fear of their disappointment or retribution or passive aggression. Maybe you walk on eggshells. They’ve manipulated you to feel this way. They are not a victim. You’re not evil for wanting them to be their own person. They’re using your love for them to bond you to them because they’re afraid. It’s time to wake up and see the truth.

Sometimes, we form attachments towards other people. We aren’t evil, but we may be hurting, and we need to recognize truth so we can free both the other person and ourselves to fully heal and step into who we were made to be. When you have an attachment with someone, your insecurity makes you afraid that any growth they experience will take them further away from you, risking their role in your life and therefore your safety. Only by becoming fully realized individuals can we come into relationships with no need to take or control. Instead, we can give and set free.

If love is seeing someone fully and allowing them to become more themselves, then attachment is seeing only yourself and needing someone to fill any emptiness you find in yourself and your life.

Love is oxygen. Attachment is suffocation.

Love finds security outside of the relationship so the bond is healthy and alive. Attachment finds security from the relationship, so any change in status or identity or boundary feels threatening.

When it comes to attachment, you have to feel needed because you don’t feel wanted. With love, you know your own value and can appreciate your own place in the world. You know you’re needed, so you’d rather be wanted.

All of this to say, if you make a boundary with someone and they make a fuss or immediately violate that boundary, maybe they’re feeling attachment toward you instead of love.

If that’s the case, the best thing you can do for them is remove yourself. It is the most loving thing you can do, for both yourself and for them.

Make boundaries about who you want to be, for yourself and your people. Make boundaries about who you want in your life and what kind of access you want to give them. And finally, when you make boundaries, keep them, so you can build trust with yourself again.

It’s not selfish; it’s love.

Find all of the How to Heal series blog posts here.