Boundaries are a favorite topic of mine and one I'll touch on often in this column. Let's start with the basics. A great model was developed by Pia Mellody, who has written several terrific books, including Facing Codependence.
Boundaries can be thought of in the simplest terms as "Where I stop and where you begin." Particularly for women, the notion of boundaries is quite revolutionary, since we live in a culture that teaches us that our bodies, minds, and feelings belong to other people (husbands, parents, legislators), and that everyone else's problems and pain are our responsibility to nurture, heal, and be accountable for. Being aware of our own boundaries -- and giving ourselves permission to honor them -- is quite radical in the face of all of the deeply ingrained cultural messages.
Pia Mellody delineates four areas of boundaries:
The physical boundary has to do with our right to determine how close someone gets to us physically and how they interact with us physically. This can range from how close someone stands or sits to us, to whether we choose to allow a boss to touch our shoulder, to whom we choose to make love with and how.
The emotional boundary is about our right to our feelings -- without justifying them or needing to make sense of them. Our feelings belong to us, and we have a right to them.
The mental boundary has to do with our right to think what we think and to have our own beliefs and opinions, regardless of whether they're rational, in agreement with the latest statistics, or considered wrong or crazy by anyone else.
The spiritual boundary is about our right to our own spiritual beliefs, regardless of how we were raised or what anyone else believes.
When our boundaries get violated as young children, we receive the message that the boundary violations are normal, and over time we often forget we have a right to boundaries. As a result, as adults we may need to reclaim our boundaries and may need to learn the tools for honoring and protecting our boundaries. And it's not always someone else who is violating our boundaries. Because we may have forgotten we had boundaries or never learned to honor them, we may at times violate our own boundaries by making choices that don't resonate with our values or intuition. Looking at our own behavior is an important component of healing our boundaries.
For an adult, an intact boundary system allows us to have intimacy in our lives when we choose and protects us, for the most part, from boundary violations. (This isn't to say there aren't any crazy people out there.) Working on healthy assertiveness is one way of strengthening and healing boundaries.
People without boundaries often have no sense of what a boundary violation is. Without boundaries, it's easy to allow others to take advantage -- physically, sexually, emotionally, or intellectually -- without understanding that we have a right to say, "Stop that. I don't want to be touched." or "I am not responsible for your feelings or behavior."
Without boundaries, it's also easy to unwittingly cross other people's boundaries. The two go hand in hand, and healing our own boundaries helps us develop more respect and understanding for other people's boundaries.
Some people develop rigid boundaries or walls as a defense against vulnerability to abuse. Rigid boundaries may take the form of refusing to have any contact in certain situations, or being very angry and reactive to keep others out. Boundaries such as these generally offer protection from abuse but leave no room for intimacy.
Because we've each been raised in unique situations, it's common to have healthy boundaries in some areas of our lives, walls about certain issues, and some issues for which we have damaged or nonexistent boundaries.
Bringing compassion to the wounded parts of ourselves, and remembering that these wounds happened through no fault of our own, can often help us work on developing healthier boundaries and letting go of harsh self-criticism. We are all wounded around this issue -- and we live in a culture that has an investment in keeping us wounded. Every move toward reclaiming a boundary is a victory and an act of courage. |
Kira Freed |
| About the author: |
| Kira Freed is a Certified Life Coach (CLC) and former psychotherapist with master's degrees in counseling psychology and anthropology. She has been passionate about personal growth since her teenage years and has been fortunate to attend a wealth of professional trainings and workshops. She has worked in the field of human development since 1990 and is inspired by and honored to collaborate with coaching clients in the emergence and expression of their authentic selves. Kira lives in Tucson, Arizona, and most of her clients work with her by telephone. She can be reached at
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for more information or to book a coaching session. She offers a sliding scale, and the first session is free. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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