7 Steps to Set Boundaries with Yourself
The candy hearts have been in stores for at least a month now (I think I started seeing them before the Christmas decorations were even down) and our culture has started to collectively focus on relationships. This can be great and fun, or it can feel miserable, depending on whether you are in a relationship (and further, whether you are satisfied with your relationship).
Good relationships don’t just happen; they require work.
This idea is not limited to romantic relationships; it applies to relationships with children, friends, co-workers, extended family and most importantly, yourself. Good boundaries are super-important to creating good relationships, and that’s where we will focus this month.
“You….complete….me.” In my opinion, Jerry Maguire (1) did all of us a disservice with this often-quoted movie line. Then again, a lot of movies do this. We can easily fall victim to the mindset that we are supposed to derive our self-worth from our relationships and that leads us to do all kinds of things to hang onto those relationships. We morph into who we think that other person wants us to be.
I can admit that I did this with my marriage. Actually, I did this with everyone for a long time. I had some peer rejection experiences when I was young and that left me scanning new people to discern who they wanted me to be so I could present an acceptable version of myself.
Once I went to counseling and realized this, I had some confessions to make to my husband. Things like, “I know this is going to be hard to hear, but I could care less about football. I only pretended to like it because it is important to you. I like hanging out with you when you are watching games, but I will probably be sewing or reading while the game is on. And by the next day I will have forgotten who won. And while we are at it… those superhero movies? I like the Marvel ones but the Batman ones are just too dark for me…”
My husband (being the good guy that he is) was open to hearing all of this because he loved me and wanted to know me.
He never expected me to morph into his perception of perfection. Sure we had some hiccups when I started disagreeing with him, because it was new. I had to get used to speaking up and he had to get used to hearing things that surprised him.
Our relationship improved so much once I brought my whole self into it instead of putting the pressure on him to define me.
I had to learn how to know myself, and I am very sure I am not alone in this. As women, we are so many things to so many people. If we are not careful, we wrap our sense of self-worth up into being all of those things and we can lose our identity.
Setting boundaries with ourselves helps us protect our identity.
You may have heard of Cloud and Townsend’s work on boundaries(2). If this is a topic that resonates with you, they have great resources for further reading. They describe boundaries as the way to draw the line between self and others. There may be the boundary of a fence to protect the part of self that is visible to everyone, like a yard. Within the yard, there is the boundary of a door to the house to protect those outside from the inner world of the self. Only some people get to enter that door. Once inside, there are other doors that even fewer others are invited into, the door to one’s bedroom, the door to one’s closet. Nobody needs to have access to all of those places. Furthermore, nobody needs control of those places except the self.
Often, as women, we leave those gates and doors wide open. We let our early experiences, significant relationships, and even culture decorate that internal house until one day, we look around and think, “This is my house? This isn’t me.” We look at the people loafing on the sofa, looking through our old photo albums, criticizing our cooking, and we just want to kick them all out but instead we offer them a drink and try harder to make them happy.
So. How do we set boundaries with ourselves?
Get to know yourself again. We have to know ourselves to know what kinds of boundaries we need. This step can be a little scary, especially if we have a deep seated belief that it is unsafe to be ourselves. We lose touch with ourselves and assume that being ourselves is “wrong.” You might want to do some journaling on this subject. I wrote about that in another blog post. Basically, you want to write about what makes you “you.” What are your likes, desires, and strengths? What direction are you going? What are your hopes, values, and dreams?
Figure out what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. You do not need to take any steps just yet, but start taking note of what fits and what doesn’t.
Create some guiding principles that inform the trajectory you want your life to take. Refer back to my previous blog post about this for detailed steps to creating these. Guiding principles also inform our boundaries and help us stay clear on our reasons for creating boundaries.
Identify your needs. What do you need in order to put those principles in action? If your guiding principle is that you will reduce stress, you will want to identify your stressors and figure out how to make them less stressful. Identify the things you can do to relieve stress and figure out how to do them more often. Maybe you set boundaries with yourself that you will leave 10 minutes earlier than you usually do to allow for last minute complications. You could have a boundary to protect 10 minutes a day to practice deep breathing.
Write your boundaries down. It’s easy to lose sight of them if you don’t record them anywhere. Focus first on what changes will only impact you, especially if it feels scary to communicate boundaries with others. You want to really try out being you, get solid on what you want that to look like before you start setting boundaries with others. Change is hard, so you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with too many changes all at once. Identify possible changes that only you will know about at first so you can try them out without the pressure of other people’s opinions. See if you can carve out little bits of time to do something that feeds your soul, lights you up inside. Start challenging yourself inside to have an opinion (even if you don’t voice it yet).
Evaluate your boundaries. Revisit my blog on goals for some ideas on how to do this. Your boundaries are a means to achieve a goal, so that is where the tweaking can happen. Check in on your boundaries often so you can celebrate your progress and identify ways you might need to adjust your boundaries. Notice how your boundaries affect others. Even though you are just focusing on boundaries with yourself for now, boundaries tend to have a ripple effect. You may be presenting yourself as more confident and that is enough to spark changes in others. Notice that stuff.
Start thinking about boundaries with others. Later this month I’ll write about boundaries with other people. Once you get really good at your boundaries with yourself it will be easier to identify, communicate, and enforce boundaries with others because you will be super tuned in to how that boundary will help you.
Boundary work is not easy. We attach a lot of meaning to why we haven’t set boundaries. It can be overwhelming to do the work of getting to know ourselves. It can feel foreign to get in touch with ourselves again. It may not feel safe. Grief can come up when we start realizing that we have missed out on life satisfaction for years. Working with a therapist can provide support for all of this and help you zero in on the boundaries you need to set.
References
(1) Crowe, C. (Director). (1996). Jerry Maguire [film]. TriStar Pictures, Gracie Films, Vinyl Films.
(2) Cloud, H. & Townsend, J. (2017). Boundaries, Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life. Zondervan.
Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her downtown Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.
