What Are Boundaries?
Here are a few definitions gleaned from several years of studying this concept:
- Boundaries: are a system that enables each of us to maintain our inherent worth in the face of all outside pressures, rarely allowing the opinions or emotions of others to erode our belief in our inherent worth.
- Boundaries keep us from experiencing abuse & from abusing others, as well as establishing an identity.
- People with intact boundaries can have intimacy when they choose but are protected from abuse or abuse of others (abuse being defined as crossing into other’s emotional, physical, sexual, intellectual, or spiritual boundaries. Ex: hugging someone without permission).
- External boundaries allow us to choose our distance from other people to enable us to give permission to be touched or for our property to be touched
- Internal boundaries protect our thinking, feelings, and behavior to remain functional.
- Boundaries: inherently are based on protection- to protect your emotional, physical, sexual, intellectual, or spiritual well-being.
Some Examples of Boundaries
- If someone ignores your words or signals to be touched and hugs you anyway, they have crossed your external boundary
- Blaming someone else for our feelings- something they are doing that is completely unrelated to what actually caused your anger becomes the focal point of blame
- Sarcasm and belittlement can impinge on who a person is or their worth
- Believing someone is responsible for making you happy, or other instances where you might place someone else as responsible for your feelings.
Real-Life Applications
Frank, who has no internal boundaries, is in turmoil. One week ago his wife asked him to take her and the children to a local park for a picnic with neighborhood families to celebrate the Fourth of July. Two days later, his mom invited him to bring the family to her house for a barbeque (100 miles away). Neither woman knew about the other’s invitation to Frank. He can’t take responsibility for what he would prefer to do because of his lack of internal boundaries. He is angry and blames his wife and mother for putting him in this position, experiencing inner pain because of the indecision. He decides on the morning of the event to ask his wife to go to his mother’s house. She gets angry because she had been planning out the picnic all week and bought/prepared all the food. The last-minute change also would stress the children and their expectations. Instead of taking responsibility, he blames her for their fight, thinking she needs to be more cooperative and flexible. This is a pattern tied to a lack of internal boundaries- getting mixed up and blaming others when we should take responsibility and alternatively feeling guilty or blaming ourselves for the part of things that aren’t really in our control. (ex: he feels guilty for making his wife and mother angry but doesn’t actually own that he could have prevented that by stating what he wanted to do from the onset, and alternatively blames his wife for making him feel that way).
Kitty is a shy and extremely nervous person. When she hangs out with her friend Fran, she is so preoccupied with fearful thoughts about her own performance that she can’t really listen to Fran, who is sharing her thoughts and feelings. At the end of spending time together, Kitty doesn’t know any more about who Fran is than before, and Fran feels frustrated and shut out. Kitty used a wall (a type of boundary) of fear instead of an internal boundary to keep Fran at a “safe” distance emotionally and intellectually.
*Facing Codependence, by Pia Mellody
