Relationships are where you discover who you are. They can bring out the best and the worst in us. As you begin to feel safe in a relationship, all your unconscious fears start to rear their heads. For instance, a fear of rejection may manifest itself by making you appear extra needy. A fear of being hurt could show up as unrealistic demands placed upon the other person to force the person to keep proving how much they do care about you. If you fear a loss of independence, you might feel claustrophobic after spending two days in a row with another person. If we work together with the other person in a loving way we can begin to heal some of the old fears. Healthy relationships heal because love heals. You heal because you learn to love yourself through every conflict. And through conflicts, you find out what your boundaries are.

For most people, feeling safe begins with having the courage to set boundaries. The fact is, most conflicts between two people involve someone feeling as if a boundary has been violated. Knowing your boundaries is the ability to distinguish your own feelings, fears, and responsibilities from someone else’s. People often breach our boundaries and don’t know they have done it. It is up to us to understand the link between boundaries and self-esteem.

Setting boundaries is vital to the survival of any relationship. Each time the need for a boundary arises, it points to a problem that is brewing. When you put a boundary in place, you are saying you care enough about yourself and the other person to work through the problem. When you are clear about your boundaries and know how to express them, those around you can relax. They don’t need to walk on eggshells around you or wonder if you resent them for a boundary they violated some other time and you said nothing about it.

Often we worry that setting a boundary means we have to choose between the personal boundary and giving up the relationship. The other person will not accept the boundary. They may tell us we are stupid, too selfish, too sensitive or something like that to get us to back down from the boundary. Each time you rise to the challenge by being true to yourself, it supports your self-esteem. Without boundaries, a relationship between two people can become a web of mutual dependency and confusion. Instead of generating love and acceptance, it generates fear.

There are boundaries we must protect. Some clues that a boundary is being breached for you is: feeling blamed, criticized, trapped, humiliated, threatened, owned, intimidated. If we do not take care of ourselves when these feelings come up we will begin a slide. The slide doesn’t often happen all at once. It is a slow, almost imperceptible process. You start out feeling strong or self-assured when you first meet someone and then lose your way when small boundary battles start to come up. An example is, your boss asking you to work overtime. You don’t want to and hesitate. They begin to pressure you so you say yes. You have backed down from your self. Maybe the person tries to get you to feel sorry for them. Or they have a terrible temper and you don’t want to face it so you say yes. Letting a boundary slide from pity or fear is the first step to risking who you are.

Often our boundaries don’t make sense to someone else. That is fine. They need to make sense to you. A person who cares about you will honour those boundaries because they matter to you. When you honour someone else’s boundary it is an opportunity to practice detachment (don’t take it personally) and acceptance ( love them as they are). Even if we think carefully about our boundaries and try to figure out what they are, the fact is we often don’t know we have a boundary until someone violates it.

How can you recognize if someone has crossed a boundary you didn’t know you had? Watch for the signs. Your body tells you, your behaviour tells you, and your feelings tell you. Physical signs could be stomach cramps, headache, back pain. Your behaviour is a clue - you start getting irritable, critical, judgmental, forgetting meetings or dates you set up, walking out. Feelings that arise can point to the violation. Anger, resentment, wanting to pull away from the other person, shutting down, depression, panic, confusion, feeling invisible. These are only a few examples but good ones.

Setting boundaries means rocking the boat and most people have a hard time with that. They say, “I don’t want to cause trouble”, “It isn’t that important, I’ll let it go.” “He takes things so personally, he will just think I am criticizing him.” Etc. etc. Don’t be surprised if the other person gets defensive when you set a boundary. That is what people do. Just don’t start to doubt yourself when they start the defensive pressure – such as telling you you are crazy, selfish, wrong, stupid, etc. Lots of us tend to go to guilt or shame for suggesting the boundary in the first place. It helps to remind ourselves that setting boundaries is what we do for ourselves and the other person.

The process can open up communication about a subject that was taboo, ignored or avoided. By bringing up your boundary you are accepting your responsibility – your feelings, fears, and needs. After setting a boundary and going through the process of standing for it, you may discover that the boundary you thought you cared about wasn’t really the issue at all. You may find out that it is something much deeper or very different than what you suspected. But learning to stand for one boundary will give you the tools to deal more effectively with any issue between you and another person. Each time a boundary is set, the people involved are learning about themselves and each other, and intimacy grows. And self-knowledge and intimacy is very important spiritual work.

Written by Deborah White

References- Britten, Rhonda,“Fearless Loving”.