THE POWER OF BOUNDARIES

A boundary divides one thing from another. As such it sets up distinctions between things. When you set up a personal boundary for yourself, you both identify and distinguish what’s inside the boundary and what’s outside. In doing this, you are thereby able to contain and protect your identity, energy, values, beliefs, and experiences. You are able to say, “This is me and those things out there are not me.”

In the article on the power of responsibility (Empowerment Series #7), I spoke about the line between two kinds of responses and responsibilities. The line between responsibility for yourself creates accountability, you being accountable for what you say you believe and will do. In doing so, you are simultaneously distinguishing who you are responsibility to. That’s relationship. You are responsible for yourself to others for what you say you will do. The other person can now hold you accountable for that. That defines your relationship with that person. What you are not responsible for is what the other person is responsible for— namely, their thoughts, emotions, words, and actions.

Because these are different experiences (accountability and relationship), the line between responsibility for and to creates boundaries. It sets up what is inside and what is outside. What is outside your responsibility is what other people are responsible for. I am not and cannot be responsible for what you think, believe, understand, remember, imagine (any and all of your mental responses), what you feel, say, or do. Those are your responses. Similarly, you are not and cannot be responsible for what I think, feel, say, or do. Those are my responses. You can invite me to think in a certain way or feel something, but if I do, that’s my response. You can only invite, trigger, provoke, and do whatever you can to increase the likelihood of my response, but you are not able to generate that response.

If you don’t draw this line between responsible for and to, you will have weak or non-existent boundaries and can easily become confused where you and others start and stop. This can then create all sorts of unsanity (a poor relationship in navigating the territory of reality). Then your ego-boundaries that define you and your world can fuse with those of others and leading you to feel responsible for someone else’s experiences. Yet when that happens, you dis-empower both yourself and the other person. Do that and you confuse yourself and invite a confusion in them about the relationship. This is what happens with those who become co-dependent in unhealthy ways.

The idea of ego-boundaries goes back to Sigmund Freud and his original work in psychoanalysis. Your sense of self (ego) extends out into space and each of us experience so much of that space

as ours, as “our territory.” So when someone gets too close to you physically (whether it is 18 inches or 5 inches or 1 inch), you will feel that they have intruded into “your space” and not respecting your boundaries.

“Boundaries” begin with physical space and as you create your sense of your space in that way, you also create your sense of space about other things. That’s why if someone tells you “what you really think or feel,” it feels like a violation. In NLP we call it mind-reading. The other person has assumed that he or she can get into your mental or emotional space and tell you what you think or feel! Obviously, they cannot know such, they are only guessing at best and projecting at worse. The result is that we all feel the need to push them away and not let them cross over the boundary. “I have the right to determine what I think or feel, not you!” Mental, emotional, identity, and relational boundaries such as these empower each of us to have a strong sense of self and an ego that’s strong enough to handle life’s challenges.

However, if you have weak boundaries, you may often find yourself in compromising situations and wonder, “How did this happen to me?” You may find that when others do mind-reading with you, you just go along with it and let them tell you what you really think and feel! When you set boundaries for yourself, you are setting values, standards, and role identities for yourself. This enables you to be strong and definite in what you do and don’t do, what you allow and what you don’t allow. You know yourself and you are able to stand firm when a boundary is crossed. Without such, you have weaker sense of self and so can find yourself experiencing things that you didn’t choose.

Children have very weak boundaries about themselves and non-existent boundaries about areas that they don’t know about. That’s why they need structure and order. And that’s why providing them rules is critical. The rules can serve as their first boundaries, setting limits on thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting. With regard to boundaries, there are many, many different kinds of boundaries. There are personal-space boundaries, physical boundaries, cognitive boundaries, sexual boundaries, financial boundaries, etc.

The power of boundaries is the power to know oneself, to protect oneself, to distinguish oneself, to know your limits. It is the power of making effective decisions and of becoming decisive which enables one to say, “No, that doesn’t fit for me!” as well as, “Yes, I like that, believe in that, and want that!”

Once you set boundaries for yourself, and grant yourself full permission to live within those boundaries, you develop another personal power—integrity. You now can live true to yourself —to your values, beliefs, decisions, standards, etc. Without boundaries or with weak boundaries, it is hard if not impossible to experience personal integrity, and without integrity, you will find it hard to be congruent, authentic, and disciplined to get yourself to follow through on what you say you believe and is important to you. So this power, the power of boundaries, is a critical and essential power that you and I need to live fully— to actualize our highest and best.