New Year, New Boundaries

By: Keith Dixon, MFT-LP

Is this you you this new year? It’s common these days for us to think that cutting people out of our lives who aren’t helping us is a healthy thing to do. However it really isn’t, if you are finding yourself in this position then what we really need to talk about are boundaries.

Boundaries have to do with how we engage with others and allow others to engage with us. There are generally three types of boundaries that people create. I am going to call them Open, Closed, and Balanced Boundaries. 

Closed Boundaries
 
Growing up in suburban Arizona, every house on my street had large brick walls separating each backyard from the ones around it. It was very clear what was “our” backyard and what was “their” backyard. The walls created very strict boundaries that allowed for safety as well as personally responsibility for what goes on inside our walls and nothing else. When I was in our backyard I felt safe. However with that, whenever a ball would be knocked over into someone else’s backyard there was a feeling of fear and dread. I didn’t want to be caught sneaking into someone else’s yard because that would be disrespectful and even the act going over to the other house to ask them to retrieve it already felt that we had disrespected their boundaries by allowing our life to spill over into their property. 
 
This what it looks like when we “cut” out people from our lives and create very closed boundaries. Usually closed boundaries are built because we do feel that our space has been disrespected and there for the solution is to build a wall. Just as negative people have brought too much negativity into your space so now we tell them, “you can’t come here anymore for I have built a wall.” Closed boundaries often create the most sense of initial and stable safety, however just as it did for me as a child, it also creates a sense of “us” vs. “them”. We become scared of our life spilling into others or don’t want to even bring it–even when we need it. Closed boundaries create isolation, and longterm that is not good for us. 

Open Boundaries
 
Open boundaries are the opposite of closed boundaries. If you grew up in the midwest or various other places in the US there are many neighborhoods in which they have no walls between backyards. Even though the reality is that there are designated parts of the land belonging to each home, the appearance is very open and everyone bleeds often over each other’s territory. Imagine kids from the different houses playing fluidly throughout the backyards. This can create a great sense of community and connection for everyone in the neighborhood would know each other and be involved in each others lives. However with this, there is much opportunity for disrespecting each others boundaries. Kids playing constantly in your backyard disrupting your peace, other kids misbehaving on your property and the other parents do nothing about it. Now you are forced to deal with issues that are someone else’s, yet likely if you try then you will disrespect the other parents by parenting when they are not your kids. 
 
This is what open boundaries can look like in our lives. When we allow others to freely take their lives and dump them into ours and then try and solve it. When others bring their negativity into our lives we usually either join in or try and fix their problems. No matter what we do boundaries are being disrespected. You disrespect mine by dumping more than I feel comfortable with in my life, or we both feel disrespected because I try to fix problems that are not mine to fix. Often very open will keep others close and connected to us, yet at the same time have very toxic longterm outcomes. 

Balanced Boundaries
 
As we can see from the first two types of boundaries, relationships with those around us are a constant struggle between feeling safe and respected as well as close and connected. The tension between those two needs creates the need to have a third type of boundaries that are a fusion of the two before. It is each of our jobs to let others know where our boundaries are yet also maintain that we desire a good relationship with them. 
 
What does that look like? It is usually always going to not be one statement but two. Instead of telling children who are fighting in your yard to simply get out, you may need to go out and tell them that they 1) always are welcome to play in your yard however  2) only if they can get along, and if they can’t then they must go back to their own home. This is how we allow to keep open  boundaries with those around us yet also stand up and enforce our own needs. 
 
What does that look like with others in our lives? Instead of cutting people out, or allowing them to continue bring negativity into ours we need to communicate and enforce a balanced boundary with them. Let those people know that 1) you would like to keep them in your life however, 2) only if they can bring some more positive ideas and feelings as well and limit the amount of negative feelings they are bringing to you. 
 
The key to setting these boundaries is also from a place of focusing on the desire to keep the relationship, yet communicating and enforcing how your feelings can be more respected. Keeping a more hopeful and positive feeling to the conversations will help limit the possibility of someone reacting badly or taking it as criticism. Also keep in mind that life ebbs and flows and so these conversations may to be revisited throughout a relationship as we enforce and remind others of our boundaries.
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Instead of feeling disrespected or isolating yourself from people around you this year, try and create both safe AND connected relationships in your life! This is truly how to live your best life.