If you are tired of being robbed of your joy and peace, you need to know how to set healthy and personal boundaries. Personal boundaries are limits and rules a person sets to protect his or her life and relationships. Without boundaries, our lives will be full of chaos, brokenness, and pain.
I realized that one of the main reasons why my joy and peace were short-lived in the past is because, for the longest time, I didn’t know how to set boundaries. So in this blog, I hope that it will also help you protect the blessings and gifts of life by learning how to set personal boundaries. After reading this article, you’ll learn what healthy boundaries look like, why it’s important, simple practical steps to set personal boundaries, and how to protect them moving forward.
Learn more about setting healthy personal boundaries in our podcast: EP 21 Setting Healthy Boundaries with Addie Cook.
Why Personal Boundaries Are Important
Almost everyone on the internet talks about self-love and a peaceful life but without setting healthy personal boundaries, that would be impossible.
Imagine a house right now. It was designed by an amazing architect and built by one of the best engineers you know. The house is clean, perfectly organized, and has all the things you love and adore in it. But there’s a problem. This house is located on a very dangerous street, accessible to robbers and trespassers. And it doesn’t have a door or a gate! The worst part is, that this house represents us and our individual lives.
Our lives are precious but we live in an imperfect environment. You might say that you would rather build a house in a safe village. Well, that can be the case for actual houses but the reality is we live in an unsafe world where people and situations can easily rob us of our peace. (Also, even the houses in a village are locked and have high security! So should we in our personal lives.)
Setting healthy boundaries is similar to this. We protect our lives and relationships by placing necessary limitations and rules on what can enter our personal space.
For more practical reasons why we need to set healthy boundaries, here are 7 :
- Personal boundaries allow us to think clearly and wisely
- We avoid unnecessary waste of time, resources, and energy
- We avoid burnouts
- Healthy boundaries help us with building self-esteem
- People will know how to treat you properly
- You can give more from an overflowing cup
- You build more healthy relationships with others
4 Main Consequences of Not Having Any Boundaries
But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
Mark 3:27
Benefits are always talked about when learning about healthy boundaries. I think, similarly, we also have to discuss the consequences of not placing them in our lives.
Damage to others and self
Having no boundaries can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. It could cause self-sabotage as well whenever we allow others to continuously step over our boundaries.
Lost self-identity
People without boundaries often say “yes” even if it’s against their will. This could result in doing something that is not part of your identity. If you’re a Christian, an example could be saying “no” to relationships that are not of God.
False peace
False peace is when it is quiet on the outside but everyone is unwell within. People who have no personal boundaries result in a false peace environment.
Facade
Connected to the points above, when boundaries are unclear, we subconsciously create a facade to accommodate the people and situations that are crossing over our boundaries.
What Healthy Boundaries Look Like
The keyword for boundaries is self-respect. When a person has healthy boundaries, they can say “no” to whatever or whoever (will) invade or disrupt their personal space. Additionally, this person can also express their limitations and expectations to another person. Again, we can visualize personal boundaries as a gate or guard to our lives.
How to Set Healthy Personal Boundaries
I think we can all agree that we have to take responsibility for our lives. That includes taking responsibility for setting boundaries. Unfortunately, people can’t read minds so people can’t guess if you don’t like something or not unless you express yourself. I’m guilty of that. For so long, I’ve been living in a bubble hence I thought all people could understand one another. The real-life was harder than I imagined it to be.
Fortunately, we learned how to set personal boundaries AND it’s not hard. Setting boundaries is pretty easy.
Discern
First, we have to discern. This includes discerning God’s will through prayer and meditation. This step should allow us to see what are our limits to certain behaviors and how we can control ourselves when the need arises. In our discernment, we have to listen to God’s wisdom instead of our feelings and the world’s standards. Each person has different limitations so your boundaries may look different than mine. However, when together, it should create an environment where harmony is present and respect is served.
I love what GotQuestions wrote about boundaries,
Boundaries can be used in healthy ways and sinful ways. The way to know which boundaries are godly is to examine the motive. Are you protecting yourself or someone weaker from potential harm, either emotional or physical? If so, then you are setting healthy and needful boundaries. However, if you are maintaining distance simply because you desire to exclude someone, that is sinful. Boundaries that maintain cliques or prohibit ministry opportunities are unhelpful.
GotQuestions.Org
Express
Warning: This step doesn’t mean you have to post and announce your boundaries (unless you feel the need). This step means to express your boundaries when a person or situation makes you uncomfortable, intentionally or unintentionally, and whenever your boundaries are crossed.
An example of this is when a person constantly shouts at you (or has shouted at you), you can calmly express that you don’t like being shouted at because it makes you anxious or nervous.
Another example of expressing boundaries is when we communicate how we would like to be treated as a friend, partner, member, or colleague. Like, expressing not to talk to you when you are angry or that you want to settle things right away (whichever type of person you are). Or it could be as simple as expressing that you cannot do overtime at work.
The more precise you can express your boundaries, the more likely your boundaries will be respected.
-Science of People
Follow Through
Lastly, after expressing our boundaries, we have to be firm and follow through with what we set. This could be the hardest part because we don’t know (or have control over) how the other person will react or how the situation will turn out.
There will be two sides to this – the other party can accommodate or cannot. If they can accommodate, then it’s best and healthy to continue working with them. If not, you could find a resolution that works best for the future which could be to compromise or give space indefinitely.
I remember my friend expressed her situation to her previous company’s owner that she was not treated well by her store manager. We talked beforehand that she was going to set boundaries by communicating the situation to the owner and we hoped together that it would be resolved well. However, the owner expressed that she could just find a different job if she had a problem with the manager. Her follow-through is to quit.
We both agreed that it was a good conversation because she and the owner expressed their situations well and it wasn’t that much of a loss for both of them anyway. She didn’t like the treatment she experienced and the owner didn’t want to resolve the issue. My friend found a better job later on.
Sometimes we are afraid of the outcome of setting boundaries, and that’s completely normal. Following through our boundaries is a sign of respect and taking responsibility for our well-being.
Addie Cook taught me about these three steps and we talked more about boundaries in more detail in our podcast EP 25 Setting Healthy Boundaries with Addie Cook.
Protecting Personal Boundaries
Sometimes, people don’t get it the first time. We still need to have grace and not block people right away from our lives. Here are some tips to protect your boundaries moving forward.
- Communicate often, clearly, and directly
- Don’t gaslight yourself and your situation
- Be clear on your boundaries
- Ask for personal space whenever you’re uncomfortable
- Practice boundary to yourself (yes, you read that right)
- Be firm with your boundaries
- Practice self-awareness
Conclusion
We’re all a student of life and we’re all continuously learning. So don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t had boundaries for so long. I also only learned this recently and taking action on the steps has tremendously changed my life.
Whenever we set healthy boundaries, we give way to a more productive and healthy way of living. This also means that we can give more of ourselves to people, projects, and opportunities that are most important to us.
Setting Boundaries As A Christian
In the bible, we are taught to love one another and to give the other cheek when we are slapped. Similarly, the Bible also teaches us about healthy boundaries, self-respect, and self-love. Giving to others means that we have our source (which is God) and the capacity to give and share. Here are some bible verses that are related to setting healthy personal boundaries.
But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house. Mark 3:27
Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, Titus 2:12
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31
Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; He who guards his soul will be far from them. Proverbs 22:5
Don’t give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls to pigs. Otherwise, they will trample them and then tear you to pieces. Matthew 7:6
Cheers to learning healthy personal boundaries to foster more healthy lifestyles and relationships!
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