Wisdom and the Importance of Boundaries
This is a blog about boundaries, and the importance of setting firm boundaries. This content tells you why it is important to set boundaries rather than just being open-minded all the time.
Boundaries are sturdy walls that help to keep us from getting hurt by letting people know where they stand with us. Boundaries can be made into both physical or mental ones and help keep you safe from the potentially dangerous people in your life - your family, friends, or strangers for example.
Boundaries are about having limits on how much you give to people in your life. It is also more than the simple physical or mental boundaries that you have around your house, such as a fence around your backyard.
When you create a boundary with yourself it means that you are going to stop enabling other people's behavior and ill-health by passing their hurt onto yourself. This could be as simple as saying "No" to someone else when they ask for things from you or it could be as big as not continuing to live with an unhealthy person who has treated you badly.
This is a difficult concept to grasp when you first start understanding how you should live with other people, but once you have learnt not to stay with someone who is harming you, then your boundaries are solidified and remain rock-solid... it won't matter what anyone else says.
Often, the problem is that we are afraid to set our boundary too strongly because we feel that we might upset the other person. However, we do know how they make us feel and this often cuts through their ego and leads them to changing their behaviour for the better so as not to cause us pain anymore.
Since people need to learn how to play with boundaries, they also need to learn what is and isn't acceptable behavior while playing with them. We can take this in baby-steps by starting out just by saying "No" to something that we don't want to do first.
In the same way that an infant learns by clapping their hands whenever they like a toy so that mother will pass it towards them, we can teach ourselves how boundaries in life work by enforcing a boundary from time-to-time and then rewarding ourselves at the same time.
This helps us to build up our self-esteem and self-confidence, before we move on to enforcing boundaries more strongly in the future.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of boundaries you need to enforce, then start with the small ones first. Once you have these in place, it can be a lot easier to take care of the bigger ones.
Boundaries are about having limits on how much you give to people in your life. It is also more than the simple physical or mental boundaries that you have around your house, such as a fence around your backyard.
When you create a boundary with yourself it means that you are going to stop enabling other people's behavior and ill-health by passing their hurt onto yourself. This could be as simple as saying "No" to someone else when they ask for things from you or it could be as big as not continuing to live with an unhealthy person who has treated you badly.
This is a difficult concept to grasp when you first start understanding how you should live with other people, but once you have learnt not to stay with someone who is harming you, then your boundaries are solidified and remain rock-solid... it won't matter what anyone else says.
Often, the problem is that we are afraid to set our boundary too strongly because we feel that we might upset the other person. However, we do know how they make us feel and this often cuts through their ego and leads them to changing their behaviour for the better so as not to cause us pain anymore.
Since people need to learn how to play with boundaries, they also need to learn what is and isn't acceptable behavior while playing with them. We can take this in baby-steps by starting out just by saying "No" to something that we don't want to do first.
In the same way that an infant learns by clapping their hands whenever they like a toy so that mother will pass it towards them, we can teach ourselves how boundaries in life work by enforcing a boundary from time-to-time and then rewarding ourselves at the same time.
This helps us to build up our self-esteem and self-confidence, before we move on to enforcing boundaries more strongly in the future.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of boundaries you need to enforce, then start with the small ones first. Once you have these in place, it can be a lot easier to take care of the bigger ones.
Boundaries are about having limits on how much you give to people in your life. It is also more than the simple physical or mental boundaries that you have around your house, such as a fence around your backyard.
When you create a boundary with yourself it means that you are going to stop enabling other people's behavior and ill-health by passing their hurt onto yourself. This could be as simple as saying "No" to someone else when they ask for things from you or it could be as big as not continuing to live with an unhealthy person who has treated you badly.
This is a difficult concept to grasp when you first start understanding how you should live with other people, but once you have learnt not to stay with someone who is harming you, then your boundaries are solidified and remain rock-solid... it won't matter what anyone else says.
Often, the problem is that we are afraid to set our boundary too strongly because we feel that we might upset the other person. However, we do know how they make us feel and this often cuts through their ego and leads them to changing their behaviour for the better so as not to cause us pain anymore.
Since people need to learn how to play with boundaries, they also need to learn what is and isn't acceptable behaviour while playing with them. We can take this in baby-steps by starting out just by saying "No" to something that we don't want to do first.
In the same way that an infant learns by clapping their hands whenever they like a toy so that mother will pass it towards them, we can teach ourselves how boundaries in life work by enforcing a boundary from time-to-time and then rewarding ourselves at the same time.
This helps us to build up our self-esteem and self-confidence, before we move on to enforcing boundaries more strongly in the future.
Conclusion:
If you are feeling overwhelmed by the number of boundaries you need to enforce, then start with the small ones first. Once you have these in place, it can be a lot easier to take care of the bigger ones.
Boundaries are about having limits on how much you give to people in your life. It is also more than the simple physical or mental boundaries that you have around your house, such as a fence around your backyard.
When you create a boundary with yourself it means that you are going to stop enabling other people's behavior and ill-health by passing their hurt onto yourself.