The Purpose of Having Boundaries -Daily Meditation 10.2.23

Today’s quotation:

The purpose of having boundaries is to protect and take care of ourselves.  We need to be able to tell other people when they are acting in unacceptable ways. The first step is knowing we have a right to protect and defend ourselves. We have the right and duty to take responsibility for how we allow others to treat us. -Robert Burney

Today’s Meditation:

I’ve always been too good at creating and maintaining boundaries.  When I was younger, they were walls that kept virtually everyone out; as I’ve grown older, I’ve been able to scale them back so that they’re no longer damaging walls but protective boundaries between me and my students (essential) and between me and the rest of the world.  I was talking to a colleague yesterday who’s already exhausted because, as she said, “I don’t know how to say no.”  That’s the kind of thing that can damage our psyches, our spirits, and even our health.

Without establishing and maintaining boundaries, we risk turning our lives into a never-ending parade (or charade) of pleasing others.  Doing work for others.  Taking care of others and their problems.  We can find ourselves with almost no privacy, no quiet moments, no opportunities for rest and relaxation and rejuvenation.

And as Robert says, boundaries aren’t just about what we do for others–they’re about what we’ll accept from others and how we allow them to treat us.  Too many of us allow others to be rude and mean to us because we’re afraid we’ll lose them in our lives, or because we’re afraid that we’ll hurt them–or because we’re afraid that they’ll hurt us.  Sometimes, situations become unbearable. We haven’t set boundaries because we’ve allowed others to do and say as they please when with us.

Boundaries need to be set, though.  And they need to be adhered to, within reason (if we establish unreasonable boundaries, we face other problems with frustration, anger, etc. when they’re not respected).  We must ensure that we know our limits and that others in our lives respect those limits.  We need to do this to take care of ourselves and be very clear to others what we’ll stand for and what we won’t.

Questions to consider:

What are some of your most important boundaries?  Do you respect them always?

Do you respect the boundaries of others?

What would life be like if we had no boundaries at all concerning others?

For further thought:

We feel used and mistreated when we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable.  This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice. -Brené Brown
The Gifts of Imperfection

If you missed our last Daily Meditation, it is here.