How to Set a Boundary: Pause, Reflect & Attend
The pace of life has resumed to normal and you may feel like your head is spinning. Navigating and balancing social invitations, kids’ sports and school activities, visits with family and friends. you may feel like you’re drinking from a fire hose: too much, too fast to enjoy. You may be left feeling tired and overwhelmed with little to no time for self-care.
if you’re feeling this way, it may be time to re-examine your boundary-setting skills (i.e your ability to say “no” to what others want).
Your ability to set boundaries is ESSENTIAL to living your best life.
Photo: Kari Herer
What are boundaries?
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. We can't base our own worthiness on others' approval (and this is coming from someone who spent years trying to please everyone!).”
- Dr. Brené Brown
Boundaries are the rules you set to protect and defend yourself and your time. They help you maintain relationships, preserve your physical and emotional health, and are essential for creating a sense of calm. Maintaining boundaries are a skill you can learn and deepen with practice, just like any other.
When you say “yes” to make someone else happy, violating your own boundary, you create the perfect conditions for resentment, a destructive emotional pattern that can deeply hurt yourself and your relationships. AND, your days will be filled with activities that don’t make you happy, robbing you of opportunities that may lead to your greater wellbeing.
Dr. Brené Brown, who’s researched boundary setting, found that people who demonstrate the firmest boundaries are able to offer the most compassion for others. This is significant because compassionate people, those who have the ability to remember that others are “doing the best that they can,” rate highest on indicators of life satisfaction and happiness.
3 Steps to Set a Boundary
REmember “PRA”
PRA is a Sanskrit word that means: to move forward, to advance. It’s the perfect acronym to help remember how to set a boundary because you can not successfully move forward in your life, achieve emotional well-being, or feel happy without firm boundaries.
When someone makes a request of you, follow these three steps:
PAUSE before you respond
Take a deep breath before you say anything. Your first instinct may be to say “yes,” especially if you were raised to be a people-pleaser or often question what others think of you. To buy yourself time, respond by saying “let me check my calendar and I’ll get back to you” or “I need to think about it.”
The art of conscious pausing is a skill that requires toning and practice and gets easier every time you do it. Mindfulness, journaling, or any other kind of self-reflective practice helps prime you for more ease in creating space before responding (see the Course below for help tone these skills).REFLECT on what you want
Think about how to answer. Unfortunately, you may have been conditioned, like so many of us, to ignore this inner knowing and may not immediately know what you truly want. When this happens, use your body as a guide.
An authentic “yes” will create positive sensations in your body: you may feel lighter, centered, or a release in your chest or shoulders. BUT, if you notice a tightness in your stomach, chest, or shoulders, a nagging sense of discomfort or feelings of heaviness, use this as a warning sign: You may be saying yes because you feel you “should.” If “should” is a part of your answer, it may not align with your authentic self and could lead to future feelings of resentment. For help, try this free Body Scan meditation (excerpted from Take Two’s Course, info below).Questions to help identify a “SHOULD”
➡️ Are you doing this to make someone else happy?
➡️ Did your family patterns teach you it’s wrong to recognize and value your own needs?
➡️Were you taught love/acceptance/care was conditional on sacrificing your own needs?If you answer yes to any of these questions, be sure take the time to self-reflect before you respond.
Remember that You have a finite amount of energy each day, so be discerning with it. If you fill your time with requests that serve others’ needs rather than your own, you may be left with little or no time to create the life that will serve YOUR future wellbeing.
ATTEND to yourself
Sometimes people respond beautifully when you set a boundary, grateful for the clarity, and quickly move on. However, more frequently than not, people resist a “no” answer, reacting with anger or frustration. When you say “no” clearly, you run the very real risk of facing an unpleasant response.
If you face this resistance, attend and nurture yourself. Remind yourself that your needs are equally important to theirs. It’s their job — not yours — to re-balance themselves when they’re disappointed. So offer yourself some self-care after you face this situation: Take a walk, call a friend, buy yourself fresh flowers, listen to a guided meditation, journal, or practice self-compassion.
Resources to help
28 Days to Resilience: A course by the The Take Two Journal that offers writing prompts and guided meditations to help fortify your ability to set boundaries, and offers an opportunity to practice mindfulness, self-compassion, and gratitude, to identify what is most deeply important to you, and find guidance on offering compassion to others.
Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown.
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self by Martha Beck
Transform Your Boundaries by Sarri Gilman. She also has a helpful tedtalk.
