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The connection between boundaries and love is often misunderstood.
Setting boundaries is perceived to be an act of pushing away, of putting distance between you and the other. But a boundary in its most sacred form is simply delineating between what happens within a certain space & what does not. In this sense, creating boundaries is a drawing in rather than a pushing away.
Setting boundaries is as much about what you are saying “yes” to as it is about what you are saying “no” to. It is actually generous to reveal your boundaries, and a deep act of vulnerability to ask for what you need.
Personally, I love boundaries!
Partly because I love them, and partly because I work with so many people who struggle with them, I wanted to clear up this misunderstanding of what boundaries are.
Often, people who have an aversion to boundary setting or receiving, view it as an act of separation, in opposition to love.
But the act of setting or holding a boundary is not correlated to having an open heart, or a closed heart, or anything about how much one person loves another.
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In fact, I believe setting boundaries is actually an act of great love!
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I have set boundaries and have had boundaries set with me with a wide open heart, where the space between us is deeply receptive while there is a boundary being set. I’ve also had the experience of somebody not setting a boundary and being disconnected and closed in relationship to me.
Of course, our boundaries—like all communication—will be received better if set with an open heart, especially if they are with people who we love and want connection and intimacy with, but whether we have an open or closed heart is irrelevant to whether we are setting a boundary are not. So, let’s set that piece aside for now, and just talk about the connection between boundaries and love.
When I work with my clients, I often hear things like:
“But we love each other so I guess I need to learn to be OK with (insert behavior they are totally not OK with) or “I’m not getting what I want, so I’m out of here.”
Neither of those is what I could call setting a loving boundary.
Begin by Slowing Down
Many of us have never taken enough time to truly know & feel what we do & don’t want – in our lives & in our relationships. To become more intimate with our own needs & desires requires slowing things down.
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By saying “no,” or “not right now” or “I need to think about that and get back to you,” you slow the interaction down enough to be able to tell whether you are truly a “yes” or a “no.”
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I remember when my son was young, he used to say “no” to everything first. You could say:
“Hey Trent, would you like some ice cream?”
And he’d say, “No! . . . I mean yes.”
By saying no first, he was slowing things down. Some part of him needed to set his boundary first and then he could take the step forward and say yes. He was discovering more of who he was in the process.
If you are new to saying “no,” or setting boundaries, sometimes a good first step is to assume “no” first. By saying “no,” or “not right now” or “I need to think about that and get back to you,” you slow the interaction down enough to be able to tell whether you are truly a “yes” or a “no.”
It’s an enormous act of self-love to set a boundary. Not only can I love who I know myself to be by setting the boundary, but I also discover more of who I am, as I go.
Setting boundaries is an act of love for the other.
I believe it’s not just an act of self-love to set a boundary, but an act of love for the other as well. There are a few reasons why I believe this.
First, it honors the other person as a whole being.
If I am willing to set a boundary with you, I believe you can receive it, and I trust you enough to speak it in the first place. If I don’t want to be close to somebody, I will just distance myself.
Setting a boundary requires that I step in closer. If I am setting a boundary with someone, it means I’m engaging in the relationship.
It is also an act of love and generosity to not withhold parts of ourselves from them.
Both the things we are not OK with, and those things we desire in the relationship.
Secondly, when my children are acting out—and this happens with adults all the time too!—they sometimes get spun out and lose their minds a little bit.
They’ll say things they don’t mean, or kick and scream.” Something I say to my kids when this happens is, “I love you too much to let you act like that” because I know they don’t want to hurt me, or each other, and they don’t want to break anything. At that moment, they are having strong feelings that overcome their ability to make good decisions about how to behave.
Setting a boundary with them at that moment is an act of love. It’s setting a container. It says, “This is what happens inside this space, and this is what doesn’t happen inside this space.”
Self-Centered vs Healthy Boundary-Setting
There are self-centered ways to set boundaries, which is more along the lines of:
“I’m not getting what I want so I’m out of here” or “I deserve better than this.”
Then there are healthy ways. An example of this is:
“In order to____, I would need____.”
As in, “In order to continue talking about this with you right now, I would need you to stop stomping around the house.”
I love this format because it takes radical self-responsibility while also asking for what you need. It’s saying, “Even if I’m the only person in the world who needs this, that is what I need.”
It does not say, “You are a bad person, and if you really loved me, you would already know this!”
It is a radical act of love for the other person because it does not assume the other person is behaving in this way on purpose to aggravate you.
So many of us assume if the other person isn’t doing the thing we want or need, then they must not want to, aren’t willing to, or won’t, but often we’ve just never asked.
It’s important in relation to giving the other person all the information they need to make their own choices.
It’s vulnerable because it acknowledges that we actually do have needs.
Most humans have a desire to be self-reliant. We tend to be afraid of needing anything from other people. And there is also a more new-age belief that we ‘should’ be able to ‘be ok’ with any behavior from other people & simply ‘rise above it’ or ‘not take it personally’
Frankly, I don’t believe that’s true. We DO need other people, and we DO have limits.
This format also takes out the judgment of whether that other person wants it, or anybody else wants it, and it honors that I want this: that it is true for me.
I believe creating boundaries is sacred work.
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This post was originally published on KendraCunov.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Getty Image
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