Define Your Boundaries

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Good relationships involve people respecting each other's individuality. This involves honoring one another's boundaries. Personal boundaries are physical, mental and emotional.

When someone stands too close to you, you feel uncomfortable. Your definition of "too close" is likely to be different for different people and probably varies a little from day to day. The amount of personal space you require to feel comfortable is an energetic boundary. Those who can perceive auras or energy fields can tell how much space an individual needs by how much space that person's energy takes up.

By using your intention, you can reinforce this personal energy boundary. Try simply being aware of your energy boundary. It is around your body at about the distance you would expect a stranger to keep. If you are around people who do not respect your boundaries, try planting an imaginary hedge outside your personal boundaries. This hedge should have beautiful flowers (it should be a friendly way of saying "respect my space.") and roots that reach down into the center of the earth. This hedge will catch any energy of trespass and neutralize it.

Mental and emotional boundaries are the limits of what an individual considers to be acceptable behavior. Where do you draw the line about how people treat you? Generally, you should set your limits where you are comfortable. If you are uncomfortable when someone tells an off color joke, then that should be something people refrain from doing in your company.

People with healthy boundaries will take themselves out of situations in which others trespass their limits, or they will politely request that others honor their boundaries. Those who are used to having their boundaries trespassed are more likely to allow the behavior and tolerate their own discomfort. If your boundaries are not healthy, you may need to practice setting them where you will be comfortable.

Healthy boundaries might keep out such behavior as people yelling at you or telling you how you should think. They might limit what sort of language others use in your presence.

Talane Miedaner sees healthy boundaries as critical to attracting the things you want in life. In her book, The Secret Laws of Attraction she presents especially good advice for setting healthy boundaries, and urges readers to set them as broadly as possible.

How do you know when you have set your boundaries too wide? When you keep out people you want close to you, you may have set your boundaries too wide. Or, you may need new friends if those people make you uncomfortable!

Boundaries: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

We are generally led to believe that closeness or oneness are characteristics of a good relationship. According to spiritual teachings, we are all one.

But in order to have healthy relationships in this world, nothing beats a definite boundary. We may be all one, but I still need to respect you as an individual with your own thoughts, needs, motivations, feelings. If I assume you agree with all that I believe because we are all one, you are likely to be offended.

In fact, it is the projection of one's self onto another and failure to recognize that person's individuality that constitutes abuse. In her book about emotional abuse, Controlling People, communications expert Patrician Evans discusses the dynamics of this projection of thoughts and feeligns onto another individual.

Most of us grew up with adults violating out boundaries to some degree. They often did so for good reasons; to keep us safe, teach us to behave in socially acceptable ways, or to run a household efficiently. As a result, many of us, as we grow up, have to sort out what we really think and feel from what our others told us to think.

Some parental boundary violations are less benign. "That didn't hurt!" "You have nothing to cry about." and similar statements deny us our individual thoughts and feelings.

Energetically, repeated boundary violations result in us carrying the energy of other people's thoughts and feelings around with us. You can identify this energy mentally by looking for beliefs that make you feel uncomfortable. Beliefs from your true self come with a feeling of peace and "rightness." Other people's projections do not.

For example, when I think, "I have no business being an actress," I feel a comfortable faith that it is the truth. When my friend has this thought, she gets a stomach ache. She is a good actress. But, she is hearing one of her parents' pronouncements made because they wanted to protect her from a career in which it is tough to succeed.

When a spouse says, "You're just trying to make me angry." Their partner knows that is the last thing he or she intended, but also wonders why he or she is perceived that way. This sort of boundary violation is crazy-making.

Take some time to examine your beliefs. Are they all yours?

Come back next week and see how to create better boundaries.