Can you sharpen your boundaries but soften your edges?

At the end of 2013 I received a call from a frustrated mom of a pre-teen young lady who was digging in her heels around following through with her household chores and homework and was starting to give her mom some attitude in what should have been benign conversations.  Mom had had about enough of this treatment and was ready to read her daughter the riot act again but realized that, so far, her daughter had failed to respond positively to these confrontations in the past.  Mom was wondering what she might do differently to get her point across.  I was so glad she had realized the futility in continuing the dysfunctional dynamic and came in to talk to me instead!

What leads people into my office is often a case like this, but these issues arise in lots of relationships and aren’t exclusive to parent/child dynamics.  I get clients who come to me feeling discouraged, manipulated, unseen, and unheard in a lot of different situations.  Those can include friendships, work relationships, romantic partnerships, and sibling relationships.  Pretty much any situation where more than one person is involved can devolve into an unhappy, uncomfortable, and unequal dynamic in a flash — IF boundaries aren’t set and respected by all.

A surprising number of people are really uncomfortable with boundary-setting.  They shirk from anything they deem confrontational, or worse, motivated by anger.  They feel undeserving of having boundaries in the first place or they get their identity from serving of others even to the point of self-detriment.  No wonder they come in to see me feeling exhausted and depressed!  These are issues that run deep and usually have roots in the person’s distant past.  Getting along by placing themselves last and saying yes to everyone else’s requests and demands has worked for them in the past but now they are starting to run out of steam and have no idea what to do about it.

So many therapeutic issues are boundary issues.  It takes a lot of courage to start saying no or start putting yourself first after years of doing the opposite of that.  Sometimes it may feel that everyone who is in relationship with you counts on you saying yes and taking care of them first.  Sometimes that’s the status quo that has long been established and doing it differently now will be shocking to all involved.  It may seem impossible to start setting boundaries without a screaming match and who wants that?

I ask my clients to consider their ideal in terms of how much they want to give and give in to others.  I ask them to consider at what point it starts to feel like a contortionist act to meet the expectations others place upon them. Then I ask them to imagine what it would be like for them to say no when, or even before, they reach that point.  This can be very difficult and often the only “out” my clients can see is one that involves tremendous rage, yelling, and –  scariest of all – alienating of those they hold dear but feel they can no longer hold up. No  wonder they have trouble imagining how to set boundaries!

A large part of my work with clients is to determine where they want to set their limits.  But the essential follow up to that question is how do they want to set them.  Is it possible to set a boundary in a compassionate, loving way rather than in a raging, rejecting way?  Most people have never considered this option and think of boundary setting as requiring an angry confrontation.  It’s both challenging and freeing to think about taking care of yourself from a position of loving others enough to do so.  If that’s your stance, who needs an edge?

Instead of raging at her daughter, I worked with the pre-teen’s mom to figure out what, exactly, she was willing to tolerate in her daughter’s behavior.  We then worked on explicit, firm, and loving messages she could give when her daughter crossed her boundaries.   We also figured out a plan of action for self-care for when her daughter chose to continue to push the envelope.  Mom was happier, she no longer had to spend hours feeling terrible for turning into a raging maternal version of The Incredible Hulk, and, after several failed attempts to get a rise out of mom, the problematic behavior soon stopped.

It is very possible to sharpen our boundaries and soften our edges!

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