Boundaries

This morning I had a chat with a lovely young woman who had identified that she had boundaries being crossed at work. When I was her age, I thought boundaries were just the fenceline around our farm which delineated where our land ended and the neighbours’ began. Technically, they were there to keep our stock in and theirs out.

Whose job is it to maintain the fence? Ours or the neighbours’? If it’s affecting us, it’s our job. If it’s affecting them, it’s theirs. We can also work on it together.

So, I finally found out, it is in our relationships. If I have a boundary of what I want to happen in a relationship (and I mean this in the general term, it can be any kind of relationship, not just the romantic kind), first I have to identify the boundary. Often I don’t know I have a boundary until it’s been crossed by someone. Then I have an uncomfortable emotion about it and I have to figure out why I am feeling that way. That helps me find the boundary in the first place. (That’s a whole other conversation!)

Next I have to articulate the boundary to others, in particular the person who might have crossed my boundary. This part is essential as the other person may have no clue that they have been walking all over my boundary. People have a tendency to wander all over the place when there’s no fence and they will just saunter on through. Children, who are still learning basic social norms, actually have to figure out the rules by seeing them modeled or by breaking them, and will often push and push and push until they find the fence. (Except when they find cliffs…fear of falling is fairly innate.)

But it doesn’t stop there, and this was the hardest bit for me to learn: I have to hold my boundary and have a clear consequence when my boundary is not respected. I made the boundary, it’s up to me to maintain it.

Many people are honourable, and when you articulate a personal boundary, they will respect it. However, some are not, so you need to know what you will do if they are not, what your natural consequence might be. When we discovered one of our neighbour’s were cutting off the ear tags of our wandering sheep and keeping them we opted not to have anything to do with them anymore. But we also continued to return their very bouncy, fence-resistant sheep. Just because someone else is dis-honourable doesn’t mean we have to be.

So, here’s what my friend jotted down in summary of our discussion (she’s less waffley than me):