When Boundary Setting is Actually Control and How to Avoid Lashing Out
You are becoming more sure of yourself, and in doing so you are working on setting healthy boundaries with others. If you’re like most people in this space, you might also be pretty frustrated with what you’ve tolerated, and you might be tempted to “let ’em have what’s coming to them” the next time it happens. But by doing so you will actually NOT be honoring yourself…or them. Here are a few pointers to get you moving in the right direction.
Keeping the Focus on the Other Person. Of course, you will start here in your mind and in your heart. You’re angry, upset or disappointed. Maybe still in disbelief that someone could be so hurtful, thoughtless or abusive. But we must grieve through it before we can bring it back to us and take responsibility for what we need to do to take care of ourselves. We detach a bit and sit with what is going on and realize first we need to accept the reality (after sitting in all the feelings) and then make some choices.
Making You Statements. Let’s say you do all the above and then go to the person to set a boundary, and yet you keep the focus on them, which will come across as control, because it is. You say things like “you can’t speak to me like that.” This is the one of the trickiest parts of boundary work to work on. It takes awareness, time, and effort to be vulnerable instead, and to tell the other what you have decided, or what you will choose to do if they do the behavior again. But it’s the healthy way to set limits, by stating something like “If you choose to speak to me like that again I will leave the room.” The boundary is about you, and the ball then goes to them, and they get to choose their next move. Everyone is in a place of choice.
Stating Your Limits with Lots of Emotion. Ok so you’re moving through the lesson here, and you know you need to keep it about you, but maybe you just aren’t quite ready to do it without tons of emotion driven mainly by anxiety. Therefore, you might yell what you could state calmly, use emotional words like “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” This just means that you have to go back to your room and grieve some more, until you’ve come to acceptance of what simply is the reality. It’s as if you want them to see you hurting and do something about it. It is said that we are asking them to rescue us from the feelings and the reality we don’t want to sit in.
Learning to transform the “other-focused” approach to revealing our boundaries to others takes courage and lots of getting it wrong for awhile. It takes this because by stating your limit you are taking a risk. That person could act out, shame you, become more abusive or leave the relationship. That’s exactly why so many of us would rather the other person change so we don’t have to risk the unknown.
