Boundaries Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Have you recently walked away from a date or a conversation feeling uncomfortable or violated? Are you looking for ways to set limits with your spouse, kids, parents, or boss? This essential guide to setting and respecting boundaries is for anyone wanting to better understand themselves and others.
Just as a cut in our skin causes pain and injury, a breach of any of our physical, emotional, or sexual boundaries can be very harmful to our bodies and minds. We may need help to heal from past boundary violations, respect the boundaries of those around us, and learn how to set healthy limits for the future, particularly if we have a history of trauma, unhealthy relationships, addiction, or adverse childhood experiences. Drawing on decades of personal and professional experience as a therapist—as well as stories from others who have learned how to heal from serious boundary violations—Anne Katherine, MA, brings us an invaluable, foundational guide on the who, what, and why of boundaries. With nearly 100,000 copies sold, Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin has already helped thousands of readers stand up for themselves and nurture healthier relationship.
Anne Katherine
Anne Katherine, now retired from her forty years as a psychotherapist, is a screenwriter, ghost writer, and National Park ranger. She is the author of numerous titles, including Boundaries, Where to Draw the Line, The Yesterday Doctor, and Stalking Yosemite.
Read more from Anne Katherine
When Misery is Company: End Self-Sabotage and Become Content Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSex and the Spiritual Teacher: Why It Happens, When It's a Problem, and What We All Can Do Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEveryday Narcissism: Yours, Mine, and Ours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Boundaries Where You End And I Begin
Related ebooks
Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Adult Child's Guide to What's Normal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Boundaries and Relationships: Knowing, Protecting and Enjoying the Self Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Adult Children Secrets of Dysfunctional Families: The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Where to Draw the Line: How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taming Your Outer Child: Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Healing from Abandonment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inner Bonding: Becoming a Loving Adult to Your Inner Child Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letting Go of Shame: Understanding How Shame Affects Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5When Pleasing You Is Killing Me Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If You Had Controlling Parents: How to Make Peace with Your Past and Take Your Place in the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Everything Guide to Codependency: Learn to recognize and change codependent behavior Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Healing Trauma Through Self-Parenting: The Codependency Connection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trauma Bonding Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Freedom from Your Inner Critic: A Self-Therapy Approach Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The New Codependency: Help and Guidance for Today's Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Freedom from Guilt and Blame: Finding Self-Forgiveness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Nice Girl Syndrome: Stop Being Manipulated and Abused -- and Start Standing Up for Yourself Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Intimacy Factor: The Ground Rules for Overcoming the Obstacles to Truth, Respect, and Lasting Love Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Power of Attachment: How to Create Deep and Lasting Intimate Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Gift to Myself: A Personal Workbook and Guide to "Healing the Child Within" Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Resolve Shame And Guilt Workbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Setting Boundaries with Difficult People: Six Steps to SANITY for Challenging Relationships Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cutting Loose: An Adult's Guide to Coming to Terms with Your Parents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rejected, Shamed, and Blamed: Help and Hope for Adults in the Family Scapegoat Role Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Relationships For You
I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of 30-Day Challenges: 60 Habit-Forming Programs to Live an Infinitely Better Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries Workbook: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5She Comes First: The Thinking Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boundaries with Kids: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Children Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist: The Narcissism Series, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Codependence and the Power of Detachment: How to Set Boundaries and Make Your Life Your Own Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Your Brain's Not Broken: Strategies for Navigating Your Emotions and Life with ADHD Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5ADHD: A Hunter in a Farmer's World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: Creating a Marriage That's Both Holy and Hot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Boundaries Where You End And I Begin
13 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5a very interesting take on how violations can traumatize a person and shape how they survive as adults. I really enjoy that it offers exercises the reader can use to practice healthy boundaries. I would recommend this book
1 person found this helpful
Book preview
Boundaries Where You End And I Begin - Anne Katherine
{ preface }
What Are Boundaries?
You may have heard friends or therapists toss the word boundary around casually, but what does this mean? What are boundaries, and why do we need them? My hope is that this book will answer those questions and make you more aware of the boundaries in your life—or lack thereof.
In the first chapter, we’ll look at the big picture—boundaries from an eagle’s point of view. Later we’ll close in on the details. We’ll swoop down on specific aspects of boundaries in particular types of relationships so that you’ll recognize both the forest and the trees. Throughout, you’ll read stories that demonstrate what both healthy and unhealthy boundaries look like, which may give you a glimpse into whatever situation led you to pick up this book.
This book isn’t only informational—it’s interactive. Exercises pepper the chapters. Enjoy them. Most are brief. Some involve other people. All let your body and heart in on the knowledge you’re collecting with your mind—in learning what boundaries are all about.
As a final note before you begin, some of the stories and examples included in this book may be hard for you to read. The people who have shared these stories have lived through some pretty unhealthy situations. All of these people have since emerged from those situations and now want to share what they have learned, which demonstrates how powerful building healthy boundaries can be. However, if you feel uncomfortable while reading a particular story—especially if it is a story that closely resembles your own—it may be a good idea to pause your reading and process your feelings with a therapist or trusted friend. My intention in writing this book is to inform you of the importance of boundaries and empower you to use them in your everyday life. That is much easier said than done. If you feel you need additional assistance with your specific situation, please reach out for professional help.
I wish you the best of luck on your healing journey!
{ chapter 1 }
The Wall Between
Laura’s Story
Beth’s Story
AN AMOEBA IS NOT A TULIP
So what is a boundary? A boundary is a limit or edge that defines you as separate from others.
Your skin is a boundary. Everything within your skin is the physical you.
Each living organism is separated from every other living organism by a physical barrier. Amoebae, orange trees, frogs, leopards, bacteria, tulips, turtles, salmon—all have physical limits that delineate them as unique from other organisms. This limit can be breached by injury or other organisms. If the breach is severe enough or if the invading organism is toxic or hostile, the host organism can die. An intact physical boundary preserves life.
Even an organism’s physical components have boundaries. Your nerves are covered with a sheath or membrane. Your bones are distinct from your muscles. The physical world abounds with boundaries. Were it not so, when we sat down, we’d pass right through the chair (and the chair through us) and be sprawled on the floor. Except then we’d pass through the floor, too, and then the earth. Where would we stop?
WE ARE SURROUNDED BY AN INVISIBLE CIRCLE
Our skin marks the limit of our physical selves, but we have another boundary that extends beyond our skin. We become aware of this when someone stands too close. It’s as if we are surrounded by an invisible circle, a comfort zone. This zone is fluid. A lover, say, can stand closer than most friends, and a friend can stand closer than a stranger. With someone who is hostile we might need a great deal of distance.
We have other boundaries as well—emotional, spiritual, sexual, and relational. You have a limit to what is safe and appropriate. You have a border that separates you from others. Within this border is your youness, that which makes you an individual different and separate from others.
What is an emotional boundary? We have a set of feelings and reactions that are distinctly ours. We respond to the world uniquely based on our individual perceptions, our special histories, our values, goals, and concerns. We can find people who react similarly, but no one reacts precisely as we do.
MY SIZE IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
When it comes to how others treat us emotionally, we have limits on what is safe and appropriate. Once I came out of a store in downtown Seattle and a stranger started screaming at me about a religious matter. I turned and walked away. I do not have to accept screaming from anyone. I will accept appropriate anger from my friends and loved ones, but even then, I determine how close I’m willing to be to an angry person.
When I was younger, my landlady routinely commented about my weight. You’re getting bigger, ain’t cha?
I let her say those things to me because I didn’t know any better. Now I know that no one has a right to comment on my body. If that happened today, I’d tell her, My size is none of your business, and I want you to keep those thoughts to yourself.
If she persisted, I’d also persist. I might never again deal with her in person. I might even move—whatever it would take to protect my emotional boundaries.
I used to let my clients say anything they wanted to me. If their need to be angry is that urgent, I thought, let them learn anger with me. Now I sacrifice myself for no one. If a client says something that hurts, I set a limit. Clients can be angry with me, and they can tell me so, but meanness and hostility advance neither the relationship nor the individual. If I let someone abuse me verbally, I have done neither one of us a favor.
The same is true for you. When you let someone abuse you or hurt you verbally, the other person is not advanced. Protecting yourself sets a necessary limit for both of you. That limit advances the relationship.
We have spiritual boundaries. You are the only one who knows the right spiritual path for yourself. If someone tries to tell you he knows the only way you can believe, he’s out of line. To quote the Bible, Philippians 2:12, you must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
We can be assisted but not forced. Our spiritual development comes from our inner selves.
We have sexual boundaries, limits on what is safe and appropriate sexual behavior from others. We have a choice about the people with whom we interact sexually and the extent of that interaction.
We have relational boundaries. The roles we play define the limits of appropriate interaction with others.
In later chapters, we’ll explore and further define these kinds of boundaries. But why so much talk about boundaries? Why are they so important?
Boundaries bring order to our lives. As we learn to strengthen our boundaries, we gain a clearer sense of ourselves and our relationship to others. Boundaries empower us to determine how we’ll be treated by others. With good boundaries, we can have the wonderful assurance that comes from knowing we can and will protect ourselves from the ignorance, meanness, or thoughtlessness of others.
TOUCHING TELLS US WHERE WE BEGIN AND END
How do we develop boundaries? Boundaries begin to form in infancy. In a healthy family, a child is helped to individuate, to develop a self-concept separate and unique from the other family members.
Early on, Laura and Beth both received consistent family messages about boundaries. Beth had a father who wouldn’t let her individuate; he didn’t or couldn’t let her develop separately, with values and an outlook different from his own. She therefore had no boundary with her father. By insisting that she think and be a certain way, he prevented her from developing emotional boundaries. He denied her femaleness, which catapulted her into anorexia, and thus violated her physical boundaries. He sabotaged treatment, preventing her from receiving the nutrition her body needed, and ultimately was prepared to risk her life rather than let her develop an identity separate from his. Beth’s father was enmeshed with her.
Laura, on the other hand, was exposed to boundaries set far too distant for an infant and growing child. After being a part of our mother’s body, we are thrust into the world as a separate entity. We depend on touch for our first sense of ourselves. Touching tells us where we are, where we end. Cuddling and holding tell us where we belong and that we do belong somewhere with someone.
Recently, more and more professionals are even recommending that parents massage their new baby. To massage a baby, the parent or professional carefully stretches the small cramped limbs and lightly massages the tiny muscles. More research is needed on the specific health benefits of baby massage, but this kind of touch is thought to relieve stress in the baby, as well as to help the baby feel loved. During a massage, you are telling the baby, Welcome to the world, Baby. This is you. We will help you know yourself. We are with you. We know your needs.
From the earliest days of her life, Laura was seriously deprived of touch. In contrast to the enmeshment Beth experienced, Laura lived in a family that set boundaries so far away from themselves that each person moved in a separate circle, so disconnected that Laura seemed to be growing up all by herself. By the time she was ten, she’d felt alone for so long that it didn’t occur to her to ask for help in handling her stepfather’s incestuous behavior. She expected to handle it alone.
Like Beth, Laura had no sense of her own boundaries. The lack of healthy physical and emotional contact from her family deprived her of developing a sense of her limits and how to protect them.
PUT UP WITH MY BEHAVIOR AND YOU’LL BE OKAY
Incest is a grave violation of physical, emotional, and sexual boundaries. Laura’s feelings told her that she