![]() One of the components of healing is creating healthy boundaries for yourself. If you have never heard of this idea or think that boundaries are not needed in close relationships, you are not alone. Many people have no idea about boundaries, how to create them or assert them. For them boundaries mean huge walls of alienation, aloneness and telling people to *%&# off. Boundaries are you defining your space, asserting yourself and your existence. Boundary is about what you accept and what you won’t accept and tolerate. People who have often found themselves as being treated like doormats don’t have any boundaries in place. They are in dysfunctional relationships where the balance of giving and taking is highly skewed. They don’t have any idea of what they like, dislike, how they want to be treated or how to express their desires, they may not even have the idea that they are allowed to express their desires and have them fulfilled. ![]() If you come from a family where you have been abused as a child (I am not talking of just physical and/or sexual abuse that is visible, but also of verbal and emotional abuse which by its very nature is covert and hidden and leave deep emotional scars,) you will have impaired boundaries or no boundaries at all. Your desires, feelings and thoughts did not matter, were often put down or mocked. This could have been explicit by making fun of you or shouting and yelling at you, it could have been implicit or hidden by making fun of you and calling you too sensitive, criticizing you, shaming you for having such thoughts in the name of “improving you” or “for your own good”. If you were engulfed and not allowed to make decisions, think for yourself, not allowed any privacy, you were not simply allowed to have any boundaries where you could exert your individuality or even understand your preferences. ![]() Downsides of not having healthy boundaries:
Upsides of having Boundaries:
![]() How to create boundaries
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AuthorMeetu Sehgal Archives
April 2022
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