Boundaries: A Reflection Workbook For The Woman Who Wants To Love Herself And Others Well
Stop trying to control others' behavior and practice true boundaries from divine love.
Moon Update: 🌕 Strawberry Full Moon 6/29 at 6:57 p.m. CT. The name originated from Native American Algonquin tribes to mark the short, sweet season when wild strawberries were ripe and ready to be harvested. This Moon carries strong spiritual themes of ripening, blossoming, and abundance.
Seasonal Update: We're in the height of summer now, the season of fire. In Ayurveda this is Pitta time, when heat builds in the body and the spirit, and the medicine is to cool rather than to push. Favor sweet, cooling, watery foods: cucumber, melon, mint, coconut, ripe summer fruit. Slow down in the hottest part of the day. The season is asking you to tend your fire, not feed it.
In September of 2022, I scheduled a call with a mentor of mine to get coaching on a working relationship I was in.
That same year, I had left another working relationship in March.
An organization where a leader had told me that I was “using my anxiety to get out of being my word” when I had asked to miss an optional call so I could go to a 12-step meeting after suffering two panic attacks in a weekend conference.
An organization where an executive had told me that I “should start examining myself and where I personally lacked integrity and how it was influencing my environment” when I had shared about feeling depressed that some loved ones were struggling with mental health and substance abuse.
Four months after leaving that organization, in July, I started working for an entrepreneur as a contractor, and felt hopeful about the work.
A few weeks in, I was working 10-15 hours a week more than we had agreed on. With no training, I was expected to produce business revenue within my first month. When I didn’t, I didn’t take a full paycheck. (Which wasn’t part of the agreement.) I witnessed another employee being spoken to like a child when she made small mistakes.
Two months into our working relationship, and the second time I ever set up an event for her, I missed several things. Things I didn’t know that I didn’t know about setting up. She pulled me aside and told me, “I am not happy. What the hell am I even paying you for, to work on your own business?”
I felt like crying but I took full responsibility instead. That is how I had been trained: if something was wrong, it was my doing and I needed to fix it.
When I scheduled the coaching call with my mentor, the coaching I received was different from what I was looking for: “I think it’s time for you to examine and work on your boundaries.”
I didn’t even know what that really meant. The idea of “boundaries” was a new concept and I had barely heard the term used before.
That call was a turning point for me: it was one of the first times I realized that it’s okay to not be okay with someone else’s behavior. That sounds wild to me now, but at the time it was a novel idea.
It also started an inquiry for me that continues to expand today: what are boundaries? And how do we practice them to create better relationships?
What Are Boundaries?
“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
Boundaries give us the space to do the work of loving ourselves. They might be, actually, the first and fundamental expression of self-love. They also give us the space to love and witness others as they are, even those that have hurt us.”
- Prentis Hemphill, The Embodiment Institute
I love this quote on boundaries and use it all the time with my clients.
I believe divine love is unconditional acceptance of someone else, exactly as they are. Since we are as much human as we are divine, it’s important to remember that our love is fallible — and that is okay. So from these soft, human bodies with human emotions, if we’re not able to love and accept someone exactly as they are, we need a little more distance.
How we create that distance is through our own behavior. What will I do or what won’t I do?
The common understanding of boundaries is more about trying to control someone else’s behavior, so that we feel safe. E.g. “Don’t talk to me like that” or even a softer, “I am not okay with you talking to me like that.”
Although this is better than self-silencing, the issue we run into when we talk about boundaries in this way is that we have zero control over how someone else behaves.
When we tell someone, “My boundary is you don’t get to yell at me” and then they yell… we are left feeling more frustrated and powerless than before we communicated this.
Instead, a true boundary is, “If you yell at me, I will leave the room / hang up the phone.”
Thus, the structure of a boundary in relationship to others (as I practice it): “If you will / won’t behave in x way, I will / won’t behave in y way.”
The emphasis is on my behavior, and I am showing what I will or won’t do to love myself, and what behaviors are and are not okay around me.
You don’t need to always communicate the boundary. Sometimes it is more powerful to just honor the behavior you have decided on for yourself without communicating it. i.e., if someone yells, you leave the room. Or if someone is speaking critically of a loved one in front of you, you stay silent and don’t engage.
There are some people in my life who behave in ways that I am not okay with, and so I just create some distance between us. Whether that means I am spending less time with them, or I won’t discuss certain topics with them, or I spend time with them in specific settings that I feel okay with.
For example, as a recovering alcoholic, I am okay with spending time with people who drink alcohol. However, if people are really intoxicated, I am not comfortable with that, so I will leave. I am not upset when this happens, nor am I judging them. I just know I am not okay with being around intoxicated individuals, and I protect myself and my sobriety by removing myself from the situation neutrally.
Boundaries can also be created in relationship with ourself, which is simply, “I will / will not do x.” For example: I will not drink alcohol.
The key here is to remember that boundaries are a way for us to love ourselves and others well. I’m not loving myself well if I’m not taking care of myself with the same discernment of caring for a child. I’m not loving myself well if I’m putting myself in situations I am not comfortable with to appease others. And I am not loving someone else well if I am spending too much time with them and feeling angry, frustrated, or resentful towards them for being who they are.
Important note: everything I’ve written here assumes you are dealing with people who are fundamentally safe. People who, even when they hurt us, are not trying to harm us. With safe people, honesty and speaking up while staying in relationship can be healing.
This is different when someone is emotionally or physically unsafe. If you’re in a relationship where honesty gets used against you, where speaking up makes things more dangerous, or where leaving the room isn’t a neutral act but a risk: the work is not the same. Please don’t read this piece as a prescription for it. Your safety comes before any of this. Discernment, distance, and sometimes getting out entirely matter more than being honest or holding the relationship.
If you are in a relationship or organization like that, you deserve support from people trained to help. A therapist, a counselor, or a domestic violence hotline can help you think through what’s safe and what’s next, in a way that a piece of writing never can. You don’t have to figure it out alone.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE
https://www.thehotline.org/
Boundaries In The Four Domains of Relationship
The writing I do always falls into one of my Four Domains of Relationship: Relationship to self, to the divine, to work & wealth, and to others. I focus on these because I believe healing happens in relationship, whether that is in relationship to ourselves, or our relationship to external people / things.
Here are examples of my own boundaries within each of these domains, phrased as behaviors: things I will or will not do.
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