
Look upon my field where I grow my f*@!s and see it is barren!
......but there are boundaries drawn around it!
Ok, you don’t have to be a therapist to know that statement is of dubious origin, however, there IS a strong chance you may, like many, be bracing yourself for the Christmas season in a manner that reflects your family constellation! And like the statement re: Die Hard as being in the canon of Christmas films, there’s some forecast for disagreement, or perhaps full on arguments!
I would like to talk a bit about Boundaries and what we call your ‘family of origin’, that is the core of caresgivers and siblings or whoever comprised your immediate family circle. Often we have a cocktail of love and hate (choose your own ratio) with this family of origin and so I would like to suggest we take a more stoic influenced mindset to minimize potential grievances as this time approaches.
We can practice accepting what we cannot change, and focus energy on what we can change, and with the latter, we have agency! We cannot change our families values, biases, habits, opinions or indeed that annoying way they eat! But we have many avenues to pursue to hold our own agency in a practical sense and one fundamental but often neglected one is; Boundaries
We hold different boundaries with different people in our life, they will ebb and flow with respect to your own priorities and values....oh yeah and people will 100% try push them!
So let’s get to know the basics of boundaries
There are 7 broad types of boundaries
mental
emotional
material
internal
conversational
physical
time
Type | Definition | Christmassy Examples (woo?) |
Mental | Freedom to have your own thoughts, values & opinions |
|
Emotional | How emotionally available you are to others |
|
Material | Monetary decisions, giving or lending to others |
|
Internal | Self-regulation; energy given to others vs energy given to self |
|
Conversational | Topics you are not interested or comfortable discussing |
|
Physical | Privacy, bodily, personal space, possessions, substances |
|
Temporal | How much time you spend with someone or on some task |
|
This can seem dizzying but I invite you to take five minutes to yourself with these seven factors and try see if there’s one or two oft-crossed boundaries you would like to repair and strengthen for YOU and YOU ALONE!
Communicating
In doing this there are four steps to enacting your boundaries!
1) Define
2) Communicate
3) Stay simple; practice not explaining or qualifying
4) Set consequences; say why it’s important
It may be naturally guilt inducing or frightening, this is natural and not a shameful thing.
Remember to stay #CuriousNotCritical around the process
-Practice No in different sizes; small, medium & big
-actually taking (even tiny ones) action begets big positive change
-no is for EVERYONE and is reciprocal!
-it may suck at first, you will survive and feel more free!
-Please do take care of yourself in it, it may take one or two (or ten) attempts to enact boundaries and it’s tiring, but remember it’s a right!
Comments