Home > Work > Boundaries: Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries
1 " As much as we want to improve our relationships with our fathers or mothers, if your father, for example, hasn’t changed, he’ll probably hurt you again. His response is saying that he can’t handle more intimacy with you. Repeated efforts on your part won’t change this. No matter how much we love someone, they have the choice of holding to their limits. I have a certain relative I love very much. I’ve poured my heart out telling of my wish that we might be closer. I’ve been hurt a hundred times. So I finally got it. No matter how much I want to be closer to my relative, I can’t make him take his barrier away. He has a right to keep it. But I can protect myself from being hurt again. I can stop banging my head on his barrier. "
― Anne Katherine , Boundaries: Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries
2 " Intimacy comes from being known, and being known requires knowing yourself, having a self to know, and having enough of a sense of your own individuality to have something to present to the other. "
3 " But both physical and emotional boundary development are harmed by distance violations, not just intrusion violations. "
4 " Generally, stress means we aren’t getting enough help. It can be heightened by self-made rules about doing things perfectly and not making any mistakes; by black-and-white thinking; by not accepting help, not getting advice, not trusting; by thinking we have to do everything ourselves; and by other rules we may have made to survive childhood. "
5 " We can be assisted but not forced. Our spiritual development comes from our inner selves. "
6 " In these examples, triangulation becomes a defense. Triangulation becomes a way to offset the abuse of power and to get clarity about the wrongs committed. This kind of triangulation occurs in families where one member is abusing his or her power. Like a poor boss, an abusive parent who is deaf to protest gives the children no choice but to talk about that parent. When a parent refuses to hear the issues of adult children, the children turn either to each other or to outsiders, but both sides lose. The parent loses an opportunity for greater closeness with the child and the adult child must grieve the loss of the sought-for resolution that cannot come about. "
7 " But if the other person is simply incapable of acting in a healthy way because of an addiction or personality disorder, we must protect ourselves. Sometimes we need to leave a job to find a healthier work environment. A company or agency that doesn’t clean up its act always loses the good people. When the employees get healthy, they leave. "
8 " It sounds simple until you add a real person with boundary problems. Imagine finding support, companionship, and affection from Fred. This is a man who’s never been helped to acknowledge feelings. His boundaries are so distant you’d need a bus to get from customs to the inner man. "
9 " When a person neither knows his feelings nor has healthy ways to handle them, he is vulnerable to whatever will keep his feelings contained—alcohol or other drugs, food, excessive work, stress, compulsive acquiring, compulsive hobbying. "
10 " 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. "
11 " A wife is not the best person to teach her husband how to feel. "
12 " Before the rice has gummed up the sidewalk, each person’s childhood issues start flowing out, issues about power, individuality, control, separateness, and intimacy. Since many couples are anticipating a peaceful slide into happily-ever-after, this turmoil comes as a shock. He’s supposed to love me more than anyone else in the world and he wants to read the paper while he eats breakfast. She used to be so undemanding and now she wants to talk for hours about “our issues” when I come home tired from work. Seemingly small things trigger huge reactions, and each person wonders who this stranger is that seemed so appealing a few short weeks ago. "
13 " 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. "
14 " With good boundaries, we can have the wonderful assurance "
15 " that comes from knowing we can and will protect ourselves from the ignorance, meanness, or thoughtlessness of others. "
16 " When a person neither knows his feelings nor has healthy ways to handle them, he is vulnerable to whatever will keep his feelings contained—alcohol, drugs, food, excessive work, stress, compulsive acquiring, compulsive hobbying. "
17 " Children need a lot from their parents beyond food, clothing, shelter, safety, and security. They need parental interest, guidance, affection, concern, and safe physical contact. "
18 " We learn about our boundaries by the way we are treated as children. Then we teach others where our boundaries are by the way we let them treat us. Most people will respect our boundaries if we indicate where they are. With "
19 " Parents are likely to parent as they were parented unless they’ve learned a different way and had their own needs met. "
20 " Our ability to protect ourselves is related to the strength of our boundaries. If we haven’t developed clear emotional boundaries, we are vulnerable to physical violation. "