• The limits and rules we set for ourselves and within relationships, to protect our well-being
• Knowing our limits in a given situation, knowing what’s acceptable to us,  and what isn’t
• Knowing our values
• Having self-respect, meaning acknowledging our needs, not just another person’s
• Having respect for others, not being self-serving
• Being assertive, saying no without ambiguity

Why are Personal Boundaries important?

• They are a safeguard to overextending yourself.
• They are a self-care practice. 
• They define roles in relationships. 
• They communicate acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in relationships.
• They are parameters for knowing what to expect in relationships. 
• They are a way that you ask people to show up by upholding your needs.
• They are a way to create clarity. 
• They are a way to feel safe. 

How do I know what my Personal Boundaries are and how do I set them?

• Define them
• Examine experiences and notice where boundaries are lacking
• Connect to the intuitive voice (the feelings, sensations in your body, such as feeling pressure in your chest)

Quick Exercise

1. Think about a past, present, or future experience. Example: How do you feel when you think about, say, seeing an old friend?
2. Does your chest tighten? (Think about your feelings, sensations in your body, thoughts)
3. Is there a feeling of resentment leading up to it? (“Ugh I don’t want to go” could be a related thought)
4. How about during the meeting? Do you feel energized, calm, nourished, or depleted, guarded, and limited?

Types of Boundaries

Physical Boundaries

• The amount of personal space, physical contact, that is most comfortable for you and your preferred timing for physical contact
• Your overall comfort with verbal comments on your appearance, sexuality, etc.
• Your overall comfort with sharing your personal space (apartment, bedroom, office, etc.) with others (including friends, partners, colleagues, etc.), sharing personal digital passwords, etc. 

Mental/Emotional Boundaries

• Your overall comfort with sharing your personal thoughts, opinions, and beliefs with others without changing them to match those of another or insisting that others change to match yours
• Your ability to choose which personal thoughts, opinions, and beliefs, you share with others without feeling it necessary to overshare or attempting to insist that they overshare

Resource Boundaries

• Your ability to exercise choice around where and how your time is spent, avoiding any tendency toward people pleasing, etc. and to allow others to have a similar choice
• Your ability to negate personal responsibility for others’ emotions, avoiding the tendency to play the role of “fixer” or to make others responsible for your emotions
• Your ability to limit the amount of time spent on venting problems on the part of either person

Examples:

Physical: Friend makes jokes about other people’s weight

Change needed: You want them to stop

Mental/Emotional: A friend often emotionally dumps about her ex-boyfriend

Change needed: You want a more reciprocal relationship

Resource: Friend insists on a venue closer to their house than to your dwelling

Change needed: You want to meet at a more fair location for consideration of your driving time

Identify the specific commonly crossed boundaries to identify changes you would like to see. Use the following prompts:

My physical self feels uncomfortable/unsafe when _____________ (friend makes comments about my appearance)

To create space for my physical self to feel more comfortable/safe, I_________ (I will no longer be around people who do this)

My mental/emotional self feels uncomfortable/unsafe when _____________ (my family member makes comments about my new health choices)

To create space for my mental/emotional  self to feel more comfortable/safe, I_________ (I will no longer defend, argue about my personal health choices)

My resources feel  uncomfortable/unsafe when _____________ (my cousin call me at all hours to talk)

To create space for my resources to feel more comfortable/safe, I_________ (I will no longer take those calls)

References:

LePera, Nicole. How to do the Work; Recognize your patterns, heal from your past, and create your self: New York, HarperCollins, 2021

Tawwab, Nedra Glover. Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A guide to reclaiming yourself: New York, TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021

The post Understanding Personal Boundaries and Quick Tips first appeared on Specialized Therapy.

The post Understanding Personal Boundaries and Quick Tips appeared first on Specialized Therapy.

When friends break up, life might seem hard. I am not talking about a romantic breakup. In this post I want to focus on a different kind of breakup; when friendships end. Sometimes friendships end with a big falling out. Sometimes it’s more gradual; life gets in the way and friends slowly drift apart – what used to be hanging out all the time shifts to “we should hang out sometime!” or even just birthday messages on social media, if that.

No matter how the breakup happens, the ending of a friendship hurts! We want and expect to keep our friendships for life. It’s jarring when we no longer have that friend to share that perfect joke with, go to THAT concert with, or tell secrets to.

When coping with the loss of a friendship it is important to view it for what it is – a loss! Just as with any other loss it is natural to experience grief and go through feelings of anger, sadness, missing them, and questioning things you could have or should have done differently. It is important to take care of yourself in the same ways you would any other loss: use social and family support, self-care, and self-compassion. Try to get away from the “what-ifs” and use the experience to understand yourself better. Why did you react a certain way? If it happened again, how would you like to see yourself behave? What did you learn was important to you and what is best left behind?

The ending of a friendship can also be a good time to reflect on the quality of the relationship – was it healthy, unhealthy, or somewhere in between? This is an opportunity to be introspective and focus on the relationship with yourself and others in your life. Do you need to apologize to anyone? Improve communication? Spend more quality time with others? Have better boundaries? Were you proud of yourself for certain qualities that you could do more of in the future?

Don’t discount the importance of taking the time you need to feel your feelings, evaluate what is important to you and how you want to move forward in your other relationships. Self-care will make us ready to be better friends and form more solid, long-lasting friendships in the future.

Call STA  201-488-6678 if you want to learn how to deal with the changes life throws at you and learn to become a better friend to those around you.  Together we can help you deal with any breakup you might deal with.

The post What to Do When Friends “Breakup” first appeared on Specialized Therapy.

The post What to Do When Friends “Breakup” appeared first on Specialized Therapy.