Personal boundaries are the imaginary lines you draw around yourself that no one should cross either physically – unless invited in – or emotionally. You are entitled to respect, privacy, decency, kindness, love, truth and honor, to name a few rights. If people cross the lines, blur the boundaries, you are entitled to stand up for yourself and say, ‘No, I won’t put up with this’.
However, you have to draw the lines first. You have to know what you stand for and what you won’t. You have to set the boundaries in your mind before you can expect others to respect them, stick to them. The more secure you become with your boundaries, the less power other people will have to affect you. The more clearly defined your boundaries, the more you realize that other people’s behavior is more to do with them and less to do with you – you stop taking things so personally.
You are entitled to basic self-respect. You can’t expect others to respect you unless you respect yourself. You can’t respect yourself until you have formed a clear picture of who you are and what you are. And setting boundaries is part of this process. You have to feel important enough to set those lines. And once set, you have to be assertive enough to reinforce them.
Having personal boundaries means you don’t have to be scared of others. You now have a clear idea of what you will put up with and what you won’t. Once someone crosses the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior, it gets really easy to say, ‘No, I don’t want to be treated like this’. Over the years we get set in patterns of behavior. Say, you are used to seeing an elderly relative and coming away feeling bad because he puts you down or makes you feel inadequate. You can change things by saying to yourself, ‘I won’t put up with this any more’. Observing personal boundaries enables us to resist pushy people, rude people, aggressive people, people who would take advantage of us, people who would use us unwisely. Successful people know their worth and don’t get messed around. Successful people are the ones who can recognise emotional blackmail, people who dump on others etc. Once you’ve got those lines drawn around you, it gets a whole lot easier to stay behind them and be firm, resolute, strong and assertive.
