What Narcissists NEVER Tell You by Miro Elena

Author:Miro, Elena
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-07-09T16:00:00+00:00

What Do We Mean by Boundaries, and How Do You Know What Yours Are?

Boundaries are the limits you have for your life. If you think about the phrase, “crossing the line,” the line is a boundary. To have healthy boundaries, you first have to know your personal limits and what you will and won’t stand for in each area of your life. But how do you know your boundaries? Let’s look at some techniques for identifying your limits.

Identify Your Limits

The first thing you want to do is state the limits you know you have in each area of your life. These include the following:

● Physical limits: This would include how and when you want or don’t want to be touched, how you like to be touched, the kinds of touches you don’t like, and the kinds, positions, and timing of sexual touches. Additionally, this includes your freedom to move around and any limits on that.

● Emotional limits: This includes what you would define as loving treatment, how you experience and express negative emotions, and what you will accept in return when someone else is experiencing and expressing their negative emotions.

● Mental limits: This includes things like how your ideas are received or critiqued by other people, your freedom to express your ideas and opinions, and how you like to receive feedback from others about your own ideas and opinions.

● Spiritual limits: This includes things like your ability to engage in rituals associated with your spiritual beliefs, your ability to express your spiritual beliefs, and how you expect others to give you feedback on your spiritual beliefs.

To identify your limits in these areas, first consider anything you know that you can or cannot tolerate. For example, you might know without having experienced it that you won’t tolerate physical abuse. You might know that you won’t accept someone yelling their opinion at you or calling you names. These are things you might know right up front that you cannot tolerate, but there are more subtle limits you might have as well.

To identify some of your more subtle limits in these areas of your life, you can try to get into a meditative state and recall an instance in each of these areas where you felt uncomfortable or stressed. Focus on exactly why you felt that way and what you would have preferred the other person to do instead of doing what made you uncomfortable. That can help you to identify any of the more subtle boundaries you might have.

For example, you might be uncomfortable when someone stands within two feet of you while talking to you. This is a more subtle physical boundary. You might feel uncomfortable if someone condescends to you, even if they don’t say anything bad, per se. It could be their condescending tone of voice that makes you uncomfortable, which would be a more subtle boundary to determine.

It might help to tune into your feelings in order to identify these subtle boundaries. Dr. Gionta stresses that there are two key feelings that are red flags for a boundary violation: discomfort and resentment.

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