Personal Boundaries
Personal Boundaries refer to the rules and limits that we set for ourselves in regard to our relationships with others.
You can think of boundaries as a spectrum with porous boundaries on one side and rigid boundaries on the other.
Healthy boundaries fall somewhere in between these 2 extremes.
Healthy boundaries include being able to say “no” to others when you want or need to, but also being comfortable opening up to others and forming close relationships.
Someone with rigid boundaries keeps themselves at a distance from others while someone with porous boundaries gets too involved with others.
People are multi-faceted, so someone may have porous boundaries in one area of their lives while having rigid boundaries in another.
Most people have different boundaries depending on the situation.
A healthy range for boundaries would be to set them at 20% on the low end and 80% on the high end, depending on your personality and the specific situation.
How To Achieve Healthy Boundaries Within a Community
Healthy boundaries are essential to maintaining peace within a community or workplace.
Being completely porous and emotionally raw can be as problematic as being rigid and closed off from others.
We can create healthy boundaries by being mindful of our emotional state and setting intentions.
Mindfulness:
Being mindful and aware of our emotional state is a key element for successfully working with others.
For example, if we are having an emotionally raw day we need to first be aware of this in order to manage it so that we don’t explode and cause problems within the community.
Setting intentions and managing your emotional state:
We need to manage our emotional states to successfully work with others and maintain peace.
We can’t always wear our hearts on our sleeves or be distant and unapproachable when working with others.
Before entering a situation, you can focus your mind to set your personal shield strength.
Imagine your personal walls and either build them or take them down depending on your current emotional state.
If you are feeling emotionally raw then build your walls to guard yourself.
If you are feeling overly guarded, then take down your walls in order to process the needs and concerns of others.
If you find that you aren’t able to successfully manage your emotional state in this way then it is best to take a break if possible.
It is not necessarily easy and it takes some work, but creating healthy boundaries is essential in order to successfully work with other community members and to ultimately maintain peace.