Would you ever build a house with no doors or locks?

I am sure your answer would be no (even though some idealists may want to live in a such utopia). If you know you should protect your house and material possessions from potential thieves, unwelcome guests, and abusers, why would you not consider creating boundaries for your ‘self’?

What are Personal Boundaries?

Personal boundaries are your own unique and special guidelines or rules that define what is acceptable to you and what is not. In another way, it is just a fancy word to say that you need to know yourself better, understand what your personal benchmarks are, and decide what you will allow and what you will not.

Boundaries can be physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and spiritual. You are entitled to your own physical space, your feelings, your thoughts and opinions, your friends and acquaintances, and your spiritual beliefs.

We express physical boundaries through clothes, the space we maintain with others, the kind of touch we allow different people, and the words we speak.

We show emotional boundaries by expressing ourselves and letting people know how much they can depend on us for support. We do this verbally and with our body language too.

We create intellectual boundaries by deciding the kind of conversations we will indulge in.

We convey social boundaries by choosing how much time we want to spend with specific people. Our guidelines here define whether we allow our work colleagues to be friends or who is allowed to call at what time.

Lastly, we exude our spiritual boundaries by having rules about what we share, discuss, and reveal to others about our own true self.

Why set Personal Boundaries?

Setting boundaries sounds like such a negative thing to do. It feels like creating barriers and roadblocks. When and if you think of boundaries in such a manner, you are looking at unhealthy boundaries. These are boundaries and barriers that are created out of fear or anger with the intention of shutting out anyone or anything that can hurt you.

Healthy personal boundaries help us indulge in some self-care. It protects our self-esteem and respect. It indicates that we have a voice of our own based on individual thoughts. With confidence, assertiveness, and a sense of responsibility, it paves the way towards healthy relationships.

When you do not have healthy personal boundaries, we tend to act in ways that harm us. We may share too much information, allow people to get too close (physically or emotionally), take on responsibility for others’ actions, and have a weak sense of identity. Aspects such as these lead to a feeling of powerlessness. Over time, unhealthy boundaries can lead to dependency, anxiety, stress-induced illness, and lack of purpose. Rigid boundaries also lead to isolation.

What happens when you do not have Healthy Personal Boundaries?

Part of me wants to allow life to be seamless, without boundaries, without over-thinking, and without planning. On the other hand, I do see the consequences of not creating boundaries and allowing things to happen.

When we do not create physical boundaries consciously, we make ourself susceptible to the unwelcome touch, people barging into your private space, people who stands too close for comfort, an embrace which you want to squirm out of, a look that makes you feel cringy, or the handshake that lasts longer than it should.

Lack of emotional boundaries could have people in the office talking to you about their personal lives, someone blaming you for their actions, getting affected by people’s words, feeling wounded, sacrificing your own dreams for others, taking responsibility for others, and expectations that are uncontrollable and impossible.

When your life is devoid of intellectual boundaries, you can be pulled into doing things that you find boring and unintelligent. You can end up sitting in groups of people as they gossip and talk about stuff that does not interest you at all or it may lead you to listen to someone boasting about what they achieved (while stifling yawns all the time).

Social boundaries are necessary to surround yourself with people who matter to you. Without that, you will not be able to say no to toxic elements that may surround you, keeping you from joy and growth.

Spiritual boundaries are essential if you really want to be able to look inside yourself and explore. With too much external influence, the extent to which you can see your own truth becomes limited.

Having understood what personal boundaries are and why they are important, we will venture out to take a look at different personas that emerge from unhealthy boundaries and their relationships.