Setting boundaries; Why is it important?

What is your understanding of boundaries? It's your personal protection zone. If someone does or says something to you that makes you feel 'uncomfortable', what do you do? Well, first of all it's identifying what makes you feel uncomfortable - different for each and everyone of us and so many possible scenarios. Feeling uncomfortable can give you undesirable emotions, for example someone wants you to do something that makes you feel shame or that makes you feel guilty or angry. Where do you draw the line?

When you don't honour your own boundaries and for example say yes when you mean no, you may not be recognising your own feelings. When you don't acknowledge your own feelings, you're allowing someone else to make decisions about how you spend your time. If we class 'time' as the most important element of life, how serious are you about you? Other people will continue to 'use' your time if you don't set it as a priority and manage it as such.

You can ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I want to do this?

• Can I do this?

• Am I going to do this?

When you have a few standard answers such as:

'I'll have to get back to you on that' or

'Can I let you know tomorrow?' or

'when do you need to know by?' or

'I don't feel ok with that'.

That's when you start to manage your time because you create thinking time. If you want to help someone out then do it with love and only say yes if you really mean it. If you feel pressured to do something then find a reason not to do it that works for you or you may start to feel resentment.

Another aspect of boundaries is saying 'yes' and then feeling you have to do whatever you 'promised' regardless of new circumstances. I personally discovered ths during a psychology training session. We were asked to volunteer and give 100% commitment to do whatever the trainer asked without knowing beforehand. I knew it would be something silly but didn't feel great so I said 'no' and someone else took my place. It was something silly but the answers of the 4 who said 'yes' was my lesson. Two said something to the effect of 'we're in a school building it could never be something really bad' and the other two 'if it was really disgusting I wouldn't do it'. Those two promised 100% to do whatever but still allowed themselves to withdraw if it went 'over their boundaries'. A valuable lesson.