Importance of boundaries
Boundaries: What are they and how to create them | Wellness Center
Posted on February 25, 2022
Hello Flame,
This month has been all about relationships, so for this week’s lifestyle tip, we wanted to share information about the importance of boundaries and how to set them. Whether it’s a friendship, romance, roommate, or professional relationship, it’s important to set boundaries to protect and to ensure respect for one’s identity and wellbeing. Communicating boundaries is the foundation of a healthy relationship!
What are boundaries?
An invisible line that defines what behaviors are acceptable for an individual. Boundaries can be physical (e.g., do not touch me) or emotional (do not lie to me). Boundaries can also be based on time or space (e.g., when I do X, Y or Z, please respect my time and understand I will not be able to speak/ hang out with you until X, Y, or Z is completed.)
Why do we need healthy boundaries?Setting boundaries is a form of self-care. It helps to create a clear guideline/rule/limits of how you would like to be treated. They let others know what is and what is not okay/acceptable. It honors our needs and wants so that we feel respected and safe. As students, boundaries also help to avoid burnout, stress, and anxiety. It can also help prevent financial and emotional burdens.
How to set boundaries?
- First, recognize you deserve to be treated with respect. You are a worthwhile person!
- Second, take a second to define and acknowledge what boundaries you may or may not have already set in your relationship.
- Thirdly, recognize what boundaries you would like to set in place. What are your needs and wants? Please know boundaries you set for friends may look different for family and partners etc.,
- Lastly, communicate your boundaries in a respectful manner and respect others’ boundaries.
- For more information on setting boundaries, please visit this link: https://www.
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-flux/201511/7-tips-create-healthy-boundaries-others
Setting Healthy Boundaries Heading link
Healthy Boundaries in Relationships Heading link
Young Adult Peer Mentoring: Professional Boundaries Heading link
Modified on February 25, 2022
Boundaries - Why are they important? Part 1
The definition of boundaries means anything that marks a border. It’s a real or imagined line that marks the edge or limit of something or the limit of a subject, principle or relationship.
Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave towards them and how they will respond when someone passes those limits. They are built out of a mix of conclusions, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning. Personal boundaries help to define an individual by outlining likes and dislikes and setting the distances one allows others to approach.
Boundaries are essential to healthy relationships and, really, a healthy life. Setting and sustaining boundaries is a skill.
Why Are Boundaries Important?
Healthy boundaries are necessary components for self-care. Without boundaries, we feel depleted, taken advantage of, taken for granted, or intruded upon. Whether it’s in work or in our personal relationships, poor boundaries may lead to resentment, hurt, anger, and burnout.
Boundaries help us take care of ourselves by giving us permission to say NO to things, to not take everything on. Boundaries draw a clear line around what is ok for us and what is not. While some behaviours clearly cross the line for almost anyone, we all have different comfort levels when it comes to everything from intimacy and privacy to lateness. When someone behaves in a way that doesn’t feel ok to us – that crosses our line, we need to take care of ourselves by letting them know and making that line much clearer.
Boundaries are important for both individuals in a relationship, and for the health of the relationship itself. Without clear boundaries, we may feel resentful, taken advantage of and eventually shut down and withdraw. It can affect our sense of self-esteem, self-worth and overall personal and interpersonal comfort level. Clear boundaries allow us to remain connected and communicating these boundaries shows our respect for the relationship, because we’re willing to put in the work to ensure that the relationship stays strong and safe.
UNHEALTHY Boundaries are characterised by:
- Sharing too much too soon or, at the other end of the spectrum, closing yourself off and not expressing your need and wants. Feeling responsible for others’ happiness.
- Weak sense of your own identity.
- You base how you feel about yourself on how others treat you.
- You allow others to make decisions for you; consequently, you feel powerless and do not take responsibility for your own life.
HEALTHY Boundaries allow an individual to:
- Have high self-esteem and self-respect.
- Share personal information gradually, in a mutually sharing and trusting relationship.
- Protect physical and emotional space from intrusion.
- Have an equal partnership where responsibility and power are shared.
- Be assertive. Confidently and truthfully say YES or NO and be OK when others say NO to you.
- Separate your needs, thoughts, feelings, and desires from others. Recognize that your boundaries and needs are different from others.
- Empower yourself to make healthy choices and take responsibility for yourself. If you are dealing with someone who is physically dangerous or threatening to you, it may not be safe to attempt to set explicit boundaries with them. If you are in this situation, it can be helpful to work with a counsellor, therapist or advocate to create a safety plan and boundary setting may be a part of this.
Setting boundaries isn’t always comfortable and people may push back if you say NO to some things or try communicating your needs more clearly. People may try to test your limits, to see how serious you are about drawing the line. Or they may be used to you responding in a certain way (agreeing to take on everything), and they may push back when you try to make some changes. That doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong. It may just mean that you need to be clear and consistent until people adjust to the new way of interacting.
“Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices.”
– Gerard Manley Hopkins
Sources:
Boundaries by Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend
Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin by Anne Katherine
Self-Care 101: Setting Healthy Boundaries by Dr Dana Nelson 2016
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Border security and control
- UNCCT
- Programs and projects
- Border security and control
The UNCCT Border Security and Management Program (BGMP) aims to strengthen the capacity of member states to prevent the cross-border movement of terrorists and stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) by improving border security and the effectiveness of border controls.
The program builds on an in-depth analysis of current border security deficiencies in the context of counter-terrorism identified by previous UNCCT projects, such as the UNCCT-GCF Border Security Initiative and the Awareness and Capacity Building Project in advance passenger information collection; and border security and control projects currently being implemented globally by other United Nations entities, Member States and international and regional organizations.
UNCCT also draws on CTED analysis.
Program mandate
Members of terrorist groups and FTFs continue to move through remote and poorly controlled border areas with often porous borders. Stopping this flow is recognized as one of the most important tasks of the global counter-terrorism effort and requires concerted cooperation at the global, regional and national levels.
The ITC BGCT Program serves as the basis for the development of a wide range of capacity building projects that contribute to the implementation of Pillar II of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and relevant Security Council resolutions, including resolution 2178 (2014) on FTF travel prevention, resolution 2322 (2016) on international cooperation against terrorism, resolution 2396 (2017) on the threat posed by returning FTFs and the most recent resolution 2482 (2019) on the relationship between terrorism and crime.
Program activities
The main objectives and ongoing projects of the Program include: measures to combat terrorism.
Coordinating Role of the Program
The UNITC Border Security and Management Program is flexible, allowing for close coordination and building on the efforts of key United Nations Global Compact Counter-Terrorism Coordination Partner Entities, regional and/or sub-regional authorities, as well as addressing ever-changing threats and, most importantly, meeting the changing needs and demands of Member States.
UNCCT works closely with UNODC, IOM, CTED and other organizations implementing the Programme.
Program Effectiveness
The results of the UNCCT Border Security and Management Program include: experience in the area of COG in stemming the cross-border flow of FTFs and have integrated it into their national border management strategies and action plans.
In July 2019, UNCCT's BGCT team, under the UNODC ERCOP project, conducted a specialized regional training to build the capacity of border officials working at the border at international airports on countering terrorist threats in the Caribbean. region. This training was provided to 45 officials from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba and Jamaica, as well as 350 staff from the wider Caribbean and Latin America who participated in the online training and completed this training course using a virtual network platform for distance learning.
In the same year, the BGCT team conducted 5 regional capacity building trainings and 3 more training courses were offered at the national level. The team also provided support to key partners such as IOM, UNODC, OHCHR, INTERPOL, WCO, NATO, OSCE, FRONTEX and GKF
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I'm in the house: how to set boundaries correctly
Personal boundaries are a line that runs between individuals, the people around them and larger social systems.
They are needed so that we can clearly feel: where I am, and where I am not; where are my own emotions, actions, beliefs and thoughts, and where are others. And if these emotions and thoughts are mine, then I am responsible for them and control them. Borders also protect our inner world from outside encroachment.
Finished reading here
They may look like a five-meter stone fence with barbed wire and machine gunners on the towers. Or they may be absent altogether - all the doors will be wide open. Boundaries can change depending on the context and environment, become solid for some people and completely blurred for others.
Personal boundaries can be opened for "import", when we gladly accept other people's help, resources, time, money, etc., or for "export" - our own resources. We usually import what we especially need, and we export either what we have in abundance, or what we hope to get a good price for.
Boundaries are needed to mark two important issues:
1. What do I consider my property (and therefore will I protect)?
2. What am I responsible for (and will try to control)?
Boundary checking
How does this manifest itself in specific behavior? There are people for whom property boundaries can be very arbitrary. Such a person does not consider anything his own, inviolable, he "does not become attached to things." He cannot close himself in his room because he considers it impolite. Such people cannot refuse help or money, even realizing that this money will not come back. Their borders are always open for imports, it is important for them that people see them as kind, generous and open.
It's a way to build relationships. Sometimes they even think that having nothing of their own is safer.
The opposite type is people whose boundaries are too wide. They consider everything their property - wife, children, employees, office or apartment space, other people's things and time. They do not see other people's boundaries and do not consider it necessary to observe them. Wherever such a person is, there is always “too much” of him, he captures the space around him. And if he was not given something in a good way, he can take it away "in a bad way."
Two "extreme" types also exist in relation to responsibility. There are people who take on too much, trying to control what is beyond their control. Such a wife thinks that her husband yelled at her because she did not have time to set the table on time or did not clean up well enough. People agree with every charge brought against them.
The logic is this: if I tried better (guessed other people's desires and did everything right), then this would magically change those around me, make them happy and loving. People with such a strategy of thinking lack recognition and praise, they are ready to do everything to get this simple currency.
The other extreme is characters who are not ready to take responsibility not only for others, but also for themselves. They do not see their contribution to the development of conflict situations, do not accept criticism and try to avoid any obligations. If you entrust them with a project, they will either require a partner or will come running every half hour with questions and clarifications so that the responsibility does not lie with them (or at least not with them alone). Men with a fear of responsibility are almost elusive for marital or paternal obligations. They consider them a violation of their boundaries, because the family will force them to change their usual way of life.
Border Guard Day
How to define your borders and protect them? Unfortunately, you cannot put up pegs and notify others that “this half a meter of land around me is my territory, do not enter without knocking.” Although, in fact, this is exactly what young ladies with long puffy skirts did in the old days.
In my trainings, I often do a simple exercise. I ask a person to designate a limit invisible to others, and I begin to slowly approach it - step by step. The task of the participant is to make it clear without words that I am already close to the point that I do not need to cross. The reaction is very different. Someone is very calm at first and only at the last moment begins to frown. Someone, on the contrary, from my first step “gets into a pose” and puts on “boxing gloves”.
Very polite people let me close, with a bewildered smile on their face. And only then it turns out that I have long passed the intended border. There was also such an “intelligent” reaction: when a person understands that I am not going to stop and provoke him to more obvious actions, he himself takes a step back, leaving his integrity stable. But in order to stay at a safe distance from me, he has to give up his territory.
I don't know how you would react in this exercise. Think about it.
You can defend your borders in different ways in different situations. The ability to say "no" (without the subsequent sprinkling of ashes on the head!) Is an important personality skill. It is necessary for those who easily succumb to pressure, aggression and other "honest ways of taking money."
The ability to create and protect one's own boundaries, of course, is formed even by parents.
But over the course of life (and with different people), boundaries can change many times. Teenagers, for example, protect them militantly, they need this life period in order to separate from their parents and learn to build their own lives on their own, to respect themselves. And couples in love sometimes completely dissolve in each other, and only then they begin to notice that it has become crowded. If you do not revise the rules of interaction in time, do not outline the circle of your interests, then the couple comes to a crisis or even breaks up.
Like any other skill, the ability to see and respect one's own and others' boundaries may well be mastered at a later period of time.
How to defend your territory
How do you react to a yelling boss? Do you get nervous before public speaking? Are you able to refuse requests from loved ones if they are inconvenient for you? Do children have the right to disagree with you, to close in their room? How do you feel when your spouse (or best friend) said something “wrong”? Do you want to suggest, correct, give a cuff, shame, do you think that the actions of loved ones “dishonor your reputation”?
The skill of respecting other people's boundaries is, first of all, allowing other people to be different from you.
