A Kind Way To Initiate A Hard Boundary Conversation

Courageous Conversations That Can Bolster Your Life Force & Improve Your Health

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Yesterday morning in my Spiritual Bypassing Recovery 2.0 class, we were talking about the importance of changing the pattern of letting abusive people off the hook with spiritual aphorisms like “Forgive and forget” or “I’m so unconditionally loving that my love doesn’t need to hold someone accountable for abuse” or “I have compassion for why that person hurt me that way- because I have insight into their trauma.” Some of the students in the class are working hard to learn to confront mistreatment and set boundaries, which is good for your health and can be preventive medicine or part of a holistic medical treatment plan, especially if your boundaries were wounded in childhood.

When Harvard physician Jeffrey Rediger, MD spent 17 years interviewing “health outliers” who were cured from incurable diseases for his book Cured, he found that, faced with the possibility of death, many of these folks went from pushover doormats to feisty dudes and dudettes who put their needs first for a change in order to try to save their own lives. When you’re fighting for your life, that sometimes means disappointing or upsetting other people who might have unreasonable expectations of you or feel entitled to take advantage of you or use you as narcissistic prey or control and dominate you into submission to their entitled demands.

As Gabor Mate unpacks in When The Body Says No, when we fail to protect ourselves from people who expect too much of us with a clear, firm, and if need be, fiercely confrontational “NO,” the body may say no for us. I had to learn this the hard way when I was dealing with health issues of my own back in my thirties. Then when my TEDx talks and Mind Over Medicine skyrocketed me into the limelight, I was inundated by people who wanted something from me.

I joked in therapy that my job as a writer forced me to become a professional disappointer. Which is still super hard. Because of my own boundary wounding, disappointing people- many of them lovely strangers with real needs- is still one of the most uncomfortable feelings in my internal family system. If you do not want to master boundary setting, by all means, do NOT write a New York Times bestselling book! Thank God and Asha Clinton and Nancy Morgan for good therapy, though. I am forever indebted to the therapists who changed my life by helping me learn to protect myself from the blood-sucking leeches who felt entitled to exploit me, who came out of the woodworks as soon as my vulnerability to such people (because of my own childhood trauma) became publicly broadcast.

A Vulnerable Request From A Tender-Hearted Student: Help Me Learn How To Have A Boundary Conversation?

During our class yesterday, one of our students asked if I could offer practical tips for how to have a healthy boundary conversation with someone she is scared to confront. Especially if children were raised by a narcissistic, sociopathic or otherwise abusive parent, confronting someone with a boundary request can feel utterly terrifying, even if the person you need to confront is actually safe and would respect your boundary. If the person you need to confront is high on the narcissism or sociopathy spectrum, the fear might be real- because these people tend to explode if you say no to their entitled expectations or set limits you expect them to respect.

Especially for trauma survivors who have been harmed in the past when they said no or confronted an abuser or tried to set a boundary or protect themselves from abuse, even thinking about setting a boundary can make you quake in your boots. Many trauma survivors learn to fawn, appease, accommodate, people please, and say yes even when they mean no, especially if the other person tends to blend with scary, intimidating narcissistic or sociopathic parts that remind them of their abuser. That quaking part may not settle down and let you set clear boundaries unless you get a good therapist to work on the appeasing parts that make you vulnerable to having your boundaries crossed or your terrified parts that may have gotten legitimately harmed when you tried to protect yourself in the past. With that disclaimer, here are a few tips you can try to prepare for a boundary conversation.

1. Get clear on your needs and desires. Begin with your imagination. Imagine the best possible scenario for this relationship you want to mend. Get as crystal clear as you possibly can on what you might need to ask for in order to improve the safety, quality, and health of this relationship. Until you get clarity on what you want and need, it’s hard to set the other person up for success. Boundaryless people who don’t set boundaries tend to get passive aggressive and resentful because other people crash right through their boundaries- and then they break contact in relationships as a substitute for boundary conversations, which is abusive in its own way. Imagining how it would feel to shore up your boundaries and repair the ruptures in your relationships can help you get started off on the right track.

2. Clean up dual relationships and grey zones. Pay attention to where you might be participating in muddy boundaries by crossing lines into dual relationships or where you might be misleading people or hiding in the grey zone by not being clear about your needs, your intentions, your desires, or your agenda. Dual relationships are those that cross categories, which are a set up for boundary violations and ethics breaches. Are you doing business with your best friend? Dating your business colleague? Getting your work entangled with your family? Giving away your business goodies or your business expertise or your business services for free to someone who isn’t a paying client and expecting some kind of unspoken transaction in exchange? Becoming friends with a client? These are all dual relationships.

   Also, pay attention to grey zones. Ask yourself why you are in this relationship. Sure, you care about this person or this job or you wouldn’t risk having a boundary conversation, but why else are you in this relationship? Were you just born into this relationship? Is your boss or your boyfriend paying your bills? Do you have an agenda for the relationship? Are you getting free dinners out from a rich friend, and if so, what is the other person getting- the opportunity to control you or make you narcissistic prey so you can center them while they pay for your meals? Is someone expecting business favors from you - like calling in a prescription if you’re not that person’s doctor? Or are you expecting free services from them? Are you hanging out with someone young and beautiful in exchange for paying for their luxuries so you can feel admired and powerful and sexy and envied by others and they can feel adored and centered by you? Are you going to family dinners because you hope to get a generous chunk of the cash if your parents die, or do you really want to be there because you love them?

   If you are transacting with this person you’re going to have a boundary conversation with, has that transaction been made explicit and are you both in consent for this transaction? Or are you purposefully keeping things in the grey zone so you can enjoy the boons you might be receiving without having to fess up to what’s actually happening? Are you wanting to hob nob with wealthy people or “spiritual” people or celebrities so you feel special by association and you feed each other’s narcissistic needs? Are you secretly hoping to date someone but pretending to be their friend so you can get your jollies without the vulnerability of confessing your attraction? Are you hoping to take advantage of their generosity in some way, or are you giving away too many of your gifts because you think this person won’t like you if you’re not so generous?

   You might want to clean up those grey zones and put at least a temporary stop to those dual relationships while you’re in recovery from boundary wounding. Consider putting people into only one category for a while if you’re new to learning boundary setting. Let them be just a friend. Or just a client. Or just a business colleague. Or just a family member or spouse or partner. Being healthy in dual relationships requires an advanced boundary skill set that many trauma survivors with shattered boundaries simply aren’t equipped to navigate. Keep it simple while you’re learning. Also, boundaries can help you clean up grey zones so nobody gets hurt or exploited or engages in a transactional relationship without explicit consent.