Six

Boundaries

Love yourself more than you love your drama.

—JEN SINCERO,

YOU ARE A BADASS

One of the most important steps you will take as you work through the HEAL process is to learn how to set healthy boundaries.

The goal of the work in this chapter is for you to be able to clearly determine your boundary status with yourself and others. Through the exercises in the chapter, you will determine your boundary status by evaluating where you practice healthy functional boundaries and where you have broken boundaries.

Healthy boundary setting is a big key to making the HEAL process work. Establishing functional boundaries creates an environment for the healing to happen and sets the stage to integrate the frozen, wounded younger self with the responsible adult self. Boundaries form the bridge for the wounded self to grow up emotionally and discard the wounded defensiveness. Once healthy boundaries are established, the wounded part can set down the wounded emotional response tools and impulsive reactions, and integrate with the responsible adult self.

Boundaries help you to discern who and what you are, who you are not, what you want, and what you don’t want. Through boundary setting, you will develop the skill of discernment and find those aspects of yourself that are in alignment, matching who you are. You will also be able to recognize unhealthy, fuzzy, or nonexistent boundaries so that you can see where healing is needed.

An elaborate dance happens when you are developing a connection to your younger wounded self: the younger self is looking to see if the responsible adult self can be trusted. The wounded part really wants to trust the responsible adult self, but the reality is that the younger self has had to take charge in triggering situations for decades. It will keep using the wounded emotional tools until a sense of trust and connection is made. This is what you were doing with the letter writing exercise in the last chapter. You were forming trust and connection with your wounded part so that the handover and integration could happen and the wounded part could learn to trust your adult self.

The responsible adult self needs to be consistent and show that clear boundaries can and must be set with people who are abusive, mean, or otherwise triggering to the wounded part. At the same time, the adult self needs to be clear with internal boundaries and what is healthy and productive in thinking, feeling, and being.

Creating Healthy Boundaries

Boundaries are about being able to say no to others as a way to protect yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and sexually, and knowing what is good for you and what is not. Whatever boundary system your parents had when you were growing up, chances are you use similar boundaries as an adult. You watched how your parents responded to situations, if they gave in and didn’t hold their boundaries, or if they put up walls and shut out others—including you—and you picked up on all of them. You took in all of these boundary responses and thought that was how you should handle such situations.

Healthy boundaries are about having clarity around how we feel. The more we set healthy boundaries, the more clarity we have, and the more clarity we have, the more all parts of us feel connected, safe, and authentic. We feel free and fully integrated with the true self when we set boundaries.

You must let go of the outcome when you set a boundary. For example, when you say, “No, I don’t want to go out tonight,” you are not attaching any strings or manipulating the other person; you are simply expressing your feelings out loud. Boundary statements are not about being unfeeling or uncaring, as that would be shutting down your feelings or closing yourself off from others in an unhealthy way. They are about being fully connected to all parts of yourself. From this centered place you can determine how you feel about a situation, event, or comment and then decide how you want to act based on those feelings.

Strong boundaries mean we honor ourselves (internal boundaries) and stand up for ourselves (external boundaries).

In her book Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes From, How It Sabotages Our Lives, international authority on codependence Pia Mellody goes into great detail about external and internal boundaries and how they are shaped by our childhood family. She describes boundary systems as “invisible and symbolic ‘force fields’ that have three purposes: (1) to keep people from coming into our space and abusing us, (2) to keep us from going into the space of others and abusing them, and (3) to give each of us a way to embody our sense of ‘who we are.’”1

Let’s look more deeply at internal and external boundaries and how to set them.

Setting Internal Boundaries

Internal boundaries are personal statements or agreements that you have with yourself regarding a particular issue. You make these silent statements regarding multiple issues throughout each day. Internal boundaries are not necessarily discussed with others, as they are internal contracts with yourself. Internal boundaries help you be responsible to and for yourself.

The following are examples of internal boundary statements:

These are examples of making commitments to oneself and how to honor and respect those commitments. People who know themselves have a strong internal boundary system. People who look to others to define their world often have fuzzy internal boundaries and are all over the place when it comes to decision making. They give others the power to define their internal reality and identity.

Setting External Boundaries

External boundaries are statements or positions you establish with another person or situation. External boundaries are in place when you have clarity internally about what you want or don’t want and then express this clarity to another person in simple, clear, and assertive statements. External boundaries often begin with an “I” statement. For example:

Internal and external boundary statements are not always about saying no. They can also state what you will do or agree to.

A strong boundary sense helps us feel capable and wise.

“I” Statements

When you are making a boundary statement, it is important to make it an “I” statement. Boundary statements are not about blaming or shaming someone else, as in, “You made me angry. You are always doing this, and you never do that.” The “I” statement is designed to help the other person be less defensive and thus able to hear your feelings.

To set a healthy boundary, check in with yourself in the moment and ask, How do I feel about this person, place, or situation right now? Your boundary statement is your gut reaction. You will have a physical reaction somewhere in your body if this idea feels good to you or not. Be careful not to override this reaction and start making excuses for the other person’s behavior.

If you make up stories, this is your wounding showing up and saying you shouldn’t set a boundary. Well, he has had a hard time of it. I’ll go ahead and do this for him, or, I don’t always want to say no to her because if I do, she’s not going to like me. Most people who struggle with saying no to others do so because they don’t want to offend, don’t want to get into it, or are people pleasers and conflict avoiders. People who have the hardest time learning to set boundaries are those who talk themselves out of the boundary in the first place. The rule to remember is, if you don’t want to do something, if you don’t like something, if you don’t need something, then say no. Use your discernment to figure out how you want to set your boundary.

It is harder to set boundaries in relationships that have meaning to us. We have more invested in these relationships and more to lose. Trust yourself and the relationship to hold your boundary. Any relationship worth having and developing is going to have a healthy boundary exchange. Someone who doesn’t respect your boundaries usually will not have a good boundary system themselves, and chances are they are narcissistically inclined.

In professional settings we often have better boundaries because there are defined rules and we clearly know what is our work to do and what is someone else’s. Most people have a good boundary sense at work, but when they get home it is as if all of this goes away. When I ask, most people will say, yes I can set boundaries at work, but not at home, so they are aware of their boundary skills. But in their intimate relationships they don’t want to seem controlling, pushy, or mean. Functional boundary setting is not any of those things.

Boundary violations occur when our boundaries are not honored or respected. We can also violate or go against our own boundary by ignoring or pushing aside how we feel or what we mean to say.

Strong boundaries help us to stop the cycles that keep tearing down our sense of self.

The following is a story of a good man who lost his internal boundary compass.

Story: Bernard, a Married Man Having Emotional Affairs

Bernard is a successful forty-seven-year-old married father who was having emotional affairs with women. He didn’t know why he was doing this, and he wanted to stop. There was a part of him that loved the excitement and adventure, but afterward, he would go into a shame spiral, regret the affair, and feel guilty when he was with his wife and family. His wife was unaware of his infidelity. He loved her, but they were not close emotionally.

When Bernard looked over the themes and patterns of his timeline, and he began to see all the areas of his childhood abandonment. His dad left his mom when Bernard was eight years old, which created a huge emotional black hole in him. For most of his life since that time he had felt empty and emotionally bankrupt. He had tried his best to create a full life for himself; he married and had a family, but inside he still felt empty.

As Bernard worked through the HEAL process, he realized that his eight-year-old wounded little boy self wanted his parents’ acceptance, love, nurturing, and wholeness, and he was unconsciously trying to get that in his adult life. He began to see that one of the main reasons he kept going outside of his relationship was to feel acceptance and love, and fill up this hole.

Bernard felt this sense from his wife after they were married, and he was elated. His wife gave him what he had been searching for his entire life. However, after the kids were born, she gave all of her emotional attention to the kids, and there wasn’t any left over for him. He knew she loved him, but he felt pushed aside, much like how he felt as a child. That was when his wounded little boy self began to feel the same sad, lonely, and isolated feelings again.

He would start seeking attention from other women. It always started innocently enough, with mutual interest and then flirting. It soon progressed to texting and then sexting. Bernard did not consciously realize that he was falling down this rabbit hole, and each time it was hard for him to get out.

In his sessions with me, he at first said that all he was doing was sexting, not having sex. We talked about how he was rationalizing and minimizing his actions. I asked him if he would show his wife what he was doing if she were sitting next to him while he was sexting. “Well, of course not,” he said. I explained that if he wouldn’t want his wife to see or know of his activity, and even if he was not having sex, he was committing an infidelity to his relationship commitment. At a deep level he was going against something that he treasured—his wife and family—just to satisfy the emotional needs of his lost inner child.

Bernard began to see how he was creating elaborate secret ways of getting love and attention from others, rationalizing his behavior and not generating any self-love on his own. He was dependent on this outside love and would always need a new supply. He was using the emotional reasoning and denial of a little boy who felt emotionally abandoned, the consequences of which his adult self had to clean up.

Bernard used the letter writing exercise to give his eight-year-old wounded little boy a voice. As he wrote multiple letters back and forth, he began to clearly see what he had emotionally needed for all of those years. He learned that he had become dependent on love and attention from outside of himself because of his initial wounding. He saw how he had created a secret life apart from his wife to get his emotional needs met. In fact, he even saw how he was getting back at his wife because she was giving love to the kids and not him. (That is an eight-year-old’s emotional response.) He realized how he was keeping himself stuck in his wounding by giving in to his little boy’s emotional needs each time instead of healing the core wounding.

Bernard learned how his wounded little boy was stepping in front of him and making choices that could ruin his marriage. This realization shocked him into wanting to heal this old wounding. He saw how much power he had turned over to his eight-year-old self and how this younger self was using the emotional reasoning of a child. Once he could see the whole infidelity picture, he no longer tried to rationalize or minimize it; he owned it for what it was.

Bernard began to set internal boundaries with behaviors that were good for him to do, such as loving self-care, and setting clear boundaries against behaviors that were not helping, such as talking with other women without his wife’s knowledge. He made a commitment to delete the apps on his phone that he used to meet women and to end his texting/sexting relationships.

Through the HEAL process, Bernard could see how and when his younger wounded part got triggered, and he developed a plan to cope with the triggers. When his wounded self became triggered, he would stop what he was doing, acknowledge the feeling, and say loving and kind words to himself. I am loved every day by my family and my friends. I am worth loving. He was learning how to nurture himself with affirming messages of love.

Bernard now understood his emotional needs. He made the choice to not tell his wife about his emotional infidelities, but he did start to verbalize his feelings of loneliness and isolation to her. She had no idea that he felt that way. She felt bad because she loved him and didn’t want him to suffer. She hadn’t realized how much attention she had been giving to the kids and how he was feeling.

Bernard made it clear to his wife that he appreciated everything she did for the kids, for him, and for their life together. He didn’t want her to think he was blaming her for his feelings or that she had done something wrong by giving love to their children. They worked on their communication, which was easier for him to do now that he had learned how to access and describe his emotions. Since he was learning to give himself the love he needed, he was not as emotionally dependent on his wife or others as he once was. He was one of the lucky ones in that he worked on these issues before his emotional acting-out destroyed his marriage.

As a side note, in my research over the years, I found that therapists are split on their opinions as to whether a person should tell their partner about an affair or not. One could ask, if he doesn’t, is he adding to his secret shame and could potentially do it again? That is a valid question. Professionally, I follow the patient’s agenda. In Bernard’s case, it was his choice to not disclose his affairs to his wife. I saw the depth of his self-discovery and the healing that he was doing, which was fundamentally transforming his emotional landscape.

Bernard was healing from the inside out. His functional adult self could see and feel the pain and shame that his actions had caused him, and how this had spilled over into his relationship with his wife. Instead of being buried by these feelings, his responsible adult self was able to use them to establish better boundaries with himself and with his wife. He was healing and transforming this shame instead of letting it fester and become toxic. He transformed what had been a vicious cycle of self-destructive behavior by finding and using his own resilience to give to himself that which he most desired. He had always had the power within himself; the HEAL process just brought it to the surface.

Bernard made a commitment to do everything in his power to heal this part of him so he wouldn’t get back on that treadmill. He told his wife his feelings and how much he loved her. He now expresses his needs and honors his commitment to his marriage. He has chosen to become integrated with his adult self and to live authentically.

Setting Responsible Boundaries

Your goal throughout this process is to heal your inner child woundings, integrate the lost inner child with your adult self, and embrace an authentic life. Setting responsible boundaries is as important to this outcome as connecting with your emotions and your younger self. Having good boundaries will help you feel safe within yourself and in your relationships.

As a result of all the work you did in chapter 5—creating your timeline, identifying your triggers, and writing your healing letters— your wounded part is beginning to join with your responsible adult self. Your adult self is now learning to find your boundary voice for a feeling of strength, protection, purpose, and agency. The wounded part of you needs to know that you will step up and say something whenever it is triggered and feels vulnerable, including using the boundary of saying no when you mean no.

Saying Yes When You Mean No

Recall a situation when a friend asked you to do something you didn’t want to do. You didn’t want to disappoint your friend, so you said yes, but inside you were screaming, No, I don’t want to do that! The moment you said yes to your friend you went against your own boundary. You went against what you were thinking and feeling inside, what your authentic self actually wanted.

When we disregard and contradict ourselves, when what we feel inside and what we say and do outwardly don’t match, we create a conflict. We violate and disrespect our own boundary. When you go against yourself and say yes but you want to say no, the only thing you have accomplished is momentarily avoiding an awkward situation. You avoided saying no and disappointing your friend. You avoided having to see their face sad with disappointment. You avoided feeling like you were a bad friend.

You had temporary relief, but the moment you said yes instead of honoring your no, you started a resentment cycle toward yourself, your friend, and the activity or event in general, and you may start dreading going at all in the future. If you went out with your friend anyway, you may have started beating up on yourself or feeling angry, and then afterward beat yourself up for having taken the time and spent the money to go. It is a vicious cycle, all because you didn’t honor yourself and took the easy way out instead.

You avoided saying no at the beginning of this cycle because you didn’t want to disappoint your friend, but you also let yourself down. You paid for your choice with resentment that you could have avoided if you had just said no. It would have been done, and you could have moved on. Yes, your friend might have been disappointed that you weren’t going, but you would not have had to carry resentment over it. Resentment is heavy emotional baggage that is difficult to reconcile. You could have avoided this whole cycle by saying no. Easy to say, I know, but not so easy to do.

You pay whether you put a boundary on the front end or the back end. Either you put your boundary statement up front and pay the price of disappointing your friend, or you go along, not wanting to do whatever you said yes to, and pay the price with regret and resentment.

What if you don’t want to do something but agree to it as an act of kindness or compassion? When this happens for me, I consciously acknowledge that I am going against my boundary system. I say to myself, I know I don’t want to do this, but I love her and want to help her out, and I know she really wants me to go with her. Technically, this is going against my internal boundary agreement, but I am consciously overriding it to help my friend. I can’t do that all the time, though, because if I did, I would quickly be back to a no-boundary situation and the resentment cycle would start back up.

What Happened to the “No” Muscle

You have always had the ability to say no. When you were a baby and didn’t like something, you pushed it away, spit it out, started to cry, or did some other behavior to tell those within earshot that you were not happy. As a baby, you had perfectly intact physical boundaries. Something that came so naturally to you as an infant may now be difficult for you. Some lucky people learned healthy mental, emotional, physical, and sexual boundaries, but most of us did not.

Each time we do not state a boundary, we chip away at our sense of self-worth.

So what happened to our “no” muscle? We learned to override it. We learned to be nice, to give in, to doubt ourselves, to put others first, to disrespect ourselves. We learned through a variety of interactions, methods, means, and wounded impulsiveness to override our natural gut reaction.

For example, if you told your mom or dad that your tummy hurt, your parent might have said, “You’re fine. Go out and play.” At that moment, your external boundary statement that you were not feeling well was invalidated. You learned to doubt yourself, to not trust yourself fully, and to question your internal boundary of how you actually felt. In that moment of overriding your gut reaction, your were learning to say to yourself that you can’t trust your gut reaction, you can’t trust yourself. When this invalidation happens repeatedly, the pattern of overriding the internal boundary begins. We know that the parent meant well, but they potentially set the stage for a lifetime of self-doubt in the child. This is how the wounding of invalidation and self-doubt begins, when the pattern becomes imprinted.

This invalidation reinforces the idea that the child doesn’t have a protective voice. It confirms that the abuse or situation is going to happen no matter what the child does. This learned helplessness is then carried through to adulthood and can set up a pattern of abuse that is accepted in adult relationships. It sets the stage for seeing oneself as a victim. The lack of boundaries doesn’t necessarily mean a person is a victim in their relationships, but there is a greater chance that they will not stand up for themselves.

When you contradict your inner voice, you say to yourself that you don’t matter, that other people matter more, and that what they think of you is more important than what you think of yourself. When you do this, you are disrespecting yourself, violating your own internal boundary, and denying your feelings. You chip away at your own sense of self-esteem and self-worth. If you do this repeatedly over time, your sense of self becomes diminished, and your authentic self feels like it doesn’t have a voice at all.

If you had a childhood of overriding or doubting yourself, your authentic self felt deeply invalidated by the time you were an adult. I have met with people who are so invalidated and so used to looking to another person to see what that person likes, needs, and wants that they have forgotten or don’t know what they like and don’t like. This is an extreme example, but you get the point that the more you go against yourself and say yes instead of honoring your inner voice by saying no, the more you lose your sense of self. Healthy boundaries are about honoring what your authentic self needs to embody to feel whole again.

Choosing Healthy Boundaries

Let’s look at some specific healthy boundaries that you can start to practice right now. Start by reviewing your answers to “Exercise: Impulsive Reactions” in chapter 1. These are the wounded emotional tools you use. In the following list, find the items that best match to your impulsive reactions, then note the healthy boundary response that goes with each one. Pick one or two specific healthy boundaries that relate to your wounding, and start practicing.

Many of these healthy responses set and affirm internal boundaries. The internal boundary statements are what you say to yourself in quiet moments. You can work on replenishing your self-worth and self-love by practicing these statements, which will help to heal your wounded inner child and reinforce your boundary setting.

In chapter 4 we discussed broken and damaged boundary systems, where boundaries are not intact. In “Exercise: No Boundaries and/or Enmeshment” in that chapter, you wrote in your notebook your responses to how your wounding shows up through weak or poor boundaries. Review those responses now. Are there any answers you would like to change now that you understand yourself better? Are these situations still happening in your life, or are things beginning to shift as you work through the HEAL process? Where do you need to establish or increase your boundary settings? What boundaries do you need to place so you can stop the recycled pain?

Once you are able to consistently set strong boundaries for yourself and others, you will begin to connect to your authentic self and have a feeling of emotional freedom.

When you are on your healing path and start to state your boundaries, you may receive pushback from others. This is normal. Your friends, family, and coworkers aren’t used to hearing you express yourself or honoring your boundaries. They are not going to want the relationship dynamics to change; that is frightening to someone with poor boundaries. They will want to continue to ask if you want to do something, knowing they can talk you into it. In a way, you trained your friends that when you say no, it really means that they can convince you to say yes. Now you can stick to your no. Honor yourself and stand firm instead of giving in and making other people happy.

Unforeseen Consequences

Setting boundaries where you haven’t before can have unforeseen consequences. If you are brave and state a boundary but the boundary is ignored, rejected, or ridiculed, you will need to find a way to reinforce it. You need to defend your boundaries as if defending a castle filled with treasure. You have to be willing to go to any length to set and defend a boundary. A simple example is having a friend who repeatedly cancels on you after you make lunch plans. At some point you would probably want to set a boundary and stop making lunch plans with this person.

I had to set a boundary with a long-time friend of mine because I felt like I was doing all the work in the relationship. I was the one reaching out all the time, and the relationship did not feel balanced and reciprocal. I said to my friend that I was always the one reaching out and that his lack of reciprocity didn’t feel respectful to me. My friend agreed and said that other people had given him similar feedback. He said, “That’s just who I am, I guess.” This was validating and disappointing at the same time. When I set my boundary (made my statement), he said he wasn’t going to change, that that was who he was. I listened, and it was a turning point in the relationship. I am still connected to him and love him as a friend, but the relationship shifted.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

—MAYA ANGELOU

To be clear, setting a boundary is not stating a threat or an ultimatum. It is about clearly communicating the consequences of another person continuing to disrespect you. Boundaries are not about control, because you have let go of the outcome. You are making your statement and waiting to see how they respond. Then you use your discernment to determine the next course of the relationship. When I made my statement to my friend about my feelings, I wasn’t stating my boundaries to manipulate him, I was having an honest conversation about my feelings. His response told me what I needed to know to discern how our relationship needed to change.

Relaxing Bubble Boundaries

Bubble boundaries, which we discussed in chapter 4, are boundaries set by people who want others to be close but not too close. Because of their boundary, attachment, and commitment issues, bubble-boundary people often have a push-pull aspect to their relationships because they never learned how to regulate their emotions. They grew up in an emotionally unavailable family household and have wounded emotional response tools such as low self-esteem, fear of change, fear of rejection, and perfectionism. These reactions are often the catalyst for the less-than language of I’m not good enough. (Note that someone who feels less-than didn’t necessarily have emotionally unavailable parents, but this situation is an origin of this wounding pattern.)

This type of emotional wounding and lack of boundary knowledge and skill is demonstrated when a person pulls someone close, overshares, fears connection or rejection, and then pushes the other person away. This yo-yo interaction with others is exhausting and confusing for everyone involved. Bubble-boundary people dream of having a deep connection to others just like they wanted with their parents, but when others do come close, they push them away because they don’t know what to do with the feeling or connection. They don’t have the foundation of emotional attunement that is typically established within a childhood family.

People with bubble boundaries look like functional adults on the outside. They often have a good relationship and friends and a good job, but inside they feel lonely, isolated, and scared. They don’t understand this because they think, I should be happy. I have all of this in my life, but I feel closed off from everyone even when I’m surrounded by people who love me. I want to feel closer to others, but I just don’t know how. Their internal and external boundary systems are all out of whack. One minute they think they know themselves, and the next they are perplexed.

This overdeveloped, overgeneralized protection system prevents them from feeling connected to others, and being emotionally vulnerable with other people is difficult. They will mimic aspects of emotional intimacy with others, but this only goes so deep, as they have their bubble in stealth mode, waiting for any perceived attack. It is not healthy to be emotionally shut off from parts of the self and others, but the child didn’t learn these skills, so it reenacts the wounding from childhood.

Story: Jessica and Her Double Layer of Protection

Jessica, a forty-three-year-old single woman, was doing a good job at working through her emotional wounding. She had relaxed her bubble boundary and was working on healing, saying affirmations, and setting boundaries. Yet with all of this work she still felt closed off, and her relationships weren’t changing. As she continued to do her work, she began to realize that she not only had an outer bubble of protection but had also created an internal suit of armor as a backup.

Jessica had just gotten out of an emotionally abusive relationship and was internally well-defended with many layers to protect her emotional core. Even though she was out of the abusive relationship, the wounded part of her held on to this internal armor. She found that she could be vulnerable within herself, and she gave herself permission to enter into a safe, intimate relationship with her new partner, but she could only go so far.

Even though Jessica was working on healing her wounding, she hadn’t realized what was holding her back from going deeper in intimacy until she discovered this internal layer of emotional armor. The deeply wounded part of her had held on to this armor because this part of her was hypervigilant and guarded, always looking out for the next emotional threat.

Through developing stronger and more functional internal and external boundaries, Jessica was able to know how she was feeling inside. She learned to recognize the resistance and evaluate it to determine if it was from her wounding or an irrational fear. Once she could do this, she was able to speak her truth, set her boundaries, and allow herself to become more intimate with her new partner.

The path to healing and embracing an authentic life for someone with all of these layers of protection is about understanding the wounding— what it looks, sounds, and feels like. As you have learned, a big part of healing is about understanding your role in your family of origin and discerning the difference between your parents’ emotional baggage and who you authentically are. Much of the work that the bubble-boundary person needs to do is discerning that difference and then figuring out how to walk out of that maze. The exercises throughout the HEAL process are helping you to develop a clear sense of where your wounding and boundary deficits are, and to help you lay out a blueprint for the healing path.

Affirm strong and positive messages for yourself.

You are stronger than you think.

If you have a bubble boundary, where you want people close but keep them at arm’s length, you may think you are protecting yourself. However, in your adult relationships, this protection shows up as avoidance, isolation, feelings of rejection, anxiety, loneliness, victimhood, confusion, perfection, feeling less-than, and shutting out others.

The following exercise can give you perspective on how your bubble boundary affects your relationships and how you can create deeper connections.

Exercise: Bubble with a Window

This exercise will help you to evaluate your layers of protection and see how you keep yourself safe inside your bubble and keep others out. You can start building deeper connections with others by opening a window in your bubble.

Look back to your answers from “Exercise: Your Impulsive Reactions” in chapter 1. These wounded emotional response tools reveal where you need a better sense of internal and external boundaries. This exercise is designed to help you recognize what you are doing when you are doing it so you can gain new perspective on yourself.

In your notebook, draw a large circle in the center of the page that represents your bubble boundary. The inside of the bubble is how you feel and what you say to yourself, and the outside is your interactions with others, what you say and how you behave. Your bubble has a window that opens to your outside world. You can connect with others through this window, but it is also how you lock them out. As you go through this exercise, you will look at when, where, and why you want connection with others and when you shut them out.

Inside the bubble, write down what you tell yourself that keeps the window closed and you isolated. These are the reasons you have the bubble boundary, the purpose it serves. For example, you might list feelings of being scared, frightened, hurt, lonely, and confused. You might write your thoughts and actions that reinforce a victim narrative, such as I’m not good enough, It’s not worth it, I’m never going to find anyone, and I’m always rejected. Perhaps you promise to give up trying to find a partner, believe that deeply connecting with someone else is too risky, or are tired of being vulnerable with others because they don’t share anything with you. Or maybe you blame others, feel victimized, or are tired of the rejection. You can also write feeling words or expressions that you say to yourself over and over. (See the Feelings Chart in appendix A for feeling words.)

Everything you put outside the bubble either expands and connects you or contracts and isolates you. At the top and outside of the bubble, write down what your interactions look like when the window is open and you are connected to others. How do you interact? What do you say? These are actions and things you say when you feel safe and trusting of others enough to reach outside your bubble. Write down the qualities of what it takes for you to trust and connect to others, such as, I can be myself around my good friends, I trust this type of person, and I feel safe when I go to this person’s house or this kind of gathering. This expands you and opens you up to bring others into your life.

Next, at the bottom and outside of the bubble, write down what your interactions look like when the window is closed. These are the actions you take and what you say to keep people at arm’s length. Do you avoid situations in which you have to talk with others? Do you only talk to “safe” people? Do you give people mixed messages? Are you noncommittal by using phrases such as, “I don’t know if I can, let me see,” or “Maybe”? Do you say you will do something and then back out at the last minute? How does your wounding and bubble boundary show up in your relationships? You can also write down people, places, and situations you avoid because they are too much work or they scare you. These words or actions contract and limit you, and reinforce that others should stay away, keeping you isolated.

Once you have identified how you behave and think outside and inside your bubble, ask yourself the following questions. Write down your answers to the relevant questions in your notebook.

Understanding why and how you keep others out when you really want to feel closeness will help you discern what you want to do with your bubble boundary. You have a choice in how you interact with yourself and life. You don’t have to continue to keep other people out as a form of protection. This is not about popping your bubble and not having any protection; learning to set healthy, functional boundaries can replace your home-grown bubble boundary approach and help you feel authentically whole.

Setting Boundaries in Small Steps

Setting appropriate boundaries involves the current boundaries you have and the ones you need to develop. For example, you can try trusting someone by giving them a glimpse of the inner you, knowing there is emotional risk. As time passes, you will discern if they can emotionally hold your trust and personal information. They will either show worthiness or not through a variety of experiences, and you can go from there.

You can evaluate what kind of boundary you need to set if, say, a back-and-forth on your turn to pay for lunch turns into a small loan to a friend while they are unemployed—or not. Perhaps on a planned weekend getaway your friend is late and misses the flight. You are stuck feeling sad and hurt, and need to determine how to tell your friend what you are feeling. This is all good practice, with the importance on developing appropriate trust muscles and the ability to maintain emotional balance while events unfold.

A sign you are moving in the right direction is when you feel open to developing intimacy, connection, and life-enriching experiences that are separate from the actual outcomes. Outcomes will vary; the process and practice of appropriate openness is the key. Trusting yourself and your gut reaction of how you feel in each encounter will help you develop your boundary muscle. You will know when a situation feels right or not, and you will know what kind of boundary you need to establish. Your boundaries are always with you; you are learning what the correct boundary tool to use for the interaction is.

As you learn about boundaries, examine where your boundaries are strong and functional and where they need some reinforcement. Create goals for how you want to interact with others using strong internal and external boundary systems. Work from where you are to the goal, step by step.

Take an inventory of your relationships, and determine one person whom you trust and have wanted to go to a deeper level with but have been afraid to. Think about what you could share about yourself that would be OK to share with this person. One way to prepare for such a conversation is to write a symbolic letter about what you want to say to them. You won’t send the letter, but this exercise will get you ready to go a little deeper with your connection. Assessing the information you feel comfortable sharing is important, as you don’t want to overshare and go too deep too fast. If you do, you may not feel good about the connection afterward. This practice will help you create internal boundaries of what feels OK to share and what you are not ready to share.

There are three levels of information about yourself that you control:

Public: You can share easily identifiable aspects of your life, such as your name, the town you live in, your age, and your occupation. Think of things someone would find on a social media search.

Personal: You can share personal details that you already share with trusted family, friends, and coworkers. These include specific aspects of yourself such as your address, phone number, birthday, favorite band, favorite color, and things you enjoy.

Private: You can share details that you want only close family and friends to know, such as your health status, relationship status, fears, and fantasies. This is information that only a handful of people in your life know about.

In your notebook, make a list of family, friends, and coworkers, and determine the level of communication you feel safe sharing with each person without overexposing yourself. Next to each person’s name list the level of communication you have now, and then determine whether this connection feels OK as is or whether you would like to have a deeper level of communication. Most people who are open-hearted in their relationships are at the personal level of communication most of the time, and only sometimes share private information.

If you want to open your bubble window and deepen a relationship with another, choose someone who will receive this information with love and respect. (It could be the same person you wrote the symbolic letter to.) Don’t make a big production of having this conversation. You could simply say, “I’ve been meaning to share something with you,” or “I want to talk about something that is hard for me to say, but I want to share it with you.” Chances are they probably want a deeper connection as well. With this approach you establish an internal boundary of what is OK and not OK to share with them, and you invite them to know you on a deeper level. You are communicating that you want to be more open with them and hope that they can share more openly with you. It is an invitation for a deeper connection, which is a basic need for most people.

Remember that you are responsible only for yourself and cannot control or change anyone else, so however they respond to your sharing is their choice. The most important part of this process is that you are giving yourself permission to break the cycle of being guarded with others when you don’t need to be. You are giving yourself the opportunity to experience emotional freedom in your relationships. However the conversation turns out, congratulate yourself for using boundaries and functional ways of expressing yourself to share a part of yourself. You are learning how to open up. You are learning to become emotionally available to yourself and others.

Picket Fence Boundaries

Healthy, functional boundaries =

a healthy, integrated self.

Let’s carry this discussion of healthy boundaries even further by using the metaphor of a picket fence. A picket fence creates a physical boundary between properties, and everyone can clearly see which side of the fence each property is on. You can apply this metaphor to a boundary between you and someone else. Imagine a picket fence between you and another person. You can see each other over the fence and through the slats. If the other person were in trouble, you could even jump over this fence to help. The fence creates definition and clearly marks where their space is and where your space is.

The picket fence metaphor is simple, as this type of imagery creates a partition between people and a reminder of the need for healthy boundaries. Learning to create imaginary picket fences as boundaries in your relationships is one of the most mature and responsible actions your adult responsible self can do to care for the wounded parts of you. This boundary setting will help those parts to feel safe, because your responsible adult self is taking action internally and externally to protect that wounded inner child.

The metaphorical picket fence between you and another person is a way for you to remember that you can have boundaries by saying no when you feel that no. The picket fence also helps to remind you that just as you are on your own journey, the other person is on their journey, too. Respecting someone else’s journey helps us to remember to stay on our side of the fence. It helps remind the codependent part of us that wants to fix, rescue, care-take, or control that it is not our job to run other people’s lives or offer suggestions when we are not asked.

Exercise: Determining Your Boundary Status

For this exercise, sit quietly in a place where you won’t be disturbed. Have your notebook handy.

Picture yourself standing with someone you know. This could be someone you have a challenging time with or feel resentments toward. Now, in your mind’s eye, see a picket fence between the two of you. Notice how you feel with the fence there. After you have had a few minutes to let your feelings arise, write down the answers to the following questions:

Your reaction to this picket fence boundary can tell you more about your boundary status with this person and whether you need to adjust your boundaries with them. If the picket fence imagery helps you feel safer, this would be a good thing to remember as you are learning to set boundaries. If you want the fence to be higher or more solid, ask yourself what is happening emotionally. What reaction are you having that you feel you need a bigger wall instead of creating healthier boundary statements? Often we feel the need to have a bigger wall when others talk over us or don’t listen to us. This isn’t about a wall, it is about a lack of respect within the relationship.

If the wounded part of you rejoices when you build a picket fence, then it is feeling safe and the picket fence is serving its purpose. If you want to tear the fence down so you can be closer to the other person, ask yourself if this is a healthy relationship with healthy boundaries or if the picket fence feels too cold and unfeeling. Do you feel that the picket fence keeps you separate from this person or that it prevents you from loving and caring for them? These reactions are normal. Remember, you can still reach over the fence and give them a hug, so this boundary is not about not loving or caring for them.

If you feel emotionally safer on your side of the picket fence, think about what that tells you about your relationship with this person. Such a reaction means that you may need to evaluate and establish better boundaries with them. If you didn’t have good boundaries with them before but the picket fence helps you to feel emotionally safer, you probably need to stand up for yourself more with that person, to say no or to speak your mind in general.

Repeat the exercise for other people in your life to help you establish your current boundary status.

Practicing Discernment

Learning to be quiet and still, to really listen to your feelings, is a key part of boundary setting. It is discerning how you really feel about a certain person or situation. It is determining whether you are trying to talk yourself into doing something, or if you are justifying or rationalizing your choices.

The more time you spend listening to and trusting yourself, the more you will be able to discern what is coming from you and what is coming from outside of you. If you are justifying a choice or telling yourself you “should,” you are most likely doing it for someone else. The art of discernment is knowing what fits in your life today and what you have outgrown. Practicing daily discernment helps to clarify who you are at any given time and maintains an active connection with the authentic self.

Self-Coaching

You have learned that your responsible adult self is the part of you that steps up and sets appropriate boundaries, the part that will help the wounded part heal. Your responsible adult self is not just about helping the wounded parts, however; it is also the strong, steady part that is a champion for all parts of you.

The only way your wounded part is going to be able to heal and integrate is for your responsible self to establish boundaries, so you need to become your own supportive coach through this process. Now is the time to give yourself encouraging, reassuring, and loving comments to support establishing a connection with the younger self that carries the wounding. Begin to own your choices.

The following are examples of affirmations for supportive self- coaching to build self-esteem:

These affirmations are just a few examples of how you can reassure yourself and affirm that everything you are doing is leading you to an expanded version of yourself. You may want to write down some supportive self-coaching comments that you need to give yourself at this point. This may be difficult if you are not used to using such language, but this kind and loving presence within will help to foster the gentle shifts that the HEAL process can create.

As you coach yourself through the process, you will begin to have greater clarity of what feels right to you and what doesn’t fit anymore. This is when you begin to discern the voice or the feeling of your wounded parts as being different from that of your emotionally mature adult self.

Something else you must learn to discern is carried feelings. These are feelings brought from childhood that belong to someone else but are packed inside your toolbox because of what your parents or guardians modeled. Children pick up carried feelings of shame or fear, for example, especially if the household was chaotic or abusive. These feelings are carried into adult life, and determining whether the feeling is your own or not can be difficult. Most of the time, these feelings were emotions projected onto you that you absorbed into your sense of self, and you started to think that this is who you are.

Mark was a twenty-seven-year-old man who came to see me. His mom was always very anxious when he was a child. He learned from her to worry, to panic, to be anxious about thunderstorms, and to not trust others. He learned to carry her fear. When I asked him if this nervous, anxious way of being was how he wanted to think and react as an adult, he said, “Absolutely not!” Mark was anxiously overreacting to events in ways that a functional adult would not. He worked on recognizing the carried feelings that he had picked up from his mom. He learned to discern the difference between his emotions and his mother’s. I helped him to develop a new internal boundary protocol—new functional tools—to use when he encountered situations that previously would have made him very jittery.

In her book Facing Codependence, Pia Mellody writes that one way to tell the difference between carried feelings and your own healthy feelings is that carried feelings are overwhelming, while your own, even though they may be intense, are not.2 Carried feelings are usually exaggerated.

When you work on setting healthy internal boundaries, you get a sense of how you feel about something, and then you can discern how to react. In other words, you can choose how you want to react instead of how someone else would react. For example, Mark had learned to carry a fear of thunderstorms, but that was his mom’s fear, not his own. His overreaction to thunderstorms was out of proportion to how a functional adult would response to a natural event. Once he saw that the fear was his mom’s and not his, he was able to choose a different reaction.

When you work on discernment, you become clear about and have a healthy connection to what you think, feel, and choose as a functional adult. If your feelings become clouded, confused, or heavy, look at the situation and ask yourself if your wounding is getting triggered, what your boundary status is with that person, what you should own, and what is theirs to own. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it may help you to discern these feelings as you integrate your wounded inner child with your adult protective self.

Setting healthy boundaries is one of the most important things you can do on your path to healing. You really can learn to create safe and healthy boundaries with others and to stop the pattern of having no boundaries, being enmeshed, using bubble boundaries, or setting extreme boundaries.

Do the exercises in this chapter as often as you feel you need to, in order to understand your boundary system status and how to move it toward healthy patterns. You are well on your way to healing and embracing an authentic life.

1 Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes From, How It Sabotages Our Lives, HarperCollins, New York, 2003.

2 Pia Mellody, Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives, HarperCollins, New York, 2003.