Practice Setting Boundaries

Survivors struggling to set, and maintain, boundaries is something that comes up often. I know it comes up in many of our conversations during the #SexAbuseChat on Twitter. Let’s face it, we didn’t have healthy boundaries growing up, and were likely never shown any examples of healthy boundaries along the way. So how would we know unless we spend the time and effort to do so as adults?

Well, if this is something you are working on, (and really, who isn’t?), I thought this article might have some interesting points to make:

13 Easy Phrases That Will Help You Set Healthy Boundaries

I like the fact that they not only offer concrete things to say but also some background on how to define your own boundaries and what that means. I know for many survivors, we have to first address the core issue, the elephant in the room, before we can start the practice, so let me just go ahead and say that:

You deserve to set your own boundaries.

Full stop. Let that sink in, let it rattle around in your brain, keep reading it until you believe that about yourself.

Then, go take a look at the practical examples of doing that.

What boundaries do you struggle with? What has helped you do better at maintaining them?

Similar Posts

  • Suicide Prevention Hotlines Around the World

    I saw this, and tweeted about it last night, but also wanted to link it here for posterity:

    https://www.suicidestop.com/call_a_hotline.html

    More suicide prevention hotlines than I’ve ever seen collected in one place.

    This also serves as a good reminder of my birthday fundraiser for the AFSP, I’m in the US so that is what I would direct people who want to help me celebrate or say thank you for running this site over the years, but if you aren’t in the US, I totally get wanted to support something local for you as well, so here’s a list of suicide prevention resources all over the world. If you want to support my birthday wish to raise money for suicide prevention but do it in your own country, please do. Then come back and let me know that you did. That will mean as much as anyone donating or sharing my fundraiser.

  • Link – Reasons Family Members Side with Sexual Abusers

    I find this to be true outside of families as well. Whether you want to talk about a friend, celebrity, coach, or member of your local church, it hurts to come to terms with the fact that child abuse has been going on right under your nose. “Many family members find it far more comfortable…

  • In Britain, we just seem to bump ‘em off

    I was going to write about the constant debate and general frustration about what should be done with paedophiles (if Mike doesn’t adjust for American spellings, sorry –then again “pervert” is spelled the same in both countries). When I started drafting my piece for Mike’s blog about how to either deal with or reduce CSA…

  • |

    Sharing – Share #SOMETHINGGOOD

    The Life is Good Company is putting out the challenge to get the #SOMETHINGOOD hashtag trending, surely we can help them spend some money on their kids foundation, right? “To celebrate our 25th anniversary, we’re shifting the conversation toward all that’s good and helping kids in need. For every #SomethingGood shared, $1 will be donated…

  • How We Talk to Ourselves Matters

    As you read the rest of the article you’ll see how self-distancing conversations look a lot more like those conversations with friends I referenced earlier. Getting away from all of the “I” and “me” and fairly judging the situation quietly and calmly as if it was happening to someone else can put it into a perspective that we sometimes lose when we are thinking of ourselves, especially those of us who struggle with self-blame. Of course, then that self-blame turns to rumination which feeds into depression, and round and round we go. 

    There is a better way, and the examples given can help if we are willing to practice them. Especially the idea of reminding ourselves that we’ve already been through tougher, and more stressful situations and come out the other side.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

To respond on your own website, enter the URL of your response which should contain a link to this post's permalink URL. Your response will then appear (possibly after moderation) on this page. Want to update or remove your response? Update or delete your post and re-enter your post's URL again. (Find out more about Webmentions.)