How to Deal with Guilt of Setting Boundaries
Many of my clients and people who follow my social media know that I love boundaries!
I love learning, talking, and sharing about boundaries because they’re something we all need to be able to set and maintain for ourselves and respect of others.
Within the past week, many of my clients have been talking about how they have been setting and maintaining their boundaries in various ways, some of them not even quite realizing how many boundaries they have been setting (or plan to set)!
I have been so proud of them and happy to see that they are proud of themselves, too.
In honor of them, I thought I’d dedicate this week’s blog post to dealing with the guilt of setting boundaries, as this tends to be a common barrier to setting and maintaining our boundaries.
When setting and maintaining your boundaries, you may feel guilt because:
Boundaries are a new concept to you and or the people around you
You grew up or live in an environment where boundaries are not used or respected
Someone has a negative reaction to your boundary or you think that they might
You are not used to putting yourself and your needs first
What can help you deal with the guilt so that it doesn’t get in your way of being the awesome boundary boss you can be??
Dealing with The Guilt
Sit with it. Guilt is one of those uncomfortable, difficult feelings that we don’t want to feel. But it’s not “bad” to feel it, and it definitely doesn’t mean that the boundary you are setting is wrong. Sitting with guilt, or any other difficult emotion, means allowing yourself to acknowledge and feel it.
Sit with it with self-compassion. To take it a step further, you can add in some self-compassion and truly acknowledge the guilt you’re feeling without judging yourself for how you feel.
Acknowledging your guilt without judgment can look like: “I’m feeling guilty because I told my mom that I couldn’t help her rearrange her furniture. It makes sense that I feel this way because I care about my relationship with my mom, but I know that I made the best decision for myself and our relationship.”
You are not responsible for their reaction. Negative reactions may include: dismissing, invalidating, gaslighting, silent treatment, etc. Nedra Glover Tawwab provides explanations of possible negative reactions and lots of other helpful boundary-related information in her new book (which I highly recommend to everyone - it’s that good!).
An example of an emotional boundary is to not take responsibility for others’ emotions. This applies here, and it can be incredibly helpful to remember that you are not responsible for any reaction someone else has. It is, of course, important to still be mindful of how you are delivering your boundary - in an assertive, not aggressive, way.
Remember that it is not selfish. Putting yourself first is one of the most important things you can do. You may have developed the belief that putting yourself first is “selfish” or “disrespectful” to others. This is not true. Quite the opposite, actually. Setting boundaries is a way of taking care of yourself but it also helps improve your relationships with others, which is neither selfish nor disrespectful.
Set more boundaries. Practice makes progress. The more you set boundaries, the less likely you will feel guilty about setting them. Much of our guilt seems to come from the other person’s response, anticipation of the other person’s response before we even set the boundary, and feeling uncomfortable with putting our needs first. As we continue practicing and setting boundaries, there is a good chance we will have more positive experiences that will teach us that it is 100% ok (and necessary!) to set firm boundaries.
Reflection Questions for You
How do you feel about boundaries? Were they apart of your life growing up with your family of origin? Are they practiced now within your close family and friend groups?
Where do you need boundaries in your life? How do you know that you need these boundaries (ex. feel resentful towards someone, have difficulty saying no, etc.)?
How will you communicate these boundaries? Try writing down the boundaries that you want to set and you can even practice saying them out loud.
If you’re concerned about the other person’s reaction, spend some time acknowledging your concerns and create a plan for how to deal with a negative reaction (maybe with some of the suggestions listed above 😉). Try not to spend too much time on this because that may lead to you talking yourself out of setting the boundary.