Setting Functional Boundaries

Boundary systems are invisible and symbolic "fences that have 3 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
3. to give each of us a way to embody our sense of "who" we are

Boundary systems have 2 parts: external and internal.  Our external boundary allows us to choose our distance from other people and enables us to give or refuse permission for them to touch us.  Our internal boundary protects our thinking, feelings, and behavior and keeps them functional.

The purpose of a boundary is to contain and protect reality.
     Reality is composed of four components.  These are:
1. the body or what we look like
2. thinking or how we give meaning to incoming data
3. feelings or our emotions
4. behavior or what we do or do not do.

There are 3 components of boundaries. The external system which protects the body and controls distance and touch; the internal system which protects thinking, feelings, and behavoir; and the spiritual system which occurs when two people are being intimate with one another and both are using their external and internal systems.

Internal Boundary Violations

• Yelling and screaming
• Name calliing
• Ridiculing a person
• Lying
• Breaking a commitment
• Patronizing a person
• Telling a person how he/she should be or what he/she should do
• Being sarcastic
• Shaming a person
• Negative control.

What I think or feel or do or don't do is more about me than it is about you.  Conversely, what you think and feel or do or don't do is more about you than it is about me.

Allowing a person access to ourselves, inside our boundaries, is a gesture of trust and intamcy.  We make ourselves vulnerable.  We can either experience affirmation or be wounded to the core.  Boundaries offer protection from the emotional or physical assaults of others.