How to Practice Emotional Boundaries
We all know what it feels like for an emotional boundary to be broken. It’s the “guilt trip” when someone implies that disagreeing or wanting something different is wrong. It’s the feeling of helplessness when someone else is looking to you to make them feel better and you can’t. And it’s the anger and resentment that can follow when you are tired of holding someone else’s emotions. To be sure, we have all pushed someone else’s emotional boundaries, too. Relationships with family, significant others, friends, and superiors at work are especially susceptible to a breakdown in emotional boundaries.
According to Courtney and Lane Pederson (2012), authors of The Expanded DBT Skills Training Manual, “Emotional boundaries include your feelings and their ability to be leveraged and manipulated (e.g., emotional ‘hostage taking’ or guilt-tripping). Emotional boundaries also include not taking on others’ distress (or expecting them to take on yours)" (p. 126).
So what’s the difference between being empathetic and having weak emotional boundaries? For a deep dive into the problems with empathy check out this great article. For the sake of today’s article, let’s define some terms. Sympathy is when you feel badly for someone, or even pity them. Empathy is when you know what it’s like to feel what the other person is feeling. Compassion is a step beyond empathy, when you know what it’s like to feel that way and you care. Empathy is an important part of being human and necessary for compassion, but when we stop there we get stuck. When someone is anxious and trying to control the situation by putting guilt onto you, empathy means you know what it feels like to be anxious. It’s easy to stop there and take on their distress. Having compassion, while also setting an emotional boundary, means seeing that the other person is anxious, recognizing that you know what that feels like (but you don’t feel their anxiety right now), and expressing care towards them in some way (even if it’s just internally). The following five steps are designed to help you set emotional boundaries in a compassionate way.
I encourage you to think of a recent scenario when you struggled with an emotional boundary. As you reflect on the scenario, notice what cues there are in your body that an emotional boundary was being overstepped. What emotions, physical sensations, and thoughts were present for you in that moment? Once you’ve got your example in mind, write out the answers to the following five questions. With some practice, you can answer these questions during an interaction with someone, so I will write them in present tense.
#1 What is the other person feeling? You probably have some good guesses since you are taking on their emotion or taking responsibility for them in some way. Just name the emotion for yourself, no story or explanation needed.
#2 How are they communicating that they feel this way? This is a great opportunity to double check your assumptions. Maybe your boss looks mad at you, but do you know for sure that’s exactly how they feel?
#3 What are you feeling right now? This is an important step in starting to differentiate your feelings from theirs. You might be sad that your partner is sad, but your two sadnesses are slightly different. Naming your specific emotional experience as separate from theirs allows you to have empathy, and then move on to compassion.
#4 What were you feeling prior to this interaction? Again, the goal of this step is to connect you with your own emotions. Whether it was an enjoyable emotion or not, you can see your own emotional experience as impacted by, but separate from the other person’s.
#5 How can you take care of your own emotions in this moment? Many of us have been trained to focus on taking care of the other person’s emotions. So this question might be uncomfortable at first. It re-affirms that you are only responsible for your own emotions. Of course you want to be there for a friend who is having a bad day, but not at the expense of your own emotional wellbeing. And truthfully, caring for your own emotions will make it easier to be present with theirs.
This is a lot to remember when you find yourself in the middle of an uncomfortable interaction. I suggest practicing these questions in a journal to get the hang of it. Eventually, it will feel natural to check in with yourself when you notice the warning signs that an emotional boundary is getting pushed.
Pederson, L. (2012). The expanded dialectical behavior therapy: Skills training manual. USA: Premier Publishing.
