Why I Don’t Talk About Boundaries & What I Talk About Instead

We need skills, not fences to honor our needs.

If we don’t value our needs, others may not either.
~ Marshall Rosenberg

This article aims to offer a different perspective on the topic of “boundaries”. It’s a topic endlessly discussed, especially among women so know it’s needed and important. I want to offer a re-frame, because I’m saddened by how we talk about boundaries, so today, with all love and honesty (and a boatload of respect for those doing boundary work) I’d sharing this perspective.

NOTE: There are people living and working with levels of trauma where boundary setting is essential (this is not my area of expertise), and so if this is you, I hope that it will feel exactly right to stay in the work you are doing. And may this article only add to the beautiful and necessary work you are doing for your health and healing.

3 Reasons Why I Don’t Talk About Boundaries

1) Humans are wired for connection.

COVID-19 has made grossly apparent that we don’t function well when we are socially cut off from one another. We are in a time when we feel just how against the grain it is to be without connection in the amounts and ways we each need. On a personal level, I have a fierce need for belonging, so strong in fact that I have always felt challenged to reconcile boundary setting with belonging. Healthy connection is paramount.

2) The language we use matters.

Synonyms for the word “boundaries” include ceiling, ends, terminations, lines, borders, perimeters, peripheries etc. I believe we are in a time in history where we need to be building constructs that unite, and this includes new language to express this intent. Separation and exclusion from from those around us, especially those who are core to helping us experience our wholeness matters. In our world, we desperately need ways to create communion both us with our self, and us with one another.

3) Repeating the intent to “set boundaries” isn’t what’s needed, skills are.

My coaching training reinforced that you keep people in their struggle when you tell your clients to do the exact thing they’re struggling with e.g. just set a boundary and then… There are millions of people struggling to make exercise or movement a priority — telling them to “Just Do It” won’t help them to create a habit. Helping them develop skills to create a nurturing movement practice might be more useful. Same goes with boundary setting.

These are the main reasons why I don’t talk about boundaries. It’s personal and grounded in my values and expertise, and I acknowledge that we, starting with myself, can deeply benefit from and should keep on learning ways to honor and hold sacred what matters to us. And this can be done without talking about boundaries.

What I Talk About Instead

I’ll cut to the chase. My deepest desire is that you know your needs and honor them.

This desire includes hoping you keep honoring them, and that you make them sacred. The work I love doing in the world includes helping you forge a powerful relationship to the needs you have that allow you to thrive and flourish. My hope is that you’ll make knowing your ever-changing needs a lifelong practice and become devoted to this practice.

Knowing your needs? Honoring them?

Contrary to what I once thought, having needs doesn’t make us needy, it makes us human. Learning this was hugely liberating and something I wrote more about here.

At its heart, boundary setting is about acknowledging we have a need, and being skillful in ways to ensure we get this need met.

By way of example...
I’m a mess if I don’t get enough sleep. And I am a far more engaged and present human when I do. But I didn’t always know this about myself. Over the years, however, I have come to discover, on a visceral level, how I function with sleep and how I function without enough sleep. Getting enough sleep is a priority for me.

I’ve taken care to know just how much sleep I need, I used to need 7.5 hours a night (5 sleep cycles) and now I function better with 9 hours (6 sleep cycles). It’s likely a function of being peri-menopausal and that we’re in winter, a season of invisible work. I’m not entirely sure, but I’m listening to my body and am staying curious. I also know the sleep conditions that support the best rest, including using an eye mask and a body pillow.

I am intimately aware of my need for sleep. Intimately. Sleep is a a non negotiable need. Do I always get it? No. Do I cut myself more slack when I don’t — hell yes. Will I take a nap later in the day if necessary? When I can, yes.

Can you feel how sacred sleep is to me and how connected I am with this practice of getting enough sleep? Can you sense that I have had conversations with the people in my life about sleep? And that I’ve put some structures in my life to ensure this need of mine is met?

We don’t need to set boundaries (which is an outside-in approach), we need to become intimate with what we need (which is an inside-us-then-outward approach) to be healthy and whole. And we keep cultivating this intimacy and remaining curious about what we need, why we need it and taking action to ensure these needs are met. This is a practice, a way of relating to yourself. It’s more than a check mark on a to-do list, it’s about being fully present to the conditions that help you feel and be alive.

Creating Practical Intimacy

If you want to give this practice of becoming more connected to your needs a whirl, start by naming a need that you have. Here’s a great list, it’s not exhaustive, but it illustrates just how basic our needs are. I’ve got this same list printed and close at hand all the time.

After picking a need, reflect on the following questions:

• Why is this need important to me? And, how have I come to know this?
• How do I feel when this need is met?
• What happens (in my mind, heart, body etc.) when this need isn’t met?
• How long am I able to neglect or go without this need?
• What helps me re-prioritize this need?
• Whose help or support do I need to get this need met?
• When was the last time I got this need met? What conditions allowed this to happen?
• What gets in the way of this need being met?
• What would change for me if I ensured this need was met regularly/ consistently?
• What feels scary about ensuring this need is met?
• What are the structures, systems or processes I can put in place to ensure this need happens?
• Do I find it easy/ hard to talk with others about this need? Why?
• What would become possible if this need was honored and held sacred?

Brave One, it bears repeating — we don’t need to set boundaries, we need to become INTIMATE with what we need to be healthy and whole.

And then to keep cultivating this intimacy and remaining curious about what we need, why we need it and to gently keep nurturing this connection. We also forgive ourselves each time we see that we’ve allowed time to lapse or allow this need to go unmet. And then we come back to that need allowing the gap to teach us about what we need to do to strengthen our ability to meet this need.

More Honest Talk

This approach isn’t an easy nor a fast way, but it is the most direct route to forging an authentic, strong and embodied connection to what sustains you. And I am fully confident, that as you become intimate with your needs you will act fiercely and fully on behalf of ensuring your needs are honored and met.