What If Your Boundaries Could Breathe?

I just need better boundaries.

I hear this all the time—from clients, from friends, from colleagues, and even from myself some mornings when I’m meeting my laptop at 5:00 am.

Some of us who aren’t good with boundaries can only dream about holding better ones.

But imagine holding more firmly to what we say we are going to do. Maintaining stronger rules for ourselves or others that we actually stick to. I wish I was better at this when I had a young child at home. I didn’t serve myself or him by being so loose with them.

But at the same time, I have been realizing lately that the healthiest boundaries may not be built like fortress walls at all.

The somatic teacher Prentis Hemphill once wrote: Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.

I love this image.

What if a boundary is a space, a distance, and something that can move or shift over time?

Maybe our work around holding firmer boundaries isn’t about choosing between no boundaries and ones made out of concrete. Maybe this work is about learning how to let a boundary breathe—to be firm when you need to, but then softer when you need more openness and flexibility.

I once had a client who decided she would not look at her phone or laptop after dinner. Ever. And she pulled it off—for several weeks. But then one day, she didn’t need the rule so fiercely anymore. The boundary had done its job. She had to prep for a session the next day, so she did give in and did a bit of work after dinner.

She realized the boundary did not need to stand forever—it simply needed to hold firm while she healed.

I once had a boundary for myself that said I was not going to work outside of 8:00 am-6:00 pm.

And I did that for a stretch—but until I couldn’t anymore. I had too many early morning flights or late night projects that just needed to be done. So I let it go—and it was all okay for a short season.

Sometimes we build boundaries but then we forget their purpose. We forget that they are meant to be scaffolding—such lines are not meant to be something we punish ourselves or others with.

You may know people who have rules that they let become walls. And there are no doors into those rooms: I never do that. I don't believe in this. I always do it this way. And perhaps those rules serve those people well—sometimes a hard line is exactly what you need. But I have also seen such walls block off the very connection or growth someone is longing for in the first place.

Where are your boundaries right now?

Perhaps one is not reaching for your phone at 3:00 am (nothing good ever comes from blue light at that hour).

Maybe it’s your child asking for something for the third time, and you hold the line instead of caving.

Or maybe it’s noticing that a relationship with a friend has turned into one-way caretaking, and you need to stop.

These kinds of boundaries are worth holding. Firmly, even. Dealbreakers or things that protect you and keep you safe from harm are worth a lot.

But when a boundary turns into an absolute, a wall that cannot move no matter what, that’s often when we lose something.

Where might you have built a wall that is keeping out something you actually want?

Our goal can never be no boundaries. Or to have walls everywhere. Rather, we need boundaries that shift and expand in alignment as we do.

What do you need around this theme right now? Is it time for you to hold firm around something, or is it time for you to soften a belief or rule you hold?

Whichever it is, remember boundaries are meant to be permeable. You and your boundaries have to breathe too.

Have a comment? Please share on social media or contact Kellie here.