A personal limit or boundary is a dividing line between you and your significant other as well as others. This line indicates both physical and emotional limits that your partner and others cannot violate. When someone crosses one of your personal limits, it creates intense feelings of anger, hurt and rage. In this article, we shall examine personal limits in a some worth thorough manner.
Personal boundaries or the act of setting boundaries is a life skill that has been popularized by self help authors and support groups since the mid-1980s. Personal boundaries are established by changing one’s own response to interpersonal situations, rather than expecting other people to change their behaviors to comply with your boundary. For example, if the boundary is to not interact with a particular person, then one sets a boundary by deciding not to see or engage with that person, and one enforces the boundary by politely declining invitations to events that include that person and by politely leaving the room if that person arrives unexpectedly. The boundary is thus respected without requiring the assistance cooperation of any other people. Setting a boundary is different from issuing an ultimatum; an ultimatum is a demand that other people change their choices so that their behavior aligns with the boundary-setter’s own preferences and personal values.
The term “boundary” is a metaphor, with in-bounds meaning acceptable and out-of-bounds meaning unacceptable. The concept of boundaries has been widely adopted by the counseling profession.
Usage And Application
This life skill is particularly applicable in environments with controlling people or people not taking responsibility for their own life.
Co-Dependents Anonymous recommends setting limits on what members will do to and for people and on what members will allow people to do to and for them, as part of their efforts to establish autonomy from being controlled by other people’s thoughts, feelings and problems.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness tells its members that establishing and maintaining values and boundaries will improve the sense of security, stability, predictability and order, in a family even when some members of the family resist. NAMI contends that boundaries encourage a more relaxed, nonjudgmental atmosphere and that the presence of boundaries need not conflict with the need for maintaining an understanding atmosphere.
If your relationship isn’t as satisfying as you’d like it to be, you might need to set bigger personal limits.
A personal limit or boundary is a dividing line between you and your significant other as well as others. This line indicates both physical and emotional limits that your partner and others cannot violate.
When someone crosses one of your personal limits, it creates intense feelings of anger, hurt and rage. In some cases, your personal limits might have been crossed so many times that you are no longer in touch with your outrage. You might brush it off as either ‘nothing’ or ‘not worth saying anything about’. Instead of feeling anger you may only be able to get in touch with feelings of resentment or possibly frustration causing a disconnect in your relationship.
Setting personal limits is vital to creating a close, satisfying relationship.
When we don’t know how to set and stand up for our personal limits, relationships are difficult and unsatisfying because they don’t meet our needs for happiness. When we have a strong sense of our personal limits, it prevents us from being hurt by others.
When you set and enforce personal limits it raises your sense of self-confidence, because you’re sending yourself and your partner a strong message that you are valuable and worthy of the utmost respect. This makes your partner feel safe because he or she knows what you want and don’t want, instead of tiptoeing on eggshells.
In summary, expressing our limits allows your partner to know you in the truest sense. When the one we love knows us intimately we feel more closely connected.
There are certain personal limits that we all share, such as no one can hit me, but many of them are unique to our individual personalities, etc. I hope you find this article helpful.
