I feel the need to step away from my regularly-scheduled personal exploration to talk about healthy vs. unhealthy emotional boundaries.  Unhealthy emotional relationships are something that I see FAR too often, and it seems to me most people don’t know what constitutes bad boundaries/emotionally abusive behavior.

This article has some good information about identifying healthy boundaries and ways of asserting yourself.  I particularly liked this list of examples of things that are not emotionally healthy -

1) Pretending to agree with another person when you disagree

2) Allowing people to borrow money/ personal possessions and not speaking up when you would like them returned

3) Hiding your true feelings (Saying you don’t feel upset when inside you feel upset)

4) Attending a party / evening out when you really don’t want to go but would prefer not to let anyone down

5) Ignoring your own needs

6) Working long hours as you don’t want to let your boss down

7) Not eating regular healthy foods

8) Pushing yourself beyond your own limits

I know I’m guilty of some of these things.  Everybody makes poor emotional choices sometimes, and it’s easy to put other people’s needs first (especially if you’re a woman and have been trained by our culture to put yourself last).  Self-care (including care of your feelings) is the key to being able to be a good and useful person to others.

It is SO important to have a good sense of your own identity, and so often in emotionally unhealthy relationships one of the primary issues is that there is a lack of individuality between the unhealthy people.

This article is more in-depth than the previous one.  One of the things I like about it is the discussion of why people develop poor emotional boundaries and what it is they are trying to achieve/obtain by their bad behavior.  I found this passage especially applicable when thinking of unhealthy emotional relationships:

Consider the role of the father or mother who screams at his/her children or becomes physically, verbally or emotionally abusive with them as a self-centred way of dealing with his/her own stored up anger/grief from their own traumatic childhood. […] This is not to say that the childhood experiences of the parent were necessarily horribly abusive, it is just that what may have been acceptable parenting practices in their family of origin for generations were abusive. More often than not these practices and their underlying attitudes were based on false or abusive religio-cultural premises. What the children are likely to learn in this situation is that boundaries don’t matter, that indeed they, as individual human beings, don’t matter except where they are useful for the emotional needs of others. As they grow up in their families of origin, they lack the support they need from parents or caregivers to form a healthy sense of their own identities. their own individuality. In fact, they may learn that to get their needs met they must get their way with others. To do this they need to intrude on the emotional boundaries of other people just as their father or mother may have done. They would in all likelihood grow up with fluid boundaries, that cause them to swing between feelings of engulfment on the one hand and abandonment on the other inevitably leading to dysfunctional relationships later on in life. They would have at best, a hazy sense of their own personal boundaries, not able to properly define where they end and the other begins.

Setting good emotional boundaries and practicing healthy relationship skills in any interaction can be really hard, especially if you’ve been trained to feel responsible for other people’s emotional needs.  If you find yourself saying “I’m happy if you’re happy,” “I’m nothing without them,” “His/her needs come first,” etc. then you may be experiencing some level of poor emotional boundaries. 

We can’t force other people to interact with us in a healthy way, but we can set good boundaries for ourselves by refusing to engage in unhealthy emotional behavior, and by realizing our own individuality, self-worth, and strength.  Other people CANNOT make you feel bad about yourself, and you are never obligated to feel anything just because another person is trying to make you feel that way.  Remember the Eleanor Roosevelt quote - “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” How we choose to experience things emotionally is a choice we can make.  Do yourself a favor and ask yourself if others ever try to make you feel certain emotions, or if you ever find yourself trying to evoke an emotional response from someone else.  Healthy habits can be learned, and they really do make everything better and easier.  Contrary to popular belief, this makes relationships stronger and closer, not weaker and more distant.

ETA: Be mindful in your use of the words “can’t” and “won’t.”  Realize that when you say “can’t” you are making yourself powerless, a victim of circumstances.  Your brain rewires and learns this pathway, and you stop thinking of yourself as an independent entity.  Say “I won’t” or “I choose to”/”I choose not to.”  Give yourself the power!  Don’t think “I can’t handle this,” think “I am choosing not to put up with this.”  Give yourself the power to choose, and your thoughts will follow.

thegreenwolf:

paganbeauty:

You can follow any Pantheon of Paganism. I just need more Pagan blogs to follow (:

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