Setting effective boundaries plays an important role in the maintenance of our mental wellness and establishment of healthy relationships. Boundaries serve the important task of separating our own psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs from those of others. In counselling and boundaries therapy, many people in Hamilton and across Ontario report struggles with guilt, conflict avoidance, and people pleasing while attempting to establish healthy limits. When strong but flexible boundaries are developed and maintained, an individual can clearly identify and take responsibility for their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, without being manipulated into taking responsibility for those of others.
Why Setting Boundaries is Uncomfortable: People Pleasing and the Fear of Disappointing Others
For some people, the setting and maintenance of healthy boundaries feels emotionally unsafe, even when they are reasonable. Assertiveness, an attribute considered key to the setting of healthy boundaries, can be uncomfortable and confused with rudeness or putting oneself ahead of others. People pleasing describes behavior in which individuals chronically prioritize the wishes, expectations and emotional comfort of others ahead of their own. Characterized by difficulty saying “no”, setting boundaries, or advocating for oneself; people pleasing behaviour is believed to be rooted in childhood experiences, shaped by high conflict family dynamics or rigid parenting styles. While agreeableness and the willingness to help others are often seen as positive characteristics, chronic people pleasing leads to individuals ignoring their own needs in order to avoid conflict or feel accepted by others. Fear is at the heart of people pleasing behavior. Many people pleasers experience a fear of rejection, criticism, and conflict. Guilt can also result from adjusting towards healthy relationship patterns.
Self-Compassion and Assertiveness Therapy: The Keys to Healthy Boundaries
Boundaries play an important role in clearly identifying and taking responsibility for one’s own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Two personal traits identified as being key to the ability to establish and maintain effective and healthy boundaries include self-compassion and assertiveness.
Self-Compassion is conceptualized as a positive self-attitude, related to how we view ourselves in moments of failure, inadequacy or personal suffering. The ability to feel compassion for oneself builds psychological resilience and emotional regulation, making boundary-setting feel less uncomfortable. It also promotes greater authenticity and motivation to create changes opening the door for another key to boundary-setting, assertiveness.
Assertiveness is the ability to express one’s needs and emotions while respecting others. It enables us to maintain boundaries, manage workload and handle interpersonal demands in an effective and healthy way. Several studies suggest that assertive communication plays a key role in setting healthy boundaries. Assertive people are more likely to exhibit stable psycho-emotional states, which in turn promotes increased productivity, efficiency, and a desire for self-improvement. In addition, higher levels of assertiveness are positively associated with job satisfaction and negatively associated with burnout.
Boundary setting can be a real challenge, particularly when long-standing patterns of people pleasing, shame, or guilt are present. Through compassion-focused therapy, the practice of assertiveness and self-compassion can feel more normal and less uncomfortable. By increasing their clients’ capacity for mindfulness, self-regulation, and self-kindness, therapists can work with clients to improve emotional resilience while reducing shame and guilt and supporting assertiveness. Over time, stronger boundaries will lead to higher self-worth, healthier relationships, and more authentic personal connections.
