Healing Practices For Setting Healthy Boundaries
This is part of February’s “Our Public Memory” PIES Healing Practice. If you missed this newsletter, read it here.
“You want to set a boundary before you hit your limit, so that you’re in a space of actively fulfilling your values rather than actively trying to survive beyond the limits of what matters most for you. ”
January’s virtual healing circle, which was led by Chicago Boundaries Coach, Shawn Coleman, focused on setting essential and health boundaries in our personal and professional lives. Two of the key learnings from Shawn’s session were:
Know your value and what you value
Clear and compassionate communication is key
First off, it’s important to note that setting healthy boundaries is about creating structures so that you can operate at your most optimum level. It’s not about curtailing or controlling other people’s behavior, but about setting the standard of behavior for yourself, regardless of other people’s behavior. Once you’ve set healthy boundaries for yourself, learning how to communicate with other people in ways that honor your boundaries as well as the other human is the next level of development.
Know Your Values
Knowing your own value and knowing what you value gives you clear direction for where boundaries are needed. Behaviors and activities that enable you to fulfill the things that you value are the standards of behavior that you aim to achieve. Behaviors and activities outside of those values are things you want to set boundaries against. But here’s the kicker: you don't want to set a boundary right at your limit of engagement. You want to set a boundary before you hit your limit, so that you’re in a space of actively fulfilling your values rather than actively trying to survive beyond the limits of what matters most for you.
Assertive Communication Skills
The key to this boundary-setting practice of before-you-roll-over-the-cliff involves clear, honoring and assertive communication. Assertive communication includes clear, pro-active engagement with others that involves communicating your boundaries in the beginning, rather than waiting until someone crosses your boundaries before you make them known. This kind of communication contradicts our shared learning around communication which compels us to be in reaction to others, rather than proactively steering others in the direction that allows us to be our most powerful selves.
Healing Practices To Try
So for February’s “Healing Our Shame” second Pillar development, we share with you two healing practices this month – both from Therapist Aid – as a continuation of our work on setting boundaries - Value Discussion Cards and Assertive Communication skills.
Values Discussion Cards: Print and cut out these cards. Then, in your gathering or meeting this month, or with 1 or 2 other key people in your life, pull 2-3 cards randomly and, in a round, answer the questions on the cards you pull. Each person should get a chance to share their answers to the questions out loud at least twice, if possible.
Assertive Communication: Take a few moments to read through the “Traits of Assertive Communicators” and “Assertiveness Tips.” Which of these traits or tips most resonate with you? Where are you least like these traits and/or where are you likely to struggle in incorporating these tips into your communication? Then, in your gathering or meeting, or with 2 or more key people in your life, take turns providing and sharing your responses to the 3 practice scenarios. Provide feedback to the other people in your group during their turn for how they were or could have been assertive in their communication.
More Healing Practice on Setting Boundaries
Learn more about Shawn's work in their recent Shondaland Article:
Finally, if you want to engage in deep-dive learning and transformation around setting healthy boundaries, check out Shawn Coleman's 21-day Boundaries Bootcamp, beginning Sunday, February 27, 2022.