Seven Types of Boundaries You Need to Set to Stay Safe & Protect Your Peace

Setting boundaries is very important in protecting our personal well-being.

Sep 23, 2023

Why do you need to set boundaries in life?

Boundaries are there to keep you safe and help others understand what you find to be acceptable in a variety of different areas of your life. They’re also like setting basic rules between you and a new person who you’ve met.

Helping someone understand your boundaries and then also setting extra boundaries if needed helps maintain healthy relationships. Setting boundaries is also self-care. Boundaries help you protect your time, your energy, your emotions, your mind, your finances, and your relationships with others.

What happens when we don’t set any boundaries?

This is a recipe for disaster. Allowing people to walk all over you, disrespect you, and waste your time by not setting boundaries also makes you a people pleaser. People pleasing is when you seek the approval of others by allowing them to walk all over your boundaries, disrespect your time, and ignore your basic needs. My best tip is to focus on pleasing yourself rather than others.

Why do we find it so hard to set boundaries?

According to Psych Central and youaligned, “We fear conflict and disappointing others. We risk experiencing burnout and resentment by consistently catering to the needs of others and sacrificing our feelings by putting theirs above our own. Because of this, we often say yes, even if stretching ourselves thin for someone or something else is not in our best interest.”

People pleasing, trauma responses, and inadequate knowledge of boundaries are the reasons we often experience difficulty setting boundaries.

What happens when we do set boundaries?

When we set boundaries in our life with ourselves and others, we are showing ourselves the respect we deserve. We can create more free time and emotional stability for ourselves. When you set boundaries, you may even feel happier, more light, and free.

So what are the seven boundaries you should set in your life to protect yourself and your peace?

Physical boundaries.

These are boundaries that protect your body, your body in relation to other people’s space, and your right to your own space and privacy. This is how this boundary sounds; “It makes me feel uncomfortable when people try to hug me when I’ve just met them. Once I get to know you better, I’ll let you know if my physical boundaries open up.”

Mental boundaries.

Mental boundaries protect your mind and headspace. They can be a variety of different things. Set a mental boundary while working to avoid interruptions.. A mental boundary at home is telling your partner that you need an hour of alone time daily to clear your mind or address personal issues. Another boundary could be mentioning topics you don’t want to discuss at the moment and then adding on when you’d be ready to discuss them.

Emotional boundaries.

Emotional boundaries help protect the way you feel, as well as to improve the ability to validate your own self and your emotions. Setting emotional boundaries sets a precedent for allowing yourself to not be impacted by others’ emotions as well as be responsible for your own emotions.

Emotional boundaries can be both internal boundaries and external boundaries. Internal boundaries are allowing yourself the space and time to feel into any specific emotion after a major event. External boundaries refer to the emotions between you and others around you.

Conversational boundaries.

Conversational boundaries vary from situation to situation and location to location. At home, we might establish these boundaries to avoid certain topics around our kids or even certain topics between yourself and your partner.

Conversational boundaries between parents and kids are incredibly important. Especially so for parents that have dual households–Meaning separated, or divorced parent households.

Conversational boundaries at work might look like not discussing your personal relationships with coworkers. Having conversational boundaries between you and your boss is super important. This could be that you don’t discuss the performance of others, unless it is under your responsibility to do so. Encouraging your boss or coworkers to settle disputes between one another without you involved helps keep you safe.

Internal boundaries.

These boundaries align with many of the different boundaries we’ve already discussed. But it is incredibly important you understand how vital it is to set boundaries with yourself.

Setting internal boundaries for yourself allows you to keep your peace as well as understand what you are going to allow yourself to get into or what you’re going to keep private from others. To set an internal boundary, you might say, “I won't talk to this person at work anymore because they make me feel terrible about myself and having nothing kind to say.”

Internal boundaries also regulate the relationship you have with yourself. You might think of internal boundaries as self-discipline; which results in effective time management, mental and emotional self-regulation, appropriate behavior, and impulse control.

Material boundaries.

These boundaries refer to our relationship with money and physical items. Healthy material boundaries involve setting limits on what you will share and with whom. For example, it may be appropriate to lend a car to a family member, but probably not to someone you met this morning.

This boundary type is important at work.. The rules you establish regarding who has permission to use your belongings and how they should use it. A great example of this is when you don’t feel comfortable lending your possessions on your desk or your own to a coworker.

Material boundaries also surround your finances and how you manage your spending. Setting material boundaries around your finances would look like setting budgets for different categories and ensuring you stick to those budgets.

TIP: Set an internal boundary, with regard to your material boundaries, to allow yourself to feel into any frustration or emotion with sticking to your financial budget.

Time boundaries.

Time boundaries concern how you spend your time alone or with others at home or work and managing routine time.. Time boundaries apply to every aspect of your life.

At work, boundaries could include scheduling uninterrupted project time. At home, this might set be setting up a chore routine where you only do certain chores on certain days so you’re not spending all of your time one day per week working on everything.

Other at home examples include letting your kids know how much time you can dedicated toward playtime or out of the house activities, and also setting a boundary with your partner to ensure you get at least an hour of alone time each day.

Time boundaries also relate directly to time management. When we set boundaries around how our time is spent, we’re better capable of managing our time and setting realistic expectations on how we use our time.

Many boundaries can be set, including those related to the seven listed above. Something something important you need to understand about setting boundaries is that it takes practice.

Lack of prior boundary-setting experience leads to imperfect boundary-setting, and that’s okay! Setting boundaries takes practice and lots of tweaking. Once you begin to set boundaries, learn from experiences to improve expressing boundaries.

If you’d like to understand more about setting boundaries, check out the graphic below and learn more about boundaries.

SOURCES

“This is What It Looks Like to Set Healthy Boundaries” By Elizabeth Yuko https://www.realsimple.com/health/mind-mood/emotional-health/how-to-set-boundaries,

“10 Ways to Build and Preserve Better Boundaries,” By Chantelle Pattemore, https://psychcentral.com/lib/10-way-to-build-and-preserve-better-boundaries, “Boundaries,” Written by Cloud and Townsend, 2012.