Draw the Lines Around Yourself
Personal boundaries are the imaginary lines you draw around
yourself that no one should cross either physically—unless
invited in—or emotionally. You are entitled to respect, privacy,
decency, kindness, love, truth, and honor, to name but a few
rights. If people cross the lines, blur the boundaries, you are
entitled to stand up for yourself and say, “No, I won’t put up
with this.”
But you have to draw the lines first. You have to know what
you will stand for and what you won’t. You have to set the
boundaries in your own mind before you can expect others to
respect them, stick to them.
The more secure you become with your boundaries, the less
power other people will have to affect you. The more clearly
defined your boundaries, the more you realize that other
people’s stuff is more to do with them and less to do with
you—you stop taking things so personally.
Yo u a r e e n t i t l e d t o b a s i c s e l f - r e s p e c t. Yo u c a n ’t e x p e c t o t h e r s t o
respect you unless you respect yourself. You can’t respect
yourself until you have formed a clear picture of who you are
and what you are. And setting boundaries is part of this
process. You have to feel important enough to set those lines.
And once set, you have to be assertive enough to reinforce
them.
Setting personal boundaries means you don’t have to be scared
of other people anymore. You now have a clear idea of what
you will put up with and what you won’t. Once someone
crosses the line between appropriate and inappropriate