This past week, I heard someone say, “What I’m hearing is that you have bad boundaries.” We all nodded in unison, all in agreement and in understanding. We were all implicitly part of a support group, raising our hands to acknowledge that we had been victims of poor personal boundary management.

I was once told by another therapist that boundaries were meant to help us maintain our span of control. It was less about enforcing boundaries against others and more about building your own resilience. In my own life, boundaries feel more like walls of survival than of self-management.

My fluid relationship with boundaries impacts all facets of my life: work, therapy, various relationships, and so on. I suspect a lot of us are amenable to our boundaries, often being more porous than firm.

I could deliver a platitude here about strengthening this muscle, but I’d be lying. While I might have fluid boundaries, I also know that I’ve often operated from a place of scarcity and at times of insecurity. And, well, those feelings of scarcity and insecurity supersede even the strongest of personal desires.

I grew up in a poor part of San Jose where the population was mostly brown immigrants, and the median household income was $30,000. I went to the “bad” high school that was often associated with gangs and violence. It wasn’t uncommon to see cops, teen pregnancy, and the like. I’d receive reactions that ranged from intense judgment to pity, depending on where that person was from. It was early on that I had to rely on my competence to propel me forward, saying “yes” rather than “no” for fear that I wouldn’t be asked again.

This way of thinking has served me throughout my life and career. It’s enriched my capacity to be adaptable, to fit into various molds for safety and belonging, and to say “no worries” more than I can count. This is even more evident to me, given that I’ve worked mostly in dominant spaces re: white, male-dominated, etc. I say this with the undertone from the whispers of my ancestors (iykyk). More importantly, I never wanted to appear incompetent or ungrateful (shivers). All this to say, it’s much more than just shitty time management or being a teacher’s pet to the boss. I share this not to get sympathy but to add nuance to a really difficult concept and practice.

Having flexible boundaries has given me visibility and mobility, in other words, survival in the workplace. This survival is often at the expense of something else. Usually, it’s sleep, time, energy, and health.

I struggle a lot with the boundaries conceptually and in practice. With the uptick in pop culture psychology, it’s sometimes been used more aggressively as a substitute for accountability or as a means of avoidance.

For my boundaries to work, I have to level-set that I am entitled to my time. Even writing that made me feel uncomfortable. A lot of us taught that we don’t have agency, especially in these complex environments. What do you mean I have a choice in this???

As a therapist, I deviate a bit from the use of boundaries. Quite frankly, it’s just really hard. So, instead, I offer guidelines or parameters in which I engage. Going back to that other therapist’s definition, boundaries are meant to protect us. But what if we aren’t able to stay firm? Where does that leave us?

We can still protect ourselves by using guidelines and parameters, e.g., when x happens, I can choose to y. It has the same intention, but it also doesn’t require the intensity that boundaries often require. Also, it puts power back in your hands, the individual, because the focus is on how you would like to engage rather than expecting/desiring/wanting something from the other party. It is also a forcing function to be aware of what’s in front of you and to calibrate whether it is worth being flexible in your guidelines. Sometimes, you may feel like you don’t have a choice, and that’s okay. Sometimes, the choice we make is made for us under certain circumstances. We can acknowledge that it sucks or is even unfair, but it’s how we react that really indicates how we want to move forward. This is where I believe our agency shines.

I offer my fellow support group members the idea that maybe we have strong parameters or guidelines on how we approach our time and ourselves. It may not be perfect, or you wiggle more left than right, but it’s a starting point that gives you some level of guidance on how you want to live your life.

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I’m going to pause you right there – huh???