As highly sensitive people who are deeply attuned to other people’s feelings and moods, we can sometimes really struggle with boundaries. After all, if we are picking up on someone’s anger or worry or sadness, it’s almost as if we have an added energetic charge to deal with.
We not only feel our own feelings, we also feel the weight and energy of the other person’s feelings. And so, many of us can get into the bad habit of smoothing over people’s feelings.
It’s almost as if we are trying to take care of our own feelings by taking care of theirs.
But of course, this is a recipe for disaster if you are highly sensitive.
Without good boundaries, we can start feeling as if we are dumping grounds for other people’s unprocessed emotions. Instead of feeling good about what we’re giving, we can start feeling burnt out, exhausted, and resentful.
But even with this, we still might struggle with setting boundaries. After all, many of us have grown up in families or been part of religious groups that tell us that a good person is someone who helps others and who puts others’ needs first. And if you are a highly sensitive woman, you also have the added burden of social conditioning.
So, as highly sensitive people, we have to understand how to build boundaries in a way that works for us. And for that, we have to first understand what boundaries do and how they work.
There are two ways in which we can think about boundaries as highly sensitive people. One, as fences. And two, as containers.
Boundaries do two things. One, they are the fences that protect our personal space. So, this is in relationship to other people. When we set a line in the sand with a controlling person, we are using boundaries as a fence.
But just as we need some fences, we also need some containers. Boundaries that are containers help us give importance to what we value and to actually DO our work.
For example: Not replying to emails over the weekend to protect family time is a container. I know many people who do this. I also know many people who don’t reply to email as soon as it appears even on weekdays. They treat it like snail mail, like actual correspondence. Unless it’s truly urgent, they let it be the last thing they do.
This gives them room to think. It also creates a line around their time in which they can actually get real work done. As a data-responsive person, as someone who used to engage with information as soon as it showed up, I understand the value of this more and more.
If you want to get something done, you HAVE to have a container.
The added benefit of a container is also that it inadvertently sets a boundary with people around you.
As a highly sensitive person, if you’ve decided that meal-times are a “No phones on the table” time because you value connecting as a family, that also means that your friend (or frenemy) can’t talk to you anytime they want.
Of course, this is a side effect of boundaries as containers. If you’re dealing with a toxic person, you have to think of boundaries as fences and act accordingly. But if you have trouble setting boundaries and feel guilty when saying no, a really good place to start creating boundaries is thinking of some containers you want.
As a highly sensitive person, what do you value? What do you need? Maybe, it’s fifteen minutes of alone time in your car before you transition from work to home. Maybe, you want to schedule a call with a friend every weekend.
Try doing this and you might find that it’s easier to set at least a few boundaries. Choosing a positive value makes it a lot easier to say no to everything else. (And if it still feels easy to put yourself last, try scheduling things that are commitments to others, such as time volunteering or a promise to your kid to spend time doing what they want).
This won’t magically solve all your boundary problems as a highly sensitive person. If there’s a bully in your life or you have a narcissistic boss, this will likely not be enough to tackle those problems. And if you tend to feel other people’s feelings in your own body and get ungrounded, this won’t fix them. But it will give you some precious breathing room, some room to maneuver. It will also also give you some practice saying small NO’s and being genuinely okay with saying them.
I hope you try this if you are a highly sensitive person who has trouble setting limits with other people. Try drawing some lines around your time and energy that create little pockets for your sensitive self to flourish. As you create more of these pockets and containers, you might find that they naturally push out some things that don’t belong in your life.
You might find that more and more of your life is looking the way you want it to look. Happy Container Creating!
Ritu Kaushal is the author of the book The Empath’s Journey, which TEDx speaker Andy Mort calls “A fascinating insight into the life of a highly sensitive person and an emotional empath.” Sign up for Ritu’s newsletter to get two free chapters of The Empath’s Journey.
Leave a Reply