Boundaries in life are useful for a variety of reasons. Boundaries are a way to help you define your identity. They help you define yourself apart from others and let you have a sense of who you are. They can preserve your purpose and mission in life, as you have this clearly defined sense of what makes you uniquely you. Developing solid boundaries in life also brings order as you clarify your role in relation to others.
Boundaries for Self
Living life with your own defined set of values will also allow you to determine when a relationship is a good fit for you. Choosing friends and partners in life is often challenging, particularly when you’ve been hurt before or have only seen models of unhealthy relationships. Developing internal limits and values, balanced with love for yourself, can help you identify more clearly someone who aligns with your values and views. Learning how to open up and trust yourself is a big part of developing your own boundaries also.
Structure
The concept of boundaries can also be thought of in terms of limits or structure that help you navigate relating to others. Without such structure, your relationships can look very chaotic as you might not know what to expect from one interaction to the next. The limit-setting nature of healthy boundaries also helps balance the permissiveness that characterizes enabling. This keeps you from giving more than you are capable of actually giving to another person.
Protect
If you’ve ever been in a place where you’ve reached your breaking point, something that may have been happening is that the limits you set were repeatedly broken or no limits were previously defined. Setting boundaries or limits can therefore prevent you from getting to a breaking point. In a sense, boundaries act as a stopgap to becoming completely overwhelmed or overburdened, thus protecting yourself.
Group Therapy for Relationship Boundaries
If your early life was chaotic, and structure, limits, or love were not provided in healthy and balanced ways, this can all skew your sense of boundaries. It’s hard to sort through the various messages in your head and from external sources.
Luckily, there are different types of treatment that you can do to help form a corrective experience for yourself regarding boundaries. Check out our blog 3 Ways that Counseling Can Improve Your Relationships.
Group therapy is a helpful way to sort through the messages you received when you were younger and to develop a sense of yourself again, while practicing setting boundaries in a non threatening environment. See how groups can also help you recover from childhood wounds.
Another way that group counseling can help with relationships is that you get to experience real-time feedback from other group members about the boundaries you are setting. This is helpful because it can help improve your confidence that you can make changes you want in your future relationships.
How We Can Help
If you’re looking to have healthier relationships and better boundaries with the important people in your life
Check out our Relationship Process Group, which gives you a safe environment to practice this.
If you are looking for general support, or if you would like to talk to someone more about how we can help you, follow these simple steps:
Contact us today for a free 20-minute phone consultation
Or, you can book directly online with the therapist of your choice
Begin your journey towards a calmer, more relaxed life
Other Therapy Services Available at Catalyss Counseling:
Here at Catalyss Counseling, we want to meet all of your counseling needs in the Denver area. Our supportive therapists provide depression counseling, therapy for caregiver stress, grief and loss therapy, stress management counseling and more. We also have specialists in trauma and PTSD, women's issues, pregnancy and postpartum depression or anxiety, pregnancy loss and miscarriage, and birth trauma. For therapists, we can also provide clinical supervision! We look forward to connecting with you to help support your journey today.
Author Biography
Alicia Kwande is a psychotherapist, clinical supervisor, and blogger. Alicia helps adults (especially mothers and caregivers) who give all they have to others, leaving themselves with next to nothing. Alicia assists adults in managing their anxiety, depression, work-life balance, and grief and loss. Follow Catalyss Counseling on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.