Self-Help Tips - What Are Boundaries?
Many people will hear the word boundaries and immediately think that it only applies to someone who works in or understands the world of therapy or counselling. In fact healthy boundaries are something that hopefully will be developed in most families with kids, and are essential for any children or growing adolescents to have in order to feel an inner sense of security that allows them to grow.
It is unlikely that most families will talk about boundaries. It is much more likely that a parent or parents will realise the need to set boundaries for children in order to give them an external sense of permanence that creates a sense of safety for the child. It is this sense of certainty or permanence that
…show more content…
This will be done at a conscious level to begin with, and may even seem a bit artificial.
Over time the person will integrate their sense of what these boundaries are and what they mean into their lives, and it will become a natural part of their view, both of themselves and of the world at large.
It is important to realise that people cannot change their childhood or their past life. However, the basis of all real self-help work is a realisation that by owning the reality both of what has happened to you and how you have coped with it in the past allows people to be free in the present.
This is not to decry or minimise dramatic life events, but is a realisation that if you have survived them, then the coping mechanisms that were necessary worked. There comes a point however in people 's lives, where simply coping with the legacy of the past is not enough.
There is a need to move forward and really engage life. This is where boundaries really come into play, in that they may at first seem like barriers to any sense of freedom, but in the end create a sense of order and stability that generate a true sense of inner security and safety, that is real and