Practice Life-Serving Boundaries: Skill 6: Establish a boundary with body language, behavior, or words any time that you would like to change or disengage from an interaction

Each MCD Relationship Competency identifies 6 Skills, along with specific practices for learning each. For more context about MCD Relationship Competency 8: Life-Serving Boundaries, see Skill 1: When saying “no” to someone’s request, identify the needs to which you are saying “yes”, Skill 2: Identify 3 types of useful boundaries, Skill 3: Articulate 3 non-negotiable boundaries that you hold in any relationship, Skill 4: Identify current limiting beliefs that interfere with boundary setting and the expansive beliefs that will support boundary setting, and Skill 5: Identify the signs and symptoms of behavior in yourself or others that don’t support boundaries.

Skill 6: Establish a boundary with body language, behavior, or words any time that you would like to change or disengage from an interaction.

As you read through the strategies below, you will find many strategies for setting life-serving boundaries that you recognize and already do. Part of the learning process is becoming more conscious about the strategies you already use so that you can choose them based on the needs alive for you in the moment.

Setting a Distant Boundary: Engage a distant boundary when your relationship is task-focused or the other person has shown they are not able to treat you with respect and kindness.

1. Interrupt with honest expression that reveals a task related need and specific request. For example:  “I am hearing you’re feeling upset about your argument with your girlfriend. So it makes sense that you want to talk about it. At the same time, I am anxious to complete this project. Are you able to focus on this today?”

2. Shift your body away from the other person and return to your own task with a statement of clarity about what you are doing or where you want to focus.

3. General strategies:  

1. Infrequent eye contact

2. More physical space during a conversation

3. Task-specific conversations only

4. Neutral facial expression

5. Limit time together

6. Contact only occurs in group settings

Setting a Flexible Boundary: Engage a flexible boundary when the other person can listen and respect your needs as well as speaking clearly from their own.

1. Check in with your own intentions, needs, expectations, and specific requests in a given context.

2. Clarify the other’s intentions, needs, expectations, and specific requests.

3. Observe what kind of sharing or activity the environment supports.

4. If the other person requests something from you, create the habit of pausing before answering. You can use phrases like: “Hmm, let me think about that.” “I don’t know. Check in with me after lunch.” “I’ll sit with that and get back to you.” You can also remain engaged without answering by repeating back what you heard and asking clarifying questions.  

5. When you are negotiating requests with someone, pause frequently to check in with your body reactions, feelings, and needs.

6. If your body is holding discomfort about the negotiation, ask to come back to the negotiation another time or pause to anchor/get grounded.

Setting a Close Boundary: Engage a close boundary only after the other person has earned your trust by consistently treating you with respect, consideration, and kindness.

1. Create a space and structure that can hold an intimate conversation (e.g., ample time and private space with minimal interruptions).

2. Create protected and private space consistently over time.

3. Connect with present moment aliveness in both parties before addressing any specific agenda.

4. Offer empathy and honest expression in turn with mindful listening and pausing to allow an organic unfolding and expression of each other’s experience. 

5. Consistently identify what is yours to be responsible for and what is the other person’s responsibility regarding feelings, needs, and resources.

6. Make agreements about what is confidentially shared and what is okay to share with others.

7. Clarify expectations/hopes about the amount of time you will spend together and when you will have time apart.

8. Clarify what you are willing to offer each other relative to sharing, support, and contact.

Practice

Choose 1-3 relationships to study relative to these strategies. Notice what you are doing and if that matches the level of connection you want in that relationship. What other strategies might you want to engage?