Waiting for people to get used to you

Setting boundaries doesn’t always have to be some big, sweeping, grandiose, philosophical proclamation about the limits of our integrity.

It can be as small and simple as not picking up the phone after a certain hour at night. Or choosing to go to bed early when the rest of the group is still up partying. Or not checking email within an hour of waking up. Or not engaging with a toxic person from your past who tries to contact you.

It’s simply a matter of stating our needs, if only to ourselves, and then taking action to support them.

My therapist friend recently told me that one of the ways she protects confidentiality is by not greeting patients in public. She will return the hello if they bump into each other, but will not engage in any sort of therapeutic conversation outside of appointment times.

My coworker told me that her former boss had been reaching out via social media to recruit her to his new startup. She noticed feeling triggered as a result of reading his messages, so she let that be a sign. She promptly unfriended him across all platforms and moved on with her life.

These types of boundaries are small, but nonetheless empowering and effective. They are micro expressions of our values. And the nice part is, they keep our boundary setting muscles top shape. That way, if the time comes to draw the line on a more significant issue, muscle memory kicks in and gives us a path toward authentic expression.

Naturally, certain people will resist or even ridicule our boundaries. Giving us a hard time about being too rigid and telling us how we need to learn to live a little.

Fine. Let them feel their feelings. We are not responsible for their emotions, and we are not succumbing to their vortex of guilt. Our boundaries are around our behavior, not theirs.

To quote my favorite cartoonist, when you cannot change your habits, simply acknowledge them with humor and wait for people to get used to you.

Remember, each of can have a sense of ownership over ourselves.

It all starts with setting limits in small, concrete ways.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What expression of integrity needs to be made?