Emotional boundaries can be set around how we feel but also considering how our actions contribute to other people’s feeling. So much of Codependency is about avoiding or managing how other people feel. I usually ask clients throughout our session if the feelings they are managing are theirs or someone else’s. It is helpful to increase your emotional awareness to help prepare yourself for setting and managing boundaries around your feelings. It would be helpful to start to think about the people in your life that you feel safe around. Who sees you and is supportive consistently? Who are the people in your life you can turn to when you are struggling that show up and don’t judge you? Those people are the ones you can feel safely emotional with. Now consider who you struggle to be your whole self with. When you’re around them, you tend to hold back or put on a mask so as not to let them see what you’re going through. There will be more of these people, generally. It would be great if we could be our whole selves with everyone but that can be a level of vulnerability, we aren’t ready for just yet.
When I was younger, I was identified as sensitive. I had lots of feelings and expressed them often. I was often accused of wearing my feelings on my sleeve. I can remember often feeling like I was too much for most people. As I grew up, I started to build walls around my sensitive heart. I started to hold back and not share what I was feeling, or I would downplay the level of emotion I was experiencing. I got to an expert level where I could fake it most of the time and very few people knew what I was dealing with. It became very easy to put on a smile and pretend like I was confident and secure even while I was in a full-blown eating disorder and considering suicide most of the time. After being accused of being dramatic or problematic I shut down. Talking to people who knew me then would tell you I was fun, outgoing, smart and confident. They often forget that I lost a parent in the middle of high school. I was so exhausted by the time I graduated; I ended up in psych ward on suicide watch. I recognize how much hiding my feelings took a toll on me physically, mentally, and energetically.
It takes a great deal of vulnerability to let those walls down for most people. Growing up where you are working so hard to keep yourself together to avoid negative outcomes means that being vulnerable isn’t safe. So many humans build walls rather than boundaries because it is easier to have a fortress around yourself than fences. The challenge becomes that walls keep us in as well as keeping people out. Working with clients, especially couples, it becomes evident that humans don’t know how to set emotional boundaries. All of us have trauma in one form or another and the first thing we do is try to limit how much more damage we sustain from people, especially if our trauma was perpetrated by people close to us. With emotional trauma, we limit our needs to try to maintain a perceived status quo and not make things worse. The emotional needs of connection get distorted if not neglected all together. We seek to build community while we are carrying around armor waiting for any potential attack. Some of us hold back the best parts of ourselves and prefer to put on the persona of someone who doesn’t have any needs. Most of us have learned to be independent and are unwilling to be seen as needing anything from anyone else. That isn’t how connection works. Cooperation and communication with people who show up consistently help us to see who is safe to have feelings around. It comes with practice with evidence that we can be ourselves with the people we allow to see our most vulnerable parts.
Setting boundaries around our emotions can take time. I have worked with therapists and with friends to hold space for my own vulnerability. It has taken me years of unlearning the skills I developed growing up to hold myself back and away from being hurt. I have been very fortunate to have friends in my life that have been around for years showing me how to let my walls down. It is with their own willingness to be vulnerable that I was able to. When we can take ownership of our feelings and be honest with them, can we then begin to set up limits of access to them in a healthy way. Think of your boundaries as a gate rather than a fortress. If you can set up the parameters of who, when and how much access is given, then you can monitor them more easily.
The who has been identified as people who show up and hold space without judgement consistently. The when will be up to you to define. Our emotional state is in flux all the time. Being aware of your own capacity will be a practice to recognize how your feel and how much energy or space you have at any given moment. I remind myself often that when I am tired or distracted with things my emotional state is more fragile. I have less capacity to hold back or regulate my emotions. I also know that when I am anxious, I have a harder time keeping my emotions in check. My boundary would then be to communicate with the people close to me stating how I am feeling and that I might need some extra attention, or I might need some time on my own to recenter or regroup before processing. It has taken time for me to be aware of what my needs are around regulating my emotional state. I held myself back from being vulnerable for a long time. Now I can check in with myself more easily and I’m able to own what I am feeling.
The part about who gets access to your emotional self is also important to be aware of. Not every should have the privilege of having access to your vulnerability. There are people who may have had that right and have had it revoked. You get to decide how much of you they get to experience. Think about a stranger on an elevator who casually asks how you are. Our first instinct is to quickly respond “fine” or “good”. They don’t necessarily need to know what is going on with you. Consider that parent or family member who isn’t safe for you to share those intimate parts of you or people who have lost the privilege of having access to your feelings. Just because someone was once intimately connected to you doesn’t mean they have an all-access pass forever. You get to determine the admission to your emotional experience.
You are the gate keeper once the walls come down for how much you share of your emotional self. Being aware of your limitations and capacity, recognizing who is safe to share those emotions with and recognizing you have the right to pivot and change if you need to will help you start to set those boundaries. Communicate your expectations with the people close to you. Let them know what your experiences have been in the past if you choose to use that information to help inform them. Be honest with yourself about what the feelings are that you are experiencing. It might be helpful to seek out an objective outside perspective or professional to help identify those feelings. Then work on building tools on managing keeping yourself safe while also allowing yourself to have needs, wants, desires and emotions. Increasing your emotional awareness and doing so with compassion and kindness for yourself helps you to set healthy boundaries to your emotional self.
Things to consider:
Who do you feel comfortable sharing your emotional self with?
Who does it feel uncomfortable sharing your emotional sensitive self with?
Are you aware of when you or where you can share your emotional needs?
Are you aware of how much you are willing to share with the people you are safe being your full emotional self with?
How does it feel when you can be your full emotional self?