Archive for April, 2011
The popular definition of personal boundaries is to know where “you” stop and “Someone” else begins but our view of Boundaries is much more complex than simply asserting yourself. We would be curious to know if our description of personal boundaries resonates with you.
Boundaries are a declaration of the integrity of you. Boundaries reaffirm, day in and day out, “who you are” and what interactions and behaviors you deem acceptable and unacceptable to you. Boundaries can be seen a set of guiding principles that help you govern the “closeness” or the “distance” you are comfortable with between yourself and others needed to maintain the integrity of you.
There are several types of Boundaries. Most of us can understand the dynamics of Physical Boundaries pretty well and have a clear sense of when our personal physical space is being violated or encroached upon by others. You always seem to know when someone is standing too close to you or is in your “personal space”…..There is almost a 6th sense that goes off inside you when you know your personal space is being violated. You get a feeling of discomfort inside and it signals you to move away or signals that person to move away, sometimes it signals you to move closer. The response that is triggered is more alarming if you don’t know the person who is violating your personal space or it is a stranger behind you encroaching on your space. The point is, you can probably identify with what a violation of your personal space is from experience. We use the term “excuse me” in reaction normally, if we accidently enter into someone’s personal space and we actually feel a sense of embarrassment if it happens to be an awkward invasion. This is generally because personal space is a well defined, universally respected boundary for the most part. Of course culturally it can vary, but for the purposes of our discussion, it is pretty clear example of a boundary.
Now……
Emotionally you have a system in place that is designed to work the same way as your Physical Boundary System. Your Emotional Boundary system is designed to help you discern when someone is encroaching on your Emotional and Mental space instead of your physical space. Your emotional boundary system is a bit more complex but it operates in a similar way. It warns you of discomfort and signals you to move closer or pull away.
Physically, you have a certain radius around you that you that consider a comfortable zone in which others may stand next to you without incident, as long as they keep to themselves. People standing in this zone may annoy you (children fighting in line, the smell of someone’s cologne, someone talking on their cell phone too loud, carrying 25 items through the 15 item or less line lots of this can be annoying but it’s not necessarily harmful to you. How much discomfort these things trigger varies from person to person. Now apply this concept to your Emotional Boundary System. Emotionally, you have a certain radius around you that you consider a comfortable zone in which others may interact with you without incident, they may be annoying as we mentioned above on an emotional level but things are fine as long as they don’t get too up close and personal. They may probe into your personal life, or ask inappropriate questions, but how much emotional discomfort these things trigger within you varies from person to person depending on your values and belief system. Your belief system and values determine the radius around you and establish your Emotional Boundaries.
It is critical to have an understanding of what you are comfortable with and uncomfortable with in terms of your emotional space in order to accurately assess whether or not someone is crossing over and breaching an emotional boundary that can be harmful to your sense of self and detract from the integrity of you.
Emotional boundary violations may be bit harder to discern than physical ones because they requires you to have a very clear understanding of your values and beliefs and what is being brought into your emotional space as a result of your interactions with any one person.
A healthy emotional boundary system is important because it gives you feedback about how you are mentally and emotionally experiencing other people. Just like if someone stands too close to you they can step on your toes, well someone encroaching on your emotional boundaries can step on your emotions. Both can have adversarial consequences. Paying attention to boundaries can help ensure you appropriately trust and allow people who share your values in, and avert interactions with others that don’t share your values.
An example of a boundary violation some of us may have experienced is discussed in the following example:
You have a good friend that you have gotten to know and you tell that person how much you value them and your relationship. You talk about trust and how important that is and what it means to you to be in a trusting friendship. You openly share personal information about yourself and your friend supports you. But one day, you discover that your friend has shared that personal information with others after you explained how important trust is etc….this is an example of a boundary violation.
There are many different examples of boundary violations, but the most important thing to remember is that a violation of your boundaries requires you to take some form of action to reinforce your boundaries. If you fail to reinforce the boundary with the violator you are sending a message to that person that your boundaries are of little value to you and therefore if they do it again, they are likely to learn that there will be no consequences for it.
Posted in Okay, this isn’t a site for just women but it follows the theme off this site. People taking leadership roles to make the world a better place. The Giraffe Heroes non-profit and website highlights the risk-takers, people who are largely unknown, people who have the courage to stick their necks out for the common good, in the US and around the world.
The website honors these heroes and they stand as a shining example of regular people doing extraordinary things. To learn more about the founder and the organization click here to read an interview with her.
Tags: Last time we shared some thoughts with you about Values. Today we are going to touch upon the power of your Beliefs. Whether we are aware of it or not our beliefs are constantly influencing our behavior…..our behavior then results in outcomes and those outcomes serve to reinforce our beliefs.
The problem with this powerful process is that it does not discriminate between those beliefs that reinforce the positive thoughts we hold that benefit us, from those beliefs that reinforce the negative thoughts we hold that detract from us. The reinforcement cycle continues on relentlessly without concern for your personal benefit, so minding your beliefs can become a very important function, not only to your overall well being, but to your leadership capacity as well.
It is important to note that the process packs a double whammy when you consider the fact that the reinforcement continues non-stop without any regard for whether or not the particular belief being reinforced holds true or not.
So one thing we can glean from this simple but powerful observation is that Beliefs need to be consciously examined periodically. If beliefs are not examined periodically and are left unchallenged, they will simply continue to reinforce themselves through this process of conditioning and ultimately result in a set of firmly held convictions or fundamental truths that will influence you for better or for worse.
There is an observation about Elephants that illustrates how completely powerful and compelling beliefs are how this process can impact our perceptions and experience of our environment.
Elephants that are tied up as babies are kept in a 6 foot space, and as they grow into adulthood they are chained with a small chain to small pegs. As young babies, they learn over time that they cannot break free of the pegs after repeatedly trying to free themselves. Time passes, and although the Elephants are now twice as large and ten times more powerful than they once were, they never challenge the small chain again, instead they remain frozen in time by an old belief that the chain is still more powerful than they are, and sadly, they can remain stuck under this power and influence forever. The belief had become a firmly held conviction.
The same process that keeps this powerful five ton adult elephant restrained by a small chain and a small peg in the ground is the same way your current beliefs could be influencing you today. When we look at this example it is easy to see why it is important to do a conscious periodic re-examination of your own beliefs. We hope to inspire you to take a moment to examine some of your beliefs as they relate to your own personal empowerment around such things as decision making, risk taking, and confidence and how they impact your leadership experience. Let’s examine some beliefs around risk taking and decision making in Leadership to tie this together.
Examples of some limiting beliefs:
- “I am not as competent as those around me: (belief)
I am therefore quiet in meetings-I do not share what I am thinking. (behavior)
I am ignored (result)
My colleague’s do not see me as contributing or competent (reinforcement).
- “Only men are listened to and valued” (belief)
I make my contributions in the form of questions. (behavior)
Men answer the questions with opinions and statements (results)
my colleagues look to men for answers (reinforcement)
There are a myriad of examples of limiting beliefs we carry around. It is a vicious circle.
Growth may start with changing these basic beliefs.
What are yours?
