If Boundaries Are So Good, Why Do They Make Me Feel So Guilty?
Guilt doesn’t always mean you’re doing something wrong.
Boundaries and self-care seem to be the hot topic in the mental health & wellness industries at the moment. In my intakes with new clients who are starting therapy, I can’t tell you how many folks tell me “setting boundaries” and “working on self-care” are their main goals for therapy. What I often notice when I start working with clients on these things is that there seems to be a romanticized notion that ‘once I say no and start prioritizing myself, everything will be wonderful and all of my problems will be solved.’ I wish setting boundaries was so simple, but the truth is that setting boundaries often comes with a lot of discomfort, uncertainty, and pain (same goes with self-care, but that’s a conversation for another day). These mixed feelings are very normal and don’t mean that the boundaries you’re trying to set are bad or wrong, just that change isn’t easy and that giving yourself permission to enact boundaries is at times a complicated process.
What Boundaries Are & Are Not
Let’s start with understanding what exactly boundaries are. In the simplest terms, boundaries are the personal capacities, limits, and rules we set for ourselves in the different parts of our lives. They are how we say “no”, “that doesn’t work for me,” “not right now,” or “I can’t do that but what about this instead?” Boundaries are not black and white — that is, it’s not that we either have boundaries or we don’t. Rather, we can have different types of boundaries in different parts of our lives, and some of these boundaries may be more rigid or porous than others. Boundaries also evolve and change over time as your feelings, needs, and values evolve and change over time, which means the act of setting boundaries in any given area of your life is more of an ongoing negotiation with yourself rather than a one-time event.
It’s also important to understand that boundaries are about our own actions, not the actions of others. For example, imagine that you’re feeling overwhelmed at work and would like to improve your work-life balance. Some boundaries you could set include: (1) letting your colleagues know you’re not available on weekends, (2) deleting the email app from your phone so you don’t check work emails outside of work, or (3) not doing any extra work on evenings/weekends. These are all examples of boundaries because they are all things that you can control. They are all ways that you are limiting your engagement with your job outside of work hours.
Trying to control or change others’ behaviours however would not be an effective way to enact boundaries. For example, asking your colleagues not to email you over the weekend may not be a realistic or effective boundary in this situation because deciding whether they would like to work on weekends is up to them. You can’t always control their attempts to access you, but you can always control how you choose to be accessible (or not) to them. You can certainly request that other people respect and act in accordance with your boundaries, but even if they don’t, you can still maintain these boundaries through your own actions. For example, let’s say you’ve set your initial boundary by letting your colleagues know you’re not available on weekends, and have also requested that your colleagues wait until Monday morning to email you, but one of your colleagues continues to email you over the weekend. You can continue to maintain your boundaries in this situation by simply waiting until Monday to respond.
This is not to say that the actions of others don’t matter at all when it comes to our personal boundaries — what we observe around us definitely influences our comfort levels around setting our own boundaries, or what type of boundaries we choose to set. For example, if everyone at your job works 24/7, it may be much harder for you to set different boundaries for yourself. This is why it’s very difficult for people who come from enmeshed families, who have not had healthy or clear boundaries modelled for them, to then set boundaries for themselves. Different cultures also value different things, so the ease with which you are able to set boundaries in certain areas of your life will also be influenced by what has been modelled for you in a larger societal context. For example, Japan has historically had a culture of overworking, which has made it very difficult for individual workers to take time away from work in order to comply with societal expectations and standards. In fact, the Japanese term karoshi was coined in the 1970s to describe the phenomenon of workers literally dying from overworking.
Setting limits for yourself and expressing these limits to others around you are very normal and healthy things to do and having boundaries in different areas of your life will benefit you in different ways. For example, having boundaries at work may prevent you from experiencing burnout and having boundaries in your personal relationships may prevent you from feeling emotionally drained. At this point, I think it’s fair to say that boundaries are good and typically benefit us in some way. That said, you may notice it’s not always fun, easy, or comfortable to actually set boundaries in your life. When you choose not to check your work emails over the weekend for example, many people find this creates a feeling of discomfort that we may label as guilt. So if boundaries are so good, why do they make us feel so guilty sometimes?
Healthy Vs. Unhealthy Guilt
When it comes to guilt, it’s important to understand that different types of guilt arise for different reasons. On the one hand, we have helpful guilt. Helpful guilt arises when we’ve done something that’s objectively bad or wrong. This type of guilt is considered healthy because it alerts us to the fact that we’ve done something wrong and gives us the opportunity to repair the damage that we’ve caused. For example, if you’re in a monogamous relationship and cheat on your partner, you would feel healthy guilt because infidelity in a monogamous relationship is objectively wrong.
The other type of guilt we can experience is called unhelpful guilt, which arises when your actions don’t meet the unrealistically high standards or expectations that you’ve set for yourself (that you likely wouldn’t hold anyone else accountable to). This type of guilt is considered unhealthy because it typically leads to self-critical thoughts and self-punishing behaviours without any productive behaviour change. For example, if you consider yourself a good friend and then miss a friend’s phone call one day when you’re not feeling well, you may feel unhealthy guilt because you haven’t lived up to your own unrealistically high standards of what being a good friend means.
Understanding which type of guilt you’re experiencing is important because different actions are needed to deal with each type. Healthy guilt is resolved by making amends, apologizing, or trying to right your wrongdoing in some way. For example, if you feel guilty about cheating on your partner you could resolve this feeling of healthy guilt by being honest about your infidelity and apologizing to them. Unhealthy guilt on the other hand doesn’t get resolved in the same way because when you feel unhealthy guilt you haven’t really done anything wrong that you need to apologize for. Unhealthy guilt can actually only be resolved by challenging the unhelpful standards you’ve set for yourself and correcting the self-critical and self-punishing beliefs and behaviours that follow. For example, if you feel guilty for missing your friend’s phone call, you could resolve this unhealthy guilt by reminding yourself that you don’t need to always be available to answer your friends’ calls in order to be a good friend. You could exercise self-compassion and remind yourself that it’s okay to take care of yourself too.
Unhealthy Guilt & Boundaries
When we set boundaries, the type of guilt that often arises is unhealthy guilt. This is because setting boundaries isn’t objectively bad or wrong, it’s actually a very good and healthy thing to do. However, saying no often doesn’t align with the unrealistically high standards and expectations that many people set for themselves around their availability, capacity, and accessibility to others. So when we do start saying no or limiting how available we are to others at times, this behaviour may be very incongruent with how we see ourselves and our value to others.
Not only does our internal voice tell us that we did something wrong by setting a boundary, but we may expect or perceive that others also don’t like the boundary we’ve set. Since setting boundaries often means saying “no” to others, it’s not unusual that the reactions we get (or expect to get) from others to our boundaries may not always be the most positive. No one wants to be told no, especially if they expect you to always say yes. This combination of our own internal self-critical beliefs and the perceived negative reactions of others leads to the feeling of unhealthy guilt. In situations like this where we haven’t really done anything wrong but we feel like we have, we may start to regret setting a boundary in the first place. Often, we tell ourselves that we’re letting both ourselves and others down when we do.
“Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.” -Brené Brown
Remember that unhealthy guilt doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong — it means you’re being too hard on yourself. If you notice this feeling of unhealthy guilt arises when you try to set a boundary, it may be worth exploring and challenging the unrealistic expectations and standards that you have set for yourself. You might ask yourself, “Why do I not deserve what I would encourage in others?” Setting boundaries is an act of self-love and self-care, not something you’re doing to disappoint others. And if others are disappointed at times when you say no and choose yourself first, then it may be worth learning how to tolerate some of this discomfort in order to live a life that really feels meaningful for you, which in my opinion is something that everyone deserves.
The next time you feel guilty for setting a boundary, I’ll invite you to try working through that unhealthy guilt by:
(1) Recognizing what makes this guilt unhealthy (ask yourself questions like, “is anything I did objectively bad?”, “would someone else looking at this objectively think I did something bad?”)
(2) Labelling which unrealistic expectations/standards you’re holding yourself to and giving yourself permission to let go of these if you can
(3) Reminding yourself of your values, feelings, and needs that informed this boundary in the first place, and why this matters to you
(4) Being patient and compassionate with yourself as you learn what your boundaries are and how to express them
(5) Remembering that you’re not responsible for managing how other people react to your boundaries but you are responsible for advocating for your own needs
(6) Continuing to practice! The more you do it, the more comfortable it will become
