Create the Level of Connection You Want: 3 Types of Boundaries
If you struggle with boundaries, discernment can seem like a mass of tangled thread. Sorting relationship decisions can become a disorienting process that sometimes works out and sometimes leads to another knot. You want to be able to consciously choose the boundary that best serves life in any given moment and in any given relationship. To get there, you need a systematic approach that will simplify the process while keeping it authentic and alive.
One way of simplifying decision-making in relationships is getting clear about the level of contact and connection you want with the people you interact with everyday. This means knowing what you want and don’t want to share, the kinds of activities you do and don’t do together, etc. Deciding what level of connection you want with someone will support you in setting a variety of life-serving boundaries regarding other needs. For example, if you've decided to maintain less connection with a coworker and they ask you to come over to their house to work on a project, it would be easy to decide not to go to their house and choose a neutral location to meet instead. In the language of Mindful Compassionate Dialogue this is known as setting a distant boundary.
When working with boundaries, you need a way to sort through your experience of them. This helps you study your experience and make decisions. Sorting your decisions about boundaries into boundary types is one effective way to do this.
We can divide boundaries regarding connection into three main types:
Distant: You maintain less connection, or just enough connection to complete the task at hand.
Flexible: You negotiate the level of connection according to what supports meeting needs in a given context.
Close: You offer and invite intimate connection on a consistent basis.
If you hold a distant boundary in a given relationship, you share a very narrow slice of life with that person. This is common in the workplace, with sharing limited to the work task itself. You make most relating decisions ahead of time by deciding what to share or not share in that particular relationship or situation.
In other relationships you maintain a flexible boundary. In these, it's OK if sometimes there's distance and sometimes there's intimacy. You trust yourself and the other person to negotiate boundaries according to the context and needs present in the moment. You've decided that you will take the time to check in and negotiate around what is shared in any particular conversation or context.
In select relationships in your life, you maintain a close or intimate boundary. You share a lot with that person and you actively maintain intimacy. You reach toward connection, share vulnerability, and, perhaps, share a variety of activities together.
As you use this rubric to examine your relationships, perhaps the most difficult thing you will encounter is times when your expectations don't match what's really needed. For example, you might long for a close relationship with your brother. Unfortunately, your brother doesn't have the capacity to truly hold intimacy with you in a way that meets your needs for respect and caring. If you are attached to your dream of having this closeness, you may experience hurt again and again as you invite and offer vulnerable sharing within a relationship that doesn't have the capacity to hold that vulnerability.
Longing for a relationship to be a particular way clouds your ability to see that those needs can't actually be met in that relationship. Clouded or confused thinking about this might sound like:
“I know they can meet me, they just don't want to.”
“I've seen that they have this ability to love, and I know they can show up.”
“I won't give up on them.”
“If only I can make them see…”
“If only they would work with a therapist, then they will be able to…”
Setting a distant boundary with your brother doesn't mean you are giving up on your relationship or giving up on him. It simply means that you are willing to relate in accord with things as they actually are while remaining open to change. As you grieve the relationship with your brother you wish you had, you will slowly move into acceptance of what you do have. When you make this shift, you might find that your ability to enjoy the relationship increases. When you are not longing for something different, joy in the present naturally arises.
Discerning which of the three primary boundaries regarding connection—distant, flexible, or close—truly meets needs is a key part of bringing ease and simplicity to setting and maintaining life-serving boundaries. Simply remembering that you get to choose where you stand with a given person along the continuum between close and distant can itself be empowering and help you to remember to set life-serving boundaries when you need them.
Practice
Reflect on relationships that work well for you and identify which type of connection boundary you have chosen with those individuals. Identify all the little choices you make to maintain helpful boundaries. Studying these choices will give you a better sense of what to do in a new relationship.