Setting boundaries can feel effortless btw

Setting boundaries used to feel hard. Like holding up a heavy shield to defend myself — a huge effort! But then that changed, and now “setting boundaries” feels effortless: as if our emotions exist in parallel dimensions. I can see theirs, but they can't harm mine.

You might think that I achieved this through lots and lots of practice or “exposure”, but no, that could take years and I’m not about that.

In the beginning of my journey, setting boundaries was super aversive. Telling people “No”? Asserting my desires? Eek! Even just thinking about asserting myself raised my heart rate and turned my stomach.

When I finally noticed this pattern of symptoms, I thought: What if my system creates this symptom on purpose? What if setting boundaries feels hard because there are incentives for it to be hard? What if setting boundaries has unwanted consequences?

Let’s see:

1. Somebody asks me do something

2. I don’t feel a desire to do that thing, so I should set a boundary / decline

3. What am I afraid will happen? … Playing the mental movie … They feel bad, get mad, get violent, blame me¹… and I feel like a bad person, fear retribution, fear gossip…

Ohh. No yeah I’m avoiding boundaries to avoid the consequences.

So… what if those things did happen? How would I like to feel and act? …

That’s what I did. I imagined all the consequences that I was afraid of and played through each like a video game.² (Note: I wouldn’t have been able to do this if I wasn’t already fairly integrated.)

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For example, if they get sad maybe I want to feel secure in myself while empathizing with them through their sadness. If they get annoying, I want to say “No” and walk away. If they get violent I want to defend myself. Etc. Playing these out in detail, completely, recursively.

It took skill and time to notice the specific consequences that felt concerning. Otherwise… it basically just worked? I used to feel super anxious about setting boundaries, saying No, being in conflict, confronting people, being disliked, other people getting mad… for the past years I basically haven't.³ Occasionally I find a new potential consequence that triggers symptoms for me, but I just work through it in the same way. I got pretty fast at it.

Now it feels less like I’m “setting” boundaries and more like… I am boundaries. I am autonomous: I do things I want, because I want to, only when I want to. I’m more empathetic and can get closer to others without fear. My agency increased. My dating life improved.

Setting boundaries feels effortless now.

Summary:

1. Setting boundaries can feel effortless instead of effortful.

2. Setting boundaries feels easier as you feel more comfortable with the potential consequences.

3. To feel secure enough to handle potential consequences, it helps to play through them in your mind like a video game.

For more about boundaries, see the older longer post here.

1. This also explains why it’s easy to set boundaries with people who are chill, and hard with people who take rejection personally. You “feel safe around them”.

2. It didn’t even require much ““exposure””. (Exposure is the common advice for this sort of thing; I avoided it because I’d seen people try exposure for years and still feel insecure about tons of stuff, theory for why.) Imagination turned out to be safer, faster, and more effective.

3. The results were better than expected: You might think that the anxious feelings come up in these situations and I still have to deal with them, but no, they just don’t come up in the first place. And you might think this is repression, but my reaction time improved, I feel more, dating feels super easy, … In fact, my concerns feel so deeply unlearned that if I hadn’t kept notes, I think I could’ve forgotten I ever suffered from them.