Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life

by Henry Cloud

This type of boundary conflict is called compliance.

Many compliant people realize too late that they’re in a dangerous or abusive relationship.

This type of boundary problem paralyzes people’s “no” muscles.

• Fear of hurting the other person’s feelings • Fear of abandonment and separateness • A wish to be totally dependent on another • Fear of someone else’s anger • Fear of punishment • Fear of being shamed • Fear of being seen as bad or selfish • Fear of being unspiritual • Fear of one’s overstrict, critical conscience

Is this me ?

This boundary problem is called avoidance: saying no to the good. It’s the inability to ask for help, to recognize one’s own needs, to let others in. Avoidants withdraw when they are in need; they do not ask for the support of others.

Me..

When someone needs four hours with me, I can’t say no. When I need someone for ten minutes, I can’t ask for it.

Compliant avoidants suffer from what is called “reversed boundaries.” They have no boundaries where they need them, and they have boundaries where they shouldn’t have them.

Definitely me..

To Steve, “no” is simply a challenge to change the other person’s mind.

Controllers can’t respect others’ limits. They resist taking responsibility for their own lives, so they need to control others.

Controllers are perceived as bullies, manipulative and aggressive.

1. Aggressive controllers. These people clearly don’t listen to others’ boundaries.

2. Manipulative controllers. Less honest than the aggressive controllers, manipulators try to persuade people out of their boundaries.

Caring for someone so that they’ll care back for us is simply an indirect means of controlling someone else.

He isn’t responsible for her emotional well-being. But he is responsible to her. His inability to respond to her needs is a neglect of his responsibility.

Relationship boundaries

We can’t bring peace to someone who doesn’t accept it!

Those who are so absorbed in their own desires and needs they exclude others (a form of narcissism).

They see others as responsible for their struggles and are on the lookout for someone to take care of them.

What happens when a rescuing, enabling person meets a controlling, insensitive person? Answer: they get married!

The Nonresponsive: Sets boundaries against responsibility to love

Hero ?

Why do some people seem to have natural boundaries and others have no boundaries at all?

you can’t develop or set boundaries apart from supportive relationships with God and others.

Don’t even try to start setting limits until you have entered into deep, abiding attachments with people who will love you no matter what.

Write this down

We are built for relationship. Attachment is the foundation of the soul’s existence. When this foundation is cracked or faulty, boundaries become impossible to develop.

People like Derek who are stuck in this stage can be lots of fun. Except when you pop their bubble about their unrealistic grandiosity and their irresponsibility.

This young man has energy but no impulse control, no boundaries on his passions. He becomes sexually promiscuous,

Derek is you...high energy...

The word no helps children separate from what they don’t like. It gives them the power to make choices. It protects them.

The power of "No"