I struggle to set boundaries with clients. I want them to have a positive experience but I find myself acting like a doormat. For example, a client is 20+ minutes late and I tell them it’s totally okay (even tho it’s not). Or a client wants numerous edits done to a design and I keep saying yes.
[Image: a tweet against a red background, reading “sorry i told u what was bothering me do u still think im hot”]
It’s been some time now since “boundaries” reached mockable buzzword status on the internet. I’m no less susceptible than anyone else to clicking on the pastel infographics about bullet-listed boundaries that haunt my social media feed, trumpeting the “Four Signs Of People Pleasing” or “Five Ways You Should Never Betray Your Own Needs.” This delivery style often lacks nuance and can leave us feeling like if we aren’t enforcing strict boundaries around every part of our needs and feelings at every moment of our lives, we’re traumatized doormats that have some serious healing to do (or we’re sociopathic narcissists, or suffering from deep mother wounds, or or or).
There are two important things about boundaries that I find these truncated directives often miss. One is that we sometimes don’t know a boundary until its crossed. The way that we talk about boundaries often implies that they’re a deep innate knowledge we all have about what we like and don’t like. Firstly, boundaries are more than just likes and dislikes. Secondly, knowing our boundaries comes with experience, sometimes as a result of trying new things or being faced with new circumstances that we haven’t yet formed any feelings about. I see people being so hard on themselves about this; they blame themselves for not preempting boundary-crossing behavior despite the fact that we can’t always anticipate what’s coming.
The second thing I see missing is that boundaries can be responsive, flexible, and often involve compromise. BDSM communities gave us the language of “hard limits” and “soft limits,” and “negotiating boundaries” is a common refrain in both relationships and workplace culture. I have a longtime client who I love, but who does all kinds of things I wouldn’t have the patience for with anyone I didn’t know as well. After years, we’ve found compromises that help us keep working together. Boundaries can change as we grow and evolve. Of course, there’s a difference between mutually considerate compromise and someone who is consistently boundary-pushing. In thinking about this question I listened to an episode of the Emergent Strategy podcast with Prentis Hemphill, founder of the Embodiment Institute. In the conversation, Hemphill talks about the concept of “intactness” as it relates to boundaries:
“I think the thing that we often are not attending to is our own intactness, or others’ intactness. We get preoccupied with disrupting someone else’s intactness, but we actually don’t have much information on how to be with our own boundaries and know that boundaries are-- one thing when I work with clients, it’s not like you’re going to identify a boundary and be like ‘that feels so good, that feels great’…it is the opposite…It’s a very loving act to one’s self to have boundaries, but love don’t always feel like a weighted blanket and a hot cocoa. Sometimes it feels like withdrawal.”
-Prentis Hemphill, “Boundaried in Love,” the Emergent Strategy Podcast
At times, enforcing boundaries can make us feel guilty or like we’re doing something selfish. Gabor Maté writes that “For many people guilt is a sign that they have chosen to do something for themselves.” Noticing when guilt comes up around boundaries is an opportunity to ask ourselves deeper questions about why it might feel bad to prioritize ourselves, or to honor very real limits like body pain or a need to rest. Beyond our internal world, saying no can be tangled up in all kinds of social conditioning and past lived experiences. We also must hold in our sights the fact that many of us have had (and continue to have) to compromise our limits for the sake of safety or other risk management, like deeply wanting to clap back at the person street harassing you, but holding your tongue out of fear of escalation.
[Image: meme by @not.yr.boyfriend]
There are various types of boundaries, and it can help to notice which ones are being crossed in an interaction. Some of these include physical, emotional, intellectual, time, sexual, and material boundaries. When I was trying to come up with some media examples about boundaries, I thought of the Ludacris video for “Get Back”. In the intro, Luda’s urinal comfort zone is being invaded by a punisher pitching him ways he should self-promote. His physical boundaries are being crossed by the guy standing right next to him in a row full of empty stalls, invading his privacy by recognizing and being overly familiar him at that moment. I imagine his time boundaries are also being crossed, because he’s done his business and just wants to gtfo the bathroom. He tries to push back by saying “Man, I don’t think this is the time or the place,” but is ignored and the interaction escalates when the guy makes physical contact with a shoulder slap and Ludacris has to enforce his boundaries with his massive Hulk hands.
In workshops I encounter so many people who are incredibly giving and generous beyond their capacity, and it’s often helpful to them to reframe boundaries as something kind that you’re doing for both yourself and your client. Advance communication is a valuable tool here: if limits and expectations are clearly stated ahead of time, people are less likely to “test the waters” to get a sense of what’s acceptable and what’s not. For people with attachment trauma, boundaries can also feel safer, even though we might assume that more contact or attention is always better. Boundaries provide a container within which we can do our work, which can look like established parameters for interaction, time, and communication. I can’t text my dentist on his personal cell, for instance, or call my therapist anytime I feel like I want to talk about something.
[Image: a meme reading “Be sure to check your kids halloween candy, my child found a strongly enforced boundary in their Reese’s cup]
Some practical things that might support you in enforcing your own boundaries:
· Finding a medium that makes it easier to communicate your message. It’s often hard to express yourself face-to-face in the moment. Can you communicate your expectations in an email? Setting that precedent can make it easier to refer to again in the moment. Examples: “As you may have seen in my booking form, I only offer two rounds of drawing revisions for custom work.” “Great seeing you today! Attached are the aftercare instructions for your tattoo. For our next session, please note my lateness policy that 20 minutes late is considered a no-show.”
· Practicing. Try saying no or expressing yourself honestly in situations that are lower-stakes. This could look like role-playing with a friend to get in the habit of just saying the words, or expressing boundaries in situations where you’re less worried about response or outcome (“I don’t have the time to be put on hold again. I’ll have to call back another time.”) Work on finding language that feels natural and easy for you to reach for when you need it.
· Using external policies or constraints to depersonalize. Sometimes saying “it’s shop policy” can feel more accessible than saying “I don’t want to do this for very valid reasons” or “I’m upset when you keep doing things I’m asking you not to.” Maybe you’ve promised yourself you don’t want to keep staying past closing time at work, but find yourself running later and later with redraws. “We’ve spent most of our appointment time working on your drawing. It’s shop policy that we have to be done by closing time, so we’ll have to reschedule to give ourselves time to do the tattoo.”
· Connecting your feelings of annoyance or anger with a need. A somatic therapist of mine once told me that feeling annoyed is a sign that a boundary needs to be enforced. If you’re feeling that rising sense of resentment, ask yourself which of your needs aren’t being met in that moment, and how you might meet them. I find that noticing a need as the origin point can help ground me in acting, rather than dismissing my resentment as just me being “selfish” or “rude.”
· Enlist supporters who can help remind you your boundaries are valid. I LOVE to be this person at Flower World. Sometimes we just need an outside voice to tell us it’s okay that we declined that appointment, or that it’s really fine for people to wait a couple of weeks for their tattoo rather than coming in on your only day off.
· Think about what consequences for violating your boundaries should be. If people keep crossing your stated boundaries, they should encounter some kind of consequence. What does this look like for you? Not tattooing them again? It’s up to you to set these consequences and decide when you’ll apply them, but working with someone who disregards your requests and ignores your no is demoralizing and can be unsafe.
This is a huge topic, and it feels like I’m barely skimming the surface. For some of us, crossing our own boundaries comes from a sense of obligation to our communities, and from a very sincere desire to give people what they want. Breaking this habit can be a lot more complicated than just saying no more often. I hope you can continue to exercise this muscle (it does get easier! I promise!). When I was first starting to practice better boundaries, I found myself saying “that won’t be necessary” or “I’d rather you didn’t”. Looking back, I was just finding softer ways to say “no,” but at the time saying a flat-out no seemed impossible. I was able to build on that over time and now a strong “no” comes much more easily.
There’s something I want to end on that I can’t quite articulate about how differently people reveal themselves when you assert boundaries. It’s not the sentiment I see in infographics about how people’s hostility to them means “you’ve found the line where their respect for you ends,” though I guess that’s not nottrue. Alice Sparkly Kat wrote this week about mistrust of community, and the article made me wonder about who we trust to respect our boundaries, and who we don’t. Where the expression of them comes freely because we know they’ll be heard, and where we are stifled in speaking. Alice Sparkly Kat touches on individualism, noting “even peaceful individualism where you withdraw from participating socially in the pursuit of protecting your own tranquility at all costs,” and it reminded me that ultimately, we require other people’s participation in relationships, otherwise we’re alone with ourselves. Healthy boundaries are what keep those relationships in place. I’d like to believe that my initial boundary setting, at least, is extended with trust— trust that the person hearing it knows I have both their best interests and mine in mind, and that we can meet each other there, fully intact.