Awareness In Knowing Your Personal Boundaries

With Permission written by Tess Anderson, Press Release Agent ©September2012 http://pressreleasesplease.com

If you don’t know what your personal boundaries are, you might want think over your own personal values and think over what you do and don’t like what people do to you.
What are personal boundaries?

"What ARE boundaries? See the line drawn in the sand ? I dare you to step across it!"

Some people let others, walk all over them, are taken advantage of, are hurt often and cannot say, ‘no’. Similarly, they always say, ‘yes’ when asked by a friend even at their own personal expense of time, money or energy. Some people are very naïve and let themselves get pushed around, taken advantage of or flat out exploited; worst of all, physically and or mentally abused,
Let’s take a look at the real definition of what personal boundaries are and see what the ‘wiki’, says.

Boundaries, the Movie, "Clash of the Titans", j/k it would go something like that though, lol

Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for him- or her, what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave around him or her and how he or she will respond when someone steps outside those limits. They are built out of a mix of beliefs, opinions, attitudes, past experiences and social learning.


Personal boundaries define you as an individual, outlining your likes and dislikes, and setting the distances you allow others to approach. They include physical, mental, psychological and spiritual boundaries, involving beliefs, emotions, intuitions and self-esteem. Jacques Lacan considered them to be layered in a hierarchy, reflecting “all the successive envelopes of the biological and social status of the person” from the most primitive to the most advanced.
Now there are different types of people with different types of acceptance or reproach. According to Nina Brown, an expert on this subject there are several types of person boundary types, which I will list below: there are four main types of psychological boundary:
Soft - A person with soft boundaries merges with other people's boundaries. Someone with a soft boundary is easily manipulated.
Spongy - A person with spongy boundaries is like a combination of having soft and rigid boundaries. They permit less emotional contagion than soft boundaries but more than rigid. People with spongy boundaries are unsure of what to let in and what to keep out.
Rigid - A person with rigid boundaries is closed or walled off so nobody can get close to him/her either physically or emotionally. This is often the case if someone has been physically, emotionally, psychologically or sexually abused. Rigid boundaries can be selective which depend on time, place or circumstances and are usually based on a bad previous experience in a similar situation.
Flexible - This is the ideal. Similar to selective rigid boundaries but the person has more control. The person decides what to let in and what to keep out, is resistant to emotional contagion, manipulation and is difficult to exploit.

Narcissism and boundaries

According to Hotchkiss, narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of them. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist will be treated as if they are part of the narcissist and be expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist there is no boundary between self and other.

Rebuilding boundaries

While a healthy relationship depends on the emotional space provided by personal boundaries, co-dependent personalities have difficulties in setting such limits, so that defining and protecting boundaries efficiently may be for them a vital part of regaining mental health.

Family therapists can help family members to develop clearer boundaries, by behaving in a well-defined way when treating them, drawing lines, and treating different generations in different compartments - something especially pertinent families where unhealthy enmeshment overrides normal personal boundaries.

However, the establishment of personal boundaries in such instances may produce a negative fall-out, if the pathological state of interdependence had been a central facet of the relationship.

Loss of boundaries

Freud, following Gustave Le Bon, described the loss of conscious boundaries that could occur when an individual was caught up in a unified, fast-moving crowd.


Personal boundaries, violence wheel cycle

Knowing one well and not letting another overstep their bounds in gaining ground as in giving one an inch and letting them take a mile will help prevent feelings get bruised easily and getting hurt. There are so many people that are more powerful over others and great at manipulation. It takes a little lack of knowledge or naiveté to end up on the losing end of a deal.


Knowing yourself and what you expect out of someone will prevent a thousand hurts, misunderstanding and loss of money at most. There are a lot of those who will take your talent online for free and ridicule you to your face. When you have strong boundaries and won’t let people take advantage of you, is when you’ll finally start seeing a cash flow. You cannot give your work, writing, music, adcopy, graphics away for nothing. People see that as having no value when you know for a fact that if others are making 6 figures online so can you. Wake up and smell the coffee. Start drawing up contracts, even if they’re between friends. You’ll save your own face.

Women need to have boundaries or they can make mistakes in giving away their own power.