Why ‘NO’ is often misunderstood, in creating Personal Boundaries

It is often a random thought that creating personal boundaries demands selfishness from your side. This is because it requires you to put your needs over others.

This is a misunderstanding of boundaries and it has to be corrected.
Consider this case: As an older child in my family, I was asked by my parents to tolerate the whims of my younger Brother and Sister even if they would beat me and take away my toys by force.
Firstly, building boundaries is hampered from a young age if we block the ability of saying ‘no’ to our children. A child has all the rights to be whoever they want to be as they are an individual being, when we force them to accept the wrong by being okay with it, we destroy their concept of boundary from the start.

The Fear of saying ‘NO’
This incapability of saying ‘No’, proceeds well into adulthood but takes up a completely different form by transforming itself as a ruling fear. This fear becomes the lens through which they see and interact with others. This fear comes in when they don’t say ‘no’ because they feel ‘NO’ could hurt others, abandon them, cause a resistance to face someone else’s anger, fear of punishment, and shame. It overall creates a guilt feeling of not helping others even if that act would harm them directly.
It is important to note that we have to be of service to others, it is a noble cause but it doesn’t have to be sacrificial, it should come from within as a form of compassion, this doesn’t alter your boundaries instead it boosts it. The sacrificial help or task comes out of resentment and makes the person more compliant just because they are afraid to face the word ‘NO’.

Saying ‘NO’ to Good
Avoidance of good by preventing yourself from acceptance, care and love is also a problem with your boundary.

A Boundary is meant to be a permeable layer and not a wall you build up with brick and cement. It has to liken the qualities of a leaf which undertakes an osmosis process regularly by taking in only what is needed and not taking what is unnecessary.

The avoidants shield themselves from anyone and everything since they have constructed walls rather than boundaries. They experience their issues and personal needs as bad and shameful and they suffer in silence without letting in genuine support, and as a result, they feel drained out and have no good thing to replace what is lost.

So being compliant or an avoidant can have its consequences as the first type of people have no boundaries and the second type build walled boundaries from the good. So let us try and build from where we lost the capability to say ‘NO’, by starting at our roots and building healthy personal permeable boundaries.