Humans are made to relate and not be island. We are relational beings. Humans need to be connected to other humans, family and friends. That’s how we grow as people, moulded by other people. But let’s face fact, there are major blow ups in every relationship. Even the best relationships come under fire and totter on the verge of collapse. We fight, we bicker, we clash and crash. We walk away, we give our friends and family the silend treatment to get back – we are sometimes forced to take on too much just because we cant’t say no. Which is why, all relationships, require healthy boundaries.

In the physical world, we use fences, walls, gates to keep the riff raff off what is ours, to safeguard and protect. In the same way, to sustain longterm relationships, we need to set down healthy boundaries so that others know what lines they can cross and what they are prohibited from doing so. If we do not know what our boundaries are, people will most definitely  walk right up to us and walk right over us. If we have no boundaries for ourselves, it is difficult to respect other boundaries and find it hard to enforce our own and in the end we will have on our hands a string of dysfunctional relationships.

Do you always feel badgered by the relationships you have with your friends and family? Almost as if they are making unreasonable demands on you twenty four seven? People who have zero boundary walls feel like the victim all the time and are victimized and end up being taken for a ride by the people in their life.

Let’s think about it…

How well do you protect and maintain your boundaries when relationship partners or friends and even family are highly intrusive and persistent? How often are you manipulated to lower your boundaries in such relationships?

Does your inability to maintain healthy intellectual, emotional, physical and spiritual boundaries frighten you? Would you prefer to stay stuck in using your unhealthy distancing techniques than to work on learning how to establish healthy boundaries in your relationships? If the answer is that you need to strengthen your boundaries with your relationship partners to enrich or regain the health of your relationships, then read on.

Yes It is a fact people with low self-esteem have difficulties maintaining healthy relationships with others. They blow up, they manipulate and feel manipulated and often times are. They want closeness but are afraid to commit. They lack the ability to establish and maintain healthy boundaries. People with low self-esteem are dependent on others' approval and recognition and try to walk the tight rope to avoid conflict and balance peace.

To maintain healthy closeness in your relationships, you will need to first establish healthy intellectual, emotional and physical boundaries with your relationship partners.

In a healthy relationships we are calm, centred and focused, supportive, respectful, non-punitive and peaceful. You feel taken care of, wanted, unconditionally accepted and loved just for existing and being alive in a healthy relationship. You feel part of something and not alone in such a relationship. There is forgiveness and room to make mistakes and pick yourself up and move on.

There aren’t feeling of wanting to get even, nor are you reminded of past hurts or offenses. You find yourself giving thanks for just being in that relationship. You can be who you are. Say what you want to say. Youd do not have to hide behind pretenses or facades.

You experience being free to be who you are rather than who you think you need to be for the other. There is room for growth - room to nurture long lasting bonds.

Boundaries are good. It is healthy. To improve our relationships with others, we should set some healthy boundaries around our lives. Have values and standards we will follow and not compromise. Healthy boundaries allow a person to get along with others in comfortable interdependence. A Turkish proverb reads, No road is long with good company. Like one big tapestry, it’s the links that keep it together and so with people. We need people to keep it together, but we need boundaries to keep people longer in our lives.

(Text by Rishani Sittampalam)