Where to Draw the Line_How to Set Healthy Boundaries Every Day

by Anne Katherine

  A surefire way to tell the difference between anger and rage is that rage takes prisoners. Rage doesn’t back off until the other person is hurt. Rage seeks to draw blood, or its emotional equivalent. It needs to cause damage before it starts evaporating. Allowed to escalate, rage can eventually kill.

  Anger is different. Anger is an energy that flows from an internal place. It does not need a target. It does not seek to hurt others.

  In order for anger to dissipate, we must feel our true feeling, express it accurately, and talk about the true event. If I say I’m angry because my sister is late, but I’m actually angry because I feel her pets are more important to her than I am, I won’t feel relief, even if she apologizes and promises to be early next time.

  Only the truth will shift a feeling. In addition, the truth is an opportunity to let someone else know us. Thus, it improves our chances of being treated better in the future.

  If I’m mad that you took the last of the milk, but I say I’m mad because you didn’t mail my letter, I’m not going to feel better. Plus, if you care enough about me to want to change, you’ll be paying attention to getting my letters mailed while guzzling up all the milk. I’m bound to be angry again.

  Expressing our true feeling about a true incident lightens and enlightens. All the energy tied up in keeping the anger contained is released. After we’ve been angry in a healthy way, we have more energy.

  In addition, we enlighten ourselves and the person we’re talking to. They get accurate information about something that matters to us, and they might change their behavior in response. (Even if they don’t, just the act of talking about our concern will help.)

  When we express anger in a direct, healthy, boundaried way, we learn something about ourselves. We get a new slant on an old problem; we access a memory that has been in the shadows; we may even discover a subtle way in which we set up the problem ourselves.

  A thousand times I’ve heard clients say, “It won’t do any good if I tell her I’m angry. She doesn’t hear me. It won’t make any difference.”

  It’ll make a difference to you. Changing the other person is not the primary reason for expressing anger. The primary reason is that it’s there, and it’s the truth. Like any other feeling, expressing it lets you release it.

  Anger has good boundaries when it is expressed with direct, clear, honest words about the true issue, with your focus on your own insides, rather than on the person who triggered the anger.

  Here are some examples of clearly expressed anger:

  “I am angry.”

  “I am angry that you took the last piece of bread without telling me. I was so disappointed when I went to make the turkey sandwich that I was looking forward to all week, and the bread was gone.”

  “I’m angry that you laughed when I told you something that matters to me.”

  “I am angry that you said you would do this and you haven’t. I am angry, angry, angry.”

  “I am angry at the choices you made. I am angry that you let this simmer between us an extra two days instead of engaging emotionally and letting us take care of this.”

  “Grrr.”

  A grrr is neither self-parody nor rage, but simply an expression of anger without accusation, blame, or apology. Sometimes we have a physical need when angry to make an angry noise. Growling—expressing anger through sound—can sometimes release the energy of anger swiftly.

  In expressing healthy anger, it’s natural to work back and forth between the specific behaviors that led to the anger and the feeling itself.

  The boundaries that keep anger healthy include the following:

  • Let your listener set the physical distance between the two of you. If the other person needs to move apart from you in order to feel comfortable hearing your anger, don’t make that another issue.

  • Avoid “you” statements. Don’t call the other person names. Don’t demean, undermine, degrade, disparage, or put down the other individual. Use “I” statements: I feel, I want, I hurt.

  • Avoid sarcasm. That edges you into indirect anger and shifts your focus to the other person.

  • Never, ever hit, squeeze, pinch, shake, yank, punch, corner, physically or emotionally threaten, throw, slap, or beat the other person. This is rage. If you do any of the above even once, get help. Talk to a therapist or counselor as soon as you can.

  • If you need to express your anger physically, that’s fine, but use an inanimate object. To help the energy come out (and to help the other person stay calm), announce what you’re about to do. “I’ve got to hit some pillows now.” “I’ve got to punch the couch.” “I’m going to scream at the top of my lungs for a couple of minutes.” “I’ve got to walk around and shake my hands and yell.” Even while doing this, keep looking inward at what’s going on inside your own body.

  • Protect children from being frightened by the working-out process. If children are in the house and they haven’t been taught what happens with healthy anger, have your conversation where they can’t hear you. If a baby is in the house, you can still have the conversation, but without raising your voices. (High volume is not essential to moving through anger.) Or get a baby-sitter and go someplace where you can be free to be loud.

  • You are responsible for the feeling you have and your expression of it. You are also liable for any harm done if you go too far. It is never accurate to say, “You made me hit you.”

  • It’s not easy to listen to someone who is powerfully angry. Don’t expect to be heard perfectly.

  • If the other person interrupts you, sidetracks you, misses the point, drags up unrelated events, or responds to the small stuff but misses your main message, say so. Ask them to return to listening.

  • When you’ve completed expressing yourself and the other person has listened reasonably well, say a genuine thank you. If you’ve gone deep enough within yourself, you’ll feel a shift inside, sometimes a rush of relief or energy. The other person’s listening played an important part, so acknowledge that.

  BOUNDARIES FOR LISTENING TO SOMEONE ELSE’S ANGER

  • Listen respectfully as long as the expression of anger is direct, honest, and clean.

  • If you start to feel scared or too close to the energy of the other person’s anger, move back. If the room is too small, go to another one, or go outside, or stand in different rooms in such a way that you can see each other through the doorway. (Again, be careful to stay out of earshot of children unless they’ve been taught about anger.)

  • Do not accept sarcasm or any comment that is demeaning, degrading, or undermining. Give a warning by holding up your hand like a stop sign. If the demeaning behavior doesn’t stop, say, “I’m willing to listen later when you’re able to talk in a healthy way. For now, I’m going to do something else.” Then do it. Never listen to sarcasm and “you” statements for more than a few minutes.

  • If you feel defensive, the best thing to say is, “I feel defensive.” Changing the subject, using humor inappropriately, focusing on minutiae while ignoring the big picture, or dragging up some old fight are not likely to help.

  • Listen as best you can, trying to remember that the other person is a human being with legitimate concerns. Listening to someone else does not invalidate your side or constitute agreement.

  • If you really did whatever the other person is mad about, admit it and apologize.

  OTHER ANGER BOUNDARIES

  1. Deal with issues in a timely fashion. Don’t put off working them out.

  2. Do not vent your anger at Steve by badmouthing him to Susan, who knows both of you. Sooner or later, this snake will come back to bite you.

  3. If the person you are angry with is dead or impossible to communicate with, you can still vent your anger. Express the whole enchilada to a trustworthy friend or a competent professional.

  4. Good anger boundaries include:

  • Speaking your feelings

  • Focusing your attention on your insides, not on externa
ls

  • Physically expressing your anger by pacing, gesturing, or hitting inanimate objects, such as pillows

  • Announcing your intentions before making a loud noise or beating on a couch or pillow

  • Identifying the actual issue that triggered the anger

  • “I” statements

  • Letting the listener determine their physical distance from you

  • Protecting the children in the house from fear

  5. Good anger boundaries do not include:

  • Disparaging, demeaning, or shaming the other person

  • Indirect, passive-aggressive comments

  • Rage

  • Physically hurting the other person

  • Threatening the other person

  • Sarcasm

  • “You” statements

  • Scaring the children

  By keeping anger within healthy limits and expressing it in a healthy fashion, you strengthen your own integrity, and protect the wholeness of your relationships as well.

  Healthy anger is like a thunderstorm that cleanses the air and returns humidity to a comfortable level. It may flash and thunder, but it’s always flowing from that central place, opening a fresh, easy comfort behind it.

  Chapter 9

  MAKING AMENDS

  Error is not such a great sin as denial.

  —IRENE ALLEN, QUAKER SILENCE

  A responsible person doesn’t leave messes for others to tidy. Likewise, a grown-up doesn’t leave consequences for someone else to handle.

  Sam was driving too fast on an icy road when he veered off the side and crashed through a stranger’s picket fence. No one saw him, and he could have backed up his car and crept away, no one the wiser that he had been responsible.

  But Sam was an honorable person. After he extricated his car, he wrote a note to the homeowner. That weekend he showed up with replacement slats and a hammer and repaired the fence.

  Sam made appropriate amends. He made a mistake, and he carried the complete consequences of his mistake. He didn’t stick the homeowner with the repair.

  The boundary Sam crossed was a literal one. He repaired his neighbor’s physical boundary. When we cross someone’s emotional or psychological boundary, we create consequences for the other person as well. By making amends, we can contribute to repair of the boundary, reduce the consequences, promote healing, and help restore (or establish) trust.

  An apology is words. It at least acknowledges our error and the effect it has had on another person. Amends are actions. We actually do something to repair the problem that resulted from our mistake.

  Making amends is a way to get free of the burden of our mistakes. When we make a mistake that impinges on another person, amends repair three things—the harm to the other person, the harm to our relationship with them, and the harm to ourselves.

  Sam didn’t think twice about doing the right thing after he plowed into that fence, but what he did saved himself and a stranger from a loss of energy. If he had driven off without a word, he would have changed himself inside. He would have had to harden up a little to ignore that he had done some harm to someone’s property. (Whenever we need to keep from knowing something about ourselves, it costs us in health and energy. This is why amends are as important for ourselves as they are for the other guy.)

  • • •

  The amends we make should fit the nature of the mistake. If we make a boundary error, inadvertently trespassing on something important to someone else through ignorance or forgetfulness, correcting our error is all it takes:

  Jana chattered away, not letting her sister get a word in edgewise. Finally Ladi interrupted her. “Hey, Jana, I need to talk to you about something, too.”

  Jana was already aware that she could violate time boundaries inadvertently, so she brought her side of the conversation to a close and said, “You go, girl. I’m all ears.”

  • • •

  Shaian used her key to enter her sister’s house while Cher was on vacation. This was not a violation, because the sisters had free access to each other’s homes.

  However, Shaian knew that Cher would not lend her any clothes, not even if she asked for permission. Thus, when Shaian borrowed Cher’s favorite dress—a delicate aqua pastel—for a special date, she knew she was violating her sister’s possession boundary.

  That night, Shaian spilled tomato sauce on the dress. By the time she got around to treating it, the stain was set. She daubed it as well as she could, then hung it back in Cher’s closet.

  Cher was furious when she discovered it. She knew that Shaian was the only one who could have worn the dress. She called her. “Shaian, you ruined my favorite dress.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t believe you borrowed it after I told you I didn’t want you wearing my clothes anymore—and my favorite one, too.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have, but Laran asked me to the company dance. I like him so much. And this was really important. I didn’t have anything good enough. And I couldn’t afford a new dress. Your things are so much nicer than mine.”

  “That’s because I take care of them,” Cher said tartly. “I don’t care how important the date was to you, it still wasn’t okay to expressly ignore the limit I set.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” Shaian spoke breezily, obviously unconcerned. “Well, see you next weekend.”

  “Hold on there. Not so fast. How are you going to fix this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t just brush me off and skip away as if you have no responsibility for this mistake,” said Cher. “How are you going to make amends?”

  “Make amends?”

  “Right. You can’t just leave this for me to handle. You caused the problem. You fix it.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “You can take it to the dry cleaners and see if they can fix it.”

  “What if they can’t?”

  “Then you owe me the two hundred fifty dollars that I paid for that dress.”

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “Then you better hope the dry cleaner can fix it. The sooner, the better.”

  “You drop it off,” said Shaian. “I’ll pay for it.”

  “No,” replied Cher. “You screwed up. You make the effort.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Shaian, annoyed. “Put it by the door and I’ll pick it up on the way home from work.”

  “Thank you.”

  In a perfect world, people would automatically admit to their mistakes and voluntarily offer amends. (Actually, many mature and emotionally healthy people do just that.) However, some people keep quiet about their mistakes and hope that people won’t care or notice. Others, when informed of their errors, think “I’m sorry” is enough.

  A trite “I’m sorry” does nothing to repair the mistake. If the victim is still stuck having to deal with the consequences of the other person’s mistake, then adequate amends have not been made.

  Shaian deliberately ignored her sister’s boundary, deciding that her need took precedence over respect for her sister. She continued to act with disregard when she did so little to care for the stain while it was fresh. Putting it back in the closet without admitting it and leaving it for her sister to find compounded her violation.

  Cher was right to call her on it immediately. When Shaian offered a flat “I’m sorry,” not even a heartfelt apology, Cher asked for amends. She didn’t wait for Shaian to catch on. When Shaian pretended to know nothing about what to do, Cher told her.

  HIERARCHY OF AMENDS

  1. Fix the Mistake

  Lilith asked Jessie to drop her Visa payment into the mailbox on his way out of the driveway. He laid it on a shelf of his closet when he switched sweaters, and then forgot about it. A week passed before he discovered his mistake. By that time, the payment deadline was imminent.

  He took the letter directly to the post office and sent the payment Express Mail. Then h
e explained all this to Lilith, saying that if she got a late penalty, he would pay it.

  2. Transfer the Consequences

  Raven left for vacation and asked Jill to deposit her paycheck for her. Jill made the deposit late the following week. As a result, three of Raven’s checks bounced and the bank rescinded her cash card privileges. It was an ambiguous situation: Raven could have been clearer; Jill could have acted more quickly.

  Jill offered to split the overdraft penalties with Raven. She also went to the bank with Raven and explained to the manager that it was her error, not Raven’s, that caused the overdraft.

  Doing favors becomes a boundary issue when the person granting the favors has a pattern of either 1) not following through, or 2) messing up in a way that leaves the requester in a worse position than if they’d handled the task themselves.

  We all need help at times. If we trust in help that doesn’t materialize or that makes even more work for us, we lose confidence and ease with that person. We tighten our boundaries with a friend who isn’t dependable, but a friend who fixes mistakes or otherwise makes amends lets us reset our boundaries to their previous level of trust.

  By paying a portion of the penalties, Jill transferred part of the consequences to herself. In doing so, she let Raven know that when the fault isn’t clear, she’ll shoulder a share of the responsibility.

  3. Reciprocal Payback

  Anita was an hour late to pick up her sister, Pam, on the day they’d set aside to celebrate Pam’s birthday. This cost Pam some of the joy of her day. While she waited, her enthusiasm dimmed and she felt unimportant to her sister.

  Anita arrived in a flurry of excuses, using them to ward off potential anger or confrontation from Pam. Then she switched to an exaggerated eagerness in an effort to pump up Pam’s clearly reduced energy.