“Boundaries are the emotional, mental, and physical ‘fences’ that we erect in order to protect and maintain our psychological and physical needs,” says Carla Marie Manly, PhD and clinical psychologist from California.
In other words, they’re the limits we set to define what we will and won’t accept from other people.
There are different kinds of boundaries, of course. We can set the following:
physical boundaries: how we’re okay or not okay with being touched
s*x**l boundaries: similar to our physical boundaries but related directly to s*x
emotional boundaries: how we’d like to be treated by others
mental boundaries: how we protect our own beliefs, ideas, and dreams
time boundaries: how we set limits on our time
energetic boundaries: related to our energy levels are affected by others or activities
material boundaries: which often include our financial limits
“In general, healthy boundaries are appropriately flexible to a situation,” Manly says. “They are porous in healthy intimate relationships and firmer with those who do not have good boundaries and the outside world.”
Healthy boundaries can include saying ‘no’ when you’re too busy to do something, asking not to be touched in a certain way, declining to talk politics at family dinners, or not answering work emails after hours.
While it’s relatively easy to understand our own boundaries (after all, we made them for ourselves), not everyone shares the same boundaries as we do. This may mean that someone won’t react in a certain situation as you would — or they may say ‘no’ to something you think is no big deal.
And sometimes hearing that ‘no’ from another person can be confusing or make us feel uncomfortable or rejected. But no matter how we feel, respecting that person’s boundaries is still important".