NDP Episode 163: How Neurodivergent People Can Learn Healthy Boundaries

Have you ever thought about your boundaries? Maybe a therapist told you your boundaries were weak. Or maybe you read something about relationships and how some people might not respect your boundaries. I learned early on that my boundaries are weak. I tend to pay attention to other people’s needs more than my own. Some people in the world will take advantage of this. Many of us struggle to simultaneously love other people while protecting our own needs.As I learn about neurodiversity, I have been thinking a lot about how boundaries relate to masking. Masking describes how we alter our behavior to reduce conflict. Masking often requires us to soften our boundaries to appease other people. The problem is, when we loosen our boundaries we open ourselves to more suffering.Boundaries ensure that we know when we are approaching discomfort. They are warning systems that tell us we are wandering into situations where we have felt unsafe in the past. Sometimes it is important to push our boundaries for personal growth, but mostly they are important to maintain our mental and emotional balance.I, like many neurodivergent people, struggle with hypersensitivity. My awareness is super responsive to environmental stimuli, and I am often overloaded with information. In some ways, this is a superpower that protects us but in others, it is paralyzing. Too much information isn’t always a good thing, and it is easy to become paralyzed and overwhelmed.Boundaries help hypersensitive people from becoming overwhelmed. It can reduce analysis paralysis and help maintain awareness of our needs. If we don’t have awareness of boundaries, we can’t possibly expect to process all the information coming in. Lack of boundaries is simply overwhelming.Boundaries allow us to discriminate among competing information and match up our needs with possibility. This is critical for interacting with other people, but also in understanding what is going on with us inside.A lack of boundary awareness almost ensures that our sensory systems will be hijacked rendering us nearly helpless in our environments. I honestly think this is the cause of MANY of our problems. You gotta stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.Boundaries protect our needs but require awareness of them. The first step to identifying and forming healthy boundaries is awareness. Hell, what is awareness NOT the first step toward? Whether you need boundaries or not, awareness is the key to any type of personal growth. I think the most important point in all of this is that having poor boundaries can lead to a loss of awareness and self. Loss of, or lack of, self-awareness is a problem. Without self-awareness, we are victims of our reactions. As victims of our reactions, we become passive participants in our lives.But what do we do, Chris? What’s the point of all this boundary and awareness mumbo-jumbo?Look I get it. We all want solutions. Unfortunately, the solution to these problems is the same as all problems. Or at least a core part of the solution to any problem. The shortest pathway to self-awareness is meditation and mindfulness.<br/>In this episode, many of my past episodes, and certainly in future episodes I campaign for mindfulness. If you like this kind of thing please let me know in whatever way suits your style. You can find me here on Medium, at www.chrisburcher.com, on most of the podcast platforms, and YouTube.If you are enjoying this content, please tell your friends.