“I’m rubber; you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”: The Benefits (and Limitations) of Asserting Your Boundaries

“I’m rubber; you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”: The Benefits (and Limitations) of Asserting Your Boundaries

“I’m rubber; you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”

Though this saying may appear fairly juvenile, I want to take a moment to honor its wisdom… 

My sibling and I used to bicker all the time when we were younger, (keep in mind I was the youngest). And those exchanges often reflected this phrase when I’d try to throw out some put-down or name-calling to elevate myself in the fight, and I would get so angry because I felt so trapped in the exchange. (Pee-Wee Herman’s “I know you are, but am I?” was also regularly espoused with a comparable outcome–me feeling “trapped” because my verbal “attacks” weren’t landing.)

Boundaries are amazing and I live by them. They help us protect ourselves from various factors in the world that have the capacity to drain us of our energy and resources. And currently, let’s just take a moment to acknowledge how limited those resources can be. 

There are different kinds of boundaries that can protect us physically, emotionally, energetically, spiritually, financially, as well as protecting our time, our material goods, our space, and our intellectual property (just to name a few). Our boundaries can also be rigid on one end of the spectrum, porous/enmeshed on the other, and/or can find a happy and “healthy” medium in the middle. That being said, I put “healthy” in quotes because I feel this is a generalized concept acknowledging a level of flexibility as it may be applied to the general public, but may not be appropriate for all people in your life… (meaning that sometimes rigid boundaries are appropriate). 

I appreciate that there has been an increase in awareness on the topic of boundaries as a skill set/tool (what they are and how they can help), as well as an increase in discussions empowering folks to develop and assert their boundaries. But I feel like there is a lack of discussion about the realistic expectation (and VALIDATION of the experience) that not everyone will RESPECT your boundaries (no matter how well you articulate and assert them). As a result, you may not see the outcome you are hoping for, and you may recognize the need to increase the rigidity of your boundaries with those people/situations in your life that you either cannot get away from, and/or that you cannot trust to respect your boundaries.

I have always been a very shy and sensitive person, often experiencing intense fear about asserting my wants/needs/opinions at the risk of harming someone else (hurting their feelings), losing someone’s favor, being rejected/shot down, or someone else not getting a need or want met because of me. It has taken a very long time to understand my experience, how to honor it, how to cultivate it as a strength, as well as how to develop appropriate boundaries and communication skills to assert myself so that I can find my happy medium of being strong AND sensitive; assertive. 

I have had so many experiences where I have utilized my “I” statements and/or other assertive communication skills and have felt heard and respected and that is such an amazing, empowering, and healing experience that can lend to opportunities to repair transgressions that are often inevitable due to our human-ness. That being said, I have also had a lot of experiences where I have done and said all the appropriate things and had a very different outcome. But not all was lost: In asserting those boundaries, I still managed to “protect” myself from the negativity that was directed at me by the other person AND I was protected from getting pulled in to match the other person’s unhealthy behaviors. After all was said and done, I was never left feeling any regret about how it all went down. I felt proud of myself for saying/doing the appropriate thing, for not taking on the other person’s “stuff”, AND I never lost my *ish.  

In looking at this from a slightly different angle, asserting your boundaries can also help mitigate enabling behaviors in addition to protecting your resources. My 7th grade math and science teacher used to have a sign above her desk that stated “poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”, meaning that I’m not going to jump in and use my energy to try to save you from/clean up your mistakes. By asserting my boundaries, I’m going to provide you with the opportunity to experience the consequences of your actions and provide you with the opportunity to work on developing additional skills around planning (in this case). When we assert our boundaries appropriately, we may also be offering support and opportunity for growth in other people when their unhealthy behaviors “bounce” off you and “stick” back on them (should they be ready for it).

Moral of the story/of this blog post is that we cannot control other people or largely the environment around us. Asserting our boundaries can help us in so many ways, BUT may not always lead to the solution or resolution that we were aiming for. But in the end, boundaries provide us with a level of protection. 

With everything we are dealing with right now, it is so vital that we try to find ways to protect what little energy and/or other resources we have left.