What Setting Boundaries Teaches Us

Notes to Myself on Guilt and Shame

One of the hardest struggles we face when starting to set boundaries is the immense guilt we feel.

A simple no can feel like we slap the whole world. It’s something we must never do. Because we fear that society, the universe, karma, or whatever spirits eventually will punish us for that sin.

It’s not that we are cowards. So we try saying no, calmly as we learned, but still making sure it sounds like we really mean it. But then comes the pushback.

Sometimes they’re simple questions. People may just want to know why we said no or challenge our boundaries just a little.

In itself, that is nothing bad.

We could just stay calm and stand our ground. Instead, we get triggered. Our minds spiral down into the black hole of guilt. No escape possible. Things look dire, and we can feel it in every cell of our body.

Image by Alonso Reyes on Unsplash

Understanding What Guilt Is Telling Us

Of course, it’s difficult to have a clear mind when we are overwhelmed by guilt. But like with every other feeling, it will eventually fade.

Knowing this can take quite some drama out of the spiral.

Also know that although guilt feels very real, it does not necessarily know the truth. It’s a bit like with anxiety. Sometimes it makes you aware of real dangers; other times it amplifies a belief or story you have in your head.

The primary purpose of guilt is to help correct your behavior. In this regard, it serves as a social and moral compass. So guilt kicks in when you steal something, hurt someone, or don’t follow your duties.

But here comes the kicker.

Guilt does not only react to universal moral laws. It also reacts to rules that we were given by our family or the environment around us.

And as you can imagine, it can make quite a difference for these rules whether you grew up in a healthy or dysfunctional family system.

Long story short... You may feel guilty about things that are totally outside your responsibility.

The questions that may help you to dig deeper are:

• What am I actually responsible for?

• What do I truly owe to other people?

• Do I need to keep helping people who have treated me badly?

• To what extent do I really need to be there for others?

These questions are just a start. And it could well be that your actual problem is a level deeper. Sometimes, we cannot really grasp why we feel guilty.

We may simply feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with us. As if needing space makes us selfish, saying no makes us cold, or having limits means we are somehow defective.

And that is where guilt reveals the shame beneath it.

The Shame We Carry

Almost everyone experiences feelings of shame and inadequacy in some areas of life.

To a certain degree, we can deal very well with that. After all, we are human, and nobody is perfect. A little healthy shame keeps us humble and probably also helps with empathy.

But it is a whole different story when shame reaches toxic levels, and we begin to see little to no value in who we are.

That’s when we might believe we are not worthy of love and first have to earn it. Often this is so deep-seated that it becomes a blind spot everybody can see but us.

On this level, we wouldn’t allow ourselves to have firm boundaries. Because we would do almost everything just to feel loved.

In a way, this is how we abandon ourselves.

Of course, that’s the more extreme version, the kind of pattern often seen in codependency. People-pleasing is usually the milder and more socially accepted version of the same wound.

Feeling unworthy or defective is a message and not a truth, no matter how much you were made to believe that.

It’s a painful message. Nevertheless, it’s one you can work with. For now, just know that trying to solve guilt alone will not help much when shame is the actual wound underneath it.

Sometimes the guilt we feel is not the real work.

Often, guilt is only the messenger. It points to something far deeper in us that needs healing and wants to be finally seen.

And maybe that is one of the quiet things our struggles with setting boundaries teach us.

Before You Go

This episode was a little more reflective and inward-looking than the previous ones.

I felt like writing this way today, so I’m taking it as a small experiment.

Would love to know how you felt about it in the comment section below.

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