The Two Types of Boundaries

My jaw clenches when I hear people tell others with trauma to “set boundaries,” without explaining. Their advice ignores the obvious: we would, if only we knew how.

I'm going to share how boundaries work, so we no longer need to feel confused or ashamed for not knowing. I'll walk us through the two main types of boundaries, then share one thing it helps to remember when working with them.

Boundaries are an art. Practicing boundaries improves our confidence, makes space for our needs, and creates a healthy surface area for connection.

I used to be a disaster at boundaries.

I learned all this the hard way.

My attachment style was formerly “disorganized,” which is common for people with complex trauma or CPTSD. Before, I would regularly respond to other people's boundaries with intrusion and sometimes even aggression. Or, at the first sign of boundaries from someone, I would disappear and resolve never to get close to them again.

I also didn't know how to hold my own boundaries and felt reluctant, even afraid, to communicate them. I worried how the boundaries would be received and feared the other would leave me. This stance made me vulnerable to exploitative relationships and oblivious to the repair required for close connection.

Before I learned how to set healthy boundaries, I hid behind my independence. I told myself the story that I didn't need others, and that closeness would only hurt or disappoint me. I created a self-fulfilling prophecy with layers upon layers of emotional pain, until I learned how to do this.

I understand how challenging boundaries can be in trauma healing. But they’re an area of tremendous possibility and transformation. The territory is challenging, but the rewards are worth it.

Regret often arises as we learn about boundaries, because of what it’s cost us not to know this. Of course, the best time to learn about boundaries would've been in grade school. But the second-best time is now.

Boundaries are how we navigate the space between ourselves and others. They give us room to breathe and space to connect. There are two main types of boundaries: containing boundaries and protective boundaries.

Containing boundaries encircle our own experiences, feelings, and needs. They're what we wrap around ourselves to hold ourselves in.

Protective boundaries keep out what isn't ours. They're a layer of reflective, bulletproof glass we place between us and the outside world that creates a buffer and allows us to choose what we let in.

Containing Boundaries

We need containing boundaries to hold our experiences and to stop ourselves from sharing when it isn’t a supportive time or place. We don’t want to cry at the supermarket or at a work meeting. We choose to show our emotional vulnerability among our trusted family and closest friends. We need containing boundaries to navigate how and when to share.

Containing boundaries help us focus on what we're feeling and what we need to take care of ourselves. Even when we request support from others, as adults our feelings and needs are our responsibilities.

Containing boundaries help us notice when we're reacting from activated nervous systems caught in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses.

Without them, our upset spills out for others to deal with. That spilling out isn’t good for our relationships; those emotions are ours to care for. Containing boundaries redirect our attention inwards, so we can self-care and recenter in the wiser, adult parts of us.

Containing boundaries help us delineate what is ours to take care of, so we can attend to our own needs first.

When we have containing boundaries, we can feel the sting of emotional pain or the flush of anger without it knocking us off center. We practice staying loving and present with ourselves, no matter how challenging our inner or outer experiences. From that place of clarity and self-connection, we're more likely to make appropriate requests that others can hear and respond to.

Protective Boundaries

Protective boundaries help us decide what we want to receive from others. In stressful environments or around high-conflict people, protective boundaries bounce what doesn’t feel true and what isn’t ours.

We don’t have to take everything on.

Without protective boundaries, harsh criticism at work or from a family member may land with shock and upset. We let it in, whether the content is accurate or not. That’s why we need a layer of space — to pause and discern whether the energy or information headed our way is something that is useful or not.

When we don't have protective boundaries, we easily slip into emotional overwhelm and shutdown. We take everything in, because we don't know any other way.

Growing up, we might have learned that it wasn't safe to have boundaries or needs, or that our wellbeing depended on the wellbeing of people around us. Many of us were taught that it wasn't okay to say "no," especially to the people closest to us.

Discernment is necessary with protective boundaries, to decide what is accurate and deflect what is not. A colleague may give us unsolicited negative feedback but with protective boundaries, we choose whether to act on it or let it go. Our partners might say how our tone landed harshly with them, and we decide whether to adjust and apologize. If something doesn't feel true, we can interrogate it more deeply or let it go, depending on what it is and where it came from.

We can set protective boundaries when others are pushing for private information or acting entitled to our time or attention. We decide when and who to share with. Instead of feeling pressured to over-give, we can hold ourselves and take a step back.

The best boundaries are dynamic. They emerge in response to situations and people, and they evolve over time.

Healing in Relationship

Boundaries are a measure of how connected we are to ourselves and others. Good boundaries — both containing and protective — mean we're in strong relational health, building connections with people who matter to us. Unhealthy boundaries mean we're wasting our energy and attention in dynamics that yield little reward.

We learn our default boundaries from the parents and caregivers who raised us. Being in relationship quickly surfaces areas where our containing and protective boundaries need adjustment, so we can experience the joy and goodness of connection.

If our parents or caregivers were intrusive and controlling, we likely didn't learn how to push back and assert our needs. As adults, we may react to others' bids for our attention and care by creating distance.

Our partners' requests for connection might instinctively feel like "too much." Healthy intimacy may feel suffocating and unsafe, when it's really our default boundaries from childhood that need adjusting, to let in the affection we want and need.

If we weren't encouraged to have emotional or physical boundaries as children, it's natural to react by doubling down on independence and declaring, "I don't need anyone." Connection will feel smothering instead of safe, until we learn differently. When we're activated and upset, we may even model the same lack of boundaries we experienced from our caregivers as children, perhaps by intruding on others with unrestrained self-expression or anger.

If our parents or caregivers were distant and abandoning, we didn't get the nurture, guidance, or limits we needed as children. As adults, we often demand that care from our partners, until we do the trauma healing work to give it to ourselves.

If we didn't get our emotional needs met in childhood, it's easy to feel dependent and even desperate when our partners set boundaries. We might instinctively want to push against their boundaries because they activate the abandonment wounding we experienced in childhood, with all the strong feelings and upset.

It can feel especially discordant and upsetting when our boundaries aren't supportive of intimacy.

That's one of the reasons why trauma healing in couples work with your partner can create deep and lasting shifts that impact all aspects of your relationships. When we have the courage to adjust and create better boundaries, we reformat the space available for connection.

And we create the conditions we require to thrive.

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