Why you Need to Establish Healthy Boundaries for Yourself

By Jamie Nonis

Many of us, especially in Asian societies, struggle with establishing healthy boundaries for ourselves. 

We tend to subconsciously subscribe to a phenomenon I would deem a misconception in society where we feel that we have to tolerate toxic behaviour of certain individuals in our lives due to long-established or familial ties.

Sure, ‘filial piety’ is a virtue in society.

But how long should a person continue to subject themselves to consistent treatment and behaviour from another that is so painfully damaging to one’s mental and emotional well-being? 

Particularly if you have already tried, in vain, to communicate your emotional needs and boundaries to the best of your ability and they are repeatedly ignored. Or you are mocked for sharing your feelings and worse, gaslighted where your lived experience is continually dismissed and denied to the point of extreme self-doubt, which makes you question your reality and wonder if you really are crazy, I would urge you to put as much distance between yourself and such individuals.

You do not need to feel obliged to continue subjecting yourself to the callous, the chronically negative, the insensitive bullies, the outright toxic individuals who, more often than not, lack the self-awareness to review their own actions, weigh feedback objectively, and see themselves as others have experienced.

Psychologists will tell you that establishing healthy boundaries is essential for our mental and emotional well-being.

It is important to exercise extreme vigilance in how we deploy our time and energy. And I would similarly advise anyone to extricate yourself from toxic relationships of any kind. These refer to any relationship or friendship that brings you down, is a drain on your time, energy and emotional resources, or is disempowering to your sense of self; self-worth, self-esteem, etc.

If we choose to tolerate such dysfunction from others in our lives, we risk perpetuating this toxic cycle as it is likely to manifest in own dysfunctional behaviour such as gossiping, talking shit about other people, blaming others, passive aggressiveness, sarcasm, etc. And we continue to be victims of circumstance.

Or, we can pause and take a moment to recognise how detrimental it is to our well-being then choose to value ourselves enough to make a stand, be direct in our communication of what we will not tolerate (and mindfully risk people thinking you a bitch), and learn to establish boundaries for ourselves.

We have much more power to change our circumstances than we realise.

Choose powerfully.