Healthy Relationship Boundaries

In order to set healthy and sustainable relationship boundaries, you must be connected to your body and communicate in a way that is non-verbally aligned with your words. Most couples just focus on the scripts and their tone of voice without realizing that their body language is overly aggressive or insecure. In this movement meditation, you'll discover what you need to change within your own body to be heard, seen, and satisfied in your relationship.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Orit Krug,

Board certified dance movement therapist and trauma and relationship expert.

Today,

I would love to guide you through a movement-based meditation on setting and maintaining healthy relationship boundaries.

When you experience past trauma,

It can feel really scary to set boundaries with your partner today.

Or,

It can feel like the boundaries that you set come out a lot more aggressive than you wanted.

And you might find yourself in this pattern of either setting really strong boundaries that feel restrictive for your relationship,

Or you don't set boundaries at all that leave you feeling unseen,

Unheard,

And unsatisfied.

If this is happening for you,

It's not your fault.

You can go as far as listing your boundaries on paper,

Practicing saying them to your partner,

And even going forward with verbally sharing them.

But if you don't have a sense within your body how to really set these boundaries in a healthy way,

Then the fear of rejection or the fear of not getting your needs met will take over in the moment,

Even if you've practiced the words a thousand times.

So let's do this meditation today to get your body more on board and feeling into what will make your boundaries feel healthier and better for your relationship.

To begin,

You can place your body in any position that feels good for you right now.

And once you find a comfortable position,

We're going to take three deep breaths together.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Again,

Breathing in and breathing out.

One last time,

Breathing in and breathing out.

I'm going to invite you now to close your eyes or lower your gaze and bring all of your attention and focus to a relationship boundary that you've been struggling with.

Even if you've been struggling with more than one,

I'd like for you to just pick one right now,

The first one that comes to you.

What is one relationship boundary that you would like to set that you either haven't been able to even bring to your partner yet or that you've tried to bring to your partner,

But it hasn't quite gone through yet?

As you focus on this relationship boundary,

You may find your thoughts and attention focusing or nitpicking or blaming on how your partner hasn't listened or received or made it safe for you to express this boundary.

If that comes up for you,

Bring the focus back to you and what you really want to set or assert in your relationship.

And we will bring in your partner's response a little bit later in this meditation.

The boundary that you focus on can be something around the amount of space that you need or how much quality time that you want to spend together.

The boundary that you set might be something around ending work at a certain time so that you can have dinner together.

The boundary that you might want to set is something around communicating more honestly about a certain topic.

You and your body know best about what's important right now for you.

So make sure that you've identified this boundary,

That you feel solid in it.

Now I want you to visualize setting this boundary with your partner.

And again,

As you visualize this,

I want you to see yourself in your imagination or in your mind's eye without seeing your partner right now.

So imagine yourself setting this particular boundary that you chose and watching yourself take action with it.

How are you holding yourself in your body as you set this boundary?

How are you gesturing?

How are you moving?

Are you gesturing softly?

Or is there a little bit more firmness in the way that you're gesturing as you set this boundary?

Are you standing in one spot?

Or are you walking around the space as you set this boundary?

Are you standing up with your shoulders open?

Or is your head down?

Or are you sitting in a certain way as you set this boundary?

There's no right or wrong.

So try to be as honest with yourself as possible about what you see.

Even if your mind wants to try to change the way you look,

I want you to go with the first way,

The first visualizations that come up for you as you imagine yourself setting this boundary.

And now I'm going to invite you to invite movement into this exploration.

Whatever way that you visualize yourself setting this boundary,

Start moving it.

It doesn't have to look exactly the way you imagined it.

But what's more important is that you bring in the qualities of movement and the qualities of the way you held yourself in your body as you saw yourself in your imagination.

So if there was a softness,

You can start softening your body and moving your body in different ways that feel more softened.

If you saw yourself being more firm,

How can you create more firmness with your movements and body right now?

If you saw yourself making big gestures and taking up lots of space,

How can you do that in movement right now?

Or maybe you saw yourself not taking up much space at all and staying closer to your body.

Bring that quality of movement into your body right now,

If that's what you saw.

I want you to focus on just one of these qualities,

So you can focus on just the softness,

If that's what was most obvious in your imagination.

Or you can focus on just the firmness.

You can focus on only taking up lots of space,

Or you can focus on taking up little space.

There's no right or wrong.

Just move the quality that was most apparent in your imagination as you saw yourself setting this boundary.

Your movements can be whatever they naturally come to be.

You can use any part of your body,

For example,

To move more softly.

So you may be repeating the same movements right now,

Stepping softly into the ground,

Or they may change or develop into something else where you organically start incorporating your arms into softness too.

Let your body lead you here,

Even if your mind wants to take over and tell you what to do.

Now,

Whatever this quality of movement was,

There's an opposite side of the spectrum.

If you moved softness up until now,

I'm now going to ask you to practice imagining setting this boundary in the complete opposite way,

With more firmness,

Hardness.

So in your exploration,

You're still setting the same exact boundary,

But you're doing it with the opposite quality of movement in which you originally saw yourself setting the boundary in your visualization.

If you've been taking up lots of space until now,

Try setting this boundary with very little space that you take up around you,

Staying much closer to your body.

If you've been moving with your head down,

Your shoulders hunched over,

Making your body more small,

Try making your body more open and bigger now so that you can practice in movement the opposite side of this spectrum of expression.

It may feel a little strange,

A little uncomfortable,

Especially if it's a way of moving and expressing yourself that you're not used to.

So don't push yourself to do anything that feels really uncomfortable,

But as much as you can,

Just a tiny bit outside of your comfort zone.

Now you've practiced and moved setting this boundary in one way and then the complete opposite way.

This is typically how we set boundaries in our relationships that doesn't work because we're either too soft or too hard.

And then we can often blame our partners for not listening,

For not getting it.

But if we're too soft,

It's not direct enough,

It's not firm enough for our partners to really get it.

And if it's too hard,

It feels too restrictive,

Too hard to me.

Or it could be so aggressive if you were reacting from a fight response that your partner gets defensive and feels under attack,

Making them unable to listen because we can't actually process new information and receive that when we're in a survival response.

So now in your body,

In movements,

I want you to practice the in between.

So not super soft,

Not super hard,

But somewhere in between,

Somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.

Can you allow your body to move firmly yet gently?

Can you allow your body to take up space,

But not in a chaotic,

Threatening way?

But in a way where you can allow yourself to be seen without being scary or trying to overpower.

Can you allow your body to open up yet not opening up so much that it feels way too threatening for you and not so small or closed up that you won't be able to get your message through?

Can you find the harmony in the middle of whatever two polarities you've just expressed through your body?

Just try it out,

Even if this is very abstract and new to you.

Whatever you imagine and feel into the middle of the spectrum of those two polarities,

Try it out even for just a minute or less.

Once you feel solid enough,

Moving this more balanced,

More harmonious expression,

Now you can imagine in your mind's eye that you are giving this expression to your partner and see how they may be receiving it differently now in your imagination.

Is it different?

Do you feel different in the way you're expressing it?

Do you see that it's different in the way that they're receiving it?

What else do you notice as you continue to move this harmonious way of setting and expressing your boundaries?

Remember this in your body.

Remember how this feels so that you can recreate this sensation,

This feeling,

And this expression again the next time you set a boundary with your partner.

Any way that you communicate a boundary that feels outside of this,

That feels too extreme on one side or the other,

You can notice that because you now have had this experience in your body.

Now this may take many,

Many times of practicing to really be able to integrate this,

To feel this understanding in your real life relationship.

So you can come back to this meditation as many times as you need.

For now,

I'm going to ask you to gradually and slowly start bringing your movements to a close.

You may find yourself landing in a position that feels good for you right now,

Whether that's hands on your heart,

Holding yourself,

Maybe standing up tall in a certain way.

There's no right or wrong.

Let's breathe in together.

And out.

Gently open your eyes if they're not already open.

And look around your space,

Getting reacquainted with where you are right now.

And remember,

You are worthy of having your needs seen and heard.

And part of that,

A huge part of that is the way that you express them.

If you want to learn more about how you can feel worthy of love by healing trauma in a way that truly lasts and truly works,

Despite how many years you've tried to heal already,

You can sign up for my Insight Timer course called You Are Worthy of Love Healing from Trauma.

It is an incredible journey that has helped so many people further along their healing than many years of therapy alone.

I hope to see you there.

And until next time,

You deserve to be able to let healthy,

Lasting love in.

Reviews

Love this! Excellent guidance on setting boundaries in a productive way.