How To Build Honest Relationships With Boundaries Without Feeling Guilty, Icky or Rude

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“We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.”― Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend

I first learned about boundaries and consequences in primary school.
 
‘Don’t cross the white line on the asphalt’ was a boundary meant to keep us safe. And if caught ‘out of bounds’, consequences followed.
 
Miss Secombe seemed to be everywhere and nowhere simultaneously — her hawk eyes always prowling for ‘out-of-bounders’. The punishment: picking up 100 scraps in the yard instead of eating lunch.
 
As a Principal, Miss Secombe demanded we stand like soldiers when lining up for class — her boundary for obedience was rigid. We knew what she expected —our eyes glued to the back of the person’s head in front of us with military precision.
 
Sport offered a similar approach — one foot over the boundary and I forfeited a toss.
 
These boundaries feel arbitrary now. Symbols of tribal rules, ways of enforcing group behaviour around goals I didn’t really buy into. 
 
Now I see boundaries from a different perspective and understand they’re more about shared agreements around respect and acceptance — particularly when it comes to being in a healthy and loving relationship.

• Boundaries are not about causing (or feeling) guilt with military-like consequences.

• Boundaries are not arbitrary rules that create ‘one-up power’ over another.

• Boundaries are not actions we trade for love or acceptance.

Boundaries are for creating equality and respect. For self-defining we end and and another begins.

What are boundaries in relationships?

“Our boundaries might be rigid, loose, somewhere in between, or even nonexistent. A complete lack of boundaries may indicate that we don’t have a strong identity or are enmeshed with someone else.” Tracey Cleantis

Mark Manson says: Boundaries in relationships work both ways: they create emotional health and are created by people with emotional health.
Dr John Amodeo says: Having boundaries means honoring ourselves as a separate individual with needs and wants that often differ from others.
Dr Tracey Hutchinson says: Boundaries are basic guidelines that people create to establish how others are able to behave around them.
 
As a younger woman I wish I’d learned how to push boundaries more. I would have discovered what it took to stand up for myself and respect my needs, rather than waiting for someone else to grant me that human right.

I wish I’d understood what it felt like to set my own boundaries, instead of being so sensitively attuned to those of others. That fear instilled during early years of ‘being out-of-bounds’ kept me ‘bound’ for longer than needed.

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Setting Boundaries Can Be Tricky

“When we fail to set boundaries and hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. This is why we sometimes attack who they are, which is far more hurtful than addressing a behavior or a choice.”― Brené Brown

Setting boundaries often comes with guilt for those who felt ‘bound’ for decades. The act of saying ‘no’ and prioritising oneself can feel selfish and ignorant. An act of having ‘power over’ another.
 
I hear partners tussle with this idea. When this happens, the person feeling guilt at setting a boundary needs to tackle an old belief about what it means to meet another’s need before considering one’s own. 

Putting yourself last so other people come to think of you as ‘a nice person who always thinks of others’ is duping yourself into taking the role of ‘passive people pleaser’.

A friend used to describe this as the ‘burnt chop syndrome’. A place where mothers (usually it was the mother) would offer others the best pieces of meat and give herself the burnt, shrivelled, dried-out left-overs.

This doesn’t set up a person for having relationships built on equality, fairness or respect in their life. Much needs to be unlearned before creating respectful and healthy boundaries.

There will always be times when each of us puts another person’s needs first — in times of ill-health, a pressing problem or through being gracious or giving of one’s resources. That’s having a healthy boundary — one that flex in given circumstances.

Are Boundaries Necessary?

Your personal boundaries protect the inner core of your identity and your right to choices. Gerard Manley Hopkins

Boundaries can feel so unnecessary when all is going well. In the early days a couple may feel they’ve intuitively read the same book on how to be relationally compatible. Nothing seems to get in the way of love and connection during those early days.
 
However, that blissful state lasts just long enough for us to relax before ego re-emerges for a reality check-up.

When I work with a couple on their relationship, the issue of boundaries is the most common one arising.
 
A couple may not express their need for stronger boundaries — instead they’ll describe niggly arguments, anger that’s getting out of control, disconnection from each other or trust issues needing repair.
 
Yet, what they’re describing stems from a lack of boundaries. The challenge in understanding this is in knowing that boundaries don’t arrive out of thin air — they’re crafted by a couple to protect the relationship above all else.

• Think of boundaries as guide rails that keep a couple’s relationship safe and secure.

• Think of boundaries as offering a way of living fairly in a relational space.

• Think of boundaries as agreements a couple make jointly.

In the early days of a relationship, couples make assumptions around how the relationship will work when challenges and competing interests arise.
 
The problem is that couples rarely discuss these assumptions. Each person inherently believes the resolution to arguments or concerns that arise are ‘given’, so obvious the issue doesn’t need discussing. This inevitably leads to misunderstandings, defensiveness, disbelief, blame and a battle of egos vying for one-upmanship.
 
Challenges inevitably arise in a relationship around the need for personal time, sharing of responsibilities, differing opinions, child rearing routines, shared family time, managing work commitments and sexual needs.

It’s in how a couple prepare for these circumstances that helps them create agreements.

The role of Shared Agreements

“If you have to ask to be treated right, you are around the wrong people. On the other hand, if you allowed this behavior to enter into the relationship from the start, it can and will continue, and will be very difficult to change up later. Set your boundaries sooner than later.”― Christine E. Szymanski

If I could suggest one thing a couple did to enhance their relational well being, it would be creating shared agreements around aspects of the relationship that need protecting. In other words, shared agreements form the container in which boundaries are held.

An agreement may look like this, for example:

WHAT OUR RELATIONSHIP NEEDS: To keep our relationship healthy and thriving, it’s important for us to put each other first above all else.
To do this, we both choose to prioritise each other over personal interests, friends, work or ‘numbing out’.
We’ll do this by:

1. Creating daily rituals eg dedicated time with each other where phones/TV/ipad are put in another room so we can talk about things that are important to us, walk together, have an evening cup of tea together, or do an activity we both enjoy doing together.

2. Maintaining intimacy by making sure we give each other a loving cuddle and warm-hearted kiss daily.

3. Being interesting — this means expanding our interests, learning more, focusing on personal growth

4. Negotiating anything (eg working late, time with friends, personal interests) that may cause disruption to our mutually shared interest of putting each other first.

This process helps a couple express what’s important for the relationship to thrive. They’re on the same page. The agreement isn’t focused on personal needs — it’s about ensuring the needs of the relationship come first.
 
If a couple get together and want to stay together, then written agreements like this one form the basis of boundaries.

Without boundaries most relationships come unstuck.

A boundary is not that at which something stops, but that from which something begins. Martin Heidegger

Shared agreements and boundaries are like containers for a couple — in the same way a nest offers a secure place for birds to raise their young. If the nest develops gaping holes due to lack of care and attention, then any precious eggs or chicks within may fall and be lost for good.
 
In the same way, if we don’t care for the home we live in, and let it fall into disrepair, we’re exposing the home to damage from storms and high winds — those unexpected elements that nature randomly bestows on us.
 
It’s the same for a relationship.
 
A relationship that doesn’t have agreements and boundaries in place to keep it safe and secure has nothing to protect it from life’s storms that inevitably come.

Boundaries are formed within the agreements made by a couple.

“Boundaries are, in simple terms, the recognition of personal space.”― Asa Don Brown

If one partner says they’ll be home at 8pm and doesn’t turn up until 8:30pm or 9pm without any text or call, then the agreement of prioritising each other needs repairing. A trust is broken, especially if the couple believe they are ‘people of their word’.
 
Many reasons exist for why a person is late — and hopefully a couple will talk about this in a respectful way that honours agreements made jointly.
 
However, it’s in letting the ‘small’ things slide that eventually breaks the couple’s original agreement and blurs boundary lines.

The next big challenge

“Anger is a sentry, stalking the edges of our boundaries and standing ready to defend them.”― Jessica Moore

This leads to the biggest concern a couple presents with: how each person talks about the issue.

• Do they hide their feelings behind an emotionally withdrawn wall and become defensive or aloof, pretending it wasn’t an issue in the hope of avoiding confrontation?

• Do they express themselves by abusing the person of being thoughtless and selfish as they feel so emotionally violated?

• Or do they choose a healthy place to speak from that respects themselves, the relationship and the partner?

And this is the next challenge couples face — how to manage emotions when a boundary or agreement is broken.

Something Miss Secombe and her rigid school-day boundaries never engaged with.
 
 I’d love to hear from you — what are you going to work on in your relationship to build agreements that help your relationship thrive.

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How to Stop Angry Arguments in Your Relationship Change these two things and see what a difference it makes to your relationship

“I spend my days trying to remember what only my soul knows but my mind can’t comprehend.”
― Raneem Kayyali

How often do you argue with your partner and wish you had better ways of saying what you felt without things turning into a full-blown argument?

If you’re like most couples I work with, you’ll agree. Yet, resolving conflict in a relationship isn’t quite as simple as improving your delivery, asking better questions or listening more.

Recently, a respected relationship therapist, Dr Stan Tatkin, described conflict as coming from three sources: 
 
 “The three main areas that cause conflict in relationships are memory, perception and communication”. 
 
While his take on conflict is interesting — it’s easy to miss what he really means.

In your opinion, which of these 3 influences your arguments?

 Memory? Perception? Or Communication?

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• Long-term memory stored neatly with every challenging and hurtful moment ever experienced in your relationship? Those ones kept in the ‘museum of hurt-heart stories’ with the power to re-open old wounds again? Or,

• Relying on your perception of events captured through a personal viewpoint only you could see and feel at the time? Or,

• The style of communication you use to express your needs within the relationship?

Memories of past wrongs color our perception. Of how lovable we are, how accepted we may be or how worthwhile we feel about ourselves — as partners, friends, colleagues, parents or even children.
 
Our perception of those memories in-turn shifts how we show up in relationships. This can cause us to freeze-up a little and become defensive, all in the hope of self-protection.
 
And when this happens, the underlying resentment you feel (and subconsciously express) — that’s often based on blame (or self-blame) — shifts how our partner sees us. And in turn, we then react by retreating further, which only reinforces those troubling perceptions and memories.
 
Whew. Complex. Circular. Self-defeating.

Most couples I work with describe wanting help with how they communicate. Tools to be more kind, more patient, more understanding with each other.
 
I get this. Yet it’s not what they really need.
 
And that’s because communication is the structured end of the work — not the place where ‘real change’ happens.

Why Clinging To Old Memories Crushes Healthy Relationships

“For a brokenhearted person memories are the vital parts of misery”― Munia Khan

Perceptions of old memories usually need shifting first. It’s as if those Perceptions of old memories — those unhealed wounded memories — usually need adjusting first. It’s as if those memories and perceptions formed a subconscious raft that’s blocking you from relating to your partner with warmth and empathy. 

Once in place, this raft influences your thoughts, emotions and ultimately how you’ll act in your relationships.
 
Take Matty and Kim (not their real names) — a couple I consulted with recently. They wanted to work on their ‘communication skills’, hoping this would stop the number of arguments they were battling through.
 
As we traced the lineage of a defensive stance Kim defaulted to when angry, it went all the way back to an incident that Matty had totally forgotten about. 

A few years previously, Matty described Kim’s personality in an unfortunate way (‘0-negative’ — just like her blood group) and Kim had taken it to mean ‘she wasn’t good enough’.
 
And this in turn reinforced how she’d felt growing up. A child often ignored in the family. A child who grew up to please others in the hope of gaining love, care and affection.

Better Communication Won’t Solve This Problem.

But it’s not the way I remember it. I long for a past that I didn’t have, for the same experiences with different emotions, without the pain, without the ambivalence, without the fear. My heart remembers two different lives and I long for the one I can only see now, in retrospect.”

― Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Long before better communication skills are learned, the re-coding of old beliefs needs to take place.

Instead of Kim continuing to feel a personal wound as a result of her personality being slighted, in the light of hindsight she could easily re-code the old belief as Matty’s need for one-upmanship. 

At first glance Matty made an attempt at humor — BUT when it’s at someone else’s expense it’s closer to grandiosity than anything else. If you’re on the receiving end of thoughtless humor, it’s easy to feel shameful and unworthy — as Kim did.

While re-coding old memories helps, there’s still more to do. And that’s taking a moment to reach the small child inside Kim who continues feeling a deep emotional loneliness and sense of not being good enough. 

It’s here that Kim’s work lays — better communication skills may only further mask and push down painful memories that lay in wait just below the surface.
 
Matty’s comments weren’t intentionally meant to hurt, yet they did. And because Kim felt shamed by his words, she pretended they didn’t mean anything. 

As a child, Kim’s parents told her she was ‘too sensitive’ so the last thing she wanted was Matty to repeat these words to her as an adult.

So Kim chose to store those memories in the hurt-heart story vault — the memory vault only she has keys to — so she can remind herself of how unworthy she truly feels anytime someone carelessly tosses an unhelpful phrase at her.
 
Like Matty and Kim, better communication tools for arguments they’re experiencing today wouldn’t solve the memories or the perceptions Kim laid in the vault years ago.

Two Tools: Compassion and Empathy

Better communication only helps when a couple embraces two things: compassion and empathy.

These twin attributes allow for a safe place to emerge. One that’s able to heal old emotional wounds. 

Without these dual skills, the soft, vulnerable, hurt places felt deeply within remain heavily guarded.

Forgetting to Remember

“Memories are nothing other than ghosts of our past selves that haunt us. Ghosts are nothing more than memories trying to get our attention.”

― Kiran Manral, More Things in Heaven and Earth

Most of us know how to be nice to people, how to help others feel good about themselves, how to be kind and considerate. How to listen when someone needs to talk, how to care for someone when unwell.

The problem is we ‘forget’ how to do this for the person who is our cornerstone in life — our partner.

And that’s because we stop looking. We stop listening. We stop feeling. We stop noticing the small things — those often subtle signals that our partner’s gently request to receive attention, love and care so they feel more connected.

Literally, these are the actions of compassion and empathy: noticing another’s need beyond our own.

It’s in this place of remembering the people we were when we first got together with our partners that relationships flourish, become extraordinary and serve the purpose they were designed for.

Taking Action

The next time you and your partner find yourselves triggered into another argument, pause. And ask yourself:

“If beneath this anger there was an unhealed wound, what would it be?”

The simple act of doing this begins the re-awakening of compassion and empathy.

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How to Cope with Powerful and Untethered Emotions that Stress and Hurt Relationships

“To love” is a skill that is cultivated, not merely a state of enthusiasm. It is dynamic and active. Imbued with intention and responsibility. And it is a verb.” Esther Perel

Couples under stress often feel de-stabilised, which gives rise to powerful and usually uncomfortable emotions. 

Those emotions that cause one's heart to pound as if in a marathon, face to flush and body to freeze over (or become electrically charged) are challenging to experience - and fearful to witness.

They can turn anyone from an easy-going human into a seething swamp of resentment.

At some point, the dark art of ‘emotional volleyball’– hurling the equivalent of ‘hot coals’ from one to the other – becomes more important than what the original problem ever was about.

Resentment is like an elephant – it never forgets.

For some it looks like ranting, raving and ridiculing until their partner heads for the door, slamming it behind with an all too familiar finality.

Hearing couples argue in my office looks like a shame-game of one-upmanship that leads both people into a ‘you-said, I-said’ race to the bottom of the scrap heap in the hope of finding one more piece of dirt to throw.

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Low-level 'humphs', eye rolls or rubbing of one’s face in frustration all come across as energy balls of disagreeable, manipulative, emotional toxicity.
The couple is showing a tiny fragment of what happens at home (that's often watered down in my presence).

I’m adept at shutting down arguments like this in the office by calling out the behaviour. Too many bad memories from my own past relationship to want to relive emotional storms again – or become a referee.

If you’ve been caught in this space of an emotionally dysfunctional relationship, then you know how painful it can be. Some days you may feel your head is in a vice as nothing you do seems to relieve this mosquito-filled swamp you’re trapped in.

Wishing things were different without changing what you do (while hoping to change your partner) is a futile pursuit.

Blaming your partner for creating the problem rarely works (unless it’s a serious values violation and you’re protecting a boundary). Silent treatment or retreating internally doesn’t resolve anything, as that well full of resentment that’s been stagnating for years simply continues rising until it’s ready to burst.

You’ve possibly asked yourself what the real problem in your relationship is. You’ve talked to friends, read books, listened to podcasts and watched countless YouTube videos with guaranteed-to-work 5-step plans.

At times, you may have found moments where you can talk and resolve to treat each other with more compassion. You may even start well – acting in loving ways towards each other until you forget or complacency reigns again.

And the cycle continues.

A maddening loop of mistrust, misunderstanding and miscommunication often fuelled by increasing stress levels, anxiety or even depression (if the problem has gone on for a while).

Volatile emotions have the power to 'break' you, both personally and relationally.

What’s missing?

If I could nominate just one thing that needs to shift - it’s the simple act of humanity – of treating each other with compassion.

Without this, the problems a warring couple face are the same reasons wars start and faction groups fight for dominance.

It’s an old story: the desire to live with freedom and peace against a backdrop of fear often fuelled by generational patterns.

Few couples understand each other's deep emotions and unique perspectives. And in doing so relegate the relationship to transactional encounters far away from conversations of meaning.

No one sets out to do this, time simply whittles away the feelings of love in the same way that a rock washed by centuries of waves and storms becomes weathered. Some relationships become so worn down as to break into small pieces, eventually ending up as coarse sand that ebbs and flows with daily tides.

And along the way, few listen to their own emotional needs, let alone their partners.

Lack of honesty

Many women complain about their partner’s lack of presence. Few men really get what this means. As a culture we’ve come to rely on words like ‘being present, ‘coming from a heart space’ and ‘emotional awareness’ as euphemisms that replace saying what a person is really feeling. These words have sanitised our emotional expressions.

A better way of expressing emotions are these: ‘I feel alone.’ ‘I feel unloved.’ ‘I feel empty.’ ‘I feel hurt.’ ‘I feel sad.’ etc.

It’s often more culturally ‘cleaner’ (but misses the point and often sounds like blaming) to speak from our thinking brain and say, ‘I feel that you’re not listening to me.’ ‘I feel like you shut down when we talk about difficult things.’ ‘I feel that you’re not present anymore.’

I’m wondering if you can spot the difference between these two ways of expressing emotions?

As soon as we add the words ‘that’ or ‘like’ we’re interpreting and coming from our meaning-making mind, not speaking from our emotions. 

Why do we do this?
It’s easier. We’re trained to think logically, while internally we make meaning from our emotions (which may not be as ‘right’ as they feel) – and not share the felt sense, therefore not gaining empathy, compassion and care from our partner.

If I could change one thing we learn about emotions, it would be that emotions have their own language. They don’t need to be interpreted into words that can be misunderstood or put up for judgement. We simply need to learn how to express those emotions in a way others can relate to.

If a child came to you and said, ‘I feel sad’, most adults would stop what they’re doing, get down to the child's level so they could make eye contact more easily, gently pull the child in for a hug and ask a question, ‘Can you tell me what’s happening for you?’ (or a similar question to understand more).

Yet within a few short years, this child will learn – often from their parents – how to mask emotions and act-out instead.

If we could approach our partners with the same compassion we’d offer a child who’s struggling with an emotion, then we’d be on the road to understanding and repair within our own relationships.

Sadly, we miss seeing our partner's wounds as we’re so busy licking our own.

It doesn't have to be this way, change is ever-present - which we'll be talking about soon.

What are your thoughts - I'd love to hear :)

Barbara Grace

How To Value Yourself & Set Better Boundaries In Your Relationships

Relationship therapist, Barbara Grace, describes essential insights to expressing and valuing yourself more positively and purposefully in your relationship by creating better boundaries.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels

“Being taken for granted is an unpleasant but sincere form of praise. Ironically, the more reliable you are, and the less you complain, the more likely you are to be taken for granted.” — Gretchen Rubin

Let’s start with two quick questions:

First question: How much do you value yourself (on a scale from 1–10)?

Second question: How well do you set boundaries to prioritise your personal & relational well being (on a scale from 1–10)?

Chances are that if you score high on the first question, then you will possibly score high on the second. Similarly, if you score low on the first question, then you will probably also score low on the second.

Why? Because how you think about yourself often influences how well you assert your needs and establish boundaries to achieve them within a relationship.

Accessing your positive and resourceful power only happens when you respect yourself, your partner and the relationship you’re investing in. Then, and only then, can you drop the resentment and set boundaries that support you.

Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels

The Twin Challenges of Valuing Yourself & Setting Better Boundaries

“We often take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.”

If a relationship is experiencing challenges, those twin factors (self-value and boundaries) often show up as well.

Resentment: The cost of not valuing yourself and setting better boundaries

Here’s a quick check-in: When’s the last time you felt resentment towards your partner, a colleague, a friend or a family member?

Think about it:

• What was happening to your self-esteem at the time?

• How far down the ladder had your own needs fallen?

• How invisible in the equation were you beginning to feel?

• When you spoke, who listened?

It doesn’t take too much for our sense of self-worth to take a direct hit and retreat from this pain.

Resentment lets us know our boundaries are out of alignment — that we’ve allowed someone to take us for granted or assert a level of unresourceful power over us. 

“Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others — it only changes yours.”
― Shannon Alder

Resentment is a warning sign that we haven’t put our needs equal to others. It’s a wake-up call that if we don’t express our needs (without feeling guilty for doing so), then others may overlook us as well. Sometimes a relationship can feel like a battle between the ignorant and the ignored, an angry well that feels so deep we could fall in.

Yet, when a couple chooses to honour the relationship’s values, hold each other in positive regard, create mutually beneficial outcomes and operate from a shared position of power and authority — then a healthy, balanced and sustaining relationship is held safely.

True Story

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ”
― Carrie Fisher

Years ago, I worked with a young woman whose boundaries were so porous that she appeared to live her emotional life as a glossy ball in a pinball game. One moment heading in the right direction, the next bouncing off someone else’s equally porous boundaries.

Her emotional state reacted with overwhelm, rarely with stability. Her relationships looked complicated and her love-needy-ness was at an all-time high. The energy she created propelled a perpetual state of chaos.

This is one side of the powerless equation — boundaryless and lost in a swirl of worthlessness.

She Did It!! Photo by Snapwire from Pexels

While her family background and history offered a clear road map to how she turned up in her life, people like this young woman can choose to reach a point where the desire to honour themselves by discovering their personal power allows the next step to be taken. It was a long road to finding a healthy balance, and she did it.

The Cost of Self-righteous Rigidity

“Resentment is often a woman’s inner signal that she has been ignoring an important God-given responsibility — that of making choices.”
― Brenda Waggoner

Relationships with power imbalances can be challenging to live in. If one partner holds onto a sense of self-righteousness rigidly, then the other can disappear under the weight of their partner’s grandiosity, one-up positioning and superiority.

It can feel like chipping through marble to get to the soul of the human within.

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Techniques used to achieve self-centred outcomes (passive-aggressive stances, blatant manipulation or outright bullying) that position the person as superior and with one-up power can wear down the most resilient of us. 

Yet when you set healthy containing boundaries then you know how to reject self-centred grandiosity and keep yourself (and your self-worth) protected.

Often the embryo of these grandiose states originates as a self-protective strategy — learned by modelling the actions of others, or as a defense to stop ever being hurt again. It’s usually in childhood that these strategies are learned — rarely by choice.

Impact on well being

Many challenges couples face come down to a reduced awareness of how these dual states (self-value and boundaries) impact their emotional well-being.

At the pointy end is often a misaligned relationship with one’s own personal power. Having too much or too little shifts the dynamics of a healthy balanced relationship. So often it’s driven by a personal narrative embedded when young. If a person grew up feeling abandoned, unloved or unworthy it makes sense that their perceived self-worth will be protected beneath an emotional wound simply to survive.

It’s in this space that much of the work I do appears — mining the surface layers of power & ego against the softer and more vulnerable space of unmet emotional needs can create stronger boundaries along with a more joyous sense of self-worth.

So how do you know if your relationship with power is in balance or not?

Take a moment to reflect in your journal (or talk with your partner) about these questions:

In my own experiences, I can look back and see times in my life and relationships that had me putting up rigid boundaries — often due to modelling from parents or from hurts I wanted to protect myself from ever experiencing together.

Those ‘walls’, which can be initially erected as a defensive strategy, are simply ineffective boundaries — either too rigid to feel (or express) emotions or too porous to feel safe within the relationship.

In this month’s ‘Heart of Relationships’ group we’ll be continuing to explore boundaries, power and self-esteem work.

It’s the insights coming from this work that help us turn up in a more healthy and respectful way — to our partners, our children, our families and ultimately to ourselves.

Please share your thoughts with me — what’s your relationship with power and setting boundaries? How has it helped you reconnect with self-worth and self-care?

I’d love to hear from you and read your personal insights.

Barbara Grace — Relationship Therapist at the School of Modern Psychology 

Barbara also runs an online program: Heart of Relationships, you can find out more about it here.