How to Set Healthy Boundaries - 3 Things you Must Know First! — Peaceful Living with Miranda

Many women (and men too) want to know how to set healthy boundaries with those around them. However, answering these three simple questions will help you be much more prepared before you even ask that question.

In this article, you will read not only what these three questions are, but also why they can help you learn how to set healthy boundaries in a clear, simple way.

Firstly, a huge welcome from me - I’m Miranda, and Peaceful Living with Miranda is my business and blog. I’m a mum of 3 kiddos, experienced teacher, women’s emotional health coach and gentle parenting consultant,and Christian women’s mentor. As well as coaching and blogging on gentle parenting & anything that helps you as a mum with stress relief & emotional healing, I create digital products and write books that help women with their own emotional health and with parenting their children - because the two go hand in hand. Find out more about what I offer on my Emotional Health Bookings page here.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting my blog - I hope you find it helpful

As a 21st-century mama, (and we’re well into the 21st century now, right!?) we are often super busy and much more empowered than many (in fact pretty much most) generations of women before us.

However, all of us struggle with how to set healthy boundaries at times - usually for one of these reasons:

We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings
We think we should be able to ‘just keep swimming’, thanks Dory
We don’t want to rock the status quo and cause relationship breakdown or family breakdown, and/or
We aren’t sure how to go about this the right way - or what reasonable expectations of others around our families even are anymore.

It’s a huge minefield, resulting in many mums simply just ranting in private about their grievances, instead of setting healthy boundaries to cater for themselves and their own mental and emotional health.

However, we also need to make sure we are listening to and understanding the other people in the situation, too. We do not want to be selfish, but make good, balanced choices for all.

1: Who is this boundary actually for?

If you have come to a point when you need to set a boundary, you might be suffering from mum burnout, and clearly whatever is happening is affecting your emotional health in some way - and possibly your family, too. We want to learn how to set healthy boundaries for lots of reasons - but the point of this question is this:

Is the boundary an ‘I’ boundary, or a ‘they’ boundary?

Think of it like this. We recently got a new puppy, Ziggy. (Wow, he has a lot of energy!) But there are two reasons we might like to put him in a playpen, or on the other half of the yard with a gate - to keep him from annoying others (the kids, with their lunch, usually), or to keep others from annoying him.

In other words, the boundary could be needed for him, like when you need everyone to stay away on a Sunday afternoon so you can get some headspace for the week and rejuvenate a bit (because that’s how we were created!).

Or, the boundary could be for others, like when your friend keeps being super negative and wants to download all her negativity all over you when you’re struggling with managing your busy mum life already - and maybe your 6 month old needs a better routine.

Seeing the difference is very helpful for understanding how to set healthy boundaries with those whom you need to talk to - and what to actually say - because these two different types of boundaries need to be proceeded with differently.

Read my short ebook here: Stop Mum Guilt!

2: Why does this boundary need to be set in the first place?

This is usually the moment when someone ‘needs to rant’ to other people, or pops that anonymous member post up in that mum Facebook group.

It’s all about what has led to this point. Are you experiencing burnout? Are you feeling super frustrated towards a particular person or situation - and need to set a boundary around this, for your own sanity and that of your household? (We all know that family life is harder when Mum is struggling with a giant mental load - and it’s harder when there is an emotionally draining person or situation, as I imagine you know.)

Understanding what the real problem is with someone in your life is important here, so be prepared to do some soul-digging.

Your mother in law might be grinding your gears because she is cleaning your kitchen every week and making you feel lazy and messy. However, she may not know this - and also, maybe that is actually brushing up against a wound from childhood that might be triggering a bigger response than you would expect.

(This happens all the time. Like, it’s subconscious so it happens more than any of us know - even if you’re a Christian mama, we are not exempt from this.)

So - why set this boundary?

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3: What do you actually want to happen when you set a boundary?

This might sound overly simple, but what do you actually want to happen when you talk about how to set healthy boundaries?

Like, actually, practically happen?

Does it mean people can visit on Saturday afternoons, but no Saturday dinners while the baby is under 1 year old?

Or, does it mean you want to be able to go out and spend time with your friends once per month, and your husband does the same?

Who will be doing what - and what will you be doing yourself?

We often notice with politicians in election time, that they are usually busy ‘running down’ the enemy - and often we are hearing more about ‘why the opposition’s ideas are bad’, than ‘what we are going to do’. It’s a noted problem with politics, or at least the way they are reported in the media.

Make sure when you set the boundary you don’t just fall into #2 - the ‘why’ this boundary needs to be set, but think about the positive, practical viewpoints going forward.

Do you want to listen to this on the podcast? Listen to The Mum Wellbeing Podcast here!

Bonus tip - and a very important one!

Don’t set a boundary hastily, as a quick decision and impulsive action. This can often result in poor decisions, or boundaries you can’t stick to.

A great example is when you are frustrated that your child has left their belongings all over the house - and then, they don’t want to pick their things up. Maybe you lose your cool and throw a big consequence at them - for instance saying they are grounded for a week. But then, an hour later after you cool off, you then realise that this was actually way too harsh, and you just might have overreacted in the heat of the moment.

Then what? Whatever you choose, you might go back on the consequence, have a quiet chat with your child, and so on. But the point is - regardless of what you do - you have probably gone back on your word, or been too harsh. This can be the same for setting boundaries with family, friends or loved ones.

Making decisions in the heat of the moment is fine. Just don’t ACT on those decisions in the heat of the moment. Wait a week or so (for those really big boundary-decisions as a mum, I’m not talking clothes on the floor with this one - more like telling your mother-in-law to stay away on Sunday afternoons, those sort of big ones) and revisit what you really want to implement here - then, you can do it well, clearly, with less guilt or self-wavering, and really make that boundary a solid part of your life.

If you want to know how to set healthy boundaries, these are the ‘questions’ you should be aware of first.

They help you be more prepared, and understand what you want, more deeply and more fully than you otherwise would.

One other way to get to know this is by contacting an emotional health coach/life coach like me! Click here to go to my Emotional Health bookings page (also the space for gentle parenting consults), and find out more about how you can become the confident, respected woman you want to be - with healthy, life-affirming boundaries, too.

Need more help, or want to build your emotional health and wellbeing as a mum - or even as a Christian woman? Find out more here with these blog posts:

How To Start Your Healing Journey For Emotional Health - When You Don’t Want To Be An Angry Mum Anymore

How You Might Be Beating Yourself Up As A Millennial Christian Mother - And How To Stop Yourself!

3 Limiting Self Beliefs Every Good Mum Needs To Know About

‘how to set Healthy boundaries’ : 3 Things you MUST know first!