When people interact with each other, they need to grasp the distance between each other in order to live in harmony. In your life, have you ever encountered any of the following interpersonal troubles?
• Don't know when to be nice to others or when to say no to others;
• It is easy to do bad things with good intentions and be nice to others, but in exchange for the dislike of others;
• Like to be the "teacher" of others, and habitually point fingers at others' practices;
•Being affected by others at every turn, and being troubled by interpersonal relationships;
These problems are easy for us to encounter in our daily life. Why is this happening? Psychological research shows that 90% of interpersonal problems are caused by unclear psychological boundaries of individuals. And this "psychological boundary" determines your sense of how far you interact with others. In other words, it is important to have a "sense of boundaries".
Not only do you have to know your own psychological boundaries, but you also need to understand the psychological boundaries of others. By acting according to each other's psychological boundaries, you will be able to build good relationships with others.
As Daniel ·Gorman, United States psychologist and author of Emotional Intelligence, puts it, "How comfortable you are determines how high you can get." ”
To manage your relationships well, you must learn to demarcate and master mental boundaries.
What are Mental Boundaries?
The so-called "psychological boundary" is actually an individual's cognition and understanding of the self, including one's own rights, one's own space, one's own preferences, and one's own thoughts and concepts, etc., which are composed of a series of comprehensive self-perceptions created and established by individuals.
According to this mental boundary, you know exactly what is controllable and what is not. So you do things that are within your control and avoid doing things that are not controllable. From this, the boundary is divided into two parts:
☞ The things within the boundaries belong to the part that can be controlled by oneself, and they are the psychological boundaries of oneself.
☞ Things outside the boundaries belong to places that cannot be controlled by me, and are the psychological boundaries of others.
Once you interfere with things that are uncontrollable outside the boundaries as if they were controllable within the boundaries, this is out of bounds. This is where a lot of interpersonal problems happen.
For example, if you are obese and you are not satisfied with it, then no matter how critical you are about your body, this is also within your boundaries. Whether you want to interfere with yourself or not is completely up to you. However, if it is someone else who is obese and you are not happy with it, then when you go to find fault with the other person's body and point fingers at the other person, you cross the line.
The size of others is not an integral part of your self-concept, you have no control over it, but if you go to interfere in this uncontrollable place beyond the boundaries of your self, it will bring endless trouble to others and affect each other's interpersonal relationships.
Because the place you can control is to stay away from people whose body makes you feel unsatisfied; Or you can't stay away, you can choose to control your words and actions or psychological feelings, which are all things that can be controlled within your boundaries.
Changing what can be changed, accepting what can't be changed, that's the core idea of psychological boundaries. Knowing this, you can understand that many people have relationship problems because they don't have a clear understanding of psychological boundaries.
Either they are unable to keep their psychological boundaries and are invaded by others, or they exceed their authority without authorization and encroach on the psychological boundaries of others. There is a blurring of the boundaries between self and others. Over time, problems arise.
Why are your mental boundaries blurred?
The blurring of psychological boundaries will easily lead to your grasp of interpersonal relationships and misjudgment. And the so-called clear psychological boundaries are that you can distinguish what you are responsible for and what others are responsible for.
How can you tell the difference? Look at how much overlap there is between your mental boundaries and the mental boundaries of others.
This "overlap" refers to how much of your psychological boundaries you allow yourself to give to others to enter; How many psychological boundaries will others take out and share with you. The more the psychological boundaries between the two are repeated, the greater the influence of the two on each other.
For example, if a person is a lone person, his psychological boundaries never overlap with the psychological boundaries of others. What I do has nothing to do with you; My joys, sorrows, and sorrows do not need your concern.
And people who are highly dependent have a lot more overlapping psychological boundaries with others. When I was sad, I really liked that people could come and comfort me. When I do something, I hope that others can help me do it, and I often trouble others.
It can be said that people who have just the right grasp of psychological boundaries can not only maintain a state of independence, know how to keep an appropriate distance from others, and will not cause trouble to others, but also will not be so withdrawn that they often ignore others.
And people who do not grasp the psychological boundaries well, or even blur, because they mistakenly think that others think the same way because they can control the places they can control. Therefore, once they have something, they feel that others should also have the responsibility to help deal with it, or if others have something, they will also interfere in handling it as if it were their own business.
In general, mental boundaries are blurred
There are several basic forms of manifestation
1. Control. I want others to do what they think.
2. Interference. Worry about things that don't belong to you, and pay more attention to others than you need to give.
3. Expectations. Base your mood on whether the behavior of others is in line with your own psychological expectations.
4. Violence. Trying to use strong means to deprive the other party of their individual value in order to achieve a certain goal.
These manifestations, in our daily lives, are often presented in a subtle way.
For example, if you are chatting with someone you like, and after sending a message, they never reply to you, and then you feel very lost. This is normal. Because the other party has not met your psychological expectations. Maybe the other party doesn't have a good impression of you at all, maybe the other party is still busy.
But if you think the other person is so rude, and then the more you think about it, the more unhappy you become, the more you think about it, the more angry you become, and even scold the other person, then it means that your boundaries are blurred. You treat things that are uncontrollable outside the boundaries as if they are things that can be controlled within the boundaries, and you want to control the results. Once you can't control it, you start to get emotional.
Herein lies the problem: although all your emotional reactions are caused by the other person, they are not within the other person's psychological boundaries and should be controlled.
In other words, the other party is not obligated to make you happy, let alone think about whether her non-response will bring you unhappy troubles. You have to distinguish between what's your business and what's hers. Your business is to chat with her and wait for a reply, as well as to adjust your mood. Her business is to decide whether and when to reply to you. As for whether her reply makes you happy or annoyed, that's not her responsibility.
If you get angry and scold the other person for not responding to your messages, then you are violating the other person's psychological boundaries. Because in her psyche, there is not much overlap between your psychological boundaries.
Of course, replying to other people's messages is a kind of politeness, but whether the other party is willing to show this politeness to you, this is her right, this kind of practice belongs to her psychological boundaries controllable, and she does not take the initiative to violate your psychological boundaries. On the contrary, if you scold the other party for being unkind and making the other party hurt, you are actively violating the other party's psychological boundary. After all, in this matter, the other party's psychological boundaries only overlap with yours very little. She's not your girlfriend, she's not your family.
On the contrary, you overlap many parts of your psychological boundaries with the other person's, and feel that the other party has an obligation to reply to you, and the focus of the boundary is blurred, so that she has an impact on you; To scold her will affect her.
Although it is definitely a bad mood to be ignored by others, we must uphold a rule when dealing with interpersonal relationships, that is: just manage things within your psychological boundaries.
How do you learn to control what is within your boundaries?
Sometimes, it's normal for others to ignore you; It's normal for others to ignore you. Whether others ignore you, scold you, or target you, when you encounter these interpersonal problems, ask yourself: What parts of this matter are you in control?
Just like the above example, if you send a message and can't get a reply from the girl, if you are unhappy because of this, you can find a friend to complain, complain, and adjust your mood; Or try a better way to talk to the other person. Even from the interaction in real life, improve your acceptance of the other person's heart, gradually expand the other party's psychological boundaries to you, and so on.
These are things that you can control, things that are within your boundaries. As for whether the other party is willing to reply to you or not, whether they want to deal with you, that's her business, not something you can control and force. Your psychological expectations are not the code of conduct that the other party must abide by, otherwise you will make the mistake of treating the other party's psychological boundaries as your own psychological boundaries and confusing them.
The right thing to do is to do what you can control first, and then the rest depends on the situation. If you have done your duty and behaved as you should, but the other person's attitude is still so arrogant and indifferent, then it is not your personal problem, it is the other person's problem.
To build a good interpersonal relationship, in addition to your own efforts, you also need the cooperation of others. However, your own efforts can be controlled, and the cooperation of others is something outside your psychological boundaries, and you have no right to regulate it.
Choi Kyung-sook
Positive Psychology Instructor
Contact: 13331666672
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