Two Types Of Boundaries
Proverbs 4:23 Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
There are two types of boundaries — defining boundaries and protective boundaries. Each kind of boundary has a distinct purpose. Defining boundaries should become permanent in your life. Protective boundaries are the ones you can move beyond.
Defining boundaries are values that establish who you are and who you are not. They are at the core of your identity and reflect what you believe is important and valuable in life. Here are a few examples:
–I follow God and his ways and will always live my life in him.
–I love my family and friends, and I will treat them with grace and truth.
This is simply how you tell people who you are and how they tell you who they are. You clarify and define yourselves with these sorts of boundaries. Here are some examples of how defining boundaries might be used in your relationships:
–We have a rule that all who live in this house go to church.
–“ want to hear the truth from you about how you think we are doing in our relationship.
Protective boundaries are designed to guard your heart. There are times when you must protect your values, emotions, gifts, time, and energy from people and situations that may waste or injure them. For example:
–If you continue being thirty minutes late to events, I will take a separate car.
–If you keep spending over our budget, I will cut up the credit cards.
–I can’t lend you any more money until I see you making serious efforts to find a job.
A defining boundary is forever and unchangeable, part of what makes you. A protective boundary can change if the other person responds to it in a healthy way. Your defining boundaries mean that you will always follow God, love people, be committed to personal and spiritual growth, and so forth. These are the core parts of you, and you don’t change them. But you might change a protective boundary if the other person understands what they are doing to you and makes a significant change. Then you might lessen or end the consequence: no separate cars, reissue the credit cards, no lending money. When the change happens, you no longer need the protection.
