Setting boundaries is difficult for most of us. I can speak for myself that learning to set boundaries has been a lifelong journey. A journey of dealing with 20 years of workplace bullying as an RCMP officer. And in my family, because I was a ‘people pleaser’ (not healthy behaviour). Then in my new career/workplace as a consultant helping people deal with workplace bullying.

Boundaries are an active choice in recognizing how you want to be treated by others. And also, how you want to treat others.  Most of us are not born with an understanding of the value and need to set boundaries at home, in our relationships, and in the workplace

Things can change from workplace office bullying to workplace bullying in your own home. Under the Covid cloud, our workplaces have changed to our homes, and what we would perceive as our safe places. Those who do not respect boundaries and are bullies have now been ‘invited’ into our house with working from home.  Many employees are making the choice now to work from home.

There is a problem here of course that has slowly emerged with bullying. The bully boss or coworker thinks it’s OK to send you a text or an email at four in the morning. In addition, if you fail to immediately respond, he punish you or reprimand you for not responding. That makes no sense to me.

Setting boundaries on your technology such as turning off the phone/email/texts at a scheduled time and setting boundaries in your workplace either at home or in the office is part of maintaining a good work-life balance and your mental health. If you don’t take care of your mental health and develop a healthy work-life balance nobody else is going to do it for you. Failing to take care of your mental health and setting boundaries at home and in your workplace will only result in a slow deterioration of your self. None of us is immune from being a victim of bullying, depression, and mental health issues from workplace violence and abuse. Remember the abuse can be subtle, covert, and difficult to prove. Take notes of dates and times, copies of emails and texts. Keep these in a separate file and away from the office to keep them secure. Taking notes helps with our memory of facts and establishes a pattern of behaviour.

For me, I find there are clients who truly expect work for free. Now, when you go to the dentist do you get your teeth cleaned for free? I guess not. When you go to get gas do you get gas for free? No, you have to pay for it. Therefore if you hire a consultant you are expected to pay for their work. So, if you don’t like what they’ve done then you let them know. Thus any ethical consultant would do their very best to work to achieve a client’s satisfaction to the best of their ability. Knowing of course that, no matter where you go, there’s always going to be someone who’s not happy with what you’ve done. That’s not your problem. If you can clearly say you’ve done your very very best then let it go, take a lesson from that client and move forward.

Setting boundaries it’s not a one-time thing, we go through life and new challenges, new experiences and new people come along that test our boundaries and sometimes we need to change them to fit the new situation. That’s OK. We call that empowerment.

It’s never too late to learn to set boundaries on behaviours you will accept from your family, schoolmates, friends, coworkers and in your intimate relationships, and the ones you will not accept from them and in intimate relationships. There is a difference between being attentive and a stalker or abusive partner. You have a choice to ignore the ‘red flags’ or leave the relationship before the abuse gets life-threatening. I know I did.  The emotional mind games played by my boyfriend at the time, looking back were the beginning of taking control and abuse, by his words and actions made me feel I was broken somehow. He was the damaged one. Not me! But, however, I did learn a lot about the silent forms of control/bullying and set firm boundaries. It is a learning process.

If you don’t respect and value yourself nobody else will. And that chip, chip away at your self-esteem can leave lifelong traumatic scars both physical and emotional.

I speak specifically about violence in the workplace, in the home and violence in school. These deep emotional and physical wounds can have a tremendous impact on our life today. Speaking from experience I remember in junior high the bullying, not just to me because my father was a principal, but to others I observed. At that time I had no social skills in understanding the importance of speaking up and standing up to a bully, I didn’t have any boundaries with regard to the abuse I was exposed to in school and watched other people suffer as I did. We were just trying to survive. However over the years, thankfully I found a therapist and learn to set boundaries, find my voice, speak up and not allow anyone to abuse me physically or mentally. Sadly not everyone had the benefit of being in therapy and understanding how a bully works or the impact it has on our emotional growth.

The stats don’t lie. People have gotten terminally sick, died and tragically committed suicide years later from workplace and schoolyard bullying. Our words cut deeper than a knife. Be mindful of the words you are saying to others including yourself. Set boundaries on how you want to treat yourself.

Ask yourself if the message I am thinking is it positive, is it encouraging, is it providing awareness, is it kind, or compassionate.   Quite often we sink to the lowest level of negativity when listening to our inner voice. This is a choice to think negative or positive thoughts. If you’re having a hard time with your mindset, perhaps you need to seek out professional help and a therapist to help you navigate a more positive attitude.