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Does anyone here practice mindfulness? I would love to have a discussion over the balance between mindfulness and setting boundaries.

I find it difficult sometimes to determine what I need to accept vs what I need to set boundaries over. I would love to talk this over with people dealing with the same types of situations I am.

It's a good question. Do you have a specific example in mind?

Mindfulness and boundaries work together for me in that I have to be very "in tune" with myself in order to discern what my limits are. There are times when we need to expand our limits and be open to something new, but when living with someone with BPD it is usually the case that we need to better recognize and uphold our limits--to tell our self it is just fine to have limits.

A specific example would be when he picks on the way I say something. Such as when I wasn’t interested in watching a YouTube video he wanted to send me. I told him I wasn’t interested in watching it and he thinks I should have just told him don’t send it to me. I’ve already told him it bothers me and feels condescending when he does that. His response is that it’s my problem and he’s doing nothing wrong. So do I mindfully accept when he does that or do I set a boundary around it?

Through typing this out though I think I somewhat answered my own question. But I’m interested to hear more opinions!

Hi Trying123;


How do these back-and-forths happen -- text? in person? phone call?

Was this a one-off example, or does this specific interaction (about sending the videos) happen frequently?

...

Reconstructing the dialogue, it might have gone like this:

(1) Mr Trying123: I want to send you this YouTube video.
(2) Trying123: I'm not interested in watching it.
(3) Mr Trying123: You should have just said "Don't send it to me".
(4) Trying123: It bothers me and feels condescending when you do that.
(5) Mr Trying123: That's your problem and I'm doing nothing wrong.

Is that close?

Couple of moments are standing out to me:

In (3), I wonder if he's feeling rejected/devalued -- like a "if you reject my video, that's the same as rejecting me" feeling. Not that that's your reponsibility, more of me pondering his response, where maybe he's taking those feelings and projecting them ("See, I'm not the problem, I'm not rejected -- the real problem is... how Trying123 phrased things")

So then in (4) I'm seeing the E of JADE -- it reads like you may be trying to explain your actions to him. With "generally normal" people, we can engage with the content of a phrase like (3), and sometimes Explaining ourselves can help resolve a situation. However, I'm guessing that because (3) wasn't really about the content, and was more about his inner feelings (expression vs communication), JADE-ing to a "feelings" statement may have the opposite of the desired effect.

Hence his (5) of again pushing the "you're the problem, not me" -- he may be getting those uncomfortable feelings off of him and on to you.

So, neither of you is really getting what you want out of the interaction -- it kind of sucked for both of you.

I wonder if (3), where he may be expressing feelings behind the concrete words, could be a pivot point for you, where you can pause for a moment, be mindful of what's really going on -- which may be "there are feelings behind the specific words, that might not match the words" -- and decide on what your personal boundaries are for moving forward in that conversation.

For example, a knee-jerk reaction (I've had it too!) to the words of a pwBPD is often "they must mean these words literally, the way I would mean them". But I kind of am leaning towards, when he said "You should have said blah blah blah", that he wasn't trying to share with you a problem solving technique. He was using those words expressively, not literally. Mindfulness may help you, if you connect it with pausing, breathing, and pondering, identify if he may be coming from a "feelings behind the words" place.

Then, you can decide what you want to let into your life (boundaries). For your values and integrity, do you need to explain anything? Sometimes the answer is Yes, sometimes it's No. Could you be OK with yourself, regardless of what anyone else says/does/thinks, if after (3), you don't respond? That could be a way of having boundaries -- and you don't need his agreement or cooperation to not respond!

...

So, to go back to your question and zondolit's response, one way of looking at the interplay could be that mindfulness creates a bit of space and time to decide what your boundaries will be. Maybe it looks like: he says something provocative/controlling/picky/whatnot, and you, using mindfulness, allow yourself to pause, accept that he's the kind of person to say that, and you can't change what he says. Then, you decide on your boundaries -- do you respond, how do you respond, who do you want to be.

Hope that's helpful food for thought;

kells76

You’re pretty spot on Kells. He actually formed response 3 as a question though. More like:

Why didn’t you say to just not send it to you instead of that you don’t want to watch it? That would have been more straightforward.

I didn’t answer his question, I just told him how it felt condescending having my word choices questioned.  These conversations generally take place in person and I honestly never saw how my response was the E in JADE until now. I always just thought that was me telling him how I felt. I’m going to pay more attention to what I’m saying in response to what he says, which is actually practicing mindfulness so win/win!