My Boundries - "Bill of Emotional Rights"

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

We each have the right:

1. to be addressed with courtesy and respect.

2. to have and own our own feelings, values, opinions, and perspectives.

3. to have ownership of the responsibilities & consequences of our own feelings of actions.

4. to NOT take on others’ feelings, values, opinions... . NOR the responsibilities consequences, or punishments from their decisions.

5. to be an individual.

6. to validate our own feelings, values, and opinions.

7. to NOT be judged, criticized, or accused.

8. to NOT be interrupted or invalidated.

9. to privacy.

10. to offer no reasons, excuses, or justifications for our feelings, values, or behaviors.

11. to make mistakes, and be held accountable for the consequences of our own actions.

12. to decide for ourself if we want to or are able to help others with their problems.

13. to be proud of ourself, and respect ourself without arrogance.

14. to change our mind, or change our commitments, without justification.

15. to realize that we cannot demand or expect any other person to change, we can only change how we react to that person or behavior.

16. to say “no” or “stop” when any of our rights are not being respected.

17. to our own curiosity, innovation, intuition, and creativity.

18. to terminate conversations with people who make us feel humiliated or put down.

19. to know the difference between saying “I’m sad” and saying “I’m feeling sad”.  In the first phrase, the feeling is allowed to define the being – “I’m not sad, I am human”.  In the second phrase, we can more clearly see that the being has defined ownership of a feeling.

I searched for a list of examples of healthy emotional boundaries, google got me tips on how to set them, but no examples.  They are supposed to reflect your core values, not reliant on others to change, letting go of the outcome, etc.  I have made great strides in the last month, and for the first time in years feel alive again.  One of the biggest helps to that was writing this "Bill of Emotional Rights", it feels like "WOW!" 

I think the last one is SOO important to practice, particularly when trying to defuse a situation with validation.  It is amazing how that slight wording difference can take someone from being consumed by an image to actually recognizing themselves as human having ownership of their own emotion.  Much easier to tackle the feeling when it is not enmeshed with who that person really is.

The next phase for me is deciding on appropriate response phrases to be clearly and consistently executable.  I am anticipating calm responses such as "I can tell you feel angry right now, but we each have a right to be treated with courtesy and respect.  Can you rephrase that last bit please?"  or  "The tone you are using is making me feel uncomfortable, I might need 15 minutes or so of privacy."

I want to have a phrase for each right, or template kinda, to follow for each right's potential violation, as well as the varying degrees of violation (1st offense of the day, 2nd, 3rd, 4 and out).  Beside asking for rephrase, the only other consequence I can think of is distance (15 min away, 1 hour away, 2 hours, overnight, etc... . ).  If anyone has suggestions, please advise.

[meplus1]

We each have the right:

1. to be addressed with courtesy and respect.

2. to have and own our own feelings, values, opinions, and perspectives.

3. to have ownership of the responsibilities & consequences of our own feelings of actions.

4. to NOT take on others’ feelings, values, opinions... . NOR the responsibilities consequences, or punishments from their decisions.

5. to be an individual.

6. to validate our own feelings, values, and opinions.

7. to NOT be judged, criticized, or accused.

8. to NOT be interrupted or invalidated.

9. to privacy.

10. to offer no reasons, excuses, or justifications for our feelings, values, or behaviors.

11. to make mistakes, and be held accountable for the consequences of our own actions.

12. to decide for ourself if we want to or are able to help others with their problems.

13. to be proud of ourself, and respect ourself without arrogance.

14. to change our mind, or change our commitments, without justification.

15. to realize that we cannot demand or expect any other person to change, we can only change how we react to that person or behavior.

16. to say “no” or “stop” when any of our rights are not being respected.

17. to our own curiosity, innovation, intuition, and creativity.

18. to terminate conversations with people who make us feel humiliated or put down.

19. to know the difference between saying “I’m sad” and saying “I’m feeling sad”.  In the first phrase, the feeling is allowed to define the being – “I’m not sad, I am human”.  In the second phrase, we can more clearly see that the being has defined ownership of a feeling.

I searched for a list of examples of healthy emotional boundaries, google got me tips on how to set them, but no examples.  They are supposed to reflect your core values, not reliant on others to change, letting go of the outcome, etc.  I have made great strides in the last month, and for the first time in years feel alive again.  One of the biggest helps to that was writing this "Bill of Emotional Rights", it feels like "WOW!" 

I think the last one is SOO important to practice, particularly when trying to defuse a situation with validation.  It is amazing how that slight wording difference can take someone from being consumed by an image to actually recognizing themselves as human having ownership of their own emotion.  Much easier to tackle the feeling when it is not enmeshed with who that person really is.

The next phase for me is deciding on appropriate response phrases to be clearly and consistently executable.  I am anticipating calm responses such as "I can tell you feel angry right now, but we each have a right to be treated with courtesy and respect.  Can you rephrase that last bit please?"  or  "The tone you are using is making me feel uncomfortable, I might need 15 minutes or so of privacy."

I want to have a phrase for each right, or template kinda, to follow for each right's potential violation, as well as the varying degrees of violation (1st offense of the day, 2nd, 3rd, 4 and out).  Beside asking for rephrase, the only other consequence I can think of is distance (15 min away, 1 hour away, 2 hours, overnight, etc... . ).  If anyone has suggestions, please advise.

[briefcase]

Its a great list!   

As far as implementing this goes, I suggest you simply live by this and don't expect your partner to comply.  Boundaries are about us and what we will and won't live with.  They aren't rules for the relationship.  Your partner will have different boundaries around some of these things, and that's ok too.