Any confusion of responsibility and ownership in our lives is a problem of boundaries. We need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn’t.

The inability to set appropriate boundaries at appropriate times with the appropriate people can be very destructive.

We start living outside our boundary, once we start to people please.

How does people pleasing means I am living outside my boundary?

Well I’m glad you asked. 🙂

When you people please, you start to take on the responsibility of others, which are things that aren’t your responsibility. That means you are going over your boundary line (things that are your responsibility) to someone else boundary line (things that are their responsibility) and making them your own.

Of course, it good to cater to others and help people out. However, once you start to regret, hate and feel negative to someone; that’s usually a tell-tell sign that someone is crossing your boundary line. You are catering to their needs, but deep down you don’t want to. You wish they would take care of their own responsibilities.

In addition, I am now stopping them from becoming mature. How so?

If I constantly come in and help you from hitting rock bottom due to your lack of financial literacy to know that you can’t eat out everyday because you have bills. I am hindering your growth. You need to come to that understanding otherwise, this will bring destruction in multiple areas of your life. (Especially in relationships)

People will start to resent you, and also you obtain a bad understanding of what a friend is. You think that someone who loves me will always bail me out of my problems and they won’t correct me.

Furthermore, you will make your problems everybody else problems. You are merging boundary lines, which is the first sign of lack of respect for boundaries.

With all that being said, respect other people boundaries and understand what isn’t your responsibility and what is. This will help establish healthy relationships in all areas of life.