3 types of boundaries every woman should know.
Updated: Sep 17
Swiss cheese, wall, and anchor.
By Jana Denker
Saying no is the beginning. But what happens afterwards?
Let's imagine this situation:
You have had an exhausting week when your partner tells you that friends would like to stay for the weekend. You say: “I really don’t want anyone staying this weekend.” He says nothing, but you see this look on his face. You feel a knot in your stomach and you hear yourself saying: “Ok. They can come if it’s important to you.” Five minutes ago, your the no felt perfectly clear. Nothing about what you actually want has changed. And yet your no has become a yes. Again. And you feel resentment building up.
Boundaries become interesting when that no meets another person’s disappointment or resistance. There are three types of boundaries: Soft, rigid and embodied. We have just seen the soft boundary above. It has holes, a bit like swiss cheese. Somehow other peoples wishes, needs and expecations find the holes. By saying yes, we preserve the connection, but lose our own position in the process. I see this often in women who don't want to be unkind or are afraid to be seen as selfish.
The rigid boundary: the wall
Sometimes the same uncomfortable moment takes us in the opposite direction.
Your partner asks whether you could spend Sunday with his family. You have already decided that you need the day to yourself. “No, I’m not coming.” He asks whether something happened the last time you saw them. Your jaw tightens. Your words come out pretty sharp. “I said no. I don't have to explain myself.”
You put up a wall. It works, your no holds and you have the Sunday to yourself. But very little can pass through the wall in either direction. Something between you has closed with it.
This doesn't mean you don't care. But maybe you have a history with having your no disrespected or irgnored. Not necessarily in this relationship, but somewhere along the way you learned to armour up.
An old blueprint is running in the background
The soft and rigid boundary look like opposites. But underneath, something surprisingly similar is happening. Neither response is necessarily something we consciously decide to do. It can happen in a flash of a second. And we wonder afterwards "Why did I just say that?"
Often, we learned these ways of responding long before the conversation we are having now, and they continue to run like an old blueprint in the background.
Then we encounter a disappointed look, a question or a certain tone of voice, and before we have had much time to think, we are following the old blueprint again.
Our body responds first, often without us noticing, then our voice changes, and we choose different words. A clear no turns into a hesitant maybe, followed by explanations we hadn’t intended to give. Or we become firmer than we meant to, and our language starts to sound harder and more defensive. By the time we notice what has happened, the conversation may already be going in a direction we know very well. The place where this blueprint is stored and can be changed is your nervous system.
The embodied boundary: the anchor
So what happens when we learn to respond from somewhere else?
Forget boundaries for a moment.
Remember a moment when you felt fully yourself. Alive and present, not inhibited.
You might have been in nature, creating something or doing work you love. Or you were just with your pet, playing with your children. It could have been a spiritual moment. Or a very ordinary day.
Take yourself back there for a moment.
What did you notice in your body?
What were you thinking?
How did you see yourself and the world around you?
Even if it lasted only a moment, you know this place. Your nervous system knows it too.
I call it your anchor place.
Now imagine setting a boundary from there.
The conversation can still affect you. Someone can be disappointed, disagree with you or ask a question that touches an old nerve. But you don’t have to make their reaction disappear, and you don’t have to put up a wall against it either. You can listen and take in what they are saying without losing your own position. You might even change your mind if something genuinely changes for you. You can be firm and open at the same time
I like to call it embodies because what you know to be true for you, what your body feels and the words you choose are moving in the same direction.
Now return to that first conversation.
“I really don’t want anyone staying this weekend. I’m exhausted and I need some quiet.” Strong back, open heart and true voice.
Your partner is disappointed. “I was really looking forward to seeing them.”
“I know. And I understand why you’re disappointed. I still don’t want to host this weekend.” His disappointment is still there. Your no is too. But you can keep listening. Perhaps another weekend works, or his friends stay somewhere else. Holding your boundary hasn’t required you to shut him out.
More than saying no
Words matter. A well-chosen no can be precise, kind and unmistakably clear.
But for a boundary to be strong, our words and the energy behind them need to match. What we say and what our body says need to tell the same story.
We won’t always speak from our anchor place. A look, a question or a change in tone can pull us back into an old blueprint before we realise what is happening.
The practice is not to remain perfectly grounded all the time. It is to learn how to return. Step by step. And we can work with the blueprint itself: understand what created it, what keeps it in place and develop a different response where the old one used to happen automatically.
Then what our body says and what our words say can begin to tell the same story.
You may also like reading about Healthy Aggression: What many women miss when setting boundaries
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