Self-care, boundaries and how to be assertive
Self-care is spending time with people who genuinely care about us, working for people who value our efforts, setting personal boundaries, being assertive and setting goals for ourselves that don’t need the approval of others.
Being assertive does not mean being aggressive. People who are aggressive claiming to be ‘sticking up for themselves’, are people that are affected by what they have taken from their past experiences or what they’ve been taught.
Someone is rude to them, insulting or abusive and they decide to give them a piece of their mind. They may even want to hit them. Their thinking might be, ‘I’ll make sure I stick up for myself’ and ‘no one gets away with doing that to me’. What many don’t understand is that the other person’s insults or abuse are that person’s misplaced issues and their lack of assertiveness, which really has little to do with the person they have lashed out at. No one is responsible for correcting it; all we need to do is deflect it from us.
Reacting to what someone else says or does is not the same as relating to it. Our reactions come from false beliefs we already have and relating to it is taking care of ourselves in a real and effective way.
This is why we all respond differently to what others say or do. If hypothetically someone walked up to several young men and insulted each one the same way by calling them an idiot, the response from each person would be different. One might laugh and walk off, one might be engaged in a conversation with someone else and not even notice, and one might jump to his feet and yell with a closed fist. Each person’s response will be influenced by what they believe. The young man that jumped to his feet ready to fight may falsely believe that he is an idiot, something that a past experience has taught him to believe. The person that laughed and walked off may believe the person insulting him is an idiot and the person engaged in a conversation might believe the insult is not worthy of his valuable time and has something better to listen to.
Being assertive is not about trying to control another person’s behaviour, changing their agenda or getting even. In fact, it has little to do with the other person. It’s about having boundaries that take care of our own health, welfare and safety and kindly asserting them. Then it doesn’t matter where we are or who we are with, the boundaries will remain the same. Instead of deciding not to engage with a particular person because they were insulting, our own boundary might be ‘I won’t engage with anyone while they are insulting’ and we don’t need to explain our reasons or justify any of our choices.
These boundaries are the same as ‘I will brush my teeth each day to take care of my dental hygiene’ or ‘I will put my seatbelt on when I get in a car (not just my car, but any car) so I am safer if there is an accident’ etc. ‘I will only spend time with people who care about me, I will work for people who value my efforts, I will not allow others to control how I feel or what I think or who I spend time with’ etc.
A boundary might be ‘I will not tolerate abuse’ but that doesn’t mean verbally or physically attacking an abusive person, it’s removing ourselves from an abusive situation.
Being assertive is also being able to say no. If someone asks us to do something we don’t want to do, there’s no need for us to berate them, make up excuses, apologise, feel guilty or feel the need to explain why we can’t. All that is required is a kind, simple yes or no answer.
If someone genuinely wants to know why so they can understand us more, then we may choose to explain our reasons, but if it’s someone wanting to change our answer, then any explanation is just giving them fuel for an ensuing battle.
To take care of ourselves, we need to have healthy boundaries and know how to kindly assert them. Being aggressive is an unhealthy exercise and really doesn’t change anything.