What Being a Therapist Teaches You About Boundaries.

Sections:

1. You Don’t Have to Pick Up What’s Being Handed to You

2. Know your limitations and respect them

3. Putting Boundaries in Place with Existing Relationships Is Challenging but Necessary

4. Having Boundaries Gives You Space to Work on Your Own Issues

5. You May Have Been Avoiding Boundaries to Avoid Facing Yourself

6. Conclusion

1. You Don’t Have to Pick Up What’s Being Handed to You

One of the most enduring lessons of therapeutic work is that people often hand you things: emotions, expectations, projections, even a sense of urgency that isn’t yours to hold. Part of the work is learning when to gently place those things back down or help the client learn to hold the weight themselves.

Clients bring emotional intensity and, at times, misplaced expectations into the therapeutic dynamic. On more than one occasion, this author has had his question “What seems to be the problem?” answered with, “You’re supposed to be the one telling me.” Such moments are often laced with hope, frustration, and a silent plea: Please take this off my hands. But the reality is that therapy, like all relationships, is a collaborative effort.

Most people aren't trying to overwhelm you, they might simply feel they are buckling under the weight themselves and what might feel like an imposition is really a sign that we havent communicated clearly where our capacity ends. Sadly, when we struggle to make our limitations clear we risk becoming silently resentful, feeling burdened by the load of dynamics we didnt feel able to help shape.

Boundaries are how we restore clarity. They don’t have to be hard or final. Sometimes, they sound as simple as: “Let’s just focus on this part for now.” Far from causing connection to come to a grinding halt, this kind of focus actually opens up the space to do meaningful work. It allows both parties to stay anchored rather than swept up in the current of too much, too soon, too general, too superficial.

Therapeutic presence involves attunement, not absorption. We can sit beside someone in their pain without climbing into it with them. In practice, this means recognising when we are being handed something that doesn’t belong to us—and choosing, compassionately, not to carry it. It also means being willing to step back and say, “I can help with this part, but not all of it at once.”

In a culture that often equates care with self-sacrifice, this can feel counterintuitive. But clarity is kindness. And when we model that in our relationships—whether professional or personal—we permit others to do the same.

2. Know your limitations and respect them

One of the most deceptively simple boundary lessons is also one of the hardest to practise: know your limits, and honour them. For many, this runs against the grain of how care has been taught or modelled. We are often conditioned to associate love with availability, presence with self-sacrifice and much-needed space with selfishness. And so, we hesitate to enforce boundaries—not because we lack insight, but because we fear depriving someone of care.

This is, in many ways, a beautiful instinct. Most of us are empathic, especially with people we love. We want to be there and we want to show up. But without boundaries, this desire can quietly turn on us. We begin to give from a place of depletion, not abundance. In therapists, this can lead to burnout. In everyday life, it can look like exhaustion, irritability, or a creeping sense of invisibility in one’s own relationships.

The paradox is this: by trying to do too much and meet others’ needs without pause, we often end up offering less of ourselves overall. In seeking to be good, we spread ourselves thin, and the care becomes watered down. And crucially, other relationships—ones that may feel less demanding—begin to suffer. A partner, a child, or a quieter friend might miss out on presence, because someone else’s needs were louder or more insistent, and we didn’t advocate for our limits.

In therapeutic work, this can show up in subtle ways. For example, this author has known therapists who spend disproportionate time outside of sessions analysing a single client, pouring hours of thought and energy into someone who may not even be engaging with the process in a reciprocal way. In personal life, it might look like consistently cancelling plans with a partner in order to be there for a friend who repeatedly disregards time boundaries. These aren’t dramatic acts, but they are cumulative. Over time, they erode our reserves and the closeness of our connections.

Knowing your limits is not the same as being rigid. It’s about discernment—recognising when the drive to care has tipped into self-erasure. Boundaries, in this sense, aren’t about withholding; they’re about sustaining. When we honour our own capacity, we ensure that the care we offer is thoughtful, intentional, and real, not an exhausted shadow of what we wish we had the energy to give.

3. Putting Boundaries in Place with Existing Relationships Is Challenging but Necessary

If boundary-setting is difficult in general, it becomes especially fraught when applied to long-standing relationships. It’s one thing to articulate your limits with new acquaintances or colleagues. It’s quite another to renegotiate those limits with people who have come to know you (and may unconsciously require you to be) in a particular role, often one of emotional availability, unquestioned loyalty, or self-sacrifice.

Even the idea of enforcing a boundary can stir up powerful emotions: dread, guilt, panic. These reactions are not signs of failure; they are signs that something important is being disrupted. Underneath them, there is often a fear of being seen as selfish, of damaging the relationship, or of changing the rules too late in the game. For those accustomed to keeping the peace, even a mild boundary can feel like an act of aggression.

One helpful approach is to use clear, assertive “I” language. This allows for honesty without blame. For example, instead of saying, “You never listen to me,” a person might say, “I feel dismissed when I’m interrupted and don’t get to finish sharing my thoughts.” The first statement accuses. The second opens a door. Assertive communication doesn’t dilute the message; it delivers it in a way the other person can actually hear.

Still, even the most tactfully delivered boundaries will sometimes be met with resistance or tested. People who have known us for years may say, “You’ve changed,” or, “You’re being cold.” Others might interpret the shift as frustration: “You seem annoyed at me,” or “You don’t care anymore.” These responses can feel piercing because they touch on core fears: that we’re abandoning someone we care about or becoming unrecognisable to them, that we are failing to live up to an assignment we sleepwalked into. The temptation, in those moments, is to soften the boundary, walk it back, or apologise for having one in the first place.

This is where consistency becomes essential, as a single act of boundary-setting may be seen as a one-off or even a mood. But setting the same boundary, in the same tone, over time—calm, clear, compassionate—starts to shift the relational dynamic. Over time, others begin to recognise that the boundary is not a withdrawal of care but an invitation to relate differently, a balancing of the scales.

Boundaries are not about severing ties or asserting dominance. When done with empathy, they signal the desire to preserve something important in a sustainable way. They ask not for distance, but for respect—and for a shared understanding of what it means to care without losing ourselves in the process. Boundaries well delivered can communicate: ‘I want to support you as best as I can, and this is how I can do it.’

4. Having Boundaries Gives You Space to Work on Your Own Issues

There’s a quiet gift that boundaries offer, often overlooked in conversations that frame them as defensive tools: boundaries don’t just keep things out, they let things in. Specifically, they create space for your own voice to be heard even if just by yourself.

When we are constantly tuned into the needs of others, we lose access to something subtler but equally important—our own inner signal. Being able to switch off, or simply say “not right now,” allows a different kind of attention to surface. We begin to notice what’s been waiting patiently in the background: unprocessed grief, longings we’ve neglected, or creative urges that have gone silent under the weight of other people’s urgency.

This is not always a comfortable process. For many, the moment they stop over-functioning for others is the moment the backlog begins to emerge. It can feel as though things get worse before they get better. Restlessness, discomfort, and even guilt may show up. But this discomfort is often a sign that something real is coming into view. Without the noise of constant external demands, we begin to hear what’s calling us from within.

In time, this inward turn can lead to greater capacity, not in a productivity sense, but in the way we meet life. When we attend to our own material, such as our wounds, fears, and patterns, we are less likely to react impulsively, burn out, or misplace our emotional energy. Boundaries, then, are not barriers to connection. They are what allow connection to become more authentic and less entangled.

5. You May Have Been Avoiding Boundaries to Avoid Facing Yourself

Sometimes, our reluctance to set boundaries isn’t just about protecting others from disappointment. It is about protecting ourselves from what might rise to the surface when things get quiet. A hidden reason for chronically poor boundaries can be the fear of what catches up to us when we finally stop moving, giving, fixing, or pleasing.

In this sense, always being available to others becomes more than generosity. It becomes a strategy—a way of staying ahead of discomfort. It postpones the confrontation with the parts of ourselves we don’t yet know how to hold. The act of being constantly “useful” can mask a quieter fear: that without being needed, we might not be enough. That if we were to stop, what would be left?

But creating boundaries doesn’t only set limits. It opens space to look inward, not to criticise, but to notice.

This is an opportunity without a ticking clock. You don’t have to fix everything all at once. In fact, the point is not to rush in with solutions, but to gradually become more available to your own life.

The time and energy reclaimed through boundary-setting can be redirected toward practices that restore and reconnect. This might include exercise, journaling, meditation, therapy, or simply learning how to rest without guilt. These things may not offer the same external validation as being indispensable to others, but they invite a more enduring sense of integration and self-respect.

It is also worth acknowledging that many people avoid creating this space precisely because they sense what might rise to the surface. In this way, always being available to others becomes a subtle form of avoidance. It is a socially acceptable way to stay distracted from what we don’t want to feel. But making space, even just a little, allows us to begin. And that beginning doesn’t need to be dramatic. Noticing is enough. A quiet journal entry, a cancelled plan, a walk without your phone—these small acts signal to your system that your inner life matters too.

Conclusion

At its core, boundary work is not just about saying no to others. It is about saying yes to something deeper within yourself. Whether you are a therapist, a caregiver, or simply someone learning how to live more honestly, the act of setting boundaries invites you to return to your own centre. It asks you to notice what has been neglected, to pause before overcommitting, and to create space not just for survival, but for restoration.

Many people avoid boundaries because they intuitively sense what might arise in the silence. But growth begins in those quiet moments, where nothing needs to be fixed, only witnessed. You do not need to transform everything at once. A cancelled plan, a slow walk, a journal page with no conclusion, a walk without your phone. These are not small acts. They are acts of self-respect.

In learning to hold your limits with clarity and compassion, you begin to show up not just for others, but for yourself. And over time, that presence becomes your offering, not your performance.