On the subject of personal boundaries...
In my post on mirroring, I said:
Allot lots of time for Fe communications with people. Fe isn’t about barking out orders at people and getting things done quickly. Review the material above, and you’ll see a common thread there: Hear them out in full... draw them out... listen to what what they have to say...
However, that’s only half the story. The other half of the story is the work of reflecting the other person’s main points back to them to show that you’ve listened and comprehended. To quote:
“Engage in empathic listening by rephrasing the content (to show that you understood, i.e., the logical left-brain side) and reflecting the feelings (to show your empathy and grasp of the situation, i.e., the emotional right-brain side).â€
This concept of the “reflection of main points†becomes the marker that determines whether a given interaction is productive or unproductive, and thus how low or high you need to set your personal boundaries while dealing with that person or subject.
To spell it out in more detail:
Low-boundary interactions:
In equal, productive relationships, both parties should be open to hearing each other’s ideas (IOW, drawing each other out and hearing each other out in full), and both parties should be reflecting each other’s main points to demonstrate understanding and incorporation of the other person’s ideas into the joint narrative (the relationship being built between them). Thus:
Bob: I thought the movie was good, but I thought scene A was weak. I didn’t understand why the director even included it.
Sally: I agree that scene A seemed out of place, but I figured it was needed in order to provide background for scene B.
Bob: That’s true; I suppose scene B wouldn’t have made much sense without scene A. What did you think about scene C?
Bob and Sally aren’t necessarily in agreement, but they are at least hearing each other in full and reflecting each other’s main points. Every time Bob brings up a new “main point,†Sally reflects it in her response in some manner. And vice versa. So there’s no reason to put up personal boundaries.
High-boundary interactions:
Let’s say you go to a car lot to test-drive the latest model of your favorite pick-up truck. You don’t intend to buy today; you’re just in information-gathering mode for the moment. OTOH, the salesman definitely wants to make the sale today. During and after the test-drive he gives you a lot of hard-sell tactics. Every time you provide a reason why you’re not prepared to purchase a vehicle today, the salesman brushes that reason aside or ignores it entirely and continues pushing his own points on you.
At that point you decide that the interaction is unproductive. You’re prepared to listen to his points and reflect them: After all, you fully agree that it’s an excellent product; you’re just not prepared to make the purchase right now. Meantime, there’s no reason to keep trying to get him to acknowledge your needs/desires/arguments for delaying the purchase. If he hasn’t heard/reflected your concerns on your first four responses, then he’s not going to hear/reflect your concerns on your fifth or fifteenth response.
So it’s time to raise the boundaries and get out of there. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have another appointment. The vehicle is great, and I’ll definitely consider what you’re told me about financing. Give me your business card, and I’ll get back to you within a couple days at the latest.â€
Agendas
People have agendas. Bob and Sally had differing agendas (different evaluations of the movie); the salesman and the buyer at a car lot have differing agendas (on whether a car gets purchased immediately or later). By themselves, agendas aren’t a cause for concern.
The main thing is to determine whether you’re able to engage in productive negotiations, i.e., hear each other in full and mirror and incorporate each other’s main points.
As you get better at mirroring others, you’ll get better at spotting whether others are mirroring you in return. Even under fire and in tense negotiations, you can gauge the level of mirroring taking place, make a decision on whether or not the discussions are productive, and thus continue to engage the other party or raise your boundaries and disengage.
Here’s an old post of mine where I detail how mirroring operates in negotiations and conflict situations:
http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37051&p=1390314&viewfull=1#post1390314
Also, note that I provided a comparison of a high-boundary interaction and a low-boundary interaction in my previous post:
Next:
--If someone is trying to “sell†you on making a commitment and is simply trying to get a “yes†out of you (i.e., not interested in a genuine debate), then generate goodwill by hearing them out in full. But be brief in response: “Thanks for your confidence in my abilities to take on that obligation, but my plate is full right now and I don’t have time to put something like that together. (And no, I don’t want to parse my schedule with you.)†Or: “I appreciate your making X’s case, and I’ll consider it. No, I don’t want to re-hash the whole thing with you; I’ve heard what you have to say, and I’ll consider your arguments.â€
OTOH:
--If it’s a genuine debate where people argue their side and then expect to hear your side, then show that you’ve heard them: describe their side to them, even better than they could describe it themselves. Then explain the logic of your own argument contextually--in the context of a deep understanding of their paradigms and concerns. Break out your own talking points and try to relate them even tangentially to the other person’s concerns. The idea here is to reach some kind of agreement, win/win scenario, and even synergy.
Note that even in a high-boundary situation you still want to be courteous and give the other party a fair and full hearing. It fulfills a need of theirs, and it provides some consolation when you deny their request: At least you gave them a full and fair hearing, and maybe with time you’ll come around and see their point of view. If you have listened to people in full, then a good way to temporize while you escape is to say something along the line of “I’ll think about it,†“I’ll take it under consideration,†“Let me think about it and get back to you.†If you have heard the person in full, then that’s a perfectly legitimate response.
Everyone has agendas. There’s no need to fear a person with an agenda. The main point is not to respond to testing and button-pushing by offering elaborate explanations or by getting defensive and aggravated. Just evaluate whether you’re getting mirrored properly (and also whether you’ve mirrored the other person fairly), and raise the boundaries if you determine that the exchange has turned unproductive.
If someone’s agenda is particularly toxic to you for various reasons, you can even use boundaries to segregate off that agenda and put it out of bounds while continuing to interact comfortably with that person in other areas of mutual concern. Here’s an old post of mine to that effect:
A hypothetical example: Your family lives close by, and they invite you to meals. You want to be social, so you do meals with them for a while. But you’re trying to lose weight and the social eating gets in the way. Also, your family uses food as a weapon, i.e., to guilt and shame, create obligations, etc.. If you try to beg off by saying you’re on a diet, they argue with you about your diet, they tell you you’re insulting them if you don’t accept their invite, etc.
So draw a line, any old line. Tell them you’re trying to do something healthy for yourself, you’re on a diet, and you’re tired of having to fight them over it. Tell them that henceforth you’re going to refuse all meal invitations, and furthermore you’ll refuse to discuss it with them. Your diet is a personal matter, not a family project to be discussed. You'll come by to visit and socialize as usual, but you won't accept offers of snacks, meals, etc. [...]
In the above example, you can continue to love and interact with your family while cordoning off certain specific areas of your (or their) life and simply refusing to engage with them in those areas. Just pay attention to whether or not there is mutual mirroring in those areas, and then set your personal boundaries accordingly.
Talking points as boundaries
Boundaries themselves consist of any of the following: Creating physical or temporal space between yourself and another party (choosing a seat away from the seat of another person, limiting your exposure to people via scheduling, excluding them from your life entirely); Use of socioeconomic class to create differentiation and social distance; Use of social “masks†to claim a certain space or posture (“I’m a grumpy old man: I can’t be bothered to do all this back-channel social media crapâ€); Use of considerate little white lies to escape an interaction without commitment: “Let me think about it and get back to youâ€; And a host of other tactics and strategies.
You can erect boundaries because you simply don’t have time or the inclination to honor the other person’s request. People don’t get what they want just because they need something; they also have to create a want or need in you to participate in the exchange.
You can also erect a boundary when you’ve determined that the other party is not mirroring you or negotiating with you properly even after you’ve demonstrated that you’re willing to mirror them. Once you determine that, you’re no longer bound to mirror them in depth. Just give them a fair hearing and institute a boundary (at least until such time that they are willing or able to give you a full and fair hearing in response).
If someone isn’t mirroring you, then they aren’t hearing you. So they have forfeited the right to expect long explanations or justifications from you. They are not listening to you; they are just encouraging you to talk in order to push your buttons and keep you roped into the exchange. So you raise your boundaries and retreat to a “no hugging, no learning†mode: That is, you don’t try to school people on your point of view or try to set them straight.
Applying this idea to one’s family and their toxic ideas about food: “No hugging, no learning†means that you don’t point out to them all the things they do wrong with food; you don’t point out to them all the eating disorders they’ve caused across the years in the family. They aren’t going to want to hear it. You have your “talking pointâ€: No more food invites, and no more discussion about it. That’s it. No need for anything else. They’re free to react as they please; meantime, you’ve let them know what your response will be.
Agendas (2)
Talking points are a personal boundary, an antidote to the agendas of others. Probably the biggest idea to remember about talking points is that they may require some preparation. If you walk into a room and a friend or family member hits you with a big imposition or request for a commitment out of the blue, you may feel like a deer caught the headlights. Furthermore, if you know from experience that the friend or family member is poor at mirroring/negotiating/hearing your own concerns, then you may not wish to work out your concerns with that person directly, on the spot. So you temporize and buy a little time while you retreat and work out where to set that boundaries with that person.
An even better approach:
If you think about it, you can predict the agendas of the people around you 90% of the time. This is especially true of key relationships (family, friends, co-workers), people in official “roles†(salesmen, teachers, bosses, cops, etc.), people playing out familiar roles (a guy chatting up a girl in a bar), etc.
The trouble is that we get lazy and forget to predict people’s agendas. Perceivers in particular may have a problem with this. With their non-judging function turned outward toward the real world, they may habitually enter into interactions with no particular agenda of their own in mind and without bothering to predict what the agenda of the other person might be. Perceiving functions like to riff off of whatever is happening around them, so in a way the lack of preparation is part of the fun.
But Perceivers may repeatedly find themselves “like a deer caught the headlights†due to lack of preparation (i.e., being caught with boundaries unprepared), and they may increasingly feel bruised and battered by social interactions (especially introverted perceivers). Such people can learn to benefit from this exercise of predicting agendas and preparing talking points ahead of time. A useful familiar exercise along these lines: Role-play key events ahead of time with a partner; simulate immersion in an agenda-ridden event and then play out various talking points to cover various eventualities.
Again, agendas aren’t to be feared; everyone has them, even you. They just require a bit of preparation and foresight; and then arm yourself with talking points (or plans to exploit physical space) as your antidote, IOW as a proactive use of personal boundaries.
Here is an old post of mine on the subject of agendas if you want to read more on how to use them to your advantage socially:
http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46972&p=1859560&viewfull=1#post1859560
(At that link, start reading from the third paragraph, at the passage “These days I tend to figure that everyone comes to the table with an agenda, including me...â€)
At the same time, don’t limit your interactions with people solely to reacting to their agendas. Hear them in full, give them every opportunity to express themselves, and you may find them more three-dimensional or full of good counsel or interesting experience than you initially thought.
Don’t get too aggressive with your boundaries. If your agenda is too contradictory to the agendas of other people, you end up in a position where you and the other person can’t connect at all. Instead, regard your new-found agenda as a security blanket and try to limit its use to those times when you’re really feeling crowded. Otherwise, try to remain open to their agenda; maybe there’s something new to be learned from them and their approach to the world.
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To sum up: Mirroring and use of personal boundaries isn’t supposed to be a definition of Fe; instead, as I said in my earlier post on mirroring, it’s an Fe-based system that has been externalized and formalized for use by anyone: It helps people to be outward-directed and interested in the lives of others but simultaneously practicing boundaries to protect autonomy and separate the productive relationships from the unproductive ones. (Refer back to the Pareto principle in the “Time management†link in the post on Te skills; it can be applied to relationships and personal interactions as well.)
That should be it for the long posts. I’ll follow up with a few notes on other Fe-based systems (networking, courtesies, small talk, etc.), but it should mostly be links to old posts.
