Book Favorites: “Boundaries” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend
About the Book:
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life
By Henry Cloud and John Townsend
Having clear boundaries is essential to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. A boundary is a personal property line that marks those things for which we are responsible. In other words, boundaries define who we are and who we are not. Boundaries impact all areas of our lives: Physical boundaries help us determine who may touch us and under what circumstances. Mental boundaries give us the freedom to have our own thoughts and opinions. Emotional boundaries help us to deal with our own emotions and disengage from the harmful, manipulative emotions of others. Spiritual boundaries help us to distinguish God’s will from our own and give us renewed awe for our Creator. Often, Christians focus so much on being loving and unselfish that they forget their own limits and limitations.
Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend offer biblically-based answers to these and other tough questions in Boundaries, showing us how to set healthy boundaries with our parents, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, and even ourselves.
My Review:
I absolutely love this book! Boundaries is an answered prayer and a sanity refresher. It has given me the ultimate motivation to level up and not feel guilty about adding balance to my life.
Because I aim to live a selfless life, I often felt that by saying “no” and creating boundaries I would end up hurting others and destroying many relationships. Attempting to establish boundaries led me to feel guilty and selfish. However, this book revealed a huge myth that I’d been living with. I learned the difference between selfishness and stewardship.
In Boundaries, Henry Cloud does an exceptional job enlightening readers of the power and freedom that is gained by simply placing boundaries in specific areas of life. I loved that he relies heavily on biblical scriptures to support the book’s text. It provided clear confirmation that having boundaries does not make me selfish or non-Christian. It simply empowers me to love and live freely, responsibly and without guilt and exhaustion!
In reading this, I learned that people who cannot accept or respect some of my “no’s” are the people who I clearly don’t need in my life. Those people usually disappear or frequently become emotional when their manipulation power is no longer valid.
Although that’s a hard reality, I’ve learned to be ok with that.
Applying This Book to My Life
In applying the tools I’ve learned in the book, I simply created a list of things I value. I’ve placed that list in order of importance and wrote rules that I say no to without hesitation and things I strongly consider. I’ve also created a list of things that I typically don’t like to engage in or cause me stress. I’m an introverted extrovert (many disagree, lol), so I need my time away from outside chaos. (I have enough chaos with keeping all the little people alive and well!)
I also established some pre-typed text messages, speeches and lines that I use for recurring requests, and more, to place strong boundaries around certain things. I was once in a place where I was not the healthiest version of myself, and most of it stemmed from having minimum boundaries. Now, because of this book, I’m constantly taking control over my own life — not guiltying myself into saying “yes” to things or people who inconvenience or distract me from doing what God has called me to do first or things that are priority for The Davis’ family.
I’ve skimmed through this book over and over for the years. It’s so important to keep it fresh on my mind. After moving from city to city (one out of the 10 times), I misplaced it in the shuffle. During a time when I was significantly struggling with having “boundaries”, one of my favorite girls (@BrittBreezie ?) got me a new one! I’m actually currently refreshing up on this one at the moment. This time around, I read it with a different approach. I’m all about my boundaries now!
You should be too! Check it out on Amazon here.
