What is Really at Stake When We Lack Boundaries

Ready for the secret to a long, healthy and joyous teaching career?  

My 13 year teaching career felt like it came to an abrupt end after I endured a crippling burnout which left me angry, avoidant and anxious. After time, space, nurturing and healing from the inside out I was brave enough to look back to see if there were any early warning signs. Was it really just one school and one role that left me on my knees or was there something deeper I had overlooked? 

For a significant portion of my teaching life I was lucky enough to work in one of those schools you only dream of. Where the students want to learn, the parents strive to support and the administration holds deep trust and respect for the teachers. Inside this protective buffer I could explore and make mistakes and grow knowing I was safe - safe from parental critique, my job was secure and I was safe to explore new and innovative techniques. While I always knew it was a special place and I certainly didn’t take it for granted, when I left this teaching utopia, the reality of many many schools and systems was a shock to my system. 

Outside of this bubble, I found myself face to face with the truth of teaching situations for many. I was met with critical parents who had no problem challenging me on twisted versions of children’s stories. I encountered students who made fake social media accounts for certain teachers for fun. I experienced administrators who gossiped and played favourites. I witnessed countless teachers who were defeated and had given up.  

It caused a lot of suffering for me. I felt ashamed for not being enough. I felt angry for how I was treated. I blamed everyone. A spiral of frustration led to overwhelm and despair. Without the buffer of supportive leadership, I lacked a protective layer. There wasn't a boundary that separated me from my professional life. My worth rested heavily in my performance at work and being liked. I didn’t have boundaries. I didn’t even know what they were. 

Lack of boundaries is one of the first signs and symptoms of teacher burnout. AND one of the biggest challenges for teachers is establishing and maintaining boundaries. When teachers don’t have the protective layer of a boundary they begin to feel exhausted and overwhelmed and can eventually burnt out. 

Boundaries help define your sense of self by separating your needs, desires, thoughts, and feelings from those of others’. They are the permission lines that honour your connection to yourself above your connection to anyone else. You can’t see or touch them but they are always there. 

You have bad boundaries if:

• You don’t know how to call it quits after a day of work
• You check your work emails before you go to sleep at night
• You struggle to fall asleep because you are planning lessons in your mind
• You feel guilty if you say no
• You feel selfish if you want to do what's best for you even if it impacts others
• You will do anything not to disappoint another 
• You think about work a lot
• You worry what other teachers/parents/admin think

If you said yes to any of those, it’s okay! Me too. Or I did anyway. 

In our relationships, boundaries dictate the kind of behaviour we invite, encourage and reject. This includes our relationship to our work. In the professional space there are behaviours we invite, encourage, and reject from others and from ourselves. Being able to navigate the space between who I am and what I do requires self-awareness and bravery.  

Most decisions can be traced back to one of two factors. Love or fear. Notice if you are having difficulty setting boundaries with work because of fear - fear of punishment, fear of security, fear of judgement, fear of not being liked. While fear is a motivator, it is a huge stressor as well. If you truly desire the feeling of empowerment, joy and energy in your work, the hack is aligning with love, compassion and respect. Healthy boundaries are formed in this context. Self-love, and love, compassion and respect for the other. 

Dr. Alexandra Solomon describes different types of relational boundaries in her book Loving Bravely, which we might apply to understanding our relationship to our professional self. 

Healthy Boundary: We connect with others and our work while holding on to our self and our identity. We attend to our personal needs and wants and respect the others.

Porous Boundary: We absorb or take on what is not ours. A porous boundary means we feel overly responsible to fix, heal, please or compensate. It is rooted in fear rather than love, compassion and respect and leads to feeling drained. 

Rigid Boundary: We protect ourselves rather than connecting. This might look like cutting off feedback from others or struggle to express what is really going on inside. There is a vigilance here - expecting the worst case scenario - and expecting to be criticized, or judged. We block everything with defensiveness. 

If boundaries are an issue for you, you likely see parts of you in each of these... Checking work emails at 9:30pm. Stewing over a student issue while lying awake at night. Taking on volleyball coach, PLCs, lunch and learn, the school musical and the middle school dance.  

So how do we become both separate and connected to our role as educators? How do I separate Andrea from Ms. Tessier? It’s not as black and white as we’d like and there are many, many grey areas. I am filled with joy when students succeed. I have more energy being able to greet the kids as they walk in the door. I am in full flow when doing service projects with my students. And my connection with them is deeper when I share parts of me. 

While many of us learn boundaries over time through the painful experience of not having them, teachers can avoid many of the uncomfortable feelings of burn out when they begin to put boundaries in place before experiencing exhaustion, guilt, frustration and grief. 

Ready to get a head start on building better boundaries to prevent burnout? 

These are the five steps I use to help me put better boundaries in place. 

1. Awareness. Begin noticing without judgement - What drives my decision making? How do I feel when I say yes or no to different commitments? What insights can I gain from guilt? When do I stand up for myself? When do I back down? What does it feel like to put my needs first? Why am I saying yes to this? 

2. One aspect of a faulty belief system teachers have when they lack boundaries is believing they ARE their work. As soon as we identify with the words “I am” we become that and see ourselves in the identity we establish. I am stressed. I am emotional. I am a teacher. When this enmeshment is at play, we are much more likely to internalize when things don’t go as planned. 

3. When establishing new relational boundaries Dr. Alexandra Solomon suggests the Name, Connect, Choose framework which I adapted to establish professional boundaries as well. 

• Name when a boundary has been crossed by you or someone else. Ex. I graded papers until 9 pm last night when I had decided to stop at 6pm.  
• Connect with the feelings experienced when boundaries are crossed Ex. I am exhausted from staying up too late, I feel disappointed that I didn’t get to spend the time with my partner, I feel relieved to have the work done. 
• Choose a new behaviour. Ex. Commit to utilizing 3 days of prep time or stay after school for 1 hour for 3 days. 

4. Get really really clear on your values (personal and pedagogical).  Your values allow you to align with what really matters to you - how you want to spend your time, energy, money. Your values help you get clear on what brings you joy, empowerment and energy so you can do more of those activities. 

5. Say No. You feel the difference in your body when you are saying yes from a place of love, vs a sense of obligation. No is a full sentence in itself and does not require a long list of reasons. Get more comfortable protecting your greatest assets - your time, your joy, your SELF and say no more often. 

So what’s really at stake when we don’t have boundaries? For me it was everything - my worth, my happiness, relationships and my career.  The only thing left to do was to walk away and rebuild the foundation from the ground up. And I’m glad I did. I hope my story will help at least one other teacher beat burn out by establishing boundaries before it’s too late.  

Want to jam more on boundaries? Ready to get clear on how to build these into your personal and professional life? Book a free clarity call with me. I’ve got you.