Watch and talk
It’s worth looking at how you all feel staying at home together and how it affects your existing boundaries – both physical and mental. A good introduction to training assertiveness can be exercising setting your own boundaries at home, with your loved ones. And ensuring that they are respected. Assertiveness is nothing but expressing one’s own emotions and opinions while maintaining respect for oneself and for other people. Maybe now is the right time to talk about it directly. How? You can start with a simpler exercise and then continue the topic in a quiet moment convenient for you.
Visualisation of boundaries
We can only protect our boundaries if we are aware of them, i.e. we know what causes our (mental and physical) discomfort. And, as a result, we can say that someone is violating our boundaries. Imagine that each of you are in the middle of a balloon, which by expanding or contracting determines your physical boundaries. Now take turns describing the situations in which your balloons expand and contract. How do you react when someone presses your balloon, i.e. crosses your boundaries? Which reactions are clear information for all of you? And which need to be changed? If you need more time to reflect, first write your answers down and then discuss them.
My boundaries
Intimate zone, personal zone and social distance – to what extent do we allow the physical presence of another person and when does it become uncomfortable for us? In general, this distance is definitely smaller for our loved ones than for strangers. However, being forced to be with your loved ones in often very limited space, could be becoming difficult for us? Will the constant violation of personal space we need for ourselves begin to generate tension and conflicts?