Guilt is a difficult emotion, for it is really not a true feeling, such as sadness, anger, or fear. It is a state of internal condemnation. It is the punitive nature of our fallen conscience saying, “You are bad for doing that!”

Guilty feelings can plague some people when they are setting healthy boundaries. In short, these feelings will dissipate over time as you learn to successfully practice boundary setting. Let’s take a closer look at why guilty feelings arise and how they can be overcome.

What Causes the Guilty Feelings When I’m Setting Boundaries?

When people learn over time that their “no” is bad, they become compliant with other people, giving in to others’ needs, wants, and demands at the expense of their own.

Compliant people have fuzzy and indistinct boundaries; they “melt” into the demands and needs of other people. They can’t stand alone, distinct from people who want something from them.

Compliant people, for example, pretend to like the same restaurants and movies their friends do “just to get along.” They minimize their differences with others so as not to rock the boat.

The inability to say no can be pervasive. Not only does it keep them from refusing evil in their lives, it often keeps them from recognizing evil. Many compliant people realize too late that they’re in a dangerous or abusive relationship. Their spiritual and emotional “radar” is broken; they have no ability to guard their hearts (Prov. 4:23).

This type of boundary problem paralyzes people’s “no” muscles. Whenever they need to protect themselves by saying no, the word catches in their throats. This happens for a number of different reasons:

• Fear of hurting the other person’s feelings
• Fear of abandonment and separateness
• A wish to be totally dependent on another
• Fear of someone else’s anger
• Fear of punishment
• Fear of being shamed
• Fear of being seen as bad or selfish
• Fear of being unspiritual
• Fear
• Fear of one's overstrict, critical conscience

Biblical compliance needs to be distinguished from this kind of compliance. Matthew 9:13 says that God desires “compassion, and not sacrifice” (NASB). In other words, God wants us to be compliant from the inside out (compassionate), not compliant on the outside and resentful on the inside.

Compliant people take on too many responsibilities and set too few boundaries, not by choice, but because they are afraid. Their internal no nullifies their external yes; they will often verbally say yes but in their hearts they really mean no.

God is more concerned with our hearts than he is with our outward compliance. “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6). In other words, if we say yes to God or anyone else when we really mean no, we are giving in externally, which is essentially the same as lying. Our lips say yes, but our hearts (and often our halfhearted actions) say no.

How to Overcome Guilty Feelings When Setting Healthy Boundaries

As already noted, guilt is really not a true feeling; it is a state of internal condemnation. The Bible teaches that we are to be out from under condemnation and that guilt should not be a motivator of our behavior. We are to be motivated by love.

This is critically important: No one has the power to “make you feel guilty.” Guilt is your problem; it is on your property, and you must gain control over it. The following steps will help you accomplish this:

1. Own the guilt
2. Get into a support group of people who care for you and have mature boundaries
3. Examine where the guilt messages come from
4. Become aware of your anger toward the person attempting to control you
5. Forgive the controlling person
6. Practice setting boundaries with the supportive, mature friends in your support group
7. Retrain your mind. Learn new information for your conscience, such as the information in the Bible and in the book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.
8. Acquire guilt. That may sound strange, but you are going to have to do some things that are right but make you feel guilty. Do not let the guilt be your master any longer. Set the boundaries, and then get with your new supporters to let them help you with the guilt.
9. Stay in your support group. Guilt is not resolved by just retraining your mind. You need the new connections to internalize new voices in your head.

There are always risks in setting healthy boundaries, and the learning process can be filled with grief. The anger may overwhelm at times as you realize what has been done to you. The realization that you’ve been played can hurt deeply. A valued relationship may become rocky before it improves or may not survive your efforts to free yourself from manipulation. When this happens, let your support group love you in through the process.

These steps may seem overwhelming, but with consistent work and good support, the guilt diminishes.

            

Adapted from The New York Times bestselling book Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by renowned psychologists Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

            

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