The Spiky Compass: How resenting others helped me learn to set boundaries

by Ali Joy Richardson (MA, RCT-C)
Originally commissioned by ML Family Counselling

5 min read

My favourite definition of boundaries comes from queer therapist, political organizer, and writer, Prentis Hemphill: “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.” 

At first glance, boundaries seem like taking care of ourselves by saying “No” to others. For many people, this is where difficulty pops up. Seen in this way, boundaries can seem, well…selfish. My clients have expressed this, and I thought this myself before working with my first therapist. It felt impossible to tell when I was justified in saying “No” to others, or when I should instead be generous, kind, and loving. Yes, being “generous” often meant giving at the expense of my own time, energy, and health…but isn’t that what love is? Helping others, even when it's hard? I felt like I was only justified in saying “No” to someone if I had a really, really good reason. That reason was typically that I was already completely stretched to my limit, overwhelmed, and drowning. Then, and only then, I wasn’t being selfish by setting a boundary. 

So, what changed my perspective on boundaries? 

It was a spiky little devil called resentment. Resentment became my really, really good reason to set boundaries. 

It became my compass.

*     *     *

I told my first therapist I was feeling angry. A lot. At other people. I was embarrassed, convinced she would say, “Oh, if that’s your problem, you don’t need therapy. You’re just an asshole.” 

I told her about a recent call with a colleague. Let’s call him Zach. I was taking over a major project to help Zach while he was dealing with a family emergency. We had a phone call to talk through my plan for the project. Instead of offering constructive questions, suggestions, or encouragement, Zach spent the call speculating about all the ways things might go wrong as I stepped into his role. I remember pacing my apartment, my temperature rising, listening to Zach worry. Hours after the call, talking to my therapist, I realized I was mad at Zach. I finished the story and asked my therapist, “How do I metabolize anger faster? I don’t want to be mad at Zach. He’s going through a lot.” 

She answered, “Well, it sounds like he crossed a boundary with you.” This confused me. What boundary?

She asked me what I had needed from the call with Zach. I said, “I hoped he’d help strengthen the plan, not poke holes in it based on speculation. But I know he’s in a tough place, and maybe he thought this was helpful…I just don’t have the bandwidth to take on his fear right now. I’m trying to make this project happen in very little time!”

“There’s your boundary,” she said. “You understand he’s overwhelmed, and you have compassion for that. But you’re the one at the wheel now, and you can’t take on his fear while trying to drive this project.”

She went on the describe an alternate ending to my phone call. One in which I said, “For my own momentum, I need to keep a hopeful perspective on this. I totally get your worries, I just need to focus on what’s in my control. Thanks for understanding.” She also pointed out that I could have ended the call sooner. 

“I know, it’s just…Zach’s going through a lot. And I do care about him,” I said, realizing I’d just spent five minutes roasting this man to my therapist. 

“How do you feel about Zach right now?” my therapist asked.

“Oh, still pissed,” I laughed.

“Right. You stayed on the call and listened to Zach for his sake…and now you’re mad at him.” 

Well, shit.

*     *     *

Fast forward 3 years. I’m sitting across from a therapy client while she, too, realizes she spent much of her life “being nice to people while secretly resenting them.” And maybe, that’s not so nice after all.

It is not, in fact, “being generous, kind, and loving” to help other people at our own expense and then secretly resent them for it. 

When we do that (give and give, and rage privately later), we create a dark little dance that the other person doesn’t even know they’re in. 

Perpetual self-sacrifice tarnishes relationships. Overtime, it erodes them completely. 

This is the great irony: by hiding our boundaries from others in the name of love, we stir resentment into that love. This taints how we feel about the other person. Resentment then leaks out in all kinds of unhelpful ways: passive aggression, impatience, gossip, judgement, jealousy, and anger. And if resentment builds up long enough, it can be explosive.

“Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”

Boundaries are more than self-love. They are how we create the conditions in which we can love and respect others, without resentment.  

*     *     *

Habitually sacrificing our well-being for others (sometimes called “people-pleasing”) isn’t a character flaw or a weakness. It’s a learned behaviour that, at some point, protected us. Somewhere along the line, we adapted to a situation in which it felt safer to please others (even if it cost us). People-pleasing is a common survival strategy during abuse, especially for children. As Dr. Bruce Perry wrote in What Happened to You? (a powerful book on trauma and healing), kids typically don’t have the option to fight back or take flight from abuse – so they rely on freezing or fawning to protect themselves. A freeze response can look like emotional numbing or dissociation. Fawning involves comforting, praising, or pleasing others at our own expense. 

Behaviours that once protected us can pop up in situations where they no longer serve us. Like compulsively over-extending ourselves for friends, family, causes, and colleagues. 

There’s another factor that makes setting boundaries even more confusing at first. Our dominant culture celebrates self-denial, self-sacrifice, and martyrdom – especially for women, and especially for women of colour. In his latest book, The Myth of Normal, Dr. Gabor Maté quoted an obituary which praised a woman for never giving up any of her roles helping others (and even took on new responsibilities) during her own cancer treatment. We have confused self-abnegation with virtuousness. 

There are times and places when each of us will feel truly called to extend ourselves for others: taking on a caregiver role for a family member, staying late to help a friend in crisis, volunteering in disaster relief, advocating for justice in our workplace, etc. Trouble arises when we overextend ourselves compulsively, unconsciously, or to the detriment of the relationship or cause itself.

My offer is this: let resentment become a spiky little compass for you. The next time you feel it, ask yourself – in what way am I feeling pressured to overextend myself? Then, experiment with what it would be like to (as Dr. Brené Brown described) choose the temporary discomfort of communicating a boundary over long term resentment.

When in doubt, remember – boundaries aren’t just for your sake. They’re for the people around you, too.  

Further Resources:

• Brown, B. (2023). Brené Brown. https://brenebrown.com/

• Hemphill, P. (2022). Prentis Hemphill. https://prentishemphill.com/ 

• Maté, G., & Maté, D. (2022). The myth of normal: trauma, illness, & healing in a toxic culture. Avery.

• Perry, B. & Winfrey, O. (2021). What happened to you?: Conversations on trauma, resilience and healing. Flatiron Books.