Henry Cloud Boundaries Quotes & Sayings

True intimacy is only build around the freedom to disagree. — Henry Cloud

God has no interest in violating our boundaries so that he can relate to us. He understands that this would cause injuries of trust. It is our responsibility to open up to him in need and repentance. — Henry Cloud

No matter how much you talk to yourself, read, study, or practice, you can't develop or set boundaries apart from supportive relationships with God and others. Don't even try to start setting limits until you have entered into deep, abiding attachments with people who will love you no matter what. — Henry Cloud

The idea of submission is never meant to allow someone to overstep another's boundaries. Submission only has meaning in the context of boundaries, for boundaries promote self-control and freedom. If a wife is not free and in control of herself, she is not submitting anyway. She is a slave subject to a slave driver, and she is out of the will of God. — Henry Cloud

Remember that parenting is a temporary job, not an identity. Kids with parents who have a life learn both hat they aren't the center of the universe and that they can be free to pursue their own dreams. — Henry Cloud

Our real concern with others should not be "Are they doing what I would do or what I want them to do?" but "Are they really making a free choice?" When we accept others' freedom, we don't get angry, feel guilty, or withdraw our love when they set boundaries with us. When we accept others' freedom, we feel better about our own. — Henry Cloud

Training moments occur when both parents and children do their jobs. The parent's job is to make the rule. The child's job is to break the rule. The parent then corrects and disciplines. The child breaks the rule again, and the parent manages the consequences and empathy that then turn the rule into reality and internal structure for the child. — Henry Cloud

Misinformation about the Bible's answers to these issues has led to much wrong teaching about boundaries. Not only that, but many clinical psychological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety disorders, guilt problems, shame issues, panic disorders, and marital and relational struggles, find their root in conflicts with boundaries. — Henry Cloud

Experiencing life as a victim instead of living it purposefully with a feeling of self-control. — Henry Cloud

If your boundary training consists only of words, you are wasting your breath. But if you 'do' boundaries with your kids, they internalize the experiences, remember them, digest them, and make them part of how they see reality. — Henry Cloud

1. Whose problem is this?
2. What can I do to help him experience the problem?
3. What am I doing to keep him from experiencing the problem? — Henry Cloud

Every human being must have boundaries in order to have successful relationships or a successful performance in life. — Henry Cloud

Proactive boundaries go beyond problem identification to problem solving. Your child needs to know that in protesting, she has only identified the problem, not solved it. A tantrum doesn't solve anything. She needs to use these feelings to motivate her to action, to address the issue at hand. She should think about her responses and choose the best one available. — Henry Cloud

It's important to understand that your no is always subject to you. You own your boundaries. They don't own you. If you set limits with someone, and she responds maturely and lovingly, you can renegotiate the boundary. In addition, you can change the boundary if you are in a safer place. — Henry Cloud

When we begin to set boundaries with people we love, a really hard thing happens: they hurt. They may feel a hole where you used to plug up their aloneness, their disorganization, or their financial irresponsibility. Whatever it is, they will feel a loss. If you love them, this will be difficult for you to watch. But, when you are dealing with someone who is hurting, remember that your boundaries are both necessary for you and helpful for them. If you have been enabling them to be irresponsible, your limit setting may nudge them toward responsibility. — Henry Cloud

We can't manipulate people into swallowing our boundaries by sugarcoating them. Boundaries are a "litmus test" for the quality of our relationships. Those people in our lives who can respect our boundaries will love our wills, our opinions, our separateness. Those who can't respect our boundaries are telling us that they don't love our nos. They only love our yeses, our compliance. "I only like it when you do what I want. — Henry Cloud

While reactive boundaries signal something that needs to be dealt with, proactive boundaries fix something that is broken. — Henry Cloud

Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with. — Henry Cloud

When we can't hold back, or set boundaries, on what comes from our lips, our words are in charge-not us. But we are still responsible for those words. Our words do not come from somewhere outside of us, as if we were a ventriloquist's dummy. They are the product of our hearts. Our saying, "I didn't mean that," is probably better translated, "I didn't want you to know I thought that about you." We need to take responsibility for our words. "But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken" (Matt. 12:36). — Henry Cloud

Setting boundaries isn't an alternative to loving your child. It is a means of loving her. — Henry Cloud

In short, boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. They guard our treasures ... — Henry Cloud

People who own their lives do not feel guilty when they make choices about where they are going. They take other people into consideration, but when they make choices for the wishes of others, they are choosing out of love, not guilt; to advance a good, not to avoid a bad. — Henry Cloud

When boundaries are not established in the beginning of a marriage, or when they break down, marriages break down as well. Or such marriages don't grow past the initial attraction and transform into real intimacy. They never reach the true "knowing" of each other and the ongoing ability to abide in love and to grow as individuals and as a couple-the long-term fulfillment that was God's design. — Henry Cloud

We've all been around middle-aged people who have the boundaries of an eighteen-month-old. They have tantrums or sulk when others set limits on them, or they simply fold and comply with others just to keep the peace. — Henry Cloud

The statement "I'll always be your parent" is true in one sense, but not in another. You will always have that heritage, but you won't always have that responsibility. Your goal is a mutual affection between two adults, not a permanent one-up position. — Henry Cloud

One of the first signs that you're beginning to develop boundaries is a sense of resentment, frustration, or anger at the subtle and not-so-subtle violations in your life. Just as radar signals the approach of a foreign missile, your anger can alert you to boundary violations in your life. — Henry Cloud

It is extremely important to be able to make negative assertions. We must be able to say what is 'not me' in order to have a 'me'. What we like has no meaning unless we know what we don't like. Our yes has no meaning if we never say no. My chosen profession has no passion if 'just anyone would do'. Our opinions and thoughts mean very little if there is nothing we disagree with. — Henry Cloud

Boundaries help us to distinguish our property so that we can take care of it. They help us to "guard our heart with all diligence." We need to keep things that will nurture us inside our fences and keep things that will harm us outside. — Henry Cloud

Many people will not be honest because they fear loss of intimacy and togetherness. In reality, honesty brings people closer together, for it will strengthen their identities. The more you realize your separate identities, the closer you can become. Telling loved ones what is really on your mind and telling others what you really think is the foundation of love. — Henry Cloud

Forgiveness gives me boundaries because it unhooks me from the hurtful person, and then I can act responsibly, wisely. If I am not forgiving them, I am still in a destructive relationship with them. — Henry Cloud

Boundary construction is most evident in three-year-olds. Boundary construction is most evident in three-year-olds. By this time, they should have mastered the following tasks:

1. The ability to be emotionally attached to others, yet without giving up a sense of self and one's freedom to be apart,

2. The ability to say appropriate no's to others without fear of loss of love,

3. The ability to take appropriate no's from others without withdrawing emotionally.

Noting these tasks, a friend said half-joking, "They need to learn this by age three? How about by fourty-three?" Yes, these are tall orders but boundary development is essential in the early years of life. — Henry Cloud

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change. — Henry Cloud

If you do not forgive, you are demanding something your offender does not choose to give, even if it is only confession of what he did. This "ties" him to you and ruins boundaries. Let the dysfunctional family you came from go. Cut it loose, and you will be free. — Henry Cloud

Active people make lots of mistakes, and wise ones grow from them (Hebrews 5:14). They try something, experience a limit, and adapt. They experience the depth of God's forgiveness because they do things for which they need to be forgiven. Passive people have trouble learning because they are afraid to take risks. Because of this, they also have a harder time taking charge of their lives and boundaries. God is not pleased with those who "shrink back" in passivity (Hebrews 10:38). He wants his people to participate in life with him, not wait on the sidelines. — Henry Cloud

Even with the desire for a better life, we can be reluctant to do the work of boundaries because it will be a war. The battle falls into two categories: outside resistance we get from others and the resistance we get from ourselves. — Henry Cloud

I have been told that when a baby bird is ready to hatch, if you break the egg for the bird, it will die. The bird must peck its own way out of the egg into the world. This aggressive "workout" strengthens the bird, allowing it to function in the outside world. Robbed of this responsibility, it will die. This is also the way God has made us. If he "hatches" us, does our work for us, invades our boundaries, we will die. We must not shrink back passively. Our boundaries can only be created by our being active and aggressive, by our knocking, seeking, and asking — Henry Cloud

Sometimes, we have bad on the inside and good on the outside. In these instances, we need to be able to open up our boundaries to let the good in and the bad out. In other words, our fences need gates in them. — Henry Cloud

But in short, the recipe for a growing person is always grace plus truth over time. Give a person grace (unmerited favor) an truth (structure), and do that over time, and you have the greatest chance of this person growing into a person of good character. Grace includes support, resources, love, compassion, forgiveness, and all of the relations sides of God's nature. Truth is the structure of life; it tells us how we are supposed to live our lives and how life really works. — Henry Cloud

Leave your pride, ego, and narcissism somewhere else. Reactions from those parts of you will reinforce your children's most primitive fears. — Henry Cloud

Developing boundaries in young children is that proverbial ounce of prevention. If we teach responsibility, limit setting, and delay of gratification early on, the smoother our children's later years of life will be. The later we start, the harder we and they have to work. — Henry Cloud

Problems arise when people act as if their "boulders" are daily loads, and refuse help, or as if their "daily loads" are boulders they shouldn't have to carry. The results of these two instances are either perpetual pain or irresponsibility. — Henry Cloud

Just as homeowners set physical property lines around their land, we need to set mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries for our lives to help us distinguish what is our responsibility and what isn't. — Henry Cloud

A strong strand throughout the Bible stresses that you are to GIVE to needs and put LIMITS on sin. Boundaries help you do just that. — Henry Cloud

Responsibility is actually broader than this. We think of responsibility in terms of ownership. To take ownership of your life is ultimately to take control. Ownership is to truly possess your life and to know that you are accountable or your life-to you and others. When you take ownership, your realize that all aspects of your life are truly yours and only yours, and that no one is going to live your life for you. — Henry Cloud

Appropriate boundaries don't control, attack or hurt anyone. They simply prevent your treasures from being taken at the wrong time. Saying no to adults, who are responsible for getting their own needs met, may cause some discomfort. But it doesn't cause injury. — Henry Cloud

Certainly, child rearing requires many different interventions. There are times for helping, for not getting involved, or for being strict, But the real issue is this: Is what you are going being done on purpose? Or are you doing it from reasons that you do not think about, such as your own personality, childhood, need of the moment, or fears? — Henry Cloud

Values are sometimes worth living and dying for, and are certainly worth dating and breaking up over. — Henry Cloud

Don't go overboard in praising required behavior: 'We have only done our duty' (Luke 17:10). But do go overboard when your child confesses the truth, repents honestly, takes chances, and loves openly. Praise the developing character in your child as it emerges in active, loving, responsible behavior. — Henry Cloud

Setting limits has to do with telling the truth. The Bible clearly distinguishes between those who love truth and those who don't. First, there is the person who welcomes your boundaries. Who accepts them. Who listens to them. Who says, "I'm glad you have a separate opinion. It makes me a better person." This person is called wise, or righteous. The second type hates limits. Resents your difference. Tries to manipulate you into giving up your treasures. Try our "litmus test" experiment with your significant relationships. Tell them no in some area. You'll either come out with increased intimacy - or learn that there was very little to begin with. — Henry Cloud

Proverbs 22:3 says that "the prudent man sees the evil and hides himself." Sometimes physically removing yourself from a situation will help maintain boundaries. You can do this to replenish yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually after you have given to your limit, as Jesus often did. — Henry Cloud

Parents have two tasks associated with no. First, they need to help their child feel safe enough to say no, thereby encouraging his or her own boundaries. Though they certainly can't make all the choices they'd like, young children should be able to have a no that is listened to. Informed parents won't be insulted or enraged by their child's resistance. They will help the child feel that his no is just as loveable as his yes. They won't withdraw emotionally from the child who says no, but will stay connected. One parent must often support another who is being worn down by their baby's no. This process takes work! — Henry Cloud

Boundaries are basically about providing structure, and structure is essential in building anything that thrives. — Henry Cloud

If you have never questioned set boundaries, or experienced conflict with your family members, you may not have an adult-to-adult connection with your family. If you have no other "best friends" than your family, you need to take a close look at those relationships. You may be afraid of becoming an autonomous adult. — Henry Cloud

Boundaries define us. They define what is me and what is not me. A boundary shows me where i end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom. Taking responsibility for my life opens up many different options. Boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. Setting boundaries inevitably involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them. You are the one who must live with their consequences. And you are the one who may be keeping yourself from making the choices you could be happy with. We must own our own thoughts and clarify distorted thinking. — Henry Cloud