Can We Talk For a Minute?

Setting boundaries for communication with the people in our lives

When I started dating my husband, I had a cell phone plan where I was able to send somewhere between 200 and 250 text messages a month, and I was usually under that. Then, I met my husband and he was a texter. I had to change my cell phone plan because I was constantly going over my 250. Can you imagine a time when under 200 text messages was enough? When video chatting wasn’t an option? The only way we could get to people was to talk to them. We had to call or be in person. 

Nowadays we can communicate through:

• Text 

• Email

• Voice note

• Voicemail

• Phone Call

• FaceTime

• Video Chat

There are so many options, and generationally we all have different expectations of what communication looks like. Some folks don’t know how to leave a voicemail. Some people want you to text them first if you want to Facetime, rather than just calling them out of the blue, unless that is a part of your regular routine. 

As we’re in relationships with people we need to think about generational communication styles, before we allow ourselves to be bothered by the way folks are interacting with us. We may have an aunt who is upset we haven’t called her because she doesn’t understand that texting is our preferred way to reach out. 

Sometimes it’s not even about our generation. It could be about our lifestyle or personality. When I’m at home, I don’t want to talk to people on the phone because I’m talking to the people in my house. It is better to text me. Now if I’m in the car, or off in the world by myself, I may call you, but I don’t like to talk around a bunch of people talking. This doesn’t mean I never like to talk, it just means I like to talk at certain times in certain settings. That’s my preference.

It is important that we be clear with the people around us about what communication styles work best for us and when. There may be certain windows of time where we’d welcome a FaceTime, and others when we’d rather an audio message, but people can’t know that if we don’t tell them. Because I am an entrepreneur and I work from home, I have to let people know my office hours. I communicate that from 9-5 I am working and therefore unavailable. When people reach out to me during that window, I tell them or remind them that I am working and I will call them when my day is done or shoot them a text over the weekend. 

We have to remember that we are the keepers of our boundaries. Some things we should keep in mind as we are setting boundaries around communication are:

• We reinforce our boundaries when we decline communication that falls outside our boundaries. When someone calls us at 6am, and we decline the call because we’ve asked them not to call us before 9am, that is a reminder of the boundary we’ve set. 

• We violate our boundaries when we accept or entertain communication that falls outside our boundaries. If we tell someone we’re working from 11am to 7pm and then we answer their call at 1pm, that sends the message that we are not serious about our boundaries. 

• We may need to help the people in our lives understand what a crisis is. Some people need us to explain what qualifies as an emergency, so that they do not signal an emergency when there isn’t one. Sometimes people like to call three times in a row or reach out at midnight just to say hi, and we have to let them know that is crisis behavior. 

• We may sometimes need to mute people. When people continually violate our communication boundaries, we may need to mute them, put them on Do Not Disturb, or otherwise silence their notifications. This can be a way to still be in relationship with people who have proven challenged by respecting our boundaries.

• We get to decide which people need which boundaries. There are some people we bend the rules for. My kids can call me anytime they want. My husband can call me anytime he wants. Some of us feel that way about our parents and our siblings. The point is, we get to decide which rules apply to who, and how flexible we want to be. 

• You can share your boundary however feels most comfortable to you. If you feel like you can text your boundaries but you can’t say them, then text them. If you would rather voice note, then do that. The worst thing is to not say anything because you feel like you have to say it a certain way and you’re not comfortable doing that. 

The way we communicate is forever evolving. It’s important that we figure out what works best for us, and share that with the people in our lives. 

Journal Prompt

• What is your preferred method of communication? Why?

• How do you manage when people don’t respect your communication boundaries?

A Few Things That Caught My Attention This Week

• I Feared His Death From the Day I Learned My Father Was 70 When I Was 10, by Allison Applebaum, PhD on Oprah Daily. 

• Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, by Cal Newport. You can find it on Amazon and Bookshop.

• Hightown. It’s in its final season and you can watch it on Starz.

• Listen to my chat on Feeling Lighter Podcast. 

• How to Stop Procrastinating at Bedtime and Actually Go to Sleep, by Jamie Friedlander Serrano in Time.