Janet used to work with John, one of her supervisors. Janet felt that John didn’t respect her boundaries at all. For example, she would tell John that she plans to leave the office at 5:00 PM because she has an appointment after work. At five minutes to 5:00 PM, John would walk into her office and hand her an assignment that would take about 1 hour to complete!
Janet would tell him that she doesn’t want any calls on the weekends. And if he sent her an email or called, he should not be surprised if she didn’t respond till Monday because she would be leaving town that weekend. Her inbox would be filled with emails from him. She remembers getting really angry and upset by John’s behavior.
After learning about conflict transformation, she reviewed her experience with John and realized that even though he didn’t know how to observe her boundaries, she got hysterical. She realized that she got very upset when other people don’t respect her boundaries. She doesn’t like to repeat herself whenever she sets boundaries. That conflict taught her two things:
- She doesn’t do well with people who don’t respect her boundaries.
- People that don’t handle boundaries well are a trigger for her.
She has learned that she has a part to play in how she feels when around people who don’t respect her boundaries. Applying conflict transformation principles, she tries to keep calm when boundary violations happen. She has learned and grown from that conflict. This allows her to address boundary violations properly without being triggered to emotionally blow up.