The process of setting boundaries has three steps: identify your needs, clearly communicate the limits and reinforce your intentions. Self-awareness is paramount here. Boundaries should be flexible, as your needs change. For instance, your stress levels may increase your requirement for personal time or your limits may flux with a maturing long-term relationship. While it is never required to justify your boundaries to others, at times this practice can be beneficial. For example, perhaps you have allowed an old friend to repeatedly call to vent problems, but you have realized that their oversharing is affecting your peace of mind. This friend’s lack of self-awareness requires the need to be more direct by setting a threshold on the content and length of the calls. Will that hurt your friend’s feelings; probably! But for you to live an authentic life, you may have to get used to disappointing others. Boundaries are a form of self-respect. Being too much of a ‘yes-person’ creates barriers to setting healthy limits for one’s own self-care. Hopefully, the friend will appreciate your candor rather than being offended. Communicating your thoughts to the other person should serve to strengthen trust in strong relationships. In truly stable companionships, establishing boundaries openly indicates that your friendship is important enough to save. A fair-weather friend is more likely to tolerate the encroachment quietly and then sacrifice the alliance instead of trying to mend it. A friend that sees your boundaries as an attack is likely not a desirable attachment in the first place.