I was sitting on my back deck in the sun when I heard two neighbours going at it across the street.
One lives in an upstairs condo, the other below.
She was sweeping her deck, and all her dust kept landing on his.
He asked her, calmly, to stop. She started yelling instead.
I remember thinking:
This is what it looks like when you don’t know how to hold a boundary — hers or his.
Because holding a boundary was never about getting the other person to agree with you.
It’s about what you’re willing to do yourself.
The neighbours, the dust, and the door
I live on the ground floor of my own building, so I know exactly what it’s like when someone else’s mess ends up in your space.
(Food scraps, in my case. Ugh. Don’t ask.)
So I understood exactly why he was annoyed. His request was fair — stop sweeping your dust onto my deck. He asked calmly. She argued back. He asked again, same calm tone.
That’s when she lost it and stared yelling…
“Stop talking to me. Stop talking to me. Stop talking to me!”
More times than I could count, until she finally went inside and slammed the door.
And I remember thinking…oh sweetheart, that’s not really how it works.
You can’t tell someone to stop talking to you.
I mean, you can. But it doesn’t land the way you want it to.
You just stop. You go inside.
You close the door.
You remove yourself.
It’s really about listening to your inner voice enough to trust your own exit…
Without waiting for permission to take it.
While his request was reasonable, hers was something else.
She was trying to control what someone else did, when the only thing she actually had control over was what she did next.
Why a boundary isn’t a request you make
A boundary isn’t something you enforce by telling someone else what to do.
It’s something you act on yourself.
That sounds simple. But it rarely feels simple in the moment.
Especially if you’ve spent years being the reasonable one, the one who explains herself clearly and waits for the other person to finally get it.
The phone call that taught me the difference
A while back, a salesman called me out of the blue.
I answered, thinking it was someone else. Before I knew it, he’d launched straight into his pitch.
“I’m not interested” I said.
He kept going.
“I’m not interested.”
He talked right over me. I was genuinely shocked. How is he not hearing me? Why won’t he just stop talking to me?
And then it hit me: it’s not his job to stop. It’s mine.
So I hung up.
Mid-sentence. Just like that.
I’d spent so much of my life trying to get other people to respect my limits — saying no politely, explaining myself, repeating it more firmly, hoping they’d finally hear me.
But that’s not a boundary.
That’s a negotiation. And a negotiation puts all the power in someone else’s hands.
The woman across the street was doing the same thing, just louder. Waiting for him to stop, instead of just stopping herself.
How to hold a boundary when someone pushes back
I hear a version of this often in my work as a coach.
A woman describes a conversation she’s had with the same person — a parent, an ex, a co-worker — more times than she can count.
Each time, she explains her position a little more carefully, hoping this will be the time it finally sticks.
What usually shifts things isn’t a better explanation though. It’s her deciding she no longer needs the other person to agree with her before she can act.
That’s how to hold a boundary when someone pushes back. Not by arguing harder, but by no longer needing them to understand.
Sometimes what looks like patience is actually a form of self-gaslighting — talking yourself out of what you already know because someone else hasn’t confirmed it yet.
A real boundary is quieter than most of us think. It’s:
- Decided before the conversation happens, not negotiated in the middle of it
- An action you take, not an argument you win
- Something you don’t have to explain more than once
- Not dependent on the other person’s understanding, agreement, or good behaviour
That’s how to hold a boundary in real life: you don’t have to convince anyone.
You just have to be willing to hang up. Or go inside. Or not answer the call in the first place.
Maybe you’ve been trying to get someone in your life to finally understand your no, and you’re tired of repeating yourself. It might be worth asking what’s actually left to convince.
Sometimes the only person left to convince is you.
Get the free guide
If this sounds familiar, my free guide might help: What to Say When You Need to Hold a Boundary. It’s word-for-word scripts for the exact moments this gets hard — saying no clearly, holding firm when someone pushes back, and getting through the guilt that shows up after.
Kerry xo