Ask yourself: "What's your level of investment?"

Emotional Regulation & Nervous System • July 11, 2021

Relational trauma is the emotional injury caused by harmful or neglectful experiences within close relationships, especially early in life. It’s not just about one bad event or a single person being difficult; it’s about the deep, often invisible wounds left when the people who were supposed to protect and nurture you consistently fell short. This matters to you because those early relational wounds silently influence how you trust, how you connect, and how you try to set boundaries now. Recognizing relational trauma helps you understand why boundary-setting can feel confusing or overwhelming—it’s not just about willpower, but about healing patterns that have shaped your nervous system for years.

• You’re stuck between two exhausting poles: either not setting boundaries and feeling taken advantage of, or holding them so rigidly that you’re constantly braced for battle and drained—this is a common struggle for those healing relational trauma.
• Your actual level of investment—the emotional energy and vulnerability you’re willing and able to bring—is the key clinical insight that shapes how you set boundaries in a way that feels sustainable and true to your healing journey.
• Healing looks like finding that third way: strategic boundary setting aligned with your real capacity, where you neither abandon yourself nor exhaust yourself, but instead partner with your nervous system and lived experience to create balance.

“I’m not sure I’m doing this whole healthy boundaries thing right.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“Well, you know my story. For most of my life, I went from never ever holding boundaries and feeling like I was always being taken advantage of to then learning what boundaries are and trying to practice them.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’ve watched you make a lot of progress.”

“Maybe. But now I feel like I’m moving through the world, braced for battle all the time, constantly on the lookout for people who are being disrespectful to me and feeling like I need to say something each time “as part of my healing work”. It’s exhausting. I don’t feel taken advantage of, but I feel tired. Are those my two options?”

She shared this all with me, sounding dejected.

This conversation is an amalgam of conversations I’ve had with therapy clients over the last decade who, like with most of my relational trauma clients, is re-learning what it feels like to hold and assert healthy boundaries.

It’s a common experience in this re-learning. Feeling like you can either not set boundaries and be taken advantage of. Or hold boundaries at every turn and feel like a little battle-scarred and weary of it all.

But, as I tell my therapy clients, I think there’s a very valid third option. And there’s one specific question and tool I use to arrive at that third choice.

1. Boundary setting: “What’s your level of investment?”
2. Signs You May Be Carrying Relational Trauma
3. So what options does this leave?
4. Not holding boundaries with someone doesn’t have to look like self-abandonment.
5. Strategic Boundary Setting Through Investment-Based Trauma Therapy
6. Wrapping up.

Boundary setting: “What’s your level of investment?”

For most individuals who come from relational trauma backgrounds – backgrounds in which they were raised by personality- or mood-disordered parents resulting in a childhood that didn’t meet their emotional and psychological developmental needs – boundaries can, at the beginning of the healing journey, feel like a little bit of a mystery.

And what’s also true is that as you start to learn and relearn what healthy boundaries look like, you may start to feel like you swing to the extreme opposite end of a pendulum.

What do I mean by this?

Someone who never spoke up, asserted herself and confronted anyone about anything may, in the course of trying to overcome her past and esteem herself, now feel compelled to speak up whenever she feels slighted.

She swings from one end of the pendulum – not holding any boundaries – to the other. Holding boundaries about everything with everyone.

And this swing – living at either end of the spectrum – can feel draining and exhausting.

But also, this same person may imagine that, if she doesn’t confront and speak up, she will be “tolerating poor behavior” or “not acting in integrity” – things which she refuses to do anymore.

So what options does this leave?

Personally, one of the things I love to share with my clients when they find themselves in this situation – wondering if there is an option between confronting and letting something go but feeling like you’re abandoning yourself – is this:

We can hold boundaries with literally anyone about anything, but it’s also really important to ask “What’s my level of investment in this relationship?”

I share with them this example:

If I’m at the grocery store and the person bagging my groceries is rude to me, sure, I could confront them about this, let them know how they’re impacting me, and challenge them about this, but then I ask myself, “What’s my level of investment in this person?”

I don’t mean this in a checkout-teller-doesn’t-deserve-compassion-and-regard-from-me-kind-of-way.

Instead, what I mean is that I’m likely not going to see this person again (or often) and, given that, the role and impact they have in my life is minimal.

So in that case, because my level of investment in the relationship with this person is low, perhaps I can give myself permission to not confront and hold a boundary, knowing that that might take more energy, time, and vulnerability than I’d like to spend on this person.

And perhaps that – not confronting, not holding a boundary – is the more self-loving choice at that moment.

Not holding boundaries with someone doesn’t have to look like self-abandonment.

Sometimes, when our level of investment in a relationship is low, it can actually be the more self-supporting choice to let things go.

To walk away and not confront.

To save our emotional and mental energy for the conversations that really do ultimately matter more.

However, if the person who was rude to me or who crossed my boundaries was one of my best girlfriends and the experience was getting in the way of me feeling close and connected to that person, then my level of investment in the relationship would be high.

And because my investment in that person and in that relationship is high, I’d be more inclined to move through the vulnerability of speaking up and holding a boundary with them if something they said or did was truly bothering me.

This is an example of a conversation that would matter more, that is worth expending my precious life energy on.

So the next time you feel overwhelmed and are wondering if you really do need to hold a boundary, confront, or process something with someone, pause and ask yourself:

“What’s my level of investment in this person? In this relationship?”

Let this question be a self-supporting discernment tool that you use as you move through the world, living more in the middle of the proverbial pendulum than on either of its extremes.

Strategic Boundary Setting Through Investment-Based Trauma Therapy

When you tell your therapist you’re exhausted from confronting every slight but terrified that not speaking up means abandoning yourself, describing the pendulum swing from doormat to warrior that leaves you perpetually drained, you’re identifying why recognizing 15 signs that your boundaries need work includes learning not just when to set boundaries but when setting them costs more than it gives.

Your trauma-informed therapist helps you understand that the all-or-nothing approach to boundaries—confronting everything or confronting nothing—is itself a trauma response, a black-and-white thinking pattern that develops when you never learned nuanced self-protection. They guide you through recognizing that constantly being “on guard” for boundary violations is hypervigilance wearing the costume of healing work, exhausting you in a different way than people-pleasing did but exhausting nonetheless.

The therapeutic work involves developing what therapists call “differentiated boundary setting”—learning to assess relationships through multiple lenses: investment level, context, your current capacity, and the likely outcome of confrontation. Together, you practice this discernment with real scenarios from your week: Was confronting the dismissive barista worth your energy? What about your chronically late friend? Your subtly undermining coworker?

Through role-play and exploration, you learn to distinguish between self-abandonment (not speaking up from fear or unworthiness) and strategic choice (conserving energy for battles that matter). Your therapist helps you recognize that walking away from low-stakes conflicts isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom, a sign your nervous system is learning that not every slight is a survival threat requiring immediate response.

Most importantly, therapy teaches you that mature boundaries aren’t rigid walls or absent altogether but flexible membranes that adjust based on context, relationship, and your own needs. The goal isn’t perfecting some boundary formula but developing the internal compass to know when confrontation serves your growth versus when letting go is the ultimate act of self-care.

Wrapping up.

Now, if you feel so inclined, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below:

Did this question feel helpful to hear? Do you sometimes find yourself “over processing” with others because you believe it’s what’s required to be healthy and on your healing path? Does any part of you feel some relief and permission thinking about the discerning tool I offered up?

Please leave a message below about your experiences and how you’ve learned to live more in the middle of the pendulum swing when it comes to setting boundaries. Our community of 20,000+ monthly blog readers might benefit from your wisdom and from hearing your story.

Here’s to healing relational trauma and creating thriving lives on solid foundations.

Warmly,

Annie

Both/And: You Can Be Thriving Externally and Struggling Internally

In clinical work with driven women, one of the most healing shifts happens when they stop framing their experience as either/or. Either I’m strong or I’m struggling. Either I’m grateful for what I have or I’m allowed to hurt. Either my life is objectively good or my pain is valid. The truth, almost always, is both.

Jordan is a physician in her early forties — board-certified, respected by colleagues, raising two children she adores. On paper, she’s thriving. In my office, she described a sensation she called “smiling underwater.” Everything looks fine from the outside. Inside, she hasn’t taken a full breath in months. She doesn’t want to complain because she knows how privileged her life looks. But the weight is real, and the isolation of carrying it silently is making it heavier.

This is the paradox I see again and again in my practice: the women who have built the most impressive external lives are often the ones carrying the heaviest internal loads. Not because success caused their suffering, but because the same relational trauma that drove them to achieve also taught them to perform wellness rather than feel it. Both things are true: they are genuinely accomplished, and they are genuinely struggling. Healing begins when they stop forcing themselves to choose between those two realities.

The Systemic Lens: The Cultural Forces Behind Your Exhaustion

When a driven woman is struggling — with her mental health, her relationships, her sense of self — the cultural prescription is almost always individual: meditate, journal, set boundaries, practice self-care. These interventions aren’t wrong, but they’re radically incomplete. They place the burden of repair on the woman who was harmed, without ever naming the systems that created the conditions for harm.

The expectation that women — particularly ambitious, driven women — should manage careers, households, relationships, caregiving, and their own mental health without structural support isn’t a personal failure. It’s a systemic design flaw. When corporations demand 60-hour weeks and then offer “wellness programs” instead of workload reduction, when healthcare is tied to employment, when childcare costs more than college tuition in many states — the “wellness gap” driven women experience isn’t a gap in their self-care routines. It’s a gap in the social contract.

In my work with clients, I find it essential to name these forces explicitly. Your exhaustion is not a character deficit. Your difficulty “balancing” work and life isn’t a skills gap. You are attempting to meet inhuman expectations with human resources, and the system that set those expectations has no interest in adjusting them. Understanding this doesn’t solve the problem — but it stops you from internalizing it.

Medical Disclaimer

Medical Disclaimer