Rules and Boundaries: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters for Emotional Safety

Laura Rathbone
Aug 7
5 min read

In relationships, especially those that involve vulnerability, power exchange, or emotional intensity, language matters. We often use the words rule and boundary like they are the same thing. But they are not.

Knowing the difference is not about being technical or semantic. rules and boundaries function differently within your relationships and self-knowledge. This is about protecting your autonomy, understanding your emotional needs, and building relationships that are rooted in choice rather than control.

What is a boundary?

A boundary is something you decide for yourself, based on what you need in order to feel safe, grounded, or respected. It defines the space where you can stay regulated and where your values can stay intact. Boundaries are flexible. They are responsive. They evolve as you grow.

A boundary might sound like this: If I feel overwhelmed during a conversation, I will pause and take some space. Notice how this is not about forcing anyone else to change. It is about honouring your own capacity and establishing your own behaviour. In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, this is what we call values-based action. You are choosing your response with awareness, rather than reacting from fear or avoidance. Boundaries support psychological safety because they are an act of self-care, not punishment towards the other person.

What is a rule?

A rule often tells someone else what they can or cannot do, in order to make you feel safer or more in control. In consensual dynamics, rules can be negotiated and helpful, especially in kink relationships where structure is part of the play. But when rules are unspoken, rigid, or imposed, they can start to feel like control instead of connection.

But when rules are unspoken, rigid, or imposed, they can start to feel like control instead of connection.

For example, someone might say you are not allowed to talk to your ex. This is a rule as it decides an other person's behaviour.

It might come from a place of fear or hurt. But unless it has been mutually agreed upon, it places the responsibility for your emotional safety onto someone else by limiting their personal freedom.

In trauma-informed work, we understand that safety is co-created, not enforced. And in ACT, we work to notice when control strategies are getting in the way of living our values. Rules often come from a desire to avoid discomfort. But avoidance usually costs us intimacy, spontaneity, and real connection.

Sometimes, the rules we follow are not placed on others. They are placed on ourselves. These are self-imposed rules. You might hear them in your own head.

I am not allowed to ask for reassurance.
I must always be the calm one.
I should never cry in front of others.
I am not allowed to need comfort.

These rules often feel like they are protecting you, but in reality they can keep you distant from your needs, your feelings, and your capacity to connect.

And here is where inner child work becomes essential. These self-imposed rules are rarely born in adulthood. Rather, they are often echoes of messages you learned early on from a a parent, a teacher, or a community caregiver that told you, or modelled to you unsafety in the connection, should you express emotion or need attention. Perhaps there was a sense of punsihment or shame for speaking up or setting limits. A child may learn to stay safe or to be loved by adapting and encorporating these rules. You made them your own. And now they live inside you as if they are truths.

Shrek bursting through rules hegemonically imposed upon us that serve no purpose

But you are allowed to question those rules. You are allowed to return to the younger parts of yourself with compassion and say, "I know why you learned this, and I honour how it kept you safe" whilst also allowing yourself to choose differently now.

You can begin to shift from rule-based avoidance to values-based action.

In ACT ( a type of psychotherapy based on present moment change for a future of values-informed living), we practice defusion (observing and stepping-back) from these inner scripts. That means recognising the story as a story, not as reality. Noticing the old fear and asking yourself, what matters most to me here. From there, you can begin to shift from rule-based avoidance to values-based action. You might say, I notice I feel exposed when I cry in front of others, and I want to honour that feeling without silencing myself. That is not just a boundary. It is an act of reparenting. It is an act of healing.

The difference matters because control and connection cannot coexist. Rules often try to manage emotional risk through control whereas boundaries create emotional safety by taking responsibility for our responses.

Rules are often about avoiding discomfort. Boundaries are about staying grounded in discomfort with clarity and care. Importantly, even a well-intended rule, if held too tightly, can harm trust, whether it is imposed on someone else or on yourself.

When you notice a rule emerging, pause. Ask yourself what value you are trying to protect. Ask yourself whose voice this rule really belongs to. And ask whether there is a kinder, more honest boundary that might serve you better. You are allowed to have needs. You are allowed to take up space. You are allowed to protect your emotional safety without controlling others or abandoning yourself. Rules may give the illusion of certainty. But boundaries offer something deeper. They give you the power to stay connected to your values, even in the presence of discomfort.

That is real safety.

That is real freedom.

Kink and BDSM, when practiced with care, intention, and consent, can bring us directly into contact with the old rules we were taught to follow in silence. It can stir the ghosts of shame, punishment, invisibility, or unmet needs that live in the body long after the memory fades. Power play, submission, control, and emotional exposure can surface deep emotional patterns and old strategies we internalised as children in order to feel safe, wanted, or good. In this way, kink is not just a space for pleasure. It can also be a mirror. A ritual space where our most tender wounds are not hidden but witnessed. Where we get to feel what it is like to be held in the very places we were once abandoned. This is the edge where healing and desire meet. Where a bound body can feel freer than it ever has before. Where a safeword is not a sign of failure but a declaration of truth. I get to have limits. I get to be seen. I get to rewrite the rules.

Are you ready to explore the roots of your inner rules and reclaim your emotional safety?

This free downloadable re-parenting activity gently guides you through a trauma-informed reflection process to help you understand where your self-imposed rules came from, how they once protected you, and how to transform them into boundaries that honour your needs today. Whether you are healing from relational wounds, exploring kink, or learning to speak your truth without shame, this is a practice in self-compassion, not self-correction. Download it now and begin the work of showing up for the version of you who needed more care, not more control.